Uploading on time again! :) although I make no promises about uploads over the next few weeks - I start school again on Monday. I've made this chapter extra long though, put two chapters into one :) hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 7

School seems to get very busy very quickly, with hoards of students pouring inside through doors and corridors everywhere all of a sudden, with five or ten minutes until school actually starts.

Bryce and I have only just reached my locker. I don’t have any books yet, so I don’t bother opening it. Other kids are filling the hallway rapidly, though, the sound of excited chatter and laughter bouncing off the walls. Lockers clatter open along the hallway, but most people just lounge against them and catch up with friends.

It’s the kind of scene I see every year. Everyone’s excited to be back in school to see their friends again, to talk and exchange stories and laugh and joke. And every year, I’d stand by my locker and scroll through songs on my iPod, trying to look occupied, and remaining pointedly oblivious to everything going on around me.

Now though, my earphones aren’t in, and I’m stood with someone who is willing to talk to me. I feel lost. And I’m getting kind of claustrophobic.

“Bryce! Hey, man, how’s your summer been!”

“Yo, Bryce!”

“Hey, Bryce!”

I expect him to ditch me to see these people calling out to him, but all he really does is nod at them and call hello back, saying he’ll catch them later.

The bell goes, and the throngs of kids start to disperse to homeroom.

Bryce pulls my schedule from my hand to see it, and then he says, “Up the stairs and take the corridor on the left. Room 27B.”

“Um, okay…”

“You don’t sound very sure,” he laughs.

“I’m not.”

“Do you want me to walk you there?” he offers, and I can see him restraining a laugh. I don’t know whether he wants to laugh because I look and sound so terrified, or because he thinks it’s funny I’m scared to be on my own for the first day of school.

“N-no.” I stammer when someone bumps into me and I lose balance in my heels, toppling over into the lockers. I gulp. “No,” I repeat. “It’s fine.”

“No,” Bryce says firmly, and grabs my forearm. “Come on, I’ll walk you there.”

I laugh in an attempt to get rid of this nervous energy, and let him guide me toward a staircase off the side of the hallway of lockers, and up the stairs. The crowds thin out as we turn down the corridor on the left, and he stops as we reach Room 27B.

“This is you.”

“Thanks,” I say, a rush of relief spreading over me. “Seriously, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. Hey, I’ll, uh, catch you round later, yeah?”

He shoots another of his 100-watt grins at me, and I find myself grinning right back at him. “Sure. Yeah. Thanks again.”

“Anytime, Mainstream.” There’s a chuckle in his voice when he says that, and then he walks back the way we just came. As I turn around to watch him go – though I’m not entirely sure why I watch him go – I jump when there’s a girl stood right behind me.

The first thing I think is how intimidating she is. It’s in her stance - one perfectly manicured hand on her hip and the other hanging gracefully at her side, with one hip tipped to the side, head held high – and in the way she looks. This girl somehow manages to make a pair of cut-offs and a plain tank top look like something from a fashion magazine, and next to her I manage to make it look more like I’m lounging around the house.

My second thought is: Wow, she is enviously pretty.

Because she is. It’s the kind of pretty that girls are jealous of, but the kind that makes you want to be her friend. She’s got deep brown skin, and big brown eyes, and her face is soft and round so she looks like a doll.

I get the vibe that whoever she is, she’s popular.

“How do you know Bryce?”

“Um… I, uh, I met him at the – at the party at the beach…” I stutter, and gulp hard.

I can’t tell if she looks mad that I was talking to Bryce, or if she’s genuinely just curious.

“You’re new, aren’t you?”

I nod, and swallow the rising lump of anxiety in my throat.

Then, the unexpected happens. Her face breaks into a wide smile and she says, “I’m Tiffany.”

“Oh, um, hi. I’m Madison.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Maine. I moved here over the summer.”

“Cool.”

“It’s really not,” I say, “I can’t see why everyone thinks that.” She laughs, and flicks her hair over her shoulder before hitching her handbag up. I think it’s a designer bag. I try to see if the metal clasp on the front is the Gucci symbol or not – I’m pretty sure it is.

