Chapter 2 – New School.
The rest of the week passed pretty quickly, and I managed to sort out my room; I painted the walls the pale blue I bought, I varnished the ancient floor boards, Dad bought me some shelves and I painted them white. On one day, two days before school, Dad stumbled in at Noon with a large white bookshelf for me.
I appreciated these gestures, but it wasn't enough to fill the whole depression had gnawed away at in my stomach. I put on a happy face in front of Mum and Dad and Erin and Grace, but maybe it wasn't enough, because the evening before school Mum came into my room while I was reading. She had a serious look on her face as she sat at the end of my bed, reaching for my hand.
"Annabelle," she began, but I cut her off.
"Anna, Mum. My name is Anna." I said, stubbornly.
"Ok then, Annabelle," she replied, deliberately, "I just wanted a little chat with you, that's all. Now, I know it's hard for you, moving and going to a new school. Your father and I know how much you miss London…" I laughed humourlessly; she didn't anything about how much I missed London. She raised her eyebrows, and then carried on.
"You see, sweetheart, when I was a little older than you I had to move away from my home, too. I moved to a little town near Cambridge, and that's where I met your father; in one of the bakeries there. How I missed me old house…"
"And the moral of this story is…?" I waved my arms slightly, gesturing for her to move on.
"The moral is that moving to that little town was the best thing I have ever done –it was where I met your Dad."
"Urgh, Mum," I said, pushing her off the bed, "If I wanted a soppy ending I would have borrowed Cinderella off of Erin."
She raised her eyebrows again, which irritated me.
"The point of my little speech is that you never know what might happen here, it might turn out good. I'll bet you have fun." She stroked my cheek, and I edged away from her.
"I doubt it," I mumbled, wriggling away from her hand and her bright pink nails, which looked more like talons.
"Come on, don't be a spoil sport!" she said, enthusiasm in her voice, like an American soccer mum before a big game.
"Mum, don't say that ever again."
"Ok, ok. But what I'm trying to say is that… don't ruin it here for Erin and Grace, please don't ruin it for Dad, and don't ruin it for yourself, either. Don't be moody everyday and put everyone in a bad mood. I know you might feel a little under the weather from time to time, but please keep it to yourself."
I felt like a misbehaved child being scolded by an adult, I felt terrible, as though Mum and Dad had been talking behind my back; discussing me.
"Ok," was all I could manage to whisper, my throat was suddenly very dry.
Mum stood up, brushing her thighs. She stooped to peck my cheek, before heading out the room.
"'Night, Mum." I mumbled, a small smile forming on my lips.
"Night, Annabelle." She flashed me a slightly bigger smile, then turned and disappeared out the door.
Greenglades High School. Greenglades frigging High School. This is where they are sending me?
As I have said before, Mum and Dad had some serious parental issues. First, we move to Legg, and then they send me to some crappy secondary school where I have to do my GCSE's and spend two years slaving away in classrooms. Ah, all was good. Not!
My first impressions were that it looked oddly Edwardian/American, though the large wrought iron gates topped with a Latin motto looked like a prison. The building itself was made out of red brick; though not as dark as my house, with large steps leading up to what I guessed was the main doors. It wasn't very small; it had about five stories and a lot of land. Most of this land looked like a park, and I spotted two signs pointing to round the back of the school, each labelled 'Yard'.
I tried to speak to fellow students, asking different people for directions to the main office. Mostly they ignored me, whilst the others just stared in awe. God, helpful kids this lot were.
I smoothed the front of my navy blouse, rolled up the sleeves of my grey cardigan and tried again. As before, no one would look twice at me, no one stopped to talk.
Just as my patience was running out and I was about to lose my temper, a blonde girl with a slight natural tan and a huge smile on her face wearing a pink dress rushed up to me, holding out her hand. I took it cautiously, wondering who the hell she was and why she was shaking my hand when everyone else was ignoring me.
"Hey, I'm Kelsey Pryce. You must be Annabelle Rivkins, right?"
"Anna Rivkins," I corrected.
"Right! You're going into Year 10, aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's right…"
"Good, Mr. Burgham told me about you, so I thought it would be nice if I showed you around the school. It's only a small school, but it's easy to get lost. Soon you'll know everyone, and hopefully we can be friends! Wouldn't that be great?"
"Who's –" but she was already chatting again, pulling out what looked like a map of the school.
"This," she said, pointing to a place on the map, "is Mr. Burgham's office. He's our Head teacher. He's really nice, you'll like him. Follow me, and I'll take you to the office to sign in." she smiled at me, her white teeth showing. She would be pretty, if she weren't so damn annoying and didn't speak this much.
