Chapter 1

9:45 am

I wake to the sound of my mother knocking violently at my bedroom door, cradling a bowl of cereal and her morning's to do list. She makes no remark about my lack of school uniform, which is strange, because usually she'd go ballistic at the thought of me being late through laziness, like at home. Maybe she's regretting this whole idea. I hope so. God forbid we actually go through with it. Although we are in South Africa, so maybe it's too lte to back down. Like I ever had a choice.

She bustles back out again, thrusting the bowl under my nose and laying out the uniform at the end of my bed. It's weirdly shaped and the skirt doesn't match the rest of it. The tie is too big, and the blazer is more like a tent, but she didn't seem to notice when we were in the shop. It was all too fantastic that she could swan back home to her boyfriend at the end of he week, and didn't even make a fuss when they cost more than our plane tickets over. It shows how glad she is to get rid of me. I know I've been a pain, getting kicked out of my third girls school last term, but no mother in their right mind could leave her little darling in a completely different country! Surely?

However that same mother is in my room, taking away my half-eaten cereal and picking my uniform back out of the bin. She's making me wear it, ketchup stain and all.

10:02 am

There is no avoiding it. All this time I have been pretending it was all a joke and now I have been seat belted in to a sweaty Merc and is being driven to the hell hole I will be attending, and living in. Just kill me. Please. I don't want to live with an old relative I've never met. I don't want to attend an all boys boarding school for the foreseeable future. I don't want to leave all my friends at home, and not being able to make any new ones because I will be living in the middle of NOWHERE! Not that any of this will phase my mother. Her lips stay resolutely pursed and her eyes fixed on the empty road ahead.

10:42

We arrive, at long last, at the gates of the school. They look fairly new, with more grandeur than prison about them, which lifted my spirits a little. Not for long though, as we drive up, past the tennis grounds and various fields towards a huge, towering red brick building, built into a rectangular shape, encasing a small patch of grass land within it's four walls. To the right is a small, cottage like building, painted entirely beige with a grumpy looking man standing at it's door step. He waves jauntily, but with little interests and casually strolls back inside before we'd even parked.

10:51

The whole house is varied shades of beige, from puke to peach and back again. I contort my face to show my mother my feelings but she pretends not to notice, per usual, and continues making polite chit-chat with my newly found Grandfather. He only really grunts in response, which is always welcoming, and pours himself a glass of wine. He offers us both some but my mother refused for me, which was nice of her. If anyone should be grumpy, It's me! I mean, for a start, it's his first marriage that made me Elvia Edly, the tampon company. Or Elvia Edly, the STD. Nice isn't it? He should have thought about his unborn granddaughter before he married a woman who he would later divorce anyway.

11:12

My dear mother had the decency to wait a whole ten minutes with me before leaving me in this beige dump and trundling off home without me, how kind of her. The Guv and I waved at her from the door step as we watched the car gleam into the distance, and then stood there in silence for 20 minutes. I asked him what he wanted me to call him, and he said "The Guv will do just nicely" and then sauntered back inside. Closing the door on me as he went.

11:24

I have been shown into my horrifically beige room and started to unpack. At first, I really didn't want to because, although the anger I have pent up inside for my mother is phenomenal, there is a large of chunk of me desperate to see her racing back down the hill to fetch me home, to safe and cosy. I kept checking for the silver car in the distance, but it never came, so I started to unpack, leaving my uniform on, even though it was quite pain that I wouldn't be needing it until tomorrow.

12:01

The Guv is vastly more vocal with one and a half a bottles of wine inside him. He flung open my door and announced that I would be having a personal tour of the school by the best teacher it owned. He then stuffed the remaining alcohol into an "inconspicuous" paper bag and ushered me outside. He then proceeded to introduce the flower bed as the head teacher, fall into it, apologise profusely (to the flower bed) and show me back inside. The tour's grand finale was an old man snoring into a wine drenched sofa cushion, and my decision to give myself a tour of the school. It was a Sunday, after all, and although there would still be students around, I wouldn't really being interrupting much.

12:01 pm

The Guv is vastly more vocal with one and a half a bottles of wine inside him. He flung open my door and announced that I would be having a personal tour of the school by the best teacher it owned. He then stuffed the remaining alcohol into an "inconspicuous" paper bag and ushered me outside. He then proceeded to introduce the flower bed as the head teacher, fall into it, apologise profusely (to the flower bed) and show me back inside. The tour's grand finale was an old man snoring into a wine drenched sofa cushion, and my decision to give myself a tour of the school. It was a Sunday, after all, and although there would still be students around, I wouldn't really being interrupting much.

12:18

I was right, practically no one was there. I could hear a faint buzz from certain classrooms, and could see the silhouette of a group on the tennis courts, but apart from that, it's basically deserted. I wandered around a bit but there wasn't too much to look at, and I was too scared to enter any classrooms. I peaked in, and saw a whole gaggle of boys, all much older than me, but none of them noticed me, and I didn't stay for long. It's been a bit of a disappointment so far today. Maybe it's a really small school with only that many pupils?

12:20

Oh how wrong I was, the minute I wrote it a siren sounded and swarms of male adolescents evaporated from nowhere and stormed about, running and pushing and shouting until I could hardly think. They were all so much taller and bigger than me, that I couldn't even see half of their faces. I was all set to scarper until one massive brute with a leering face and a serious acne problem let out a strangled cry of "GIRL!", and I swear to you now, all hell broke loose. I was completely surrounded by broad shoulders and long legs and couldn't see a foot in front of me. The seething mass of people stopped in their tracks and stared, and that was all it took. I legged it; as fast and as far as I could make it without stopping and hyperventilating.

12:34

Back at The Guv's and I am terrified. If that's what they make of me in a corner, how am I going to survive lessons or lunch? Also, how much money did my mother pay the Headmaster to keep me here if he knew the pupils would react like that?

12:40

Spent the rest of the day nervously twitching and continuously checking the window for my mother's car, even though I knew she would be on the first flight back by now. I also managed to wake The Guv, and tell him about what happened. He just laughed at me and told me "I had a lot to learn". He then went back to sleep for the next four years. What sort of school am I in when the snoring monstrosity currently dribbling onto beige cushions, is a teacher? He's right though, I do have a hell of a lot to learn.