The girl, Tiffany seems to notice me looking at her bag, and she smiles again, twisting her shoulders so I can see the bag better. “You like? I got it in Milan in July. It’s the real thing, before you ask. Late birthday present from my aunt.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I tell her honestly. I wouldn’t be surprised if everything from her earrings to her jeans were expensive and designer. I know that’s hideously judgmental of me, but I can’t help it. I mean, she has a Gucci bag. Who knows how much more designer she’s wearing? Then again, her stuff could be bought from any old store, she just wears it well.

She nods her head forward at me then. “Cool piercing. It’s cute. Especially with your hair. It’s, like, so punk-rock. Totally chic.”

“Oh.” I grin widely, flattered by her compliment – and also hugely relieved that the nose piercing and getting my hair cut off was totally worth it. “Thanks.”

A throat clears all of a sudden, and we both look behind me to see a teacher standing with his arms crossed and gray eyebrows raised at us.

“Are you planning on coming into homeroom anytime today, ladies?”

“This is Madison,” Tiffany says, in a bubbly, bright voice, grabbing my arm like we’re old friends. “She’s new.”

“Ah, I see. Well, Madison,” the teacher addresses me, “let’s not make a bad impression on your first day by dawdling outside classes, shall we?”

“Sorry,” I say quietly, ducking my head a little. I never got in trouble back at Pineford – but then again, I never really did anything at all back in Pineford. But I can tell that I don’t want to make a habit of annoying any teachers this year, even if I am the new Madison.

I go into the classroom quickly, and hear Tiffany walking in behind me. The teacher pulls the door shut behind us – I hear the slight creak of the hinges. The classroom is full of enthusiastic chatter, which hushes slightly as I walk into the classroom with Tiffany right behind me.

It’s not the hideous, pregnant pause I’d expected. No staring, or whispered remarks, or sneers. There’s just a lull in the conversation, people looking at me and wondering who I am. The thing I hate about it the most is them looking at me; it makes my heart thud against my ribs sickeningly. But then the chatter picks back up and I’m not so much of a focus point anymore.

“Tiff! Over here!” a girl says brightly, and I look over to see a chair being scraped out at a desk in the middle of the classroom. There’s an empty desk in front of it, too.

“Come on,” Tiffany says to me, and walks past me. She falls gracefully into the seat pulled out for her, next to a blond girl. I follow, but slowly, hesitantly. My legs are shaky, and they feel unsteady. The heels definitely aren’t doing me any favors so far.

“This,” Tiffany announces, her voice loud and clear enough to carry across the whole class even though she’s only talking to the blond girl, “is Madison. Madison, this is Melissa.”

“Uh, hi,” I say, and give the blond girl a smile. Melissa has perfect curls and sun-kissed skin, and she’s dressed almost as well as Tiffany. I’m a little jealous that they make casual look so – so wow.

She looks me up and down, and I can see her taking in every detail. I’m suddenly super-aware of the fleck of mud on the front of my shoes, and I sit down in the chair at the desk in front of Tiffany, but stay facing them.

“Hi,” Melissa says brightly, grinning at me.

“Madison just moved from Maine,” Tiffany says. “She met Bryce at the party the other night, too.”

“Oh, really?” Melissa smiles at me. “Cool. Well, hey, welcome to Midsommer High. Home of the Hounds.”

I raise my eyebrows slightly, but smile back. I don’t say anything though – I don’t know what to say.

“Right, everyone,” says the teacher at the front of the room. I turn back around in my seat. “I have your class schedules here. Hand these out,” he tells the boy sat closest to him, putting a pile of papers down. The boy sighs and gets up to give the schedules to everyone.. People immediately start comparing, and either grumbling about their teachers or sighing in relief that their schedules are all okay.

Lucky for some.

Tiffany and Melissa ask me a couple of questions about Maine, and about myself. I answer them, but try and turn the conversation back onto them – which really isn’t a very hard thing to do, because both of them are eager enough to talk about themselves and their summer – but they tell me things I don’t really care about, like how this ohmigosh, so cute, guy asked for their number, or how they found the most fantastic pair of pre-season fall boots.

