Ash Hated Geography. It was official. If there was a list that had all the natural laws of the world on it - gravity pulls you to the centre of the Earth and suchlike - then on it, just below 'Water Is Wet' it would say 'Ash Hates Geography'.

Ashlyn Mah sighed mournfully and stared blankly at the blackboard in front of her, not bothering to focus on it properly or to even give off the impression that she was. It was a Friday afternoon, last period, and the bell would ring in - she checked her watch - three minutes. Three l-o-n-g minutes.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ash sighed again.

Rosie grinned wildly as she grabbed the basketball out of the air, dribbled up the court and passed to a team-mate. Running ahead, said team-mate passed back to her, she turned and shot.

Another basket for Rosemary Stevens. She glanced at the clock on the gym wall, two minutes to end of class. She could easily shoot another basket in that time.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She backed away, towards the middle of the court, and began marking a member of the opposite team.

July smiled softly as her fingers danced over the black and white keys. She loved music and to be able to miss out on Chemistry for piano practice was a dream come true. She didn't bother about the time, for one thing there were no watches or clocks near her - and for another, she was so lost in her music that the school could be in fire and she wouldn't notice a thing. July Ambre didn't know it but it was only sixty seconds until the final bell rang out. If she'd known then she would have been horrified, she didn't want her time with her music to end so soon.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she struck the wrong key, her hands were so small and dainty that it was hard for her to play properly, she'd have to find a way around that - but now the bell was ringing and she was gathering up her things with a small sigh.

Ash let out small 'yes!' of triumph under her breath as class finally ended. Her books and pencils had been packed up for the last fifteen minutes so she simply swung her bag onto her back, smiled at the boy holding the classroom door open for her and waltzed out into the corridor - which was thronging with so many students that if one stood still then one would be quite likely knocked to the floor and trampled upon.

Rosie carelessly chucked the basketball into the gym cupboard and sauntered off to get changed, sticking her pierced tongue out at the stuck-up blonde girl Sophia - her current nemesis - on the way. She never did score that last basket - but it hardly mattered. Her team had easily won anyway. She changed back into her school uniform quickly, slipped her feet into clunky sunshine-yellow high heels and let her waist-length hair down from the high ponytail she'd had it in for Gym.

July darted through the maze of corridors, always moving into the spaces, always being just where someone else was not. Her method of travel was much quicker and more efficient than that of the teenagers in the midst of the crowd, shoving everyone along. She had always compared the packed hallways to a salmon run, one fast-moving flow of bodies, impossible to escape. So if you can't go against them… then go with them. She moved swiftly through the school, slipping through doors just before they shut and making sure to never ever trip herself up.

Ash reached the meeting spot first and settled in the grass, underneath the spreading branches of a large beech tree. She began picking daisy to make a chain and she hummed to herself gently as if unaware of the group of boys watching her.

Rosie was the next arrival, dumping her things down with an irritated snort, "Hey there, Lyn," she said, smirking, "no need to act so prissy. If they're interesting ya then it's not 'cause ya look like a perfect lil darlin'. It's because they think ya gonna put out."

Ash huffed in annoyance, "I've no idea what you're talking about," she replied snippily. She glanced at the boys out of the corner of her eye, "Besides," she began shredding her daisy chain, "none of them are that good-looking, anyway."

Rosie rolled her eyes, ran a hand through her black and green hair and had a spontaneous coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like 'slut'.

The coming argument was luckily averted by the appearance of July, who sat down in the grass with all the grace and poise of a princess and began inspecting the large ladybird on a buttercup near her.

"Lyjoo!" exclaimed Rosie gleefully, "How ya doin'?"

July smiled at the older girl, "Pretty well, thank you," she replied, laughing slightly. July was the youngest of the trio and Rosie's antics never failed to amuse her as July was as childish and naïve as a girl half her age. She was small - tiny for her age, actually - and slender as a reed with an innocent face, extraordinarily long dark brown hair and wide-set blue eyes, surrounded by the longest thickest eyelashes you'd ever see. July was obsessed with Disney films and it was this that bound Rosie and the doll-like girl so closely.

But, while July admired the heroes and princesses, Rosie, on the other hand, nurtured a great love for villains. This random and wannabe-evil girl was short but curvy with both eyebrow and tongue pierced. Her large dark brown eyes always sparkled with mischief, her skin was eerily pale no matter how much time she spent outside and her hair was long and black with the ends dyed a ghostly green.

The oldest, and arguably most sensible, of them was Ashlyn who everyone called Ash - aside from Rosie who called her Lyn to annoy her. She was easily the tallest of them all and skinny with it. Her tanned skin was smooth and unblemished, her eyes were the darkest brown imaginable and her hair ruler-straight and ending at her upper neck. Ash's one flaw was that when she saw a boy she just couldn't help but flirt.

All three friends were sixteen, although July's birthday had only been a few weeks ago, and all three loved each other beyond all reason - although the way Ash and Rosie bickered all the time made it very hard to believe.

It was a good thing that they were all so very loyal … otherwise in might have proved their undoing in the challenges to come.

July gently touched her child-sized finger to the buttercup and gasped with delight as the ladybird crawled onto her fingernail. She examined the red and black bug carefully, not looking up until Rosie shrieked.

"You gotta make a wish, Lyjoo, you just gotta!"

July tilted her head to one side thoughtfully and smiled. "I wish," she began, too low for her friends to hear, "Oh, I wish..." she trailed off.

"I wish I could meet all the Disney characters!"