She lead me up the stairs, and through the doors, which opened into a corridor. The corridor was long, but not very wide. On my right, a stable door painted dark blue was opened slightly, a sign saying 'Office –sign in here' on the door.
Kelsey walked in through the door, and so did a few other students. As I entered after Kelsey, about five students walked out.
The Office was around the same size as my bedroom, and in one corner there was a desk occupied by young receptionist with perfectly manicured nails and immaculate dark black hair. In front of her on the desk was what seemed to be a list, and as I approached the desk I realised that the list was the names of all the students at the school, and about sixty of those names were highlighted.
Kelsey bent down to highlight her name, and then turned to talk to me. The other students highlighted their names and then walked out. I edged forward, not sure what to do.
"We highlight our names; it's the schools way of knowing that we're here, and not bunking." She giggled, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder.
So I highlighted my name, and then spoke to the lady behind the desk who I guessed was the secretary.
"Uh… excuse me, Ms. Brett?" I asked, reading off her nametag. She looked up, her finger tapping away at the keys on her computer's keypad.
"Yes? Oh, you must be Annabelle Rivkins, our new student. Well, here is your timetable," she muttered, handing me a piece of paper, "I hope Kelsey has been telling you about the school." I nodded, and then walked out the room.
I stared at my time-table, which seemed pretty fine, except for the double P.E. later on this afternoon. My first lesson was English, which I had come top of the class in Year 9, then I had ICT, which I was fairly good at, then I had a break.
Later on when we were settled into English, Mr. Scott, our teacher, called me to the front of the class. I cringed, I'd rather have resumed my seat at the back of the room and done my work quietly.
"This is Annabelle Rivkins –"
"Err, Anna, Sir." Several people snickered, but I ignored them.
"Ok, Anna. Anyway, I was wondering if you would like to tell the class a little about yourself." On the contrary, Sir, I wouldn't. But obviously I didn't say that to his stubbly face.
"Um… I like reading, and I like writing." I sounded like a retard, surely I could do better than this.
"Who's your favourite author?" someone shouted out from the front row, it was a boy with ginger hair and glasses; what a nerd.
"Simon, let the girl finish, please." Mr. Scott said, pointing a bony old finger in the direction of the boy who had spoken.
Simon, I scoffed, what a name for a nerd.
"It's ok," I murmured, then I turned towards the ginger boy, Simon, "my favourite author is Stephenie Meyer, but I also like JK Rowling. I can't really decide who I like most."
"Geek," someone else muttered, and I felt my face blush scarlet.
"Shut up, Simone." Someone retaliated, and I realised with gratitude it was Kelsey.
"That's enough…Simon, Kelsey." Mr. Scott scolded, and when his back was turned I mouthed a silent 'Thank you!' at Kelsey. She smiled, and winked in return.
When Mr. Scott let me sit down again after answering his tiresome questions, he passed around the list of books we had to read this term, because at the end we would have to write an essay on one of them.
The books were fairly easy; 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', 'The Little Princess', 'Oliver Twist', 'Gulliver's Travels' and 'Moby-Dick' and a few more, I had read most of them anyway.
My next lesson after English was ICT, and then a break. I was OK at ICT, because I had a lot of practice after Mum gave in on my birthday one year and bought me a laptop.
By the time break came I had learnt this much; that the school only had around 368 pupils, and there was two classes for each year. I was in Kelsey's class, which was 10B, meaning we had every lesson together.
She told me about her friends in 10A, whom she said I would meet at Lunch when we sat with them and in Music, in which both Year 10 classes had together. I tried to look grateful, which failed so I just smiled.
During break I tried to find out as much as I could on the school and Kelsey, which was easy enough for her to talk about. I learnt that her favourite colour was pink, she hadn't had a boyfriend since she caught her last one cheating, and her parents said they would put her in private education if her results and test paper scores weren't improving.
"Same here! My Mum and Dad are all for putting me into a school with nuns and stuff!" I had said, glad that we finally had something in common.
But as break came to an end, I began to realise much later than I should have done that all Kelsey could do was talk, look in the mirror, and talk. But, then again, she was the only 'friend' I had at this school, so I might as well put up with her… and she did stick up for me today in English.
After break came Maths and Science, which I sucked at. In Maths I sat in the corner, wishing the teacher wouldn't look at me or ask me a question. Luckily for me she didn't, she probably thought that because I was new I couldn't handle a question. But I was fine with it.
"Annabelle, we have Lunch now, come on," Kelsey said, getting out of her seat and swinging her bag over her shoulder.
I picked up my bag, and dragging it out of the classroom, I set off down the corridor.