"WHY ARE YOU WALKING SO quickly?"

I turn around after locking the front door to the house, only to see Luke scampering down the footpath.

The morning sun is already too hot. Our new house is nicely ventilated, but until fall gets colder, even the two minute walk to the bus station is going to be too long.

"New town, new people," Luke explains matter-of-factly. He hasn't been in Carsonville all that long, yet he thinks he knows the roads well enough to walk without looking up from his Nintendo console. "I don't want people knowing we're related."

I roll my eyes, watching my little brother drift further and further away on his spindly legs. I wouldn't want to be related to him either, if I could help it. The truth of our relationship is: my brother and I barely tolerate each other. Sadly for me, Lucas Olsen is at that awkward age where everything he does is annoying and I am just at that age where everything annoys me. Probably because I have to wake up too goddamned early for school.

I retort heatedly, "Don't get expelled on the first day, at least! I don't want to move again."

He's still not watching where he's going. It would give me great pleasure if he hit a crack in the concrete and smashed his smug face into the ground.

"Hey, I didn't get expelled! It's not my fault we moved," Luke exclaims.

I sigh heavily. No, it wasn't his fault. He just conveniently rebelled in retaliation when Mom broke the news to him, ending his academic year on suspension.

My eyes stay on Luke's back as we approach the bus stop. His hair, I notice, is uncombed like mine — I couldn't be bothered after waking up twenty minutes late. Tangled hair is a family trait, amongst brown eyes and ambition. Ambition, actually, is the reason we are here.

Our family of three used to live across the country in sunny California — though I never tanned, I burned — had our whole lives. We were close to extended family, connected with our neighbours, and happy. Or at least, I thought we were. Our father passed away when I was a toddler, when Luke was barely an afterthought. We managed on a single income until the topic of college came up, at which point Mom decided things needed to change.

My mother is a manager. She manages everything at home, from finances to housekeeping, and she manages a bakery franchise as a job. She did the same thing back home, just with a smaller, more predictable clientele. Last year she was rightly given a raise and the opportunity to shine in one of the franchise's larger branches: the Carsonville branch.

My cousins and friends protested at first — along with me — but Mom, ever the persuasive one, managed to convince us all. Compared to my old town, Carsonville has better schools, higher proximity to a well-rated college, nicer, safer neighbourhoods. My best friends can Skype me, Mom pointed out, and I can always make new friends. From a logical, pro-con perspective, the hole in my heart is supposed to be small, yet it feels lethally big.

But who wouldn't want to live in a place straight out of a movie?

White picket fences, green lawns and all.

Mom dragged my brother and I to Carsonville with no time for me to hang out with my friends from my old high school. My family and I have been here since the end of my junior year, scouting around for good shops, looking at schools, unpacking, the like. I bet they enjoyed a carefree summer break, swimming, watching movies and staying up late, while I figured out where the damn bookstore is in this sleepy town.

I refuse to let myself feel anything but apathy about this, because if I were to have an opinion on our sudden move, it wouldn't be joy. Wouldn't be anything close to it. Right now, I'm barely preventing the nervous excitement, anticipation and dread from making a mess of me.

The first day at my new school is finally here.

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My last school bus was disagreeable, to sugar-coat the situation. Sugar-coating, even, is too pale of a term. More like, drowning the thing with raw sugar in diabetes-inducing amounts.

State funding is so bad they might as well drop the 'funding' part from the situation. The seats were muddy and perpetually sticky and gum wasn't just stuck under the chairs. Once, I was sitting a little too still and some flaming douche bag had pressed a soggy piece of gum to my cheek.

What a bastard. I can't ever smell peppermint without being reminded of that dreadful day.

The bus that runs to the elementary school picked Luke up five minutes ago. My bus — at least, I hope it is — pulls around the corner, followed by a cloud of exhaust and clutters to a halt beside me, blowing the gas into my face. The door opens, one side going faster than the other. I climb on behind the boy that waited at the stop with me.

Inside, it looks slightly better than my last bus. Slightly.

It's still pretty crappy. The students are loud and raucous, and remind me of feral squirrels. Even though there are enough chairs to seat us all, people are moving between aisles and over rails to get to their friends, and back to their other friends.

