Edited: 5/26/16

Chapter 5

"I don't think I can do this," I murmured, staring at the structure in front of me, and the people streaming into it with fear and trepidation.

"Yes you can," Anna said, pushing on my back to propel me forward. We were standing in the parking lot getting ready to head inside for the first day of school and I was frozen to the ground.

"Anna, Serena," I heard Christa's voice behind us and we both turned, seeing both Dawn and Christa walking towards us. "We were hoping we would catch you before you went inside," the dark haired woman said, wrapping an arm around her younger sister's shoulders. "We wanted to wish you good luck."

"Well, Christa did, I wanted to come to make sure that you're really going to be okay," Dawn said, her blue eyes staring into mine.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, nodding my head. "Yeah, I'll be fine. It's a little weird for me is all, new language and everything, and not going to school with a uniform is also a little weird."

Dawn smiled, "Yes, you will be fine. The school likes to encourage individuality, but do make sure you follow the dress code. Reason why Christa came was to make sure Anna was dressed correctly."

I giggled and looked over at my friend, seeing Christa analyzing Anna's punk-goth apparel that she had chosen to go with today. Black and purple were her favorite colors, so the look worked well, but I could still see Christa rolling her eyes. "At least you didn't wear the fishnets, you have clothes to change into for gym?" She asked, staring at the younger dark-haired girl.

Anna rolled her eyes, mimicking her sister's expression, "Yes mom, Serena and I are going to go to school now, bye!" She grabbed me by the hand and started dragging me to the doors of the school.

I looked back at my sister helplessly and she just snickered, waving goodbye and giving me a thumbs up.

"Come one," Anna said, her hand squeezing mine with a vice like grip. "You're locker is near mine so we'll dump off the books for afternoon classes. We'll come get them during the lunch period. Hopefully the first day will be like most of them, filling out forms and not doing much, but I don't hold out much hope."

I was barely paying attention to what the other girl was telling me, as my mind was too busy taking in all of the different people around me. Different clothes personalities and languages flooded around me and my senses were overloaded with all of the information flooding around me. Anna stopped in the hallway and looked back at me, giving me a once over. I'm assuming she was trying to figure out if I was on the same page as her so I nodded my head. "Oh, uh, sure, whatever you say."

"Right, come on, first thirty minutes today is with our homeroom teachers, so the rest of the periods are shorter," Anna said, continuing to drag me to our lockers. We dropped off the books we had received a few days ago for our afternoon classes, making my backpack so much lighter and Anna resumed pulling me in the direction of our homeroom class. "Ah, Mr. Caffrey," Anna sighed, "He's so cute."

"I think he's also my English teacher," I replied, looking down at my schedule.

Anna glared at me, "Lucky, he's so nice to look at, what I wouldn't give to listen to him read me Shakespeare for an entire class… Anyway, I'll just have to make do with staring at him during homeroom."

I stared at her incredulously, "Your horrible."

"Just wait, and you'll see."

We continued down the hallway, dodging people rushing to class or lockers, or just carrying large equipment, either instruments or canvases, dropping them off for later classes. I was amazed at what I saw everywhere I turned. While the school itself was decorated beautifully, the other students were what amazed me the most. They were all different, even the people that dressed similarly managed to look completely unique with how they styled their hair, or how they presented themselves.

"The dress code is pretty loose here," Anna explained as she saw me looking around, "I mean, there are still rules, like nothing cut too low, exposing midriff or too short for the girls, and the guys have to keep their pants pulled up and can only wear the ripped armpit t-shirts during gym. The consequences for breaking the dress code are pretty harsh, so, for the most part, it's followed."

"What happens?"

"First offense? You have to wear this hideous neon t-shirt and pant set they keep in stock in the office if your clothes are too revealing. If guys can't keep their pants up, they have to wear hideous suspenders that pull their pants halfway up their chest. Not many ever get past the first offense, it's too embarrassing, but they have creative punishments for repeat offenders."

"Do I want to know?"

"Just don't break the dress code. Also, nothing that promotes things that we're too young for, like alcohol, or stuff that is extremely offensive, like promoting prejudicial hatred. No visible tattoos, and piercings have to be removed before school unless they're like pierced ears, no spacers. And as for our hair, we're pretty much allowed to do what we want, ridiculous styles and colors, accessories, just can't wear hats in class."

"What's with the piercings rule?" I asked, dodging a girl running by with a flailing flute case.

Anna shrugged, "I don't know, it's kinda a new rule. Only put in place a few years ago from what I understand. We'll get the updated student handbook during homeroom, complete with student planner by the way, maybe it's in there."

