Hutt River - Oscar Johnson
Wy - Charlotte "Charlie" Johnson
Australia - Logan Johnson
Sealand - Peter Oxenstierna


Oscar was freaking out, to put it simply. He was standing in front of the mirror, hands shaking, as he attempted to fix his hair. His golden locks were sticking out all over the place and he licked his fingers, trying to flatten it.

He heard squeaks and Charlie rolled into his bedroom with her wheelchair.

"Logan told me to tell you we're leaving in half an hour. And you still have to eat breakfast." she informed, wheeling herself away.

He sighed, managed to fix his hair and smiled to the mirror. Hopefully, he was ready. He walked out of his room and headed to the kitchen, where his siblings were.

"Are you two ready for school?" Logan asked, passing a bowl of cereal to the latter.

Oscar shook his head. "I don't want to ever go back..." he mumbled, taking ahold of the bowl.

"Aw, don't say that! This school will be different, I know it!"

He just shrugged.

"I agree with Oz, for once." Charlie spoke up. "Can we just stay here with you?"

The two looked at Logan, awaiting his answer.

"Of course not. You need to get your education." he sighed. "I know this is hard, but I believe this school will be better."

"You can say that, you're the one not going." Oscar spat back, eating his cereal.

The eldest Australian child pouted, staring into his brother's eyes; the green clashing with amber.

"Just go today. You'll see, people aren't going to make fun of you."

"They will."

Charlie wheeled over to Oscar, and placed her hand on his knee.

"You don't know that. And we're in New South Wales, not Western Australia. I think you should give it a chance." she whispered.

He bit his fingernails anxiously, thinking it over. "Okay... I'll give it a go."

"That's the spirit!" Logan smiled. "Now, have you got your books?"


Oscar and Charlie told Logan that they did not want to go to school by car and now they were trudging along the footpath. They moved in silence, neither of them bothered to make small talk.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the school gates and stood there.

"I guess I'll see you later?" Charlie looked sideways at him, who gave a weak shrug in return.

'This school was bigger than his old one in Western Australia,' was the first thing he thought, staring up at the building.

Which meant there'd be more students.

He gulped, and gripped his backpack. He watched as Charlie zoomed off inside.

Cocky bastard.

He walked in and looked for his classroom. He eventually found the room he was meant to be in. He stood awkwardly as everyone found their friends and began to talk about what they did during the holidays.

He glanced over at his watch, and bit his lip. It was still 8:20 AM. Ten minutes before class started. Ten minutes of waiting.

His amber eyes followed a couple of guys who walked around the side and returned, their bags looking considerably lighter.

He knew he was forgetting something.

His old school didn't have lockers, as to in sure some sort of trust system between the students. He bent down and picked up his bag and headed around the corner, where the lockers were.

He fumbled with the combination and opened it, dumping his books in there.

"Oh, are you the new kid?"

He flinched and turned around, noticing a guy towering over him.

"U- Yeah, um..." he stuttered. Why was he so tall?!

They stared at each other for a few more moments, before Oscar felt intimidated and mumbled an apology, walking away.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted someone with unkempt brown hair staring at him. He shuddered and ignored him.

"Good morning, Oscar," their teacher he couldn't remember the name of, greeted.

He compromised by nodding.

They were all ushered into the classroom.

"I'm your homeroom teacher for this term," he began while several of the students cheered. "I have taken the liberty of putting your timetables on your desks, so you can get ready for your first class."

After he took roll call, the students all picked their desks and looked at their timetables.

"Ew, we have English first," he heard someone complain.

Oscar was inclined to agree.

Especially because they were learning Shakespeare.


After fourty-five minutes of a pointless lesson he'll never remember, he stood up and stretched.

"So you're Oscar?"

He blinked and looked at the boy next to him, who was smirking up at him.

"Yeah, that's me," he replied, trying to sound confident than he really was.

"Cool."

The boy continued to stare at him.

"Who are you?"

"Elijah. Elijah Smith."

"Smith?" Oscar tried not to smile.

"I know. It sucks. It's one of the most popular ones out there." he rolled his eyes. "What I would give to change it..."

"I don't think it's all that bad."

He scoffed. "You were trying not to smile about it a minute ago."