The windows are scratched with names inside hearts, declarations of 'Emma Rulez', the dates of which this bus was lucky enough to have someone plant an ass upon it (who would feel the need to tell everyone what day they didn't have enough money to take a better form of public transportation?) and grotesque depictions of the male appendage boys just can't stop talking about.

I always wondered how people carved their names into the glass on bus windows. Do you take a knife with you solely for the purpose of proclaiming that you wuz hea in 2014?

Squirming through the crowd, I take a seat in one of the spaces that no-one seems to be invading. In fact, it's the only seat that looks relatively untouched by filthy hands.

The bus quietens considerably. I hear whispers and vague bits of conversation.

"What the hell is she doing?"

"Look at the idiot. She must be new."

"Dude, the new girl's sitting in the—"

Ah, fuck.

This better not be one of those buses, where you get to claim which seat you take. But from the way everyone is behaving, I highly suspect it is. Just to avoid stirring the bubbly pot of high school drama on my first day, I consider standing up, and move to leave the seat. Before I can act on it, the bus makes its unsteady halt at the next stop and the door opens.

A lean-muscled boy walks on, his shoulder bag swung casually over one arm. Between me and the newcomer, the heads of my fellow bus-riders swivel back and forth, trying to decide which of us is more interesting to look at. Most pay attention to him, though some people are trying to look like they're busy with their own business. I think one person was even recording.

What is going on?

The boy stops next to me and his eyebrows tug upward in surprise. Then he shakes it off, plasters a smirk on his face and crosses his arms.

"You're in my seat," he says, arrogantly, purposefully. As if these mere words should have me begging for his forgiveness.

In a split second, I make an exception to my goal of keeping a low profile. It's the arrogance in this boy's voice and eyes, the cushioned smugness that is just begging to be deflated, that clues me into trouble. I'm not going to start my senior year by being a pushover. Especially for a boy who can't say please. 

I turn my head toward the window, hoping he'll take any of the other available seats.

"Hello?" He taps my shoulder forcefully. "Did you hear what I said? Move."

"No."

"Why not? There's plenty of empty seats over there." He jerks his thumb towards the back of the bus, and I glance over my shoulder before meeting his steady gaze.

"Then why can't you sit there?"

"This is my seat."

"Seriously?" I ask, baffled. It's just a bus seat. A crappy one, at that, which will only be occupied for a few more minutes. I furrow my eyebrows, "Do you have paperwork or something?"

"What?" Again, his face registers surprise. "No, I don't have paperwork."

"Well, unless you fucked a tree, and birthed this chair, which I heavily doubt, or you have legal proof that this chair is somehow your property, I've got no reason to move." Off-handedly, I throw in a smirk. "It's a free country." 

Inside the bus, the air is a buzzing coil of tension. Whispers spark up, hissing like a flame eating away a fuse, but dead silence reclaims the bus soon after. It's like they're holding their breath for a gunshot; the suspense is deafening. I notice that more people are now filming the encounter.

What the fuck? Is this guy the mayor?

"I was here first," he protests. No joke, his comebacks are laughable. So, that's what I do: throw my head back and let loose a few mocking chuckles before schooling him.

"Actually, I've been here for—" I look at my watch, "—seven minutes. You have been here for one. And in case you can't count to seven, anyone could see that I was here first. Plus, you never even said please."

A couple of guys groan at my remark, pointing and chuckling under their breaths. I notice the way they do it behind his back, and quieten down when he turns his head back to them.

It's not my intention to get combative on the first day, but I didn't drag my ass away from everything I've ever known, waste my summer researching and unpacking, wake up early enough to take a cruddy bus — I never had to do this at my old school, which was within walking distance — to be accosted by an entitled bean sprout.

In three quick shakes of his light brown tresses, his head seems to have been cleared. The arrogance and irritation has faded, like storm clouds opening on a sunshiny sky. Politely, he asks, "Well, can I at least have the window seat?"

I clear my throat.

"Please."

"No," I say grumpily.

"No? Why not?" he asks.

It's not fury that pulls his eyebrows up, but speech-stealing, breath-taking amounts of puzzlement — as if no-one has ever denied his spoiled ass.

"Because, I like the window seat."