We turned a corner and entered a different wing of the school, and entered the language arts section of the school. The walls were covered in different quotes in multiple languages from, I can only assume, famous authors. "Wow," I murmured, looking around, trying to take it all in.

"Yeah yeah, come on," Anna sighed, pushing me towards one of the doors. "Since Caffrey is your English teacher as well, this is going to be your 2nd period room too."

We claimed desks towards the back. I would probably move closer to the front during class, but homeroom isn't really a class. A few minutes later, the bell rang, and the rest of the class trickled in slowly and picked seats, sitting next to friends, or just finding a place to sit.

Soon after everyone had trickled in, the teacher walked in with a leather briefcase. My eyes bugged out and I had to fight to keep my mouth from falling open. Anna was right; Mr. Caffrey was hot. He looked like a model with his strong angular features, brushed back brown hair, and piercing blue eyes.

"Damn," I heard Anna murmur, "He sure can rock the sweater vest better than anyone else." I nodded my head absentmindedly, taking in the vest and dress shirt combo.

He placed his briefcase down and sat on top of his desk, grabbing a few pieces of stacked up papers from the top of his desk and looked out at us. "This is homeroom. I am Mr. Caffrey, if you aren't in the right places, speak now and we can sort out where you need to be." When nobody raised their hands, he continued on, "Alright very good. I'm going to take roll, and as I call your names, will you come up and get your student handbook from the box right there," motioning towards the box on the floor in the front of the room, "and return to your seats so we can go over basic rules and make sure everyone knows where their classes are located."

Mr. Caffrey looked down at the list in his hand and called out, "Serena Parker."

"Geez, I'm first yay!" I muttered, making my way to the front, grabbing a handbook out of the box.

Mr. Caffrey looked at me curiously, but didn't say anything and started calling the next few names. "He looked at me weird," I said to Anna when I sat back down.

"Weirdly," Anna corrected and I just shot her a glare. "Chillax dude, he probably thought you looked familiar. He's been teaching here for a few years, so maybe he had one of your sisters. Your faces are identical while your hair and eye colors are slightly different, so people who have been here a while are going to look at you funny."

"This is going to be weird isn't it," I groaned, "Going to the same school that they did. I never had to deal with this before so I'm not sure how to handle it now."

"Welcome to the club, I've always had to deal with this. Following my sister isn't easy, I can't imagine what you'll have to go through," Anna whispered back, waiting for her name to be called.

As homeroom continued, I thought about both of my sisters: Dawn, the Broadway star and budding artist, and Stella, the music prodigy, performing all over the country and in Europe. They were tough acts to follow, and that's without knowing what kind of students they were like in school. If they were good students, the teachers might expect me to be just like them. I started to panic internally, and took a few deep breaths to calm down. I didn't know what was going to happen with the rest of my teachers, but I would face them and prove I was different from my sisters if I had to.

The bell rang a few minutes after Mr. Caffrey finished briefing all of us on new school rules and the schedule for the day, dismissing us to first period.

"Your French class is just down the hall," Anna said, pointing to the right. "I'm going upstairs for math, I'll be back down for Latin later and will grab you and we'll head to science together."

I nodded, and walked down the hall until I got to the correct door. Entering the room, I noticed the assigned seats and found my name, pushing my backpack under the desk until I needed it. Looking around, I located the teacher, a young, slender brunette woman, sitting at her desk, ruffling papers. The rest of the class, about 15 more people, trickled in and took their seats. I began making small talk with the people sitting around me, learning that the class was full of a variety of people in different grades. The talking quieted out when the bell rang and the teacher walked to the front of the classroom.

"Bonjour class," she greeted, smiling, "My name is Isabelle Gold, and I'm your French I teacher, feel free to call me Madame Belle. This is my first year teaching here, so please be kind to me. Now, I'll take roll, pass out the syllabus, then we can all get to know each other a little bit." She took roll, calling out various names, and I took note of the ones sitting near me so that I would remember their names in the future. "Alright, now I'll tell you a little about myself, and then you can tell me a bit about yourselves. That should be enough for today I think. Now, my name is Isabelle Gold, as I told you, I usually go by Belle though. I'm almost 25 years old; I grew up in France, but moved to the States during my junior year of high school and was enrolled here. I loved it, obviously, or I wouldn't be here filling in for a while since the old French teacher had a baby and decided to be a stay at home mom. I went to NYU, and moved back to France for a year to teach English. I met my husband there. Ironically, he was from New York as well and was in France on vacation with his son. I moved back here to be with them and we got married a few months ago." She said, flashing her wedding ring on her finger. All of the girls in class, myself included, 'awed' when she showed us the ring. "Now I'm teaching and working on a Master's in Library Science degree, any questions?"

