AN. Sorry it took a bit longer than I anticipated to get this up, I've been very busy over the weekend. But anyway here it is.

Enjoy....

I looked at my clock. 7:30 AM. I sat up; I didn't feel dizzy so I decided to go for a shower. I turned the light on in the bathroom and glanced in the mirror, I realised I had more colour in my face than I had the day before, this was a good sign. I had a shower, got dressed, dried my hair and went to find myself some breakfast. I got a bowl of cereal and had just finished it when my mum came into the kitchen.

"How are you feeling today? You look better than you did yesterday. Are you going to school? Are you sure you don't want to stay home?" She always asked lots of questions in a row without giving me time to answer, so I was used to remembering all the questions and giving her the answer to each one in the order she had asked them, this helped me a lot at school too, if a teacher was ranting at me I was able to answer all the questions in the right order and that usually left them with nothing to say.

"Mum, I'm fine. Yes I am going to school today, its Friday, I can manage school today and if I feel bad later I don't have anything to do over the weekend so I can just spend it in bed."

"You know sometimes I think you have more common sense than I do!"

I just laughed, even though I sometimes thought that too! "Mum, I better get to school, see you later,"

"Bye Lyd."

I walked to Kelly's house faster than usual despite the fact that I was early, I didn't want her leaving without me plus it was raining and I wasn't too happy about getting wet. I knocked at her door and her older brother James answered. He was one of the only people outside my family and very close friends that I felt comfortable around, that was probably because I had known him for a reasonably long time, and he was sort of like an older brother to me. I hadn't seen him in a while, he had been travelling with his girlfriend for the last six months. He must be about 20 now.

Kelly had a large family that always seemed to be getting bigger. She had four brothers and two sisters, she was the second oldest at 17, then the twins Erin and Lucy were 15, Tom was 13, Pippa was 8, and Stevie the youngest was 5 years old. I remembered how I had been jealous of Kelly when we became friends, I thought she was so lucky to have a big family with lots of children around, I remembered she had offered to swap families when I had told her this.

James stepped out of the doorway to let me in.

"Come in, Lydia, you'll get soaked out there," Then he turned his head in the direction of the stairs "Kel, Lydia's here, you'd better hurry up"

"Oh ok, I'll be there in a minute, is Lydia ok?" He turned back to me looking a little confused.

"Yeh I'm fine, just a bit wet! Don't rush, I'm early"

I followed James into the lounge, it was always busy in Kelly's house, mornings were the worst, Kelly's parents had to get six children off to three different schools and the get themselves to work all before 9 O'clock. Though it wasn't as bad as it used to be when I first become friends with Kelly, that was 4 years ago so Stevie had only been a baby, Pippa had just started at pre-school, Tom was 9 and the twins were 11, and were all too young to get to school on their own, Kelly and I used to walk with James and his friends so that was easier on her parents. These days everyone walks with a group of friends apart from Stevie who gets dropped off by Kelly's mum on her way to work. This morning however things were a bit different.

"Aww, but its raining!" That was Pippa; she's at that age where they moan about everything.

"I'll get soaked if I walk today!" Lucy, just starting to notice boys and grasp the idea of looking good to impress them.

"My guitar will get all wet and fall apart!" Tom, not the brightest of the family, but definitely the most creative.

Kelly's mum looked like she was ready to pull her hair out.

"Don't worry mum, I'll take Erin, Lu and Tom to school if you want, and you can take Pippa and Stevie, alright?" Kelly's mum must have been happy to have her eldest son back home and able to help.

Just then Kelly came downstairs and burst through the doorway. "Have you looked out the window? It's chucking it down out there, we can't walk!"

I felt really bad that Kelly had said this, especially after her mum and brother had just sorted out the school run. "Don't worry, I've got my umbrella in my bag, we can use that,"

"No way it looks really windy out there, we'll end up like Mary Poppins!"

James thought about it for a moment.

"Mum if I take the 7 seater then I can take Kel and Lydia as well as Erin, Lu and Tom."