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Not five minutes after he sits down, the boy starts talking, talking, talking. I refuse to meet his gaze, which I can see roaming my face in the periphery.

He acknowledges, "You're new."

"And you did not make a good first impression," I say stonily.

"Well, let's fix that," he supplies. In a terrible James-Bond accent, he introduces himself as, "Hollister. Terrence Hollister."

Ouch, my ears. His accent is terrible; it sounds more Russian than British.

"Olsen. Sophie Olsen."

"Wow," he laughs. Terrence's hazel eyes crinkle into themselves. "You're much better at British accents than I am."

I raise my Harry Potter-themed watch and gesture to it; I've read all of the Harry Potter books and seen all of the movies. I shrug self-explanatorily. "Potterhead."

"Pothead?" The intrigue on his face would be funny, if I weren't so insulted.

Correcting him, I say, "Potterhead. Gosh. Harry Potter fan."

"Oh. Oops," Terrence gives me a lopsided smile. "So where are you from?"

I sigh, wondering if I fall silent he'll forget he asked. At length, however, Terrence's expectant expression hasn't budged an inch. I grit out, "California."

"What grade are you?"

"Senior."

"Oh, me, too! Such a coincidence," Terrence chuckles. "Do you know what homeroom class you're in? Wouldn't it be funny if it was mine?"

"No, and sure," I drawl, in a manner that expresses how much I hope he's not in my homeroom class. Next minute, he'll try to tip me out of the chair I choose to sit on, because it's his spot. So weird.

Terrence's hearty laugh is almost mocking to my ears. Does nothing faze this boy? He has an ability to roll with every retort I make, seamlessly stitching together a conversation I realise I'm not altogether displeased with. I'm jealous of people like that; naturally sociable, and good at talking.

Attractive, too.

Honey brown hair flops over his forehead and sticks up in all directions, with mischievously pointy ears — that just scream trickery — and a light dusting of freckles on his nose. He literally looks like a person who could talk and smile their way out of first degree murder, but the look has never suited anyone better.

I hate to say someone who came off obnoxious and spoilt could be fun to talk to, and I hate even more how likeable he is. Speech laden with smooth laughs and bold dashes of jokes, Terrence seems to have a lot of experience getting people to do what he wants.

Except me, because I stay in the window seat for the rest of the trip.

When the bus arrives at the school, again clunking its way to a pause, the students all pour out of the doors in hurried rushes. Oddly enough, the rows of people in front of us stand, but wait at the sides of the aisles until Terrence has passed.

After he walks by, the frenzy begins, and everyone hurries off the bus, following the weird trend of giving Terrence more space than his skinny self actually needs. One freshman boy bumps into Terrence on his descent from the bus and looks like he shits himself. The frightened boy stutters a profuse apology before scampering away from us.

O-kay, then.

I demand an answer, "What is going on? You contagious or something?"

"Huh?" Terrence looks around us, "Oh, that. I barely notice it anymore. Usually, if you annoy me then something bad happens to you."

I raise my eyebrows at that suspicious-sounding answer, prompting for further explanation. He leans closer, with a secret brimming over his lips, and knowledge twinkling like ripples in the cavernous pools of his eyes, "Friends in high places."

"Right," I drawl, unimpressed. So fucking weird.

"Hey, you see that crack over there, on the sundial?"

Terrence points to the polished marble sundial in the centre of the school courtyard. From the side of the shiny, black gnomon, running like rainwater down to the base, is a thick crack. It looks like a bulldozer had crashed into it.

Frankly, it's a miracle the sundial is still standing.

I nod at him.

He scratches his temple. "That's sort of the result of one of my pranks gone haywire."

Unbelievable. The entire ridiculousness of the situation sends bouts of laughter through my lips. Not happy laughter. The incredulous sort.

Terrence asks, "Do you need help getting to class?"

"It's alright," I wave his offer away. "My orientation visit covered it."

Terrence nods in understanding, gives me a half-wave and walks into the throng of teenagers.

My orientation visit gave me enough information to make my way to the attendance office, where I'm scheduled to get my books and timetable first thing.

The last thing I want is Terrence tailing and laughing at me as I try to navigate Carsonville High School with a tiny map.