I woke up earlier than I intended to, probably because I crashed out when I got back to the dorm. I had run into another couple of students on my way through.

One was a freckle faced waif of a girl, with short dark hair, who scuttled past me shyly with a Polaroid camera clutched in her hands. And a sweet looking blonde girl who I assumed was the victim of the whiteboard vandalism, since I spotted a gold crucifix around her neck. She seemed quite nice. She stopped to talk to me but I didn't chat for long.

I usually preferred to wake and bake but I figured I'd better wait until I knew how the land lay and whether there were security patrols before sparking up. It also made me think about the bloke from yesterday. In a town full of oddities, he actually seemed pretty normal.

I heaved myself out of bed reluctantly, pushing a hand through my hair. I took a look at myself in the mirror beside my bed. I guess I'm okay looking. I've got long black hair that I usually plait and sling over my shoulder, brown eyes and nose with a turned up tip which I like. My mouth is small and my eyebrows probably need plucking but I don't go in for that sort of thing. My style is fairly boyish. I like baggy jeans, hoodies but I do wear cute t-shirts – to balance out the tomboy aspect, I guess.

I made my way to the communal shower rooms – gross. I hated this kind of thing. It's what puts me off swimming. Still, one needs a way to get clean.

The other good thing about being up so early is that no one else was awake to disturb me, therefore I could avoid a Carrie-like scene. I stood under the water for a long time, washing all the jet lag off of me. I'd only gotten into Oregon yesterday and travelled straight to Blackwell. Stupid idea, really. But I wanted to have one last night of freedom, so I'd gotten blasted with some friends.

Back in my room, I started the arduous task of drying my hair. I liked it long, but I hated the work that went with it. I thought that I might have been disturbing other students but I quickly dismissed the idea, thinking that we'd all be making a hell of a lot of noise over the term.

I did a pretty shoddy job of drying my hair, so I just plaited it like usual and got dressed. As I said, I'm pretty boyish so I stuck on a pair of boyfriend style jeans, a white long sleeved top, with a black short sleeved one layered on it, then chose a green hoodie to keep me warm. I usually wear Vans or Converse, so I just picked the first pair of shoes that came to hand.

I also started to unpack a few more boxes, slinging items onto my desk, shoved some under the bed. As I was picking a few more bags out of my plastic box, I heard a shy knock at the door.

'Come in!' I called, quickly shoving the weed into my pockets.

The door opened and there stood the shy churchy girl from yesterday.

'Oh, hey,' I said, standing to greet her. ''Scuse the mess.'

'It's all right,' she smiled at me. 'My room's the same. I'm Kate, by the way.' She stepped into the room, having a little glance around, like she didn't want to offend me by staring.

'Oh!' She made a startled noise. 'Is-is that a snake?' She peered closely at Yahtzee's tank.

'Yeah, that's Yahtzee,' I said, walking over the tank, unlocking the glass door. 'He's a sweetheart.'

I turned over his hide and fished him out. He stayed balled up in my hand, probably irritated at the disturbance.

Kate took a step back. 'Don't worry, I'm not going to chuck him at you. It'd hurt him, and scare you, a bit of a lose-lose all round, wouldn't you say?' I said, as I unravelled him and held him between my hands, keeping him balanced.

'His patterns are lovely,' Kate said quietly. She still looked scared. 'What type of snake...?'

'He's a Royal Python,' I explained, holding him up to my face. 'Though here you guys call them ball pythons.'

'I've never held a snake before,' she said, still looking nervous, but also curious.

'Do you want to?' I asked, holding him out to her. I guess she wasn't feeling that brave, since she jumped back a little. 'Maybe not today.'

'Maybe not,' she said with a laugh. 'Sorry to be such a scaredy-cat.'

'Nah, don't worry about it,' I said, putting Yahtzee back in his tank and locking the door. 'So, what can I do you for?'

'Sorry, what?' she looked confused. Maybe my accent was too thick for her? People did say that I talked fast, perhaps she couldn't understand me.

'How can I help?' I asked.

'Oh! I just wanted to invite you to breakfast. Classes start today and I thought a good breakfast would set me on the right path.' She was very softly spoken, her voice oddly soothing. 'I heard your hair dryer and thought I'd introduce myself.'

'Yeah, sure!' I suddenly felt ravenous. 'What's the breakfast like here?'

'It's good! They have fruit and cereals...' She gabbled on and on about the food as we walked to the canteen. Her conversation petered out somewhere around the time we spotted that rich kid snob from yesterday, Nathan.

He was leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette, and he looked, well, exhausted. Like he'd been up all night. He likely had been. Vic said he supplied their parties, he probably snorted a few lines up his spoiled nose and tweaked out all night. He was giving Kate an odd look, sort of like he fancied her, but more than that. Something akin to want. Odd, although I suppose I shouldn't have been at all surprised.

We passed by a noticeboard that had tons of missing person posters tacked up. Nodding towards it, I asked Kate about it. 'Did you know this person?'