So it was settled James was taking the five of us. He went to get the car keys. I stood there for a minute not knowing quite what to do. Then Kelly's mum handed me three backpacks (I guessed they belonged to Erin, Lucy and Tom) and asked me to go put them in the car. Glad to have something to do I rushed out of the lounge with the three bags over my shoulder and took them to the car. The car was in the drive and James was already there putting Tom's Guitar into the boot.

"Oh, hey Lydia, give them to me I'll chuck them in the boot with this guitar."

"Ok, here you go," I handed him the bags "How was travelling?"

"Yeh, cool thanks, I got back on Monday"

"Yeh, Kelly said you were back, where did you go?"

"All over, Spent about 2 months backpacking through Europe, then had a month in Australia and New Zeland, went up to Japan and China, had a couple of weeks there, then flew out to America and went to most of the states over there, that took us about a month and a half, then we came home."

"Wow I bet you had a great time, I'd love to see the world."

"I thought you had been to most of the countries in the world?"

"Well I guess, but it's not the same when you go on holiday as it is if you live there."

"I suppose it is a bit different. I've got loads of pictures though; you'll have to see them sometime."

"Yeh that sounds cool."

The front door opened and eight people came out, four of which came towards the car I was standing next to, and the others went to the car next to it and all got in a drove off. James shut the boot and went to the driver's seat, Kelly and I jumped in the back, our usual seats, and dropped our bags on the floor. I took the opportunity to check my timetable for the day (I had English, Maths, break, then Science, lunch, Drama and finally History, not a bad day.) The other three were still arguing about who was going to sit in the front as James started the car and threatened to drive off without them, they soon got in when they realised he wasn't joking.

The drive was very short, James wasn't a typical 'boy racer' but he went fast enough. It would have been a short journey anyway. I thought it was a bit of a pointless journey, all five of us went to the same school and it wouldn't have taken us very long to walk, we wouldn't have got too wet. But when we arrived at school, nice and dry compared to most of the students, I was quite glad we'd had a lift.

We all got out, the other three got their bags out of the boot, so Kelly and I made our escape. We walked towards our lockers, we had English and Maths together so we got the books we needed for both subjects then headed to English.

"Are you sure you are feeling better today?"

"Yeh, I'm fine, and no I'm not just saying that, I really am fine!"

"Good, well you'll never guess who was me asking about you yesterday,"

"What? Who was asking about me? And what were they asking?"

"Didn't I tell you who's in my DT class?"

"No, but I thought you were going to tell me about someone asking about me"

"I am. He was asking me about you in DT,"

"Who was?"

"Michael!"

"What! What was he asking? What did you tell him? Why was he asking about me? He's in your DT class?" Like my mother, I sometimes asked lots of questions without giving people time to answer.

"He asked me if you were ok. I told him you had gone home. I guess he was concerned about you, yes he is in my DT class."

"Ok, back up, what happened? What exactly did he say?"

"Well after you left to walk home, there wasn't any point in going back to the café so I decided to head to DT early, I went in and sat down, and that's when Michael came in. He said you had nearly fallen over in History or something, I was tempted to tell him that's normal for you," I elbowed her in the rib, I hoped she hadn't said that to him. "Don't worry I didn't actually say it, just thought it! But then he said that he saw you at lunch in the hall and that you looked very white then he saw me take you to the office, and didn't know if you were ok, he sounded really concerned."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Anyway, I told him that you had gone home, and he said he hoped you got better soon, and asked if I had any idea what had made you ill so suddenly. I said I didn't know. And that's all we got time for because the lesson started."

"Really? Why didn't you call me and tell me about it?"

"I did call you, last night, to see how you were, but your dad said you had been in bed all afternoon and that you were asleep."

