Chapter 2

I will not apologise for the Very Potter musical reference. Or the mean girls reference.

Sebastian glanced at his timetable. His first lesson was English, what a waste of a subject. He decided not to ask the angry receptionist for directions, he'd find his way by himself. Luckily, Dalton was easy to navigate around. He'd been given a map but felt that Sebastian Smythe was too good for maps. All of his belongings, except his schoolbag, would be taken to his room while he was in lessons.

When he arrived at the classroom, a moody teacher was in the middle of what sounded like an incredibly boring lecture about grammar. He wandered into the room and over to an empty desk, where he swung his bag under the table and put his feet up with his arms folded behind his head. He leaned back in his chair, resting it on the desk behind his. Overall, he gave off the picture of a bored, uncaring student who could name a million places he'd rather be. The rest of the class were sitting stiffly upright in their chairs.

The teacher walked over to Sebastian's desk and hit the ruler that was clenched in his fist against the wood. "Why are you late?"

"I prefer to think of it as everybody else being early."

"Are you the new kid?"

"No, I just joined this class for the fun of it." He drawled lazily, rolling his eyes. He then addressed the rest of the class. "They let him be a teacher? I thought you needed some brain cells to qualify, but obviously I'm mistaken."

The other students looked slightly more relaxed than they had a moment ago and Sebastian could tell that most were trying to hold back laughter.

The teacher's face turned bright red with anger and his grip on the ruler tightened.

"Remove yourself from my classroom, Mr. Smythe."

"With pleasure." Sebastian scoffed. "It's not like I'm going to miss out on learning anything with a teacher like you."

Sebastian decided that he'd had enough lessons for that day and instead walked to the East tower of the castle, where his room would be. When he arrived, his bags were all placed neatly on one of the beds. He assumed that this would be his bed. He wondered what his roommate was going to be like, and whether he'd be able to keep up his pretence for much longer. It had felt strange talking to a teacher like that. Chris had always respected them and had never made comments like those even if he'd thought them. Chris had never got in trouble for anything before Vanessa. But Chris was gone now and Sebastian had taken over. So he'd better get used to it.

He curled up in his new bed and took a nap. Might as well, he thought, he had nothing better to do. Being a sarcastic prick was more work than it seemed.

When he woke up, there was a boy lying on the bed next to his. The boy had light blonde hair that swept in front of his eyes and was typing on his laptop.

"So sleeping beauty is finally awake. Hi, I'm Jeff, your roommate. It's nice to meet you."

"Don't say it's nice to meet me. You don't know that." Sebastian mumbled, still half asleep.

"I already know I'm going to like you. Nobody has ever stood up to Mr. Lambert and you did it within five minutes of arriving. I swear that man is evil."

"How do you know what I did?" Sebastian asked, confused. He didn't remember seeing this boy in the English room.

"Word travels fast around Dalton, everybody knows. Someone even has a video of it which is probably on Facebook by now. Besides, I have friends in that class and they won't shut up about it."

Sebastian smirked; maybe he was going to like this school after all.

The two boys sat on their respective beds getting to know one another for a while. Sebastian made up his entire life story, about how his father owned his own business and they had lived in Paris since he was 3 years old. The truth was that Chris had never even left the country, they'd never been able to afford to, but Paris had always been a dream of his. He felt a twinge of guilt about lying so completely to his new friend, but pushed the feeling down. This was his life now, he wouldn't feel guilt. It was easier for him to believe that he'd changed into a completely different person, and all of this fantasy that he was talking about was his past.

At ten past five, Jeff glanced at the clock on the wall and swore loudly. He then ran out of the door calling back to Sebastian, who only caught parts of it.

"Warbler practice... late... come if you want."

Sebastian didn't know what a Warbler was, but wanted to find out, so he hurried along after Jeff towards a room with a group of about ten boys wearing Dalton blazers. Jeff was stood in front of them, red-faced and panting from his run to the room. Sebastian was okay, having been the star of his old schools track team, he didn't even break a sweat.

"Let this meeting of the Warblers officially begin." Spoke one of the members at the centre of the group. Three of them walked over to a desk at what must be the front of the room and sat there, studying the rest of them. Their eyes lingered on Sebastian.

"You must be the new guy." One of them said. "It's strange; nobody normally transfers this close to the end of the year. I'm David, these are Wes and Thad" He gestured to the two others on either side of him. "We are the Warblers head council."

"Well I must be a special case then. Anyway, what the hell is a Warbler?"

"A Warbler is a particularly good finder." The boy standing next to Jeff remarked. Everybody looked at him questioningly and he turned bright red. "Nobody gets it? I'll just shut up now."

Sebastian laughed at the random reference. "Next you're going to start quoting Mean Girls."

"That movie is so fetch. I'm Nick."

"I'm Sebastian."

"I know, I'm in your English class."

David banged his Gavel on its block to call order back to the group, which had dissolved into conversations.

"The new boy wants to see the Warblers in action. Let's show him. Uptown Girl, go."

As the performance went on, Sebastian realised that a way to fit in at this school was to join these Warblers, and that's what he'd do. Because Sebastian always got what he wanted."