Dawn sat in class, bored out of her brain. It was only second period and she was already hot and sweaty. She loved Australia, but school and heat just did not mix.
After the war (that's what it was, so that's what Dawn called it), Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Xander had travelled around quite a bit. Kennedy and some of the other potentials had come too. They had mostly stayed around California, but ended up leaving America and living in New Zealand. A week ago, Buffy and Dawn had moved to Australia, this time it was permanent. Or at least Buffy said it was permeant. Dawn new that in a few months, Buffy would get a call saying she was needed somewhere else and she would drag Dawn off to a new home, new school, new ways of becoming shunned by everyone else.
But for now, Dawn was sitting in class of a new school. Just as crap as the last one. It was her first day. She hated first days. This one had been no different to the several other first days that she'd had.
It started off at 8am. Buffy had driven her to school with the usual "Don't expect this treatment every day, tomorrow you're catching the train."
But today, Buffy had to go in with her and sign some papers. Then she rushed off to work- which today was meeting with the Australian Watchers Association. Dawn was given a bunch of paper and other bits and pieces (including a sticker which said "I am new, please be my friend" which Dawn immediately discarded) and was led to her homeroom by a youngish teacher called Miss Sithestic. When they reached the badly painted blue door, Miss Sithestic gave a sharp knock before entering. Dawn looked around the room, and found that even this early in the morning the kids were giving the teacher hell.
"Shut up for a sec while I mark the role…" A stressed looking teacher yelled, without effect. He then turned towards the door and saw Dawn and Miss Sithestic. "Oi, guys listen, we have a new student." No one seemed to notice his tired voice, and only responded by becoming even louder. "Guys this is Dawn, she's new. Make her welcome."
Still no response. Until a red haired guy sitting in the front row dived under the desk to avoid a paper aeroplane. He found himself face to slim-tanned legs. He looked up and saw Dawn looking nervously around the classroom. He crawled a bit and stood up next to her. He whistled loudly. The class immediately shut up and turned to see what was going on.
"New kid." The guy said and the class applauded and cheered. They all returned to what they were doing and the boy leant in to Dawn and whispered in her ear. "Welcome to hell, you'll love it here."
Dawn smiled weakly, so desperately wanting to say something about her old school actually being smack-bang right on top of the opening of hell. Instead she said. "I'm Dawn."
"Hey you're American."
"Yeah I noticed."
"You're cool with me. Lets get out of here." He walked out of the classroom, Dawn followed, passing the homeroom teacher who now had his head on the desk and his eyes closed. She gave a little laugh.
Out in the hallway, the red haired kid was leaning against the lockers. He pulled out a cigarette and put it behind his ear. Then he reached out and took Dawn's hand.
"This way." He said, pulling her towards the door.
"Where are we going?"
"Where I can smoke this in peace," he smiled and led her outside and behind the building. As soon as they rounded the corner, his hand moved from Dawns hand to her ass and he pulled her in close to him. She gave a little scream and then caught her breath and smiled.
"You scared the shit out of me."
He put his other hand on the back of her neck and began to kiss her. He got right into it too, his tongue pushing against hers and his lips making fast and sudden movements. Dawn clung to his shoulders and kissed him back, closing her eyes and letting his mouth take her over. She felt his hand move down and then slowly back up again. She was suddenly aware that his hand was up her skirt. She didn't mind though. She just kept kissing him. He pushed her against the wall and let his hands move up to her breasts. He stopped kissing her for a while to have a look at them, but went straight back to kissing her. Dawn heard a mechanical chiming and pushed him away.
"Is that the bell?" she panted.
"Yeah." He went to kiss her again
"Shouldn't we get to class?"
"Would you rather go to class, or stay here with me?"
He began kissing her again. She kissed him back for a moment, but then pulled away.
"It's my first day. I can't get in trouble."
The boy looked at her for a moment. "We better go then."
He took hold of her hand again and led her to another block of classrooms. "We got Science." Dawn was trying to fix up her hair and clothes, not wanting to walk into class looking like she did. By the time they reached the door, she was looking pretty normal, but feeling very confused. She was seated at the front of the class (the teacher seemed to have some sort of seating arrangement) and began to think about the morning's events. She had had plenty of guys crack onto her before, but none had been like this guy. He didn't waste any time. He was a lot more confident than the other guys from the other schools. Dawn didn't know if what she did was right though. She did what he wanted her to do, but maybe he would think she was easy. At least she'd insisted that they'd gone to class, instead of having sex with him right there and then.
Her thoughts changed from him to the class's unusual behaviour. In homeroom, they had just been downright shits. It was like a riot. This lesson they'd taken a different approach. They were all completely silent, pretending to be the perfect class, until the teacher had his back turned and someone would throw something at him or call something rude out and the whole class burst out laughing. After a while, they would settle down and repeat the whole thing again. Dawn was amazed the teacher still continued to turn his back.
At the end of the lesson, she exited the classroom and began to make her way to the redhead, but was intercepted by a blonde bitchy looking girl. "Hi, you're new right?"
"Yeah," Dawn hated this part of the first day, the "Hi I'm blah bah, you must be Dawn" shit.
"Well I'm Sarah and you seem to be cool so you can hang around us for today, but you have to fuck off tomorrow."
"Well, I'm pretty sure I can make friends who will like me for more than a day so even though you offered so nicely, I'm just gonna find some other form of friendship."
Sarah smiled. "You're in."
Dawn had learnt that most schools had an unspoken attitude that only "cool people" knew about. If she had said "Okay, just for today." Or "Wow, that would be great." She probably would have been shunted for life, but her reply had been the right one, and she would be accepted. She would have some people to hang around with until she met some more people. Sarah knew that she was just going to be a temporary friend and would put in a good word to everyone, it was how things worked.
So Dawn walked with Sarah and her friends to English, pretending to be interested in the conversation of boys and clothes.
So now she sat in class, bored out of her brain. It was only second period and already she was hot and sweaty.