"What does your husband do?" A girl on the side of the room closest to the door asked.

"He's an attorney," Madame Belle answered, glancing over towards the girl who asked the question. "Now, let's get on to you guys, tell me a little about yourselves."

The introductions started alphabetically. As I sat and listened, I realized most of my classmates were people belonging to wealthier families, although a few of them were on scholarship because they were particularly talented in a particular area or sport. When my turn came, I decided to edit the truth a little.

"My name is Serena Parker, I was born in California, but I grew up in Japan. I wasn't doing very well in school there, so I decided to move New York and live with my older sisters, and was enrolled here."

"Parker, Parker…" Madame Belle murmured a few times, "Ah, your Dawn Parker's youngest sister, I knew her in school, nice girl. I liked her; she was really funny, I'll have to call her and catch up." Much to my relief, she moved on to the next victim and I let out a sigh of relief.

"Most of us get it," I heard a whisper to my left. The voice had a strong accent that I heard in one of the movies I was watching with Anna that she identified as a southern American accent. I turned my head to the voice and saw the girl sitting there was looking at me. She was a junior from what I remembered, but I couldn't recall her name. I could tell she was tall just by looking at her. Her shoulder length brown hair had thick blonde highlights running through it. Her hazel eyes never waivered from my own, and held a soft look of understanding. "It's hard being compared with family members, most of the people in this school get it. You'll have it particularly difficult since your sisters went here and are some of the more famous alumni in recent history, but, just so ya know, you're not alone."

"Thanks…" I paused, searching for her name in my mind.

"Brigitte, Brigitte Whitaker," she answered my unasked question, before turning back to face the front. Class ended shortly after everyone finished introducing themselves, and I went back to Mr. Caffrey's class. The class was similar to my first one, except it was only other sophomores in the class.

Anna was waiting outside the door for me when I walked out of class. "Time for theater, we have to hurry, we need to go to a completely different building," Anna said, pulling me down the hall through the language department. "The building behind the school, connected by glass walkways, faces the road that it fronts on, so technically, we're going in the back, but it works like that because it's the theater building, which also has the auditorium used for graduation, as well as the music and art classes." Exiting the building, we entered one of the hallways; some students were rushing to and from class, others were trudging hesitantly, like they were unsure of where they were going. "Freshmen tend to get lost here for the first few days."

Entering into the new, building, I glanced around in amazement similar to when I first saw the inside of the main building, but I didn't have time to gawk as Anna was pulling me towards class. We walked in the side door of the theater and moved towards where the rest of the class was gathered.

"Hey Brigitte," Anna called out, and I recognized the girl that I spoke to today in French class.

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled in our direction. "Anna, hey, how was you summer?" Brigitte asked, giving the significantly shorter girl a one-armed hug. It was almost comical. Anna barely came to the older girl's shoulder.

"Eh, so-so, anyway, this is my new friend Serena," Anna said, motioning to me.

"We kinda met earlier, in French class," Brigitte answered, smiling at me, sticking out her hand, "But it's nice to meet officially out of a class."

"Nice to meet you too," I replied, shaking her hand, "I hope we can become good friends."

"Me too," Brigitte agreed before turning back to Anna, "What other classes do you have today?"

"I have to retake Earth Science, which is next, then after I have a yoga class, what about you?"

"Chemistry then English III, who do you have for science?"

"We," Anna started, motioning towards me, "have Ms. Blanchard for Earth Science, so hopefully we'll make the grade and she'll give us a good enough recommendation to get into Dr. Isles AP Biology class next semester."

Brigitte had a wistful look on her face, "I wish I had made a good enough grade to take her class, you basically get an automatic entry into her human anatomy class. I'd much rather be taking that instead of Chemistry."

"Who's Dr. Isles?" I asked, trying to include myself into the conversation, "And why do we want to take her AP Biology class next semester?"

Anna turned toward me, "Dr. Isles is one of the best teachers at this school. She used to be a Medical Examiner, but took some leave so that she could raise her kids on a more set schedule through their formative years. Her wife is a homicide detective from what I hear."

I blinked at the word 'wife' but chose to ignore it to focus on the information I really wanted to get to, but I filed it away for further discussion when Anna and I were alone. "So why are we trying to get in her class?" I asked in further clarification of what I really wanted to know.

