Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Tribe'. However all the characters in this story were created my me and therefore belong to me.

Chapter One

"Jamie Richardson?" the teacher said rather wearily as he glanced over at a dark haired boy sitting at the back of the class sharing a private joke with the guy sitting beside him.

"Yes sir," the boy replied, diverting his look from his friend to the teacher and wiping a smirk from his face.

"If you spent half as much time working as you did chatting to your mates you wouldn't be getting bad grades all the time." He slammed a piece of paper down onto the deck Jamie was sitting at. Scrawled across the front in big red letters was the letter 'F'. Jamie looked at it and sighed. What did it matter anyway? Having fun was much more important. He slid the essay into his bag, another one to go in the bin, he thought as he looked forward to the end of the school day.

"So what did you get for that essay?" Jamie asked Lewis as they walked home from school together.

"A 'B'," he said proudly. Jamie halted so swiftly that Lewis was five steps ahead of him before he realised he was alone.

"B?!" he exclaimed. "Lewis, you're not going all 'teachers pet' on me are you?"

"Nah cause not," Lewis replied unconvincingly. "But my dad's getting annoyed that I keep getting low grades, so I thought I should start working harder."

"So in other words… you're going all 'teachers pet' on me." Lewis glanced at Jamie, a disgusted look appearing upon his face.

"Oh forget it!" Lewis snapped. "Maybe if you tried once in a while you could feel proud of what you'd achieved instead of having to hide your results from your parents!" Lewis looked at him once more and ran ahead, not looking back to see Jamie's confused expression. Him and Lewis had never argued before and he never imagined it would be school work that would cause them to fall out. He took in what Lewis had said about working harder. What was the point? He thought. Life was too short to worry about good grades. Of course he was upset about arguing with his best friends but if Lewis was going to turn into a geek then their friendship would have to be over. As he continued to walk home he took the essay out of his bag, tore it into pieces and dropped it in the bin.

"Hello?" Jamie shouted as he wandered into he house. "Anyone here?" He dropped his bag by the door and removed his shoes, beginning to think the house was deserted. Then he heard music. Loud, both in style and volume. It was coming from upstairs which meant that his sister, Rachel was already home. She'd been listening to that sort of music a lot lately, a way of 'venting her anger' apparently. What she had to be angry with he had no idea.

"Rachel!!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Turn the music down!" He didn't want to have to deal with complaining neighbours again; they always seemed to appear when his parents were out. There was no answer from upstairs, she had her music up so loud she was oblivious to his shouting. As he neared the top of the stairs he had to put his hands to his ears the music was so loud. He knocked on the door and when there was no answer he pushed the door open and entered the room.

"Rachel, I asked you to keep the music down." She turned round to face him as he neared her. Her cheeks were wet with tears, her eyes red from crying.

"What's wrong?" he asked sympathetically. He didn't see her crying very often and so seeing her like this worried him right away.

"Nothing," she said defensively.

"You know you can't lie to me," he replied.

She sighed. It was true and she knew it. He knew everything. She rolled her eyes.

"I just had a bad day at school," she replied eventually. She was telling the truth, but there was no way she was going to let him know how bad it had been.

"Why?" he asked. "What happened?"

"It doesn't matter," she said. "I'll get over it."

"No you won't. Not until you tell me what it is."

"It's nothing!" she exploded. "Now stop worrying about me and concentrate on your grades!"

"How did you know about that?" he was confused, he hadn't told anyone.

"Your friend came round just before you arrived," she said bluntly.

"What did he -" he started but Rachel was already beckoning him from her room. Obviously she wanted to be alone so he backed up out of the room and closed the door. He was annoyed that he hadn't gotten anything out of Rachel, he may not care about school work but he did care about her. She would tell him, he decided. She would tell him when she was ready.