"Sorry," he apologised.

"Geez, there's no need to say sorry for!" he replied, taking out his timetable from his diary. "Gross."

Oscar stared at him.

"We have Philosophy now."

"Oh."

"It's a really horrid subject. My elder brother told me all about it. And we have the worst teacher as well." Elijah fake-gagged.

"Who?" he asked, feeling more and more dumb by the minute. He guessed he had an excuse, being new and everything, but it was a feeling he didn't like very much.

"Mr. Kennedy. He sucks."

Their eyes flickered to the door as the teacher walked in.

"You'll find out why."

The class greeted Mr. Kennedy in unison and they sat down, opening up their exercise books.

Oscar could understand why philosophy was a boring subject. Not because the content was boring, but mostly because of how the teacher was teaching it.

He glanced around and noticed all the other boys were staring off into space, he saw a few had fallen asleep.

Goodness, he couldn't wait for class to be over.


Oscar shook Elijah awake at 10:15 AM.

"You should wake up now, it's recess." he gestured to all the people who were leaving the room and grabbing their lunchboxes.

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry about that," he added. "But it was really boring, wasn't it?"

He nodded slowly.

Elijah gave him a sly smile. "Let's go, shall we?"

They both headed over to their lockers and took out their lunchboxes ("Wow, our lockers are right next to each other!" Elijah marvelled) and they walked away to the furthest point of the school.

They sat down on the grass, and opened their lunchboxes, Elijah laughing at the little food the other had.

Oscar placed the yoghurt in his mouth, as his classmate cleared his throat.

"As we're probably going to be stuck together for the year as desk-partners, we might as well get to know each other a bit, don't you agree?"

He shrugged.

"So why did you move here? Why did you not stay at your old school? We only have three more years of learning left, what's the point of moving? And is that your sister over there? The one with the wheelchair? Does she even need it, or is she attention-seeking?"

Oscar stared at him, dropping his yoghurt onto his lap. "O- Of course she needs it." he stumbled. "She's not an attention-seeker." he replied numbly.

"Really?" Elijah frowned. "Oh, she gave me the vibes. I must've been wrong."

His hand subconsciously tightened around the yoghurt, squirting it everywhere.

"GEEZ!" he shouted, jumping up before it went all over him.

"I- I'm so sorry!" he stuttered, letting go. He looked down at his own uniform. "I better get this off... I'll be right back."

He ran off to the nearest bathroom and splashed water down his front, trying to get the yoghurt stains off.

"So, bad first day at school, huh?"

Oscar jumped, and whirled around, only to see the guy he had spotted by the lockers earlier. He gulped, taking him in.

He was muscular, had messy, unkempt hair, and had his tie pulled out. He seemed to be like the school bully.

There was no way out of this.

Despite it all, Oscar put his weight on his feet, getting ready to bolt at any moment's notice.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you alright?"

The boy pushed himself off the wall and walked over to him. "Do you need help getting the stains off? I know how, my brother used to do that all the time."

He reached over to grab his shirt, and Oscar screwed his eyes, breathing deeply.

The hit he was waiting for never came.

"Dude, are you okay?"

He opened an eye and saw him staring back worriedly.

"I'm- I'm fine," he replied thickly. His legs were shaking and he took a deep breath. He wordlessly walked out of the bathroom, leaving the latter standing there all alone.

"So you didn't managed to get it off," Elijah stated, Oscar shrugging in return.

"Look," he sighed. "I'm sorry about what I said about your sister. May I ask, why does she..."

He shook his head, and he fell silent.

"We have maths now," he mumbled, in an attempt to break the silence. "I'm in 5.3, you?"

"5.2." Oscar replied, sighing. "Thankfully. I don't think I'd survive a day in 5.3. When I was in Western Australia, my friend Sal was in 5.3 and looking at what they were learning..."

"Western Australia?"

Elijah stared at him. "Hang on, you moved here all the way from Western Australia? Are you mental?"

"U- No, we- we have family living here." he stuttered.

"But you don't have family in Western Australia?"

Thankfully for Oscar, the bell rang, signalling the end of recess. "We better go to maths now. See you in History!" He jumped up, running away to the lockers.