"Almost everyone who's taken her AP Biology and Human Anatomy classes has passed the AP test and tested out of college science. I don't know about you, but if and when I decide to go to college, I don't want to be taking many general education classes, and how to get out of that is to take AP classes now, in school."

I nodded my head at her logic. "But next semester?" I whined, not really wanting to take another science class that year. Science was not my strong suit.

"We have to double up or we'll be behind, I mean, you're gonna have to double up on math next year. Just be grateful Fiona's not making you double up on English."

The conversation ended when the bell rang and the teacher walked into the room. She also had sharp features but blonde hair and slightly golden skin. "Hello class," she called out to the group as she sat down in front of us on the edge of the stage, "I am Tara Cole, your new Theater teacher; we'll do introductions around, and cover some of the basics today before I dismiss you to your next class. Shall we get started?" Class continued, and as soon as it was over, Anna was pulling me back towards the main building.

"Science class… Yay!" I heard Anna muttering to herself. Going up to the third floor of the school, we entered the part of school dedicated to the sciences. Anna continued to drag me towards our classroom, which, based on her directional focus, was at the end of the hall closer to the other door leading to the rest of the second floor. Entering the room, I noticed a small petite woman, with pale skin and pixie-cut brunette hair. She seemed to have a soft look about her, so I had hope that I would pass this semester under her instruction.

Ms. Blanchard started the class like every other teacher that day had done, but after 30 minutes we were dismissed to go to lunch when the bell rang signaling the start of the 2nd lunch period.

The cafeteria was on the 1st floor, but on the other side of the building from where I was that morning. "There's a card scanner by the doors to the cafeteria," Anna told me as we headed towards the lunchroom, "If you have a prepaid plan, just scan your student ID. Not everyone does this, some people prefer to bring their lunches or pay on a day by day basis." We both swiped our ID cards as we entered the room. I saw a lady at the front desk taking lunch money, and other students already sitting at some of the numerous round or square tables, unpacking the lunches they brought from home.

"Come on, follow me," Anna said, pushing me towards the food bar area, "We have three choices, a salad bar, the entrée bar, or the speedy bar."

"What's the speedy bar?" I asked, looking towards where she pointed.

"Pizza and cookies. The pizza is delicious but it gets kinda gross if you eat it every day. I'm gonna to grab a salad and maybe a sandwich, what about you?"

The large appetite that seemed to run in my family was kicking in and I knew that neither a salad nor sandwich would touch the hunger. "I'm gonna go through the entrée line, load up on stuff there."

Anna sighed, "Oh that's right, you're a bottomless pit, anyway, just find me when you get done. I usually sit in the back corner closest to the door."

I nodded and headed off towards the line. When I got to the front, close enough to grab a plate, I piled it high with the food choice of the day, spaghetti, a few bread sticks, and some of the vegetables to make myself feel better about the amount of carbs I was about to consume. As an after thought, I grab an apple on my way towards where Anna said she would be sitting.

Heading towards where she told me she would be, I saw someone else sitting at the table with her, unpacking a lunch box. This person, a girl I assumed, had long dark bluish hair that reminded me almost of Ami's hair color. Approaching the table, Anna waved me over and the other girl glanced over at me and I almost dropped my food, she looked like Ami, not exactly but I could see a resemblance. I flinched a little at the thought then instantly felt guilty when I saw hurt creep it's way on her face before she turned away from me.

As I sat down, Anna motioned towards the girl across from her, "Serena this is Sofya, Sofya, Serena." With introduction done, Anna returned to her salad, which seemed more like a bowl of ranch dressing than a bowl of vegetables.

Turning towards Sofya, I nodded my head in greeting and smiled at her. "I'm sorry for flinching when you turned towards me, you just look like someone back in Japan."

Sofya gave me an understanding smile, "It's okay, I'm guessing from the way you reacted that you didn't like this person?"

"Understatement of the year, I thought she was my friend, but she turned out to be nothing but a cold hearted bitch."

She looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "Her name wouldn't have been Ami would it?"

A shocked look crossed my face and I stuttered, "How-How did you know?"

"Ami's my younger twin sister. When our parents split up, I went with Dad, and Ami stayed with our mom. She was always a bit of a bitch when we were younger, always thinking she knew everything because she was book smart," Sofya replied, silently seething. "Mother encouraged her to act that way unfortunately, but thankfully I no longer have to see either of those twits."

I blinked, "Wow, small world." Sofya smiled at me indulgently. "So since I had the misfortune of meeting your sister first," understatement of the year, "can you tell me about what you like to do so I can get her out of my head?"