I just sit there until the bell rings for first period, wondering exactly how I ended up sitting in homeroom with what must be two of the most popular girls in school, with AP Physics on my timetable.

I can’t decide if the new Madison’s life is going to suck, or turn out seriously awesome.

I hope it’s the second one.

But I really can’t see that happening.

*

I made it through the entire morning without falling on my face again. One point to Madison…

AP World History was a pretty good way to start my morning, and followed by Art & Photography, my day was starting to look up. I didn’t know anyone in my classes. The best luck I had, it seemed, was my biology class with Tiffany, which I had before lunch. I didn’t like biology much, but I at least knew someone there.

When I walked into Art & Photography third period, though, I saw a familiar sight of scraggly, mousy brown hair and one and a half eyebrows amidst the circle of easels and small tables set up with vases of flowers or bowls of fruit ready for a still life drawing.

“Carter!” I all but bounded across the classroom to where he was sat at an easel. In the process, I knocked into a table with a wooden bowl containing two apples and some grapes. I hopped, trying to keep my balance, and managed to save the table and an apple. The rest fell on the floor.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and ducked my head – but of course, I’d forgotten; I no longer had the long curtain of hair to hide behind. I felt so exposed, everyone who was already in class looking at the strange new girl who’d just destroyed a display.

I heard a chair scrape and footsteps head toward me as I picked up the grapes. The person knelt down to grab the bowl and the other apple for me.

“Way to make an entrance,” Carter says.

“How many people saw that?” I mumble, shaking my head at myself as Carter puts the bowl down and I put the grapes and the apple I’m holding onto back in the bowl.

“Pretty much the whole class. Miss Augustan isn’t here yet, though, so you’re safe.”

“I don’t know if I like the sound of this teacher,” I say hesitantly. I pick at the grapes, shifting them so that they sit a bit better, before I follow Carter back to his seat. I take the easel next to his.

“How’s your first day so far?” he asks me.

“Um, okay, I think.”

“Made any friends?”

“I think so. There’re some girls in my homeroom who seem nice. Tiffany and Melissa?” I say their names like a question, because I want him to tell me about them.

“Whoa, wait,” Carter says, turning his whole body to face me. “Tiffany? As in, Tiffany Blanche?”

“Um, I think so… Dark hair, really pretty…”

I trail off, because Carter looks shocked. And slightly confused. There’s no other way to describe that expression: wide eyes, furrowed brow, and his mouth half hanging open, like he’s deciding whether or not to say something to me.

“Why? What’s –”

Before I can finish asking my question, and before Carter can say anything about Tiffany, someone claps their hands together briskly, and a musical voice rings out, “Alright, class, settle down, settle down! Another new year lies ahead, and I’m expecting great things from you all!”

The lady – I’m guessing she’s Miss Augustan, the teacher Carter just told me about – is tall and willowy, with wavy hair that’s so long, it has an almost hippy-like quality. She’s not dressed like a teacher, though. Jeans and a paint-flecked white t-shirt don’t really scream teacher.

She looks around with a big smile, her hands still clasped together as if in prayer, taking everyone in, and she pauses at me. Then she folds all her fingers over each other except her index fingers, and points at me.

“Well you’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Name?”

“Madison. Um, I mean, Madison Clarke.”

Miss Augustan nods. “Do you do much art? Photography? Photoshop?”

“Not really. I guess I liked it in my old school.”

“Good enough for me,” she says brightly. “Welcome to class, Madison. Okay, everyone, we’re going to break y’all in easy this year. I set up fruit bowls and vases. Paint them. Draw them. Abstract, watercolor, pastels, biro, anything at all! Whatever and however it takes your fancy! But at the end of this double period, I want your interpretation of one of those displays on that canvas!”

There’s a heartbeat of silence, before the class bubbles with chatter and there’s a clatter of pens and pencils and paints being taken out.

I look to the small desk by the side of my easel. There’s a paint pallet of about a dozen colors, a couple of black biros, varying grades of B and HB sketching pencils, a couple of paintbrushes and an eraser. My hand lingers over them a few minutes until I pick up a biro.

