Trudy placed the last plate at the end of the table and sighed contently. It had been a couple of months since she had laid that table and it was satisfying to see the start of a new year begin with those plates. They were still clean which was a rare thing with the students of Anubis House.

She carried the spare cutlery to the kitchen. To her surprise she found a suitcase dumped on the middle counter. Shaking her head in amusement, Trudy moved the bag to the floor. Why couldn't the boys just put their suitcases where they belonged? The kitchen was further away from the front door than their rooms!

Trudy wheeled the suitcase to the bedroom at the far end of the hall. Knocking quietly, she waited for someone to open it. When nobody did, she left it outside. She figured that the boys could sort their room out by themselves.

"Trudy!"

At her name, Trudy jumped. She walked into the living and looked around. Victor stood examining the coffee table. His beard was even more well-groomed than she remembered it which was a miracle.

"Oh," she exclaimed. "You shouldn't shout like that. My heart's all of a flutter."

"Where has my badger gone?" Victor asked.

"Ah, don't tell me you've forgotten already?"

Trudy walked over to Victor and patted him on the arm. Dust pounded off of it after each hit.

"You asked me to move it upstairs! I think it's an excellent idea. The fur goes everywhere and the kids always play around with it."

Grumbling under his breath, Victor left the room. Trudy shrugged at his normal reaction to being corrected. She never liked to ask about what he was mumbling about. Normally it resulted in a harsh look at the woman or a "don't you have work to do?"

The opening of the front door brought with it the clicking sound of wheels. Trudy hurried to the entrance hall to find Kestrel. Her auburn hair laid across her shoulders as she flitted her jade green eyes around the house. They jumped from the cellar door to the carved staircase to the room above the door where Victor was brooding. Finally, she spotted Trudy.

"Trudy!" she cried.

She dropped the small bag in her hand and hugged her house mother. Her perfume filled her with nostalgia, but it was nothing like the creak that the front door made as someone else entered. Trudy looked over Kestrel's shoulder at the woman who was wheeling two suitcases behind her.

"Are you Ebony?" Trudy asked. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Yep!" she grinned. "I couldn't not help Kessie with her bags. She's missed this place a lot! You should've heard the car journey here."

"Kestrel, sweetie. Why don't you go upstairs and find Lydia? I'm sure she's missed you dearly."

Kestrel nodded obediently and ran upstairs to find her friend. Her sister smiled after the girl until she was out of sight. As the smile vanished it was replaced with a frown.

"Can I talk to you in private before I leave?"

Trudy looked at Ebony. To her dismay, she looked like she was going to cry. Her eyes crinkled against the tears that were forming. Trudy immediately hooked onto her motherly instinct and hugged the woman. She didn't know the reason for the sudden tears, but she could guess what it was. This happened to a lot of families when taking their children back to boarding school. After all, they weren't going to see them for three or four months.

"If you want to leave now, I'm sure Kestrel will understand," Trudy attempted to comfort her.

"What? No, I'm not crying about that. It's about this."

Ebony unzipped the suitcase closest to her and took out a large plastic bottle. Trudy squinted to read the label.

"Ah," Trudy bit her lip. "Has it got worse?"

The only thing Ebony did was nod. She placed the medicine into Trudy's open hand. Wiping her eye, Ebony grimaced. Trudy felt her heart twinge. Even though she hadn't been through anything like some of the students had, she knew what it felt like when someone you loved was in pain.

Trudy put an arm around Ebony's neck and squeezed her tight.

"It'll get better eventually," she whispered. "With all of the new technology these days, they're bond to make Kestrel better one day."

"I better be going," Ebony mumbled into Trudy's blouse.

"Are you sure you don't want a cup of tea?"

"Us British and our tea," Ebony forced a smile. "But I need to get going. The, uh, traffic…"

"It's okay, sweetie."

Before Ebony could reach the door, Trudy heard a boy cursing from behind her. She turned to see Wylan sprawled on the floor next to the suitcase. His floppy brown hair covered his face, but Trudy suspected he was blushing furiously.

A laughing girl leaned on the doorframe. Her burgundy hair was tucked behind her ears to show off the studs and two silver rings that she sported. A diamond twinkled from her nose and Trudy found herself tutting as she noticed a new bar in her left ear. If she had taken the piercings out, Iris would definitely be the prettiest girl at Anubis.

Wylan kicked the suitcase towards Iris. Her laugh become a shriek as she fell down as well. They stared at each other and then started laughing even louder.

"Did you forget to mention something to me earlier?" Trudy asked, an eyebrow raised.

The two looked up at Trudy. Iris' cheeks were boiling this time, but Wylan was grinning sloppily.

"Of course not," he answered smoothly. "We're just messing about."

"Yeah," said Iris, breaking out of her shock. "This is normal for us."

Trudy grabbed Wylan by the arm to pull him up. Swishing his hair out of his face, he thanked her. Before Trudy got a chance to take Iris' arm, she was already standing up.

"Do you have any idea who this belongs to?" she asked.

"Nope," said Wylan.

"Do I look like I'd own that suitcase?" Iris mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Unfortunately not."

Trudy tried to hide her smile. It was amazing how some people acted up to adults. Well, those acts weren't going to get through her this year. Yes, there had been the incident with all of the scissors going missing and the occasional stolen cookie or two (or ten), but those hadn't hurt anyone. Not much anyway…

"Okay then," Trudy smiled.

Wylan's door closed behind the pair. Trudy looked down at her hand with the bottle of pills in it. She frowned before remembering what she was meant to be doing. In the kitchen was a cupboard only she was allowed to open. Trudy slipped the bottle in and locked it for good measure.

