A is for apple, so rosy and red,
B is for baby, just put to bed
C is for … screw this…

I'm Lawli - sorry L. I'm L, twelfth in line to be the next protégé at Whammy's House, the school for gifted orphans, and amateur detective. What you're reading here, well, I guess that you could call it my journal. This is a complete recount of everything that happens to me at Whammy's House. It'll be interesting, I hope.

As I said before, I'm an orphan. Well, I didn't exactly say it, but it was implied when I said that I went to a school for orphans. I was little when my parents died, so I didn't remember much about them. What I did remember, however, was coming home that one day after playing outside to find all that blood. I remember the tall policemen that made notes and talked to each other. I remember being told that mummy and daddy had gone and not fully understanding. Where had they gone? And why couldn't I have gone with them? Would they ever be back?

Yes. My parents were murdered, and I swear that one day, I will track down their killer and make them pay. I'm kind of like Batman in a way, if Batman was pale, scrawny and uncoordinated. Yeah, so maybe I'm not exactly Bruce Wayne. I'm just Lawli – oops, L.

We aren't allowed to say who we are. When I asked why, I was told that it was for security reasons, because there were a lot of geniuses at Whammy's House and they all needed to be kept safe from kidnappers and murderers and evil maniacs plotting to take over the world. Okay, maybe not the last one, but you get the point. Instead of names, the top twenty-six of us were given letters, which also served the purpose of ranking us. Being L, I'm twelfth. I know that I've said that already, but I just want to make things clear. I am not number one. I was never number one. That was A. A for amazing. That's what people said about him, because he was amazing. There was no question as to why A was first in line. He was one of those lucky people who were just great at everything. He could solve almost impossible equations, sing like an angel, play sports at a professional level and he was fantastic with people. He was perfection, and it's almost impossible to compete with perfection.

Which brings us to me. Not because I'm talking about perfection, I'm far from that. But, because, I haven't even given a description of myself yet. I'm pale, thin and I lack muscle. I have black hair that sticks up in pretty much every direction physically possible and black eyes with dark bags underneath them which I get from my insomnia. All in all, I'm not exactly the cream of the crop.

But I guess that you don't really want to hear more about how much of a socially awkward failure I am, I should get back to this, diary thingy. Maybe if I wanted to sound a little less feminine, I could say that it's a record of my life in Whammy's House.

I woke up like I did every other morning, and followed the same routine, get out of bed, brush my teeth, shower, get dressed, and attempt to do something to my hair to make it look less like a bird's nest that someone spilt ink all over. Breakfast was in the cafeteria every day. I dragged myself to it and grabbed food. Coffee with too much sugar and a doughnut.

"You shouldn't eat like that; it's not good for you." A voice from the table nagged me as I began to sit down.

"It's not good for you to keep nagging people about their eating habits." I said as I sat down, facing my companions. There were four of us at the table. I was there, of course, but there were also my three best and only friends in the world with me. I could use their real names, because of course they'd told me even though they weren't supposed to, but just in case this somehow ends up in the wrong hands, I'll use their letters instead, I, E and K. If you know your alphabet, then you'll realise that they're all higher ranked than me. Did I mention that I'm kind of the runt of the litter? I probably already did, but anyways, I am. E was a kind person, hardworking, trustworthy and in every way reliable. I don't think that I'm able to give away too much of a physical description, so I'll leave it up to you, just don't give him wings or a tail. I (the letter, not me) was a little more fun-loving and a little less responsible. When you're ninth in line, like he is, you simply learn not to give a fuck. That's like his life motto, to lie back and enjoy what came, with no responsibility pressing on him, he was free. And then there was K, my only female friend. K was the best friend you could ever have. She was sweet, kind and just too lovable for words. I was younger than the rest of them, only seventeen, but that wasn't so bad. The next in line after me, M, is only eleven! Poor kid, I wish I could see him and at least tell him how it wasn't as bad, being left here without parents, to grow up and fend for yourself in the cruel academic world which we all lived in.

So breakfast was the same as it was every day, and then we moved on into lessons. At Whammy's House, you never stopped learning, which is the polite way of saying that they constantly crammed knowledge down your throats. First up was Physics. I would have written about how much I liked Physics and why I found it so interesting, but I think you guys see me as enough of a nerd already (A/N I love Physics too, along with many other nerdy things). Today's lesson wasn't a productive one, we discussed stuff that most of us already knew.

"And so, it's assumed that leftover radiation is still present in the universe, if we can find the radioactive particles and prove that they date back to the Big Bang, String Theory would be proved." The teacher droned on, things that I'd known since I was about five. So the first lesson was boring, Next, I had history, which wasn't actually that interesting today either. We learnt about the lore of ancient Amazonian forest tribes. Ancient frog-gods don't really interest me that much. If they do for you, then go and sit in class for me. I knew people who were determined to succeed in classes, to outshine and beat A, but that wasn't me. I had eleven people in front of me, I was in no rush to be in charge, even though the life expectancy of the leader was about sixty years less than that of a normal person.

I was glad when History was over, that meant that I could go to the library and study for the next period. I loved the library, it was silent with tall dark wooden bookcases which were filled with books of every subject you could think of. The reason why I liked it so much was because I could just bury myself in my books and not really give too much of a damn about anything else going on around me.

"-can't be serious." I heard someone mutter nearby. It was A. I could distinguish his voice from anywhere and from his tone, I could tell right away that he was stressed about something. To this day, I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I did. I walked up to the table where he was sitting, hands on his head, leaning on the table over a large book.

"Hey," I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down, "I'm L."

Hey! This is LLF with a brand new story! YAY!

Please tell me what you think!