Chapter Five

Skye's backpack was heavy; full of text books and notebooks, pens pencils, paper, folders, a stapler and her lunch. Her mother lugged it up the stairs, following Skye to her locker.

"Here it is! Number 462!" Skye said cheerfully.

"Good." Lana sighed with relief as she pulled the backpack from her shoulders. "Now, I've got to hop off to my form class. You know where my office is if you need me."

"Yes mum."

"Have a good day."

"I will."

Lana pulled her daughter into a hug and kissed her on the cheek.

"Mum, don't embarrass me!"

"Mum, don't embarrass me!" Lana mimicked. "Okay schnooky wook 'ems, Don't forget to wear your hat when you go to play lunch my beautiful bubby girly wirly!" She shifted the shoulder strap of her laptop and headed down the stairs.

Skye turned to her locker and pulled out a scrap of paper on which her locker's key was written. Three turns anti clockwise… 29… and one clockwise before 12…. Then back to 3. Click.

She opened the large metal locker. A section for your bag, hat, books. An amnesty international sticker, on the inside of the door, it's corners peeling off. Smells sickly sweet like cheap deodorant. In went her terrifyingly big biology text book, and two smaller yet just as terrifying biology workbooks. Then the good old dictionary and thesaurus, her maths, English and ancient history textbooks, her note-book with sections for each subject and her drama text book. She took a roll of sticky tape out of her pencil case, zipped it up and chucked it into her locker as well. She taped her timetable onto the inside of her locker door, just above the second hand sticker. She shoved her bag and hat inside her locker, closed the door and locked it.

Smack.

"Ow!"

"What?"

Skye looked down at her finger- blood was rushing to them and gradually, they were swelling.

"Maybe you should watch where you put your fingers next time."

"I think I will." You cow! She thought. I'll show you a finger!

Skye later found out that the girl who used the locker beside hers and who was responsible for her throbbing fingers was Matilda Hunter, who wasn't having a very good day, and unfortunately had made a very bad first impression.

"Excuse me," Skye asked a tall, blond boy who was walking past. "Could you point me in the direction of the nurse's office?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, looking at Skye's injured fingers as if they were from another planet. "Go down this corridor until you see a water bubbler. Take a left there and the third door on the right is sick bay, it has sick bay written on the door, it's pretty hard to miss."

"Thank you."

"No problem. I hope your fingers get better."

Skye would late learn that that tall blonde haired boy who just gave her directions was Lucas Holden, Matilda Hunter's next-door-neighbour and boyfriend. She would learn that he came to Summer Bay last year, in the middle of third term and that he moved there with his brother and father (who was the physical education teacher.)

Skye walked down the long corridor, passing countless classrooms buzzing with gossiping girls until she found the water fountain and took a left.

He was right. Sick Bay was very hard to miss. With her good hand, Skye knocked on the door.

"Come on in dear," said a short, hunched over woman with white, permed hair and a large, hairy mole on the side of her neck. Her large, wounded square glasses were thick as planks and large enough to have their own president.

In sick bay there was also a boy who looked at least two years older than Skye. He had brown hair and glasses and a look on his face that spelt nausea in big green flashing letters.

"What's wrong sweet heart?" Skye's eyes flickered back to the little old woman.

"I've hurt my hand."

"Let me take a look dear." She took Skye's hand in her own and she squinted, then her eyes

widened.

"Can you bend them?" Skye bent them only the tiniest bit, causing her a large amount of pain.

"It hurts." She replied. "A lot."

"I think they may be broken, I broke two on my other hand last year when I was playing cricket." Skye mentioned to the nurse who was looking at the now very swollen fingers at many different angles.

"I think you might be right." The nurse replied. "Now put your hand on your shoulder, that's right. I'll get some ice for you. Now take a seat sweetheart, it won't be a minute."

The nurse waddled into a small room at the back of the main room. Skye realized at the moment how strongly the room smelt of disinfectant.

"I've never seen you around, are you new?" the nauseas teen asked.

"Yeah, today's my first day."

"What a way to start at a new school!" He replied. "I'm Robbie."

"Hi, Robbie. I'm Skye Sadler." She replied. "You don't look well."

"I don't feel well either, unfortunately… You're of no relation to the new drama teacher by any chance?"

"She's my mum."

"Really?" he said, and then after a thought or two, continued; "Oh, I see it now. Yeah, you can tell."

The nurse reappeared with a large bag of ice wrapped in a tea towel. "Put this on your fingers, dear."

Skye's fingers were now the width of cheerios, that is, the party food, dip in tomato sauce type, not the breakfast cereal. They were blotchy and red and were causing her a lot of pain.

"Now, I have some calls to make, so you two stay in here," the nurse told them. "If you need me I'll be in there okay?" she waddled into the small room and slammed the door behind her.

"How'd you do it?" Robbie asked, watching Skye cringe as she put the ice gently onto her fingers.