Elijah stayed where he was for a few more seconds, before he smiled. He wanted to find out what this kid was hiding...

And bad.


Oscar grabbed his maths books from his locker and took out his diary, figuring out where the class was being held.

Week A
Period 3 - 5.2 Maths - Year 11

Great. He didn't know where that was.

"Um, Elijah?"

Except that his friend was already walking off to wherever he was meant to be, leaving him all alone.

So now he had two options. 1; ask someone else if they knew where the Year 11 room was, or 2; look for it himself and risk getting lost.

Oscar took a deep breath and approached another classmate of his. "Excuse me? Do you know where the Year 11 classroom is?" he asked timidly.

"Oh yeah, it's upstairs. I'm going that way now, I can show you."

He let out a sigh of relief. "That'd be great, thanks."

The other boy looked at him. "Bring your History books with you as well."

Oscar raised his eyebrows, but did what he requested, getting them out of his locker.

"Let's go, shall we?"

He followed him up the stairs and, where the boy pointed at the room. "That's where we are for maths and history."

"Thank you," he replied breathlessly, tired from walking up the stairs.

They entered the room and dumped their books on the desk, massaging their arms from the strain of carrying it all.

"Hopefully Mr. Taylor is good at teaching maths." he mumbled. Noticing Oscar's confused look, he explained; "I think Mr. Taylor's a new teacher. I haven't heard of him before."

They took a seat in silence while everyone else continued to chat.

"Uh, so who are you?" he summoned the courage to ask.

The guy stared at him. "OH, WAIT. I forgot that everyone knows who you are, but you don't anyone."

Oscar smiled.

"I'm Ben."

They both shut up as Mr. Taylor waddled in.


Charlie whizzed around on her wheelchair, balancing her school books on her knees. Most of the other girls continued to talk, as they got ready for Music, but she needed to to the elevator.

She guided herself there, where she pressed the button and waited for the doors to open, when a teacher walked behind her.

"Charlotte?"

"Ms. Tuffin!" she gasped.

"You do know you need a friend to go in there with you?"

She pouted. "Miss, I think I would know how to use an elevator-"

"Oh, I'm not judging your skills with how to use it, it's just in case it's gets stuck-"

"It gets what?" she interrupted accidently.

"Once, years ago, there was a girl who used the elevator and it stopped working when she was in it." she explained.

"So, she died?"

"No, no. Nothing like that. But I think it's better if you go with someone." she said, before walking away.

She frowned, glancing back at her classmates, who she didn't like.

Then she spotted three guys were walking across. Not in the mood for asking help from her classmates, she called them over. "Hey, sorry to bother you but Ms. Tuffin said I go in the elevator with someone. Would you like to go?"

Two of them exchanged confused looks, but the other gasped, smiling. "Really?! I'd love to!"

He bounded in before the other two could say anything.

"Can they come too?!" he asked, brightly.

"Yeah, they're your friends," she shrugged, a grin tugging at her lips.

"Hurry up!"

They stared at each other for a bit longer, before they obliged.

The four squeezed into the elevator, the one with two long plaits staring at the buttons and the one with orange hair trying his best not to seem awkward.

However, the one with bright blue eyes stared at Charlie.

"Your wheelchair looks epic!"

The other two made splutters of protest.

"It's not that impressive," she replied.

"No, it's actually really cool. I've only seen the ones that are in the hospitals. Like, those really funny looking ones. Can you do tricks on it?" he blabbered.

She tried not to look surprised. She'd never met anyone who was so enthusiastic about her wheelchair.

"I guess it depends on your definition of tricks are."

"Can you go downhill? I can't even do that with rollerblades. It's pathetic, I feel so scared! Though, if it is your only method of transportation, cowardness is not an option, am I right?"

She nodded.

The elevator gave a shudder and the doors hissed open.

"Darn, we have to go." he groaned. "What do you have now?"

"Music."

"Oh? Tell us how the teacher's like, we have her after lunch!" he exclaimed. "I'm Peter Oxenstierna. You are?"

"Call me Charlie."

They shook hands, and went their separate paths, Peter calling after her; 'You can sit with us at lunch if you want!'

Maybe this school wasn't so bad, after all.