She giggled, a light sweet sound that mad me smile in response. "Unlike my dear mother who's a doctor and very boring, my dad is an artist. He encouraged my creativity that led me to a bunch of different hobbies, but what I really love to do is make music."

"So I'm guessing you play an instrument? What kind?"

At this I saw her smiling face grimace a little, "Well, I'm really good at playing the piano, it's nice and all, but I wanted to branch out a little, so this year I'm gonna start learning to play the cello."

"The cello? Really?" Anna interjected, looking up from her half eaten bowl of ranch dressing and vegetables, "Why couldn't you pick like a normal instrument? Like the violin? Or the trumpet?"

"I don't like brass instruments Anna, and I wanted to learn the drums but Dad said I gave him too many headaches over the summer," Sofya retorted, sticking out her tongue.

"So you picked the cello?"

Sofya shrugged, "I wanted to be different."

I started giggling as Anna glared at Sofya from across the table while Sofya simply smiled back at her in a spacey manner. Pretty soon the other two started laughing as well and we finished up our lunch right before the bell rang, signaling it was time to return to class. The rest of science was kind of boring. Ms. Blanchard went over the syllabus and told us what we would be starting the next day in case we wanted to look it over in our textbooks.

After class was over, Anna pulled me towards the gym, stating that her yoga class was in one of the dance studios in that building. It was across the road that ran next to the school, and I found out that in order to help students make it to class on time without having to cross traffic, the school made glass walkways from the third floor of the school over to the gym building. I glanced down at the cars zooming back and forth on the road beneath me and felt very glad they did.

"Alrighty, well, my yoga class is up here, if you go down those stairs over there," Anna said, gesturing to the top of a flight of stairs to the left, "You can get down to the gym entrance level where your class is meeting." She glanced down at my schedule, "Damn, your teacher is Mr. Wood? How do you get so lucky to get all the hot teachers? He's the basketball coach; wow, hot, erm, anyway, just sit on the bleachers with the other students, the teachers will divide you according to your class. Bye Serena, have fun!"

I trudged down the stairs and towards the gym. Glancing over towards the bleachers, I noticed a large group of students congregating so I joined them to wait for class to start. Soon, three teachers came up to us, and called our names, dividing us into classes of about 15 students each.

"Good day class," Mr. Wood said, greeting us all with a slight English accent, "I am Oliver Wood, the basketball coach here and I'll be your Physical education teacher for this semester. Here are your syllabuses, and I expect you all to bring clothes with you tomorrow to work out. I'll be conducting a physical test tomorrow in class to evaluate where each of you stand physically. Now, if you follow me, I'll show all of you to the locker rooms where you'll store your stuff and get dressed for class." We followed him over to the side of the gym where he pointed out the men and women's locker rooms, complete with bathroom and showers if we needed it. As I studied Mr. Wood, I found that he was attractive in a rugged kind of way, but not near as hot as Mr. Caffrey was this morning.

Pretty soon the bell rang, signaling the end of school. I bolted upstairs to find Anna, because I had no idea how to get back to the front of the school. Anna was waiting for me though and shuffled me back through the walkway and down out through the main building.

"This is where I bid you adieu for the day, Dawn said she was picking you up this afternoon, being your first day an all." A quick hug and she was gone, running to her car in the parking lot.

"Serena!" I heard Dawn's voice calling me and I turned and spotted her just down the steps from where I was. I bolted towards her and gave her a big hug when I got to her. "Well thank you," she laughed, hugging me back, "How was your day?"

"It was pretty good. The school is awesome, and all of my teachers seem really nice, though it got kind of annoying because I could tell that some of the teachers remembered you and Stella and it was like they were sizing me up," I added grudgingly.

I saw her flinch slightly. "Sorry about that," she murmured, "They should lighten up a little after the first few weeks."

"Oh and one of my teachers was a friend of yours, Isabelle Gold?"

"Isabelle Gold… Oh Belle! I didn't realize she was back in the country, I know she had gotten married. We weren't close friends exactly, but friendly enough. I'll have to give a call at some point."

We headed down the road to the parking garage where I had left the car this morning. Anna forced me to drive to school so that I would know how to do it when I was by myself. However, I made Dawn drive on the way home and I told her everything that had happened that day, who I had met and made friends with. Pretty soon we were pulling into the driveway, and I noticed another car sitting in front of the house.

"Who's that?" I asked as Dawn pulled in behind the other car.

"I'm not sure," Dawn replied with a puzzled tone.

Exiting the car, I spotted someone sitting on the front steps of the house. When that person stood up, I felt my blood run cold. Beryl….