Lolly was sitting in the garden at the back of the hostel, it wasn't the nicest of places but it would have to do.
"For the record I think I'm in love," came the voice of a boy who sat down next to her.
He looked the same age as Lolly and had a nice shape, Lolly smiled up at him.
"Let me guess, 57th time today?" Lolly smiled.
"Sorry, bad line, I'm James, James Linden," he introduced himself.
"Lucie Fatoush," she smiled as she held out her hand and he shook it.
"So Lucie, d'you have a boyfriend?" James asked cheekily.
"One step at a time James," Lolly smiled as she got up.
"I guess I'll see you around then?" James smiled back hopefully.
"Maybe," Lolly said blandly before heading back inside, a smile on her face, maybe this place wasn't so bad after all and she couldn't wait until school tomorrow.
When Lolly got back to the room Rose was sitting on one of the beds up against the pillows at the top with a giggling Abi on her lap. She had a Torchwood laptop on her knees which could connect to the internet wherever you went and she was contacting Gwen via a video call.
"How are you guys doing then?" Gwen asked as Abi kept hitting two plastic bricks together as she laughed.
"Yeah it's going well, we're in the hostel, they're running the background checks now but we haven't been visited by the boss yet so it's probably best I get rid of the laptop for a while until we've been checked out." Rose informed her.
"Sure," Gwen agreed before saying a sweet goodbye to Abi and Rose turned the computer off.
"So why are you so smiley?" Rose asked Lolly.
"No reason," Lolly said, trying to disguise her happiness at meeting James Linden.
"Right," Rose smiled back seeing right through her.
"Why don't I take Abi for a bit?" Lolly suggested.
"Yeah ok," Rose agreed as she handed the baby girl over and whispering, "and I think we should call her Ana, and the same for us in case the room is bugged, and if we're contacting Gwen or the others, do it outside."
"Yeah alright," Lolly smiled, realising this was probably wise.
"Ok," Rose smiled before Lolly took Abi and they sat together on the floor, Abi lying on her play mat and reaching up to the animals dangling above her.
The inspection of the room by Rose's new boss went fine and the background checks followed through nicely so Rose was to start work in the morning and Lolly was going to head to school, Abi would stay at the school crèche which Gwen thought was safer than the hostel crèche.
The evening and night was nothing less than a nightmare for Rose and Lolly though, after discovering the room was indeed bugged it was difficult to calm Abi down because they had to call her Ana.
Abi took four hours to get to sleep and then she woke up screaming every hour and Rose knew it wasn't right, this wasn't what Abi should be like she was worse than Mikayla was now.
"I don't think she likes the strange environment," Lolly suggested as she cradled a crying Abi.
"Or not having her Mum around to comfort her," Rose continued as she handed Lolly Abi's bottle.
"Here we go," Lolly said gently as she placed the bottle in Abi's mouth and she ceased crying and cupped her hands sweetly round the top of the bottle.
Lolly took the bottle out several times, not wanting to have to deal with colic as well. When Abi woke again at seven o'clock Lolly got dressed into her school clothes after giving her a quick bottle. She grabbed everything she'd need for school as Rose got ready for the day at work.
"See you later Luc," Rose smiled as Lolly opened the door.
"Bye Reegs," Lolly smiled back before carrying Abi in her rocker bye out of the room.
Lolly dropped 'Ana' at the crèche first before heading to the head teacher's office where she was signed into form 10C. She headed along the corridor to find room 14 and headed inside to find her rowdy classmates who all stared at her and she noticed one boy in the corner that she knew, James Linden.
"Hey Lucie," he smiled as he was the first to walk over to her.
"Hiya," she smiled back, glad she may be in with even more of a chance now.
"So you starting here for good then?" he asked.
"Yep, should be here for a while," Lolly told him.
"Well if you need any help, anyone to show you around." James smiled seductively.
"James, what d'you think you're doing, come on babe," came the voice of another girl who came up behind him, took his hand and dragged him away.
"Let me guess, the school tosser James Linden let you believe he was single right?" another girl asked Lolly as she came and stood next to her.
"Something like that yeah," Lolly said, slightly saddened and embarrassed.
"Don't worry, he's like that, that's his on-off girlfriend Harriet "Harrie" Goodman who unfortunately can't live up to her name. She had no friends at all. I'm Lindsay by the way, Lindsay Jones," she smiled.
"Lucie Fatoush," Lolly smiled back.
"Nice to meet you Lucie, d'you want me to have a look at your timetable, we can see which lessons we're in together?" Lindsay suggested.
"Ok," Lolly said hopefully and they sat down at a spare table together.
In the ten minutes before registration Lolly was introduced to Lindsay's friend Roberta "Bobby" Kingsley and Lucie was in most of the same lessons as either Lindsay or Bobby luckily because she didn't want to be stuck around James and Harrie on her own.