Nicci bounced down the school corridor with her flower crown jiggling along with her. The heels of her boots clicked against the floor in time to the music chiming into her ears from her headphones. This morning she had been in a show-off-the-tan-before-it-goes kind of mood so she adorned a white crop top and some denim shorts. However, when she landed in England she was shocked by how cold it was already, so now there was a grey cardigan over her outfit.

Passing a couple of teachers, Nicci smiled to each of them, acknowledging all of them with their first names. Daphne (Ms Andrews) had some new grey hairs showing at the roots of her hair which Nicci didn't want to tell her about. Howard (Mr Mason) dipped his head in her direction. Eric (Mr Sweet) murmured some Latin under his breath as he flicked through a leaflet.

Nicci's bounce slowed to a walk when she rounded the corner by the history classroom. She tried to keep her heel clicking to the volume of the pitter patter of the rain outside. A cough from inside the classroom meant she had failed.

She hurriedly fiddled around with her bag to find her portable cd player. At last she found it and clicked the stop button. Nicci looked up to Miss Devereaux's glare from behind her desk. Stacks of paper were already piled on it which surprised Nicci. The teacher had been in the school for under an hour and her desk was already flooded.

"Nicci," Miss Devereaux said sharply, "you need to get some new shoes. Those boots have never suited that outfit."

"But I like them," Nicci moaned. "If I'm on a seven-hour flight from America, surely I can wear what shoes I want. It was bad enough having to sit next to you. I wasn't going to wear those uncomfortable heels Mum bought me."

"I guess I have to kind of agree with you," she began to smile. "They are hideous."

The sisters laughed awkwardly. They stood there for a while, basking in their love-hate relationship until Nicci broke it.

"I should get going, Brooke," she said. "I told Francesca that I'd meet up with her in the drama studio."

Brooke raised an eyebrow at her younger sister.

"Really? Well, could you come round my room later? I'm cooking your favourite!"

"Chocolate? Raspberries? Milkshakes? What about those raspberries and chocolate we had at that fair a month ago? They were so delicious! Or how about those pancakes I tried to make? Mmmm!"

"Or perhaps some sausages and mash?" Brooke smirked.

"Oh, that's okay too," Nicci grinned. "I'll see you tonight, then. Can I put my bag down?"

Brooke gestured towards a front desk for Nicci to dump her bag down. She put her headphones next to her cd player before leaving with the full blast of her boots' heels. It didn't take her long to reach the drama studio.

Francesca was rearranging pillows on the sofas. Her blonde hair was tied back into a high ponytail which hit her back every time she leaned over to grab a new cushion. She wore a cross between a sport kit and a hipster outfit. It looked nicer than it sounded.

"Francesca!" Nicci beamed.

The sport and drama teacher turned to see the young brunette. A new shine came to her face that Nicci hadn't seen before. Fran ran over to Nicci so that they could hug. To her surprise, Nicci felt herself lift off of the floor. She gently kicked Fran's knees as she spun around the room.

Eventually Nicci found the floor again. She collapsed into a sofa and laughed. Her flower crown dropped onto the floor next to her as her head hung over the back of the sofa. Francesca sat opposite her with a soft smile of her own.

"How did you manage to spin me like that?" Nicci spluttered after she managed to stop her laughter enough to talk.

"You must of lost weight," Francesca smiled. "Or I've grown stronger?"

"I definitely didn't lose any weight over the summer. It's a longer version of Christmas!"

Nicci narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Fran. There was something different about her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Is there something new about you?" she asked.

"My new glasses," Fran pushed them further up her nose, "or these new trainers?"

"Nope… it's something more… radiate."

"Radiate," the teacher repeated. "That's a weird choice of words."

"Come on, you can tell me!" Nicci urged.

Fran fingered the tassels of a little green cushion with pursed lips. Nicci blinked slowly at her, trying to show as much interest as possible. Her eyes began to sting before Francesca leaned forward slightly.

"You must promise not to tell anyone," she whispered.

Nicci nodded vigorously feeling as if she was about to be told a dreadful secret about someone she knew. She copied Fran by leaning in closer. Her teacher and friend cupped her hand to Nicci's ear.

"I'm in a relationship with someone."

That wasn't what Nicci expected. She jerked back, hitting Fran's arm in the process.

"Woah," Nicci said. "You have a boyfriend?"

"Shh!" Fran hushed. "I said it's a secret."

"But why does it have to be a secret?"

"Have you learnt anything about the teachers here, Nicci? None of them seem to understand what 'getting it on' even means and that's casual slang."

"Brooke would understand…"

The girls looked at each other and burst out laughing again.

"Well, speaking of the she-devil," Nicci said, "I have to get going. We're having sausages and mash together even though I've just put up with her for a couple of months constantly."

"Make sure to tell her Miss Abel says hi," Francesca waved.

Nicci picked her flower crown off of the floor and placed it gently onto her hair. She retraced her steps back to the history classroom. Taking a deep breath, she entered her sister's domain without being forced to for once. Nicci was determined to improve their relationship this year to something similar to Fran's. Brooke had never revealed a secret to her.

Hey guys! Thank you for reading the first chapter and an even bigger thank you to everyone that has submitted an OC. I've received some amazing characters and I know that they are going to get into a lot of adventures together.

I have a few things to mention to avoid confusion. This story is set around 2005-ish so there aren't many electronics and stuff around. There are three new (old) staff: Miss Abel, Mr Mason and Miss Devereaux. If there's any other questions please PM me.