I don’t start to draw, though; I twirl the biro around my fingers a couple of times, and then I turn in my seat slightly to look at Carter, who’s drawing a green curve with a pastel on his canvas.

“So,” I say pointedly. “About Tiffany?”

Carter sighs. His hand holding the green pastel stills against the canvas, but he doesn’t turn his head toward me.

“Tiffany Blanche,” he tells me, “is the Queen Bee of the school, basically. It would be an indisputable fact if she were a senior, too. She’s…” His mouth twists like he’s finding it hard to pick the right words. “She’s… Bitchy, I guess, but not always. It’s just the occasional thing here and there, because most of the time she’s nice enough. Which is the worst part, because you can’t really hate her then. But she’s got her place in this school and that’s where she likes to stay, just like the rest of them. The rest of us,” he corrects.

I know what he means, and I nod. But the part about Tiffany makes me reply, “She seemed really nice when I spoke to her. I mean… she was talking to me.”

“Then you’ve got your place now too,” he responds, not unkindly. He gives me a small smile, too, to soften his words.

 It just didn’t make sense. I didn’t understand why she spoke to me. Maybe it was just because I’d been with Bryce. But then, why had he been talking to me?

“If she was talking to you,” Carter carries on, “then I’d suggest you don’t talk to me. One of her minions might see you.” The way he says ‘minions’, in such an ominous, threatening tone, I throw my head back and giggle. When I sober back up, I face Carter again.

The weirdest thing is, his face has turned completely serious.

He just stares at his canvas, slowly forming an apple, without even the merest hint of amusement or humor in his face.

“What’re you on about?” I ask, my tone a little nervous.

Carter shrugs his shoulders and then sighs heavily through his nose. “Do you need me to bring out the dictionary definition of ‘minion’, or are you okay on that?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head and frowning in confusion. “I just – I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand?” Carter says. “Like I said, if you want to be friends with Tiffany, stop talking to me.”

“But why?”

“I don’t think you really need me to answer that, now, do you?” Now, he turns his head and the look on his face is still grave, but there’s something sad about it. Almost pitiful. “You’re a smart girl, Madison.”

And then it twigs – Tiffany’s pretty much the most popular girl in school, from the sound of it. Carter is probably not the kind of guy who hangs out with the popular crowd. And if I want in with the popular crowd, and Tiffany, then I don’t want to be around Carter.

But I don’t know anyone else in this class, and I don’t know if any of Tiffany’s friends are here. Regardless of any of that though, I kind of like Carter. He seemed like a nice guy, when I talked to him at the party the other night.

So I say to him, “How exactly did you lose half of your eyebrow?”

He laughs a little, but there’s still that pitying element in his eyes when he shakes his head at me. “My fourteen year old cousin had a blowtorch and decided to get all up in my face with it.”

“Oh, ouch.”

After a couple of minutes, Carter says, “You know, the blowtorch incident isn’t true.”

Slowly, I turn my head, and I stare at him, my eyes narrowing a little. “I’ve fallen for your fake stories twice now.”

There’s a smirk on his face, and he laughs at me. “I know. I’m very convincing.”

“Are you actually going to ever tell me the truth?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t sound half as cool as the fake incidents. Plus, it’s damn hilarious when someone believes it. Like you did.”

“Ha-ha.”

But then I laugh too, and we only stop laughing when Miss Augustan suddenly appears behind us.

“Some may say that laughter is the music of the soul,” she tells us, “but it’s not helping your productivity.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, and she says “Mm,” before wandering gracefully away to look at everyone else’s work.

Carter catches my eye though, and I bite the insides of my cheeks hard. He snickers, and I turn away, back to my biro sketch, before I start laughing again. I don’t want to get into trouble on my first day. Face-planting on the steps in front of Bryce was bad enough.

*

I leave Carter once Art & Photography class is over to make a trip to the front office – which, by some miracle, I find. The same middle aged lady from earlier is still there. Mrs. Willis, I think Bryce said her name is?

