The House of Anubis was overpowering. It towered over her just like her father had upon telling her she was to attend this boarding school. Yes, she felt like this house was her father. She shrugged at that comparison and shook her head. She disliked—no, hated—the idea of having to live with eight other people she didn't know. Would they shun her for being American? Well, technically, she was Cuban, but she wouldn't bother to throw that into her rep, she had previously decided. She looked like a mix of street and biker; stonewash blue skinny jeans held up around her thin hips with a black silver studded belt, red Supra sneakers, a black tank top and a red and black leather—actually, fake leather—jacket. She considered removing her black aviator sunglasses but decided against it. She brushed a strand of straight brown hair away from her face. She was pale but not too pale, considering that she spent most of her time outside, fixing motorcycles as well as riding them. She was wearing her, again fake leather, gloves which she normally only wore to work on engines, but they were making her feel more at ease, even though it was about eighty degrees outside and she was hot as all get out. She frowned slightly as she reached up to knock on the door. As soon as she put her hand to it, it flew open, having not been closed. She dropped her hand quickly. If someone walked up, she didn't want to be standing there stupidly with her hand in the air. She took a first step as if the floor was going to fall out from under her.

"Ay, anybody?" she said. She said 'ay' rather than 'hey' because that was just how 'hey' came out when she said it. She figured that she used street talk a little too much, but shucks for UK if they weren't ready for her. Unfortunately, she hadn't quite realized how unready she would be for Victor Roddenmar, whom she saw standing next to her, as soon as she turned her head.

"Who are you?" he said, rather ominously. She took a step away from him.

"Um—" She mentally slapped herself; she didn't ever say 'um.' She paused to gather her thoughts. "I'm Tais Wake. I'm supposed to be living here." Well, that sounded stupid. She shook her head, ashamed, but Victor didn't seem to care.

"Yes, well, here, you should make it a practice to knock before entering, Miss Wake." Tais finally noticed a stuffed crow sitting in his arms.

"Jeez," she groaned quietly.

"Trudy!" Victor called. A shorter woman came walking down the stairs at his call. She looked nicer than he, and secretly Tais hoped she was.

"Oh, you must be Tais," Trudy said. "I hope I pronounced it correctly," she added, smiling. Tais nodded.

"Tah-is," she said. "You said Tyce, but that's okay. Pronunciation is not really important… and I'm… rambling." She bit her lip.

"Oh, it's okay, love. You're nervous, is all—naturally," Trudy said as Victor walked off, rather rudely Tais noted. She only noted and said nothing seeing as he carried her bags off with him, upstairs. Great, she'd have to search for which room had her junk in it. "Why don't you follow me? I think the others are in the lounge." In America, the 'lounge' would have just been referred to as a living room, but then again, her family had called it a lounge as well. The students' reaction to Tais was as she had expected; more of the 'who is this biker wannabe in the leather jacket?' or something similar. She couldn't exactly read minds. She wished she could. At this point, though, Tais wasn't sure sitting and staring could be considered a reaction at all.

"Who are you?" a blonde girl asked. She seemed rather bubbly or clueless.

"Tais," she said.

"That would be Tah-is, not Tyce," Trudy put in, trying to be helpful. Tais smiled. "I'm going to go check on what Victor has done with your things," Trudy said to Tais, before leaving the room.

"That's a strange name," the blonde girl said. Tais thought she should've seen that coming.

"It's a variant of a Greek name meaning 'bond' I think. Of course, it's pretty much said the same, just spelled with a… 'h' so… yeah," she said. She pinched her nose exasperatedly, knowing how ridiculous she must have sounded. "So do y'all have names, or should I just call ya' One, Dos, Tres, Q, Fourty-Seven?" she said, totally overdoing and ruining the street talk, purposely.

"I'm Nina," a brown haired girl said. "And this is Fabian, Alfie, Amber, Patricia, Mick, Mara and Jerome." Tais saw the one called Jerome wince when Mick and Mara's names were said.

"What's your last name? Is it something really boring like Stevens, or is it something interesting—or maybe something in between?" Amber asked excitedly.

"Wake."

"Oh, that's interesting and boring all at the same time!" All of the other students gave Amber a strange look.

"Thanks… I… think," Tais said, shaking her head confusedly.

"So, what does everyone think of an initiation?" Patricia asked, out of the blue. Tais cocked her eyebrows.

"Initiation? Yeah, no," she said.

"Why? Are you scared?" Patricia taunted. Tais could tell that Patricia was suspicious of something.

"I have nothing to prove to you," she said, point blank. Patricia looked subtly taken aback by this statement. "But I admire your chutzpah." She heard a couple of small laughs at her word choice. "I'mma go that way now," she said, turning and leaving the room.

"Chutzpah? What's chutzpah?" Alfie asked as she left. She could hear Jerome begin to explain it to him.