Kait Landy walked through her bedroom doorway with a huge grin, mostly because she was high, but also because her parents were not home. She had lucked out big time because, if her parents had caught her one more time, they were sending her away for help, instead of one-a-week visits to her psychiatrist, Dr. Pressimone. She had seen the brochures. One was called Mission: Repair. It was as corny as it sounded. They went around doing "good" deeds for people, while they were apparently fixing what went wrong in their troubled lives. The other school, though, seemed worse. It was Horizons, some backwoods excuse for a rehabilitating school. They did physical stuff that Kait used to be great at, but her aptitude for getting burnt out right before the game changed her athletic performance. She didn't care anymore. Her life was proven useless to everybody including herself when she crashed her car with her brother in it. It wasn't even Brian's death that made her numb to everything. It was the way her parents looked at her afterwards, as well as her friends. She hadn't talked to her best friend Daniele in months. Then her parents left her with a relative for awhile. They said they wanted to check out Santa Monica as their future living arrangements and setting up their business. They were away for two months. Her scary Uncle Rick, who she was staying with, started to force her to do everything that he wanted. He was single and didn't have anyone to take care of his house, so that was what she did for five weeks straight. Whatever else he wanted, she had to do it. If she didn't, he beat her up. If she did, he beat her up anyway. She decided to run away, but when she ended up in the subway, she met an older guy named Alex and, for the next three weeks, she stayed with him and told her parents that she was staying with a new friend, "Alexa." After that, all she cared about was getting high with Alex, who was a drugdealer.
Kait started laughing loudly to herself for no reason at all. She turned on the TV so loud that she didn't hear her parents come in. When her father walked through the door, his facial expression told Kait everything.
"And this is your bed. Number 7." Katherine Cabot said pleasantly.
"It looks uncomfortable." Kait replied flatly.
"It is. Peter probably thinks it's, like, building up our character or values or whatever. The food could use some major improvement, too."
"The one thing I was excited about was the departure from my mother's unfortunate habit of using ketchup with everything."
"Well, you'll be lucky if you get anything like home cooking."
"Whatever. Listen, I'm really tired. I was thinking; maybe, I could just crash for like an hour?"
"Yeah, that's okay, I guess. Just remember that I'll be back at 5:30 to take you to your first group."
"Mm-hmm," Kait was barely listening, as she hit the pillow. After three hours of driving, a 6 hour plane ride, a farewell to her slightly woeful parents, a physical, and a tour, Kait was ready to sleep for the next two weeks.
After what seemed like a two-minute nap, Kait woke up to three girls, changing into clean clothes. She had seen the blonde girl, Shelby, and the enthusiastic brunette in the outer office of the principal's office, Peter Scarbrow. There was another girl, though with light brown hair. She was talking to Shelby. She looked over to Kait and asked, "Well, you know, I don't think we've met. My name is Daisy Lipenowski, formerly Graves. May I ask who you are?"
"I'm Kait. I just came in today…What's with the Graves?"
"Huh? Oh, the name. Don't worry, I wasn't married or anything."
"What, all of a sudden, you don't count the Grim Reaper?" Shelby asked sarcastically.
"Nope."
Kait decided to introduce herself to the most normal person there so far, the enthusiastic brunette.
"Hi, I'm Kait."
"I guessed that, since you were never sleeping in my dorm before." Juliette solemnly answered.
Shelby laughed, "Uh-oh, looks like the princess traded her uppers in for downers. This is the best thing that has happened in this school so far."
"Shelby, just do us all a favor and shut up for once." Juliette spat out.
Shelby had a slightly stunned but trademark smirking expression on her face as she plopped on her bed and took out one of her homework assignments.
Kait just rolled her eyes as she was realizing that she was in a school full of convicted felons and mental patients. She figured that they were not really friend material. She glanced over to Daisy, who was flipping through a magazine. Kait, hoping for a Vogue or at least an In Touch, asked what magazine it was. Daisy's flat answer of Mortuary Sciences Monthly told Kait that she was going to have to go to someone a bit more human for normal literature.
Kat walked in with a triumphant grin on her face. They all looked up expectantly.
"If you're to tell us that we're going on some four-day kind of hike or mission, you better wipe the grin off your face because it will be a huge contributing factor to your demise." Shelby proclaimed.
"Don't worry, there's no hike. Something good is finally happening for us for once, though," she replied, still grinning.
"What is it?" Shelby implored skeptically. She knew Kat's and her taste for fun were different.
"Jules, listen up. Horizon is hosting a black and white affair for the corporate spenders and their friends. Supposedly one of these 'friends' is like a movie star or something."
"And what does that have to do with me?" Juliette asked, not at seeming as interested as she should be.
"Everything! We all know your background in parties for the upper class, being that your one of them. So, when Peter told me that the entire school had to help out, I got the Cliffhangers signed up for planning and hosting. That means no pots and pans, no chopping wood, nothing like that!"
"Kat, um, I don't know…"
"Juliette, this kind of thing is your life!"
"Look, don't worry about her. We'll do it," Shelby replied hastily. "Queenie, if I have to do pots and pans because of you, you will be wishing you were in the mood you're in right now after I'm done with you."
"Jules, what's wrong?" Kat asked with true concern in her eyes.
"Um, I don't think I'll be here for it."
"What?"
"I'm going home for a month. My mother wants to inspect my progress in Horizon and Peter said that the month might be a good idea for me to do some healing with my mother."
"What! That definitely doesn't sound like Peter."
"Yeah, I thought so, too," Juliette said glumly.
"Jules, you don't have to go if you don't want to," Shelby uncharacteristically interjected with some concern.
"Well, I don't, really, but then Mother said that if I exhibited such insolent behavior such as refusing to visit, she would seriously consider permanently removing me from Horizon. That's the last thing I want. So, I have to go."