Chapter Four

Australia

The Degrassi kids, Cara, Devon and Benny were sitting in their Pastoral class. The school had just put all the Degrassi students into the smallest Pastoral class the school had, which luckily enough, happened to have host family students in it. Their Pastoral class had to be the biggest waste-of-time class the school had. Cara and Ellie were sitting on the floor in the corner, deep in conversation. Marco and Craig were talking about the band with Paige and Devon. Jay and Alex were on the other side of the room, quietly fighting. Emma, Toby and JT were talking between themselves, Manny was 'resting' her head on the desk and Benny was just sitting there, watching everyone and listening to his music. A few minutes passed and then someone came into the room. It was the school's councilor, Antoinette.

"Can I please speak with Paige and Ellie?" Antoinette asked their teacher, who nodded in reply. The two girls both got up, confused as to where they were going.

They stepped out of the room and headed around the corner, not going to Antoinette's office as Paige expected.

"Ok girls, I'm Antoinette, and I'm the school's councilor. My job is exactly the same as Ms. Sauve's. She rang me earlier. She wanted me to touch base with you, just to check that the move here hasn't been too stressful for either of. Basically I just want you to know that if you feel the need to talk to someone, my door is always open."

Ellie bit her lip, thinking about the whole situation, while Paige looked back around the corner.

"So did Sauve tell you what our problems were? Coz I thought this stuff was all confidential…" Ellie said quietly.

Antoinette shook her head. "No, she just said that you girls used to see her and that I should introduce myself… just so you know who I am should you need to talk."

The girls both nodded. "Ok... thanks" Paige said, turning to leave.

The 3 of them walked back to Pastoral, and this time Antoinette asked to speak to Cara. They left the room and didn't come back, which didn't really bother anyone other than Ellie and Benny. Ellie leant over to Devon.

"So does Cara see that Antoinette lady or something?" she asked her.

"She used to but I didn't think she went anymore" Devon said, not really that concerned with it, more interested in JT, who was clowning around at the front of the room.

"Oi. Ellie" Benny said, calling Ellie over to him.

"What?" the red head asked.

"So you and Cara seem to be good friends…" Benny started to say.

"Yeah. She gets me, which is really strange because I expected to come here and it would be the same as back home… Everyone's in awe of Paige and then forget about the others. Luckily that hasn't happened."

"You talk a lot. You know that?" Benny said to Ellie, shaking his head.

"What's wrong with that?" Ellie asked.

"Nothing" Benny said, picking up his books, getting ready to leave class, as the bell was about to go. He then headed over and got Cara's books for her as well.

The bell rang and slowly the group filed out of class and headed off to their own, different classes.

When the day finally ended, Katy and her boyfriend, Jase, headed of to his house, leaving Manny to either work out her own way home, or to find someone who could take her home. Emma and Nat were going back to Steph's house, along with Alex, so they were out of the question. Toby and JT had gone home with Mark, Jake had to go grocery shopping for Marco was going with him, Kyle had left earlier that day because he had to go to the dentist, which left Ellie and Cara, Simon, Jay, Benny and Craig. They were only a little bit in front of her, so Manny ran to catch up to them.

"Hey. Can I walk with you's?" she asked the group, who looked at one another before Cara said, "Yeah, sure. Where do you hafta go?"

"Katy's" Manny replied.

"How come you're not walking with her?" Simon asked, eyeing Manny up and down.

"She went to Jase's" Ellie said, answering for the girl.

The group walked on in silence for a few more minutes, until Brent joined them.

"Hey, Brent you go past Katy's house to get home don't you?" Cara asked.

Brent nodded.

"Can you take Manny there? It's just its really out of the way for us, and you're going there and all…" Cara said, turning around and walking up closer to the boy.

"Sure Cara. No need for all the begging either… Aaron told me all about that. Plus Steph would kill us both if she saw that" Brent said, grinning.

"I wasn't begging" Cara said, turning back around.

"Sure" Brent said, wrapping his arm around Cara's shoulder.

The group had reached the bus stop, where Simon was going to leave them. They did their goodbyes quickly and continued on. Pretty soon Manny and Brent left also, and so Cara took everyone over to a park near her house where nobody ever went.

"Soo…" Cara said, dropping her bag and sitting down on one of the benches. Benny sat down next to her, and Craig, Jay and Ellie sat on the grass.

"What time do you's hafta be home?" Craig asked everyone.

"When it's dark" Cara replied, and Benny nodded in agreement.

"Got no idea," Jay said. "Kyle never said anything about a curfew."

"Do you even know where you're living?" Cara asked.

Jay shook his head. "Well, what are we gonna get up to?" he then asked.