"The girl in the locker next to mine slammed her locker on my fingers."

"Ouch. What's her locker number? I'll giver her a detention if you want."

"463, but pass on the detention."

Robbie laughed. "That's my sister's locker! Please, allow me the pleasure of a legitimate reason to give her a detention, I'll be forever grateful…. Did she apologize?"

"No. Told me to watch where I put my fingers next time." Skye explained bitterly.

"Ooh. I see you met her when she was in a bad mood. She's in them quite often. Especially since - well, Mr. Hyde asked my Mum if out granny flat, which Matti had her heart set on moving into, could be rented out to the new dance teacher until they could find a more permanent place for her. Apparently she'd already started to unpack her stuff in there and everything."

"I s'pose that's make me a little annoyed too."

"She wasn't very happy about it, apparently."

"Apparently?"

"I don't live with them anymore. I share a flat with my wife, Tasha."

"Wife?" Skye blurted out, instantly regretting it. "I, er, I beg your pardon, I'm sorry I didn't mean offence - "

"Oh no, don't worry about it, we get that reaction quite often." He said, with an uneasy smile. He thought of Tasha, he would swear her 'bump' was growing each day.

Skye and Robbie sat in the nurse's office until the end of that period. They talked about music, things to do in Summer Bay, and Robbie asked her if she'd like to meet some of the locals some times. She replied with a yes, just as the bell rang.

And just as Lana burst through the door.

"Are you okay Skye?" she puffed, sweat droplets on her brow.

"Mum!"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, of course I am!" she replied. "I just hurt my fingers is all… Did you just run all the way from the performing arts block?"

"Sprinted." She bent over to catch her breath. Her ankle, which she'd injured on Saturday night had since healed, and she figured she mustn't have hurt to too bad. "Sister said something about a broken finger?"

The nurse reappeared grandly. "Possibly two."

She took the ice off Skye's hand and inspected the fingers, "The swellings gone down a bit… Hmm… Which hand do you write with?"

"My right." She said, looking down at it; broken, swollen, painful.

"What lesson do you have now?"

"Biology."

"Well that's no good." The nurse announced. "I think you should go home dear." She turned to Lana. "Can you take her home?"

"I have a class starting in two minutes." She replied, just as Dan walked past the nurse's office. "Oi! Dan!"

"Yeah?"

"You have a spare now, don't you?"

"That I do."

"Good man, brilliant man, wonderful man," Lana stated. "I need a favour."

Dan walked into sick bay.

"How bad d'you need it?

"I'll do anything," Lana replied, and a cheeky grin grew on Dan's face. "Okay, almost anything. I need someone to drive Skye home. She's hurt her hand and I haven't got any time I could take her home - I've got classes the rest of the day and duty at lunch and-"

Dan's eyes widened as the fell on Skye's swollen, purple-turning fingers. "Sure, sure. I'll take her home.

"Thank you, thank you so much Dan." Lana said, looking at her watch and then taking off down the corridor. "I owe you!"

"You owe me big time!" he called as she disappeared around a corner, running to the performing arts block.

Dan smiled at Skye. "I'm Dan, well, Mr. Baker during school hours."

"Gives a great contraception talk." Robbie added.

Dan blushed. "Counselor." He explained, and Skye nodded, understanding. "I'm parked just out here."

"See ya Robbie," Skye called behind her, following Dan out to the car park.

"I'll get your mum to get your bag for you," Skye handed him her locker combination so he could give it to her mum. Dan unlocked the car and Skye hopped into the passenger seat and strapped herself in.

"Mum went to a party at your place on Saturday night, didn't she?" Skye asked as Dan started to reverse out of the car park.

"Yeah. Unfortunately it was interrupted-"

"Mum told me. I'm glad nobody was too badly hurt."

"Me too."

"Mum told me all about it yesterday when she we drove here from the city." Skye began. "She sounds like she had a great time; she's really glad she's gotten to make friends so quickly. She was feeling a bit lonely last week."

"I know. Well, I'm glad I helped." Dan smiled. "Left here?"

"Yeah, and then its right, I think."

"What else did she say?"

"She told me all about your brother," Skye said, and Dan restrained a grin from growing on his lips. "Said he was a real nice bloke. She said Leah was really lovely too." She added quickly. "I think she's really glad we moved here."

"Is this it?"

"Yeah."

Dan turned into the driveway of the "paradise" apartment building. "Are you okay to go in by yourself?"

"Yeah. Thanks Mr. Baker."

"No problem."

After opening a series of doors and turning a key using her left hand, which was challenging in itself, not to mention really awkward and strange to do, Skye reached the flat she shared with her mother. There were cardboard boxes all over the floor, and a number of drama textbooks and plays sprawled across the kitchen table.

What a way to start grade eleven.

So that's the next chapter. Erm, from here on in its really not focused on one or even one group of characters - I've tried to incorporate most of the current characters, with a style of writing much like as if you were watching an episode of H&A.

Please R&R!