Joan was at school that day, sitting through a particularly bad English lesson. She was thankful that both Sophie and Elyse were in her class. Mrs. Lawson was going insane at the class that day. She had made them do a spelling test, which Joan hadn't done since year 6. Then she gave them a lecture on one of the most boring topics in the world...economics.

Joan was happy to survive half the class without being called upon, either to be punished, or humiliated. But Joan should have realised her luck had run out. The teacher handed around sheets of paper. Joan glanced down at hers, and gave a loud groan. It was an assignment. On her second day at a new school, she got an assignment.

"Joan Girardi, what on earth is wrong?" asked the fiery teacher.

"Nothing miss," said Joan as politely as she could

"It doesn't sound like nothing. Now tell me, are you dying a painful death?"

"No, miss,"

"Have you been told your one true love has died?"

"No miss,"

"Then quite frankly, I don't understand what the problem is, so I'm giving you a detention. That's for disrupting my class."

Joan opened her mouth to protest, but Elyse turned around and shook her head very seriously. So Joan sat back for the rest of the lesson, listening to Mrs. Lawson explain the assignment. They had to go in groups of four, and construct a speech on a teenage issue such as smoking.

Joan was relieved to hear the bell go. English was last period, so Joan was prepared to be gone in a blink of an eye. However, Sophie called her back. Joan met up with her friend, who was also with Elyse, and some other guy Joan had recognized from some of her other classes.

"Joan this is Jay. We're going to do our assignment together, so you wanna join us?" asked Elyse.

"Sure," said Joan.

"OK. Well we've already decided to go to your house. Jay lives out in the country, Sophie's parents are gong through a divorce and it's nasty," Joan looked over at Sophie, and she saw the pretty girl give a sad nod, "and I practically live at Sophie's because me and my parents, well, we don't get on," finished Elyse.

Joan felt perplexed by the whole situation. She had had no say in anything. She thought it was a bit rude for them just to expect that Joan would be OK with the entire situation. Joan wasn't. She hadn't told them that her brother was a paraplegic, and that could be a huge shock to them, and just at lunch time Joan had heard Elyse and Sophie talk about that wierd nerdy guy who had just started at Arcadia High, and Joan wasn't suprised to hear it was Luke. She still hadn't told them that she and Luke were related.

But then Joan thought about the good thing that could come from it. At last she could admit that Luke was her brother, and Kevin was a paraplegic.

"OK, I'm sure that'll be fine. But come over on Thursday afternoon. I have detention tomorrow,"

"Cool as Joan," chorused the other three, as they headed to the school doors.

Joan sighed and left to go home. It had been a hard day.