She’s busy tapping away at her computer, so I just stand there quietly and wait until she notices I’m there.

“Oh!” A spark of recognition flashes across her face. “Madison, wasn’t it?”

I nod. “Yeah, hi. Um…”

“Is everything alright so far?” she interrupts me, with a pleasant smile. “No trouble with any of your classes?”

“No,” I say, smiling back, “everything’s fine. I was just, um, wondering… about AP Physics…”

“Ah, yes, well, I looked into that a little more. There’s really nothing I can do about it. I’m sorry, Madison. You’ll have to try your best. If you find yourself really struggling, though, I know the school has a list of highly recommended tutors.”

“Oh.” Anger and irritation bubbles up inside me. I’m angry because I know how stupid it’ll make me feel if I have to get a tutor. I’m irritated because there’s nothing Mrs. Willis can do, and I really don’t think I can handle AP Physics.

But the mixture of being mad and being annoyed just turns out as defeat. I feel my shoulders deflate and I sigh, my head drooping a little.

I force a polite smile to the secretary. “Thanks anyway.” And I walk away, rummaging into my bag to find my schedule, to see which room I need to be in for Biology next period.

Then someone cries out, “Madison!” and I whirl around to see Tiffany at the other end of the corridor, with a couple of other people. She waves me over, with a smile, and I waver a little uncertainly, but I go over there.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m so nervous, really. Tiffany seemed friendly enough toward me in homeroom. I guess I’m just worried her friends won’t like me. My palms turn sweaty, and my hands are trembling ever so slightly, but I walk over to them with my chin up and a casual sort of smile on my face, like I know what I’m doing and I’m totally confident.

“Hey,” I say, mostly to Tiffany, since I don’t know any of the others. There’s a tall, lean guy with dark spiky hair, and he’s got a kind of arrogance in his face. Two other guys are there, both of them with dark brown hair, and one of them has an arm slung around a slim redheaded girl.

“Guys, this is Madison,” Tiffany announces, waving one of her immaculately French manicured hands in my direction. Seeing her pristine nails makes me very aware of my own bitten ones, and I curl my fingers up a little, self-conscious.

“Madison, this is Kyle, Adam, Marcus, and Summer.”

She points to each of them when she says their name. The redhead is Summer, and the guy with his arm around her is Marcus. Kyle is the one with black hair and an arrogant quirk in his expression, and Adam is the other guy. I now notice that Adam and Kyle are wearing what look like identical letterman jackets – it tells me instantly they’re footballers or something for the school team. What did Melissa say they were called? The Hounds?

“Hey,” they all say, their voices overlapping.

“Hi,” I reply. I hitch my bag higher onto my shoulder, a nervous sort of movement.

“How’re you finding Midsommer High?” Tiffany asks me.

“Okay. Except they messed up my transcript and I’m stuck in AP Physics. I can’t do physics at all. It’s so lousy.”

One of the guys – Adam – snorts loudly. “Lousy? Did you seriously just say lousy?”

“Uh, yeah. Have you got some kind of problem with that, or…?” It comes out kind of blunt and sarcastic, but I suppose it’s better than letting on that I now feel completely mortified that yes, I did actually just say lousy.

Adam looks kind of surprised by my retort. I can see Tiffany and Summer exchange a glance, and I feel Tiffany’s piercing brown eyes evaluating me.

“No,” Adam says in reply to me. “It’s just nobody’s said that since, like, sixth grade.”

“Oh,” I say. “Don’t really see how that’s my problem, but alright.”

“AP Physics?” Summer interrupts then. “Shit, that’s rough.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Cool piercing, by the way,” she tells me, pointing to my face. “Totally goes with the hair cut.”

“I know, right?” Tiffany exclaims in her bubbly voice. “That’s so what I thought! Didn’t I say that earlier?” She turns to me with a smile.

I nod, and smile back, but I don’t really know what to say.

Luckily I’m saved from answering because then a voice that’s already all too familiar calls out, “Yo, guys, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.” Then as he comes closer, he adds, “Aw, look at that, Mainstream, making friends already.”

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