Manny stood and looked in the mirror in her new "room". Everyone on the exchange had to wear the uniform from the school they were attending. Manny screwed up her nose and played with the skirt. The girls had to wear skirts at this school, unless they wanted to wear the daggiest pants Manny had ever seen. The skirt Manny was wearing was dark navy with a white and maroon check through it. The t-shirt was a maroon polo and the jumper was a woolen v-neck. There was a soft knock on her door. It was Katy.
"Hey. You ready to go?" she asked Manny.
"Uh… one minute" Manny said, quickly brushing her hair and putting on a hat. She then picked up her bag and they walked out of the house together.
"Hey…" Manny said, noticing Katy's clothes. "How come your uniform is different to mine… and you get to wear pants." Manny frowned.
"Oh. Mine is the old uniform," Katy said, smiling. Manny returned the smile, but secretly couldn't wait to get back to being with Emma.
The two girls walked along in silence for a few minutes, before they were joined by a boy, who came running up from behind them.
"Hey Katy. Sorry I'm late, but you'd waited" the boy said, giving Katy a kiss on the cheek.
"Hey. Sorry Brent. But we're gonna be late if you don't start hurrying up" Katy said, smiling at the guy and poking his arm. "Oh, and this is Manny. My exchange student from Canada. Manny, this is Brent."
Manny waved to Brent. "Hey" she said, smiling. Brent and Katy chatted the rest of the way to school and Manny walked along, pretending to be interested in whatever it was they were on about.
Manny, Katy and Brent walked into the school, and Katy and Brent directed Manny over to their group of friends, where Manny was happy to find Emma, JT and Toby sitting around. Katy did the whole introduction thing for the few people that were there and Manny sat and eyed off the guys, to see who she could hook up with. Kyle was fairly good looking, and not too loud or quiet. But Katy then started to talk to him about their group date that they went on on the weekend and Manny realise he was taken. Vince was ok looking but not Manny's type, and he was too busy trying to get it on with Nat. It was then that Marco, Jake, Paige and Devon walked over. Manny eyed off Jake, but noticed Marco was doing the same thing. He didn't give of a feeling of gayness to Manny, but then again, who could tell these days? The bell for their first class then rang, and everyone just sat there. Over came, Ellie and Cara, who had linked their arms looked like they'd become best friends, and Craig and Benny, who were deep in conversation about music. "Lucky them. Getting someone they actually get along with…" Manny thought. Then over walked Jay and Alex, with Toby's host family member, Simon. They'd just been back from having a smoke. Manny smiled at Craig and stood up.
"Well, Em, we'd better get going. Don't wanna be late on our first day."
Emma stood up and joined Manny, and Cara and Ellie walked over.
"Well, I'll come with you's all to go and get your timetables, because I have to get a uniform pass."
"I'll come too," Benny said. So all the exchange students and Benny and Cara headed off to the main office.
Benny and Cara explained to the office ladies about the exchange kids needing their timetables, but their year level coordinator, Mr. Matthews took over, while Cara and Benny went and got their uniform passes – Cara for her jeans, shoes and jacket, and Benny for his shoes and jacket. They met the group outside the office.
"Right well, I have dance first, any of you's got that?" Cara asked.
Paige and Manny nodded, and Mr. Matthews slid past.
"Cara, Benny. Here's a late pass each. Take this lot to their classes would you?" Mr. Matthew said, passing Cara and Benny a note each. Cara and Benny nodded.
"Right… Well, lets head off."
They took everyone to where to meet after class, and then headed off to their classes. First, Toby had IT. Ellie, Alex, and Marco had art. Craig had music, JT maths, Emma had history with Benny, Jay had electronics and Paige and Manny had dance with Cara. Cara and the two girls headed off to the dance room. The teacher, Lia, had hardly even begun the warm-up.
"Sorry I'm late Lia. These are our exchange students by the way, Paige and Manny." Cara said, changing into her jazz runners and then running onto the floor for warm-up.
Lia waved hello to the girls, and then said, "Join in girls."
The class ran through their warm-up and then quickly ran through everyone's solo dances, before starting working on a new dance, a story dance about teenage issues. Lia gave everyone the choreography she had already come up with, for the section about going out and having fun, getting drunk and partying. She had the places already thought out, and so she placed everyone, including Paige and Manny, who would be around at the time of the performance of this dance. Cara was on the opposite side of the stage to Paige and Manny, who noticed that Nat and Steph were also in the dance class, but were in a different area to both Paige and Manny, and Cara. Nat and Steph were with another girl, Cloe, and they were doing the main dancing, in a diagonal line thru the middle. Paige and Manny and the group they were with were dancing together in the back left corner, and Cara traveled from the left back corner with the big group, over to the right front corner, thru the diagonal line, and over to a guy, who was named Adam in the other corner, where she and him began to dance together.
The bell rang about an hour later, and very slowly the class filed out. Paige and Manny stood around waiting for Cara for a few minutes, until Adam told them not to bother, Cara always has to stay beck after class. Paige and Manny looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders, then called out to Cara and said "We'll meet you down there." And off they went.
It didn't take long for Cara to finish talking with Lia, and soon enough she was down with the rest of the group. The whole host family thing had worked out well; all the host family students were friends with one another, so the Degrassi kids could stay together and not have to worry too much about making new friends. As Cara made her way towards the group, Ellie jumped up from where she was sitting and ran over to her new friend, and gave her a big hug, before linking arms with her and together they walked over to the group. Alex and Jay, who were sitting on the outskirts of the group, just watched the group. Well, Alex watched, and Jay tried to feel Alex up. He wasn't getting very far though, as every time he'd try, Alex would push him away and say "Not now Jay." Jay was getting frustrated by Alex's behaviour, and soon he stormed off from Alex and the group.
"Looks like we got another needing damage control" Nat said, smiling at Steph and Brent, who in return just rolled their eyes. "Who's gonna go?" Nat said, pressing on.
Alex shook her head. "Nah. Shouldn't give into him so quickly. It's not like we're even going out…" Alex began to say, but then stopped herself. Cara looked at Alex, but then turned back to the group and joined back in the conversation, while Emma, who was on the other side of the group to Alex, slipped away in the direction of Jay.
"Jay" Emma began to say, before Jay interrupted her.
"Whatcha want Greenpeace?"
"Would you stop calling me Greenpeace? Nobody uses that name anymore…"
"Fine. Whatcha want Emma" Jay said, putting extra emphasis on the girls name.
Emma rolled her eyes. "Damage control" she said simply, watching Jays face become confused.
"Huh?" he asked.
"I dunno. Something these Melbourne kids were saying bout you walking off."
"Uhuh…" Jay said. "Well, I don't need any damage control... whatever it is."
"Sure." Emma said, sliding down the wall next to where he was standing. Jay slid down with her.
"So how's things" she asked him.
Jay shrugged. "I dunno really." He was bordering on being honest with the girl.
"Well, what do you know about?" Emma asked.
"Well, I know I'm in Australia with a bunch of kids I don't like and right now I'm sitting with the girl I gave an STI to."
"Very funny. How come no-one came to see you off at the airport?"
"They were busy."
"Bad lie Jay. They weren't busy, were they?"
Jay looked at Emma. "It's none of your business why there was no-one there Emma." He was getting angry.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." Emma started to say, but Jay was already standing up.
"The damage is controlled Em. Let's go back." He offered his hand to Emma, who took it and stood up.
"Why you calling me Em again?" Emma asked, as they walked back. Jay only ever called her Em when they were involved.
"Oh. I dunno…" Jay said, knowing exactly why he called her that.