'No, I wasn't at Blackwell when she went missing,' she said, shaking her head. 'It's awful news though, I pray she's found safe.'

When we got to the canteen it was fairly dead and Kate wasn't wrong about the food. I made myself a fruit salad that bordered on unhealthy with all the yoghurt I chucked on top of it.

We made idle chit chat while we ate, Kate telling me about the photography class she was taking, taught by some hot shot who used to be famous. I told her about my classes and we talked about literature for a while.

I spotted the little dark haired pixie from yesterday, and Kate called her over to join us.

'Max, this is Charley. Charley, Max,' Kate introduced us.

'Hey Max, what's up,' I said, giving her a smile. I always want to bring shy people out of their shells and this one was painful.

'Hi Charley,' she barely spoke, more like whispered.

'Max is taking photography too,' Kate said proudly.

'Ah cool, so you're both photo nerds?' I pointed at the Polaroid Max had placed on the table. 'Retro girl, huh?'

Max looked embarrassed, her cheeks reddening.

'Hey man, I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it,' I said apologetically. 'I know jack shit about photography, so you're already on a winner by default.'

She still looked uncomfortable, and I regretted being so over-familiar with someone I had just met.

I looked around to find a conversation starter since I had just murdered the previous one. I saw another noticeboard and there were some more of those missing person posters.

'Did you know this missing girl, Max?' I asked. 'Lots of these posters around.'

'Oh...no...I wasn't here then,' she replied, her blush having receded by now.

'Yeah Kate said she wasn't here then either. Wonder who put them up?'

'It's really awful,' Max said, her face full of concern. 'I hate to think what could have happened to her.'

'Yeah, fuckin' awful,' I said. 'So young as well. I hope she just left town and nothing bad happened.'

Kate and Max nodded in agreement.

I hated seeing Missing Person posters, they always make me sad. My mum sometimes prosecutes people who were arrested for kidnapping. I'd snuck a look into her files once, and some of the evidence was fucking gruesome. People are sick, what they do to fuel their fantasies. And they always have some crazy defence, they come up with all kinds of bullshit. Like, 'she was pure, and I wanted to help keep her that way'. Yeah right, like they'd stay pure around you, you sick fucker.

Since my second line of conversation had depressed everyone, I left to organise my bag for my first lesson. There was a bit of a spring in my step as I went back to my room, I was genuinely looking forward to English. I spotted Vic hanging out on a bench outside the dorm, having a cigarette with Nathan. This geezer really got around, he was everywhere.

'Hey, Vic,' I said, and nodded to Nathan in greeting.

'Charley,' she said warmly. She was clearly a huge bitch, but she was nice to me, and that was a good thing. You never want to get on the wrong side of an alpha bitch, they always dig up some personal shit about you. They're worse than a private investigator.

'You two never met properly, did you?' she asked, turning to Nathan.

'No, but you're my competition, right?' I said to him. 'Don't worry, I won't put you out of business, I only push green, anyway.'

'Doesn't bother me, but it'd probably bother Frank,' he said, his finger tapping against his leg relentlessly. Dude was a bag of nerves. Never stopped fidgeting, it was infuriating to watch. I wanted to smack his hand.

'Who's Frank?'

'Arcadia's only dealer.'

'Well, he fucking was, but now he isn't, yeah?' I didn't mean to sound so aggressive, his tone just bothered me.

He puts his hands up in mock surrender. 'Only saying.'

'Please, don't argue you two, it's far too early,' Vic said, placing a hand on Nathan's shoulder. So she said they weren't together, but they were close, that's for sure. Quite sweet, actually.

Two rich kids together – who else would go for them? Other people's lives were worlds apart from theirs. No one would understand them, except each other.

'Maybe I should meet this Frank guy – where does he live?' I asked, sweetening my tone somewhat.

'Anywhere you see an RV, that's where he is,' Nathan said, pulling out yet another cigarette, offering it to Vic, who declined, then to me, to my surprise. I took it from him and lit it. 'He's got a dog, too. Never without that fucking mutt.'

Dog? Maybe he was that same bloke from yesterday.

'Is he tall? Blonde? Tattoos all over his neck?' I asked, taking a drag. I do love a cigarette on a cold, crisp morning.

'Yeah, that sounds like him. Where'd you see him?' Nathan asked.

'On the beach, yesterday afternoon,' I said. 'I was having a smoke and he told to me to move up the beach. Come to think of it...he did mention his name was Frank. I just remembered.'

'There you go then, you've met your guy.'

'Hm, I just thought he was a nosey fucker, I was kind of rude to him.'

'You? Rude? No way,' he said with a smirk. Twat.

'Yes, shocking I know,' I said, rolling my eyes. 'It's my English charm, you see. Works every time.'

I checked the time on my phone. 'Fuck, I gotta dash. See you around.'

I have never spent this much time talking to anyone since I came here. Everywhere I went, seemed somebody wanted to chit chat. I was very nearly late for class, but made it just in time.

Finally, some normality.