A group of girls in their teens walked out of the school bathroom intent on rushing off to class. They were the popular girls. There were no real big cliques at the school but that was one group that no one messed with.

A girl of about seventeen years old watched as the group of pretty girls left the bathroom. She had shoulder length white blonde hair, blue eyes and a slightly off-putting demeanour. She was dressed all in black: black skirt, black shirt and black shoes.

She had been in the bathroom when the girls had appeared and she had hid in one of the stalls quickly. She was one of the school's outcasts and the girls, needless to say, did not like her. Leaving the stall, she quickly fixed her make-up in the mirror and then exited as well. Unfortunately, the girls were just outside.

The leader of the group turned around and smirked cruelly.

"Well, well if it isn't little miss trailer trash," Courtney snarkily commented making the other girls giggle ridiculously. The girl glared at Courtney and made to leave but she wasn't going to get off easy this time.

"Oh going so soon Abby? Don't you want to hang out with us?" Courtney mocked becoming much bitchier.

"Come on Courtney just leave me alone. I haven't done anything to you; just get out of my way. And for the record I wouldn't be friends with you if you were the last stinking disgusting animal on this planet," Abby replied with a tone edged with steel. Courtney looked at her friends in embarrassment and they were giggling softly. Courtney didn't like it when the wrong kind of attention was on her.

"Jess, Natalie hold her," Courtney instructed. The two followers were hesitant but they grabbed both of Abby's arms and held her in place. Courtney sneered in Abby's face before punching her. Abby didn't even flinch. She had been through this enough, at home and at school.

"Come on Courtney, is that the best you can do?" Abby mocked. She knew she should shut up but she would never bow down to these bimbos. Courtney was even more pissed now and the next punch she threw made Abby stagger back slightly into the wall. Courtney smirked evilly.

"That'll hopefully teach you not to mess with me again, Abby." With that her and her posse pranced away, swinging their hips more than needed, which they always did. Abby spat the blood onto the concrete and re-entered the bathroom to assess the damage.

She covered what she could with make-up and then made her way to her next class. She groaned as she remembered; she had math. It was pretty typical of her to not like math but it had never clicked with her, no matter how hard she tried. The teachers thought she was just stupid but she didn't really get many opportunities at home to study. It was the most unhealthy study environment to say the least.

Everyone was seated already when she arrived at the classroom and they all watched her as she stood assessing the room. All the underachievers all sat up the back. It was a good excuse to get some sleep and you were almost never called on to answer questions. The nerds of course sat up the front. Abby didn't really care for the cliques and such. If she liked someone, she liked them and she was usually pretty lenient with hating people only if they gave her reason to.

That was why Courtney was top on her shit list. Not only did the girl bully and abuse her but she also stole the one guy Abby liked. Stephen Hart. He was in a higher year than them but he was really cute and he had liked her at first. They had gone on a couple of dates and she had even let him go 'all the way' with her. So of course Abby was absolutely gutted when Courtney had swaggered in and then Stephen was gone. Courtney officially made her life hell, though she would never admit it. Basically at this school if Courtney decided you were not worth talking to, no one would talk to you. The effect from this was that Abby did not have any friends and no one talked to her, not even guys. She didn't have low enough self-esteem to be ridiculous and say she wasn't pretty, because she knew she was but whatever the Queen Bee decided, the little workers would follow. That's not to say she hadn't noticed any guys checking her out, because she had. There was especially a nerdy guy with dark hair up the front of the class that always looked at her ass as she walked past his row. He was cute in a dorky way. He always wore the most interesting combinations of clothes such as shirts with vests, fingerless gloves and sometimes even a fedora hat and she admired the fact that he didn't care what others thought of it. Abby thought it suited him. She had no idea what his name was and he would never look her in the eye or speak to her. He always sat next to his two friends up the front who were complete physical opposites. One was short and chubby with glasses and the other was very tall and lanky with bright red hair.

She made her way in the direction of her usual seat and right on cue she felt eyes on her behind as she made her way past the nerd row and she smirked in humor. She wasn't offended by it at all; she thought it was quite funny because she knew that he had no idea she knew. At first she'd almost ripped him a new one the first time she'd realized but then she'd shrugged it off and it had become habit and she was used to it. Sitting down, she looked up towards the front and she noticed that said nerd and his two friends were looking her way. They had obviously been trying to be subtle about it and they realized they'd been caught. They were whispering between each other and the short and tall ones were laughing slightly while the one in the middle was looking pretty red in embarrassment. She guessed they had been teasing him about something. Because she was in such a good mood, she made eye contact with the cute one who looked mortified and she winked with a smile. His eyes widened and he immediately turned back around. She was openly laughing now. He was now speaking in hushed tones to his friends and she shook her head smirking.

Their teacher Mr. Chase came in then and told everyone to settle down. She couldn't help herself. Halfway through class, she was sleeping with her head on the desk. Math was already boring but the teacher made it worse. It's not her fault she couldn't stay awake. Soon she heard her name being called. She didn't wake up, she didn't want to. She was startled back into consciousness as Mr. Chase slammed his book down on her desk.

"Miss Maitland!" She looked up at him groggily and looked around. The entire class was staring at her. She flushed with embarrassment. When possible she tried her best to stay under the radar and as effect she didn't like when attention was being focused on her. She could see the three nerds up the front watching her and the cute one was watching her with humor in his eyes. She turned back to the teacher.

"Miss Maitland you will see me after class." With that Mr. Chase returned to his position at the board and continued the lesson. Abby returned her head to her desk with a sigh, great, another detention.

The bell rang soon and everyone scrambled to leave, eager to have their recess. She approached Mr. Chase and sat down in the seat in front of the teacher's desk.

"I am extremely disappointed in you Miss Maitland. Your grades are terrible and if you do not get them up you will fail the unit. Now I know you are not stupid, so I'm going to give you a chance. I'm going to assign you to a tutor."

Mr. Chase scolded and she sighed; great, a tutor, that's just what she needed. She hoped to god she wasn't assigned to Courtney. She watched as Mr. Chase searched the class roll and then he exclaimed in success.

"Ah, perfect. The extra time to help you won't affect him whatsoever. I want you to go introduce yourself to Connor Temple and tell him that he is now officially your tutor. Let him know that if he had any problems with that to come see me. Now I want to see some better results at the next test. Go." Abby exited the classroom sluggishly. She huffed in annoyance. Well there was a mystery and half for her. Who the hell was Connor Temple?