It was too late to ask anymore questions, we were at our English class. I opened the door, most of the class were already sat at their desks but there were still a few people hanging around by the doorway and sitting on desks chatting. I followed Kelly through the little crowd of people by the door and felt my eyes grow wide and my mouth drop. I had forgotten Michael was in this class; luckily he was facing the other way with his head in a book so he didn't see me stumble over a foot as I made my way to my seat. Our English teacher, Mrs. Spenser was a nice teacher and one of those rare ones that let you do what you want as long as the work gets done as well. Last year she had let us listen to our iPods while we did some work and hopefully she would do the same this year. As well as letting us do what we want she also lets us sit with who we want, she believes that if you are with your friends you feel more relaxed and are able to come up with better ideas - vital in English. Naturally I sat next to Kelly, we were at a table at the back of the class, I had chosen this particular desk because it's an excellent place to spy on people, and by people I obviously mean Michael. Kelly was talking to Jack, she fancied him and had done for a year now, but was too shy to ask him out and just hoped that if she talked to him enough he might ask her out. I put my books down on the table and sat down. At the exact same moment that I moved my chair Michael shut his book and turned. It was as if he had heard my chair move but that was impossible; there was so much chatter in the classroom he would have needed hearing stronger than a bat to hear my chair move. And yet there he was turning round on his chair and looking straight at me. He was two rows in front of me and a table to the left so it was too far to actually talk but he smiled and mouthed 'Are you ok?' to me, I simply smiled back and nodded, then he did a thumbs up at me, turned around so he was facing the whiteboard and opened his book again.

English dragged. When Mrs. Spenser had finally made it to the class, ten minutes late, she briefly explained that we would be writing autobiographies next week and told us to get thinking about things we wanted to put in them and our homework was to find pictures and anything else we wanted to go in it. I made brief notes on my pad but that only took 15 minutes, which meant I had about half an hour to do nothing, well not so much nothing, I just stared at the back of his head trying to use the power of my mind to get him to turn around again. My mind obviously wasn't strong enough. It didn't work.

Maths was boring, we had started algebra, I really didn't like it, and it confused me, having letters in maths, just not right. Science was even worse, chemical compounds, yuck! It was just the idea of the afternoon that kept me going, drama was my favourite lesson, then History, a whole hour sitting next to Michael. That would be good.

I made my way to lunch after science, we had been let out early and the hall was virtually empty. I got a jacket potato with cheese and went to the table my group of friends sit at, I was the first one there so I sat down and looked at the homework I had been given in maths. As usual the maths work didn't seem as bad once I was out the classroom. I sat there eating my potato and doing my homework while I waited for the others to join me. I managed to answer the first 10 questions before anyone else had sat at the table. Then Kelly came over with Julia and sat next to me at the table, I decided to put my homework away and ask the girls how their morning had been. I was standing before the bell had even gone. I probably looked very eager but every one at the table knows how much I enjoy drama.

"I've got Science next, can't be too bad."

"Don't bet on it, if you're doing the same as me, then its chemical compounds!"

"Oh, what! First week back and they are already trying to kill me! I'm tempted to skip it, what have you got?"

"Drama,"

"Oh, you wont want to skip that will you?"

"Nope, we only get two lessons of drama a week, I'm not missing one!"

"I guess I'll have to go to science then, see you later."

"OK, I'll meet you by the lockers at the end of the day,"

Kelly headed to the science lab and I made my way to the drama theatre. It was locked, I looked at the clock on the wall opposite I was three minutes early, I sat down on the floor next to the door, leant my head against the wall and closed my eyes. I was so tired I didn't know why, I had slept for a very long time last night, I guessed I was still a bit jet lagged from flying home on Sunday.

"Are you feeling bad again?" Damn that voice was unmistakeable. I opened my eyes and saw Michael sitting on the floor leaning against the wall opposite me. I wish he wouldn't creep around like that.

"No. I feel fine, just a bit tired."

"I'm glad. I heard you went home yesterday,"

"Yeh I did,"

"Why?"

"I didn't feel well."

"Oh what was wrong?"

"Felt sick, had a headache, and didn't want to do PE!"

"Don't you like PE?"

I scrunched up my nose, "I'm not very athletic." he laughed at that. I didn't really like the idea of him laughing at me, but the sound of it.. wow. I couldnt find a reason to be upset.

Finally the drama teacher arrived along with the rest of the class so we all went in and sat down.

AN. Thankyou for reviewing, hope you liked it, will out the next one up soon.