Scotland. It wasn't the worst place in the world, but with its cold weather and constant drizzle, it wasn't really where Charlotte wanted to live. She brought back to one of the stories her father told her as a child, how the nights were so cold that in the dark he could see the mists of his breath, and how every Sunday his parents forced him and his brothers to wear a kilt to Sunday school.

Charlotte often wore skirts to school, so that one wouldn't bother her. But the thought of the cold and the rain put her off.

In the middle of the night, she sat up in bed,  her mind racing with thoughts and ideas of how her life might change now that her family was wealthy. She looked at her small room, as in the bunk bed above her, Bethany slept soundly. The squeak of her rickety old mattress moaned and groaned with every inch she moved.

Pink floral wallpaper peeled from the walls, and posters of pop stars and celebrities clung on for dear life. Piles of homework littered the desk and slid onto the faded pink carpet. High on the ceiling, above the workspace, a dark brown patch began to form.

In the silence of the night, hushed voices echoed through the walls of the next bedroom. Charlotte pushed her dark brown hair back behind her petite ear and moved her head closer.

"We can't move to Scotland," Dad's voice whispered.

Move! No one said anything about moving and certainly nothing about Scotland. Charlotte's heartbeat quickened, and her breathing became deeper. The house was damp, but it could be fixed. Bella would soon get over Jason and get another boyfriend. There wasn't any reason to move.

"I don't see why not. I jolly hate my job, you hate yours and did you see the state got herself into earlier? We can't possibly stay. Name me one reason why we shouldn't move..."

It sounded like at least one parent didn't want that either. But Charlotte knew Mum well enough and what Sally Greyson wanted, Sally Greyson usually got. She listened in silence, waiting... waiting for the sounds of Dad's wee Scot's voice telling his wife that no matter how much they disliked living in the small house, there wasn't any need to move.

"Well, I..." He paused for a moment, "I suppose I've always wanted to write a novel and the peace would be nice." Charles sighed, "I'm knackered love, I can't decide now. Let's talk in the mornin', it's past one."

Charlotte sighed and checked her social media for a while before going to sleep. As long as Dad didn't want to move, maybe there was hope. As long as Dad didn't want to move, maybe he could change Mum's mind. But what if Dad did want to move? How would she cope?

She remembered something a friend of hers once told her about her cousin that moved schools. Jane Jones was the life and soul of every party, the school's most popular year eleven pupil and the hostess of some of the best, and naughtiest parties they were ever thrown. Her father lost his job in the city, and her mother then left him, leading to her moving closer to London where she could find more work. Jane and her brothers moved with her and now at St Heath's, it was Jane who? Charlotte didn't want to become Jane. The thought of her being 'Charlotte who', freaked her out no end.

The next day was Monday, which for the Greyson girls meant back to school after the long and complicated weekend, lessons were the last thing on their minds.

As the cool autumn wind blew fallen Bella leaves across the school grounds, Charlotte sat peacefully on a bench, her lunch box lying unopened next to her, the words 'Charlotte who' spun around her mind like a little hamster running and running on a wheel, round and round in circles but ending up nowhere as a result.

The loud shrill of the school bell summoning the students back to lessons echoed through the school. Charlotte signed and flung her heavy bag over her shoulder. In the distance, floods of pupils headed back through the double doors into the school. She watched as her friends went back to lessons, but something didn't feel right.

She stood up and glanced over at her friends before turning the other way. Charlotte shifted her heavy bag back into her shoulder and began to walk away. Instead of heading back to school to continue the day, she looked over her shoulder, and then quickly nipped through the gates. Charlotte felt free, but her stomach churned and knotted with worry. What she heard the night before wasn't something she ever thought she'd hear. No way could she sit through more lessons and double maths was something she felt she could afford to miss.

The road outside secondary school was busier than usual. Cars sped through the street and a few people walked down the road, just minding their own business. Charlotte couldn't help but wonder how they would feel if they were in her situation. Would they cope knowing their family was rich, but might move?

She looked left, then right, as she crossed the street towards the bus stop that stood around the corner from the school. She leaned against a low brick wall near the bus stop and flicked through a magazine that she kept inside her school bag. The sun shone brightly, casting a nice warm gaze across the road. Charlotte looked up and squinted at the sun. She opened her bag and pulled out her sunglasses, but before she could put them on in the distance she caught a glimpse of the bus heading in her direction.

She held out her arm and the bus slowed to a halt.

"Half to Redbook Road please," She said, as she dropped one pound and fifty pence on the small tray that was attached to the driver's door. She took her ticket and moved through the busy vehicle towards an empty seat near the back. The smell of body odour mixed with alcohol shifted down from the seat behind her.

Charlotte turned around to see a scruffy-looking chap sitting nearby. His brown coat was stained with something she didn't want to think about, that clung to his skeletal frame. Bags hung around his darkened eyes and it was clear as the scar across his unshaven face that he had been without food for a very long time. She only glanced for a moment, before looking back out of the window. The girl's eyelids began to droop and the faint smile on her resting face quickly faded.

She sat for a few minutes, her thoughts turning from the homeless man to her dilemma and hoped more than anything that her parents weren't planning on moving. For all, she knew the man on the bus possibly didn't have any family or friends, and she felt grateful that she had both. Her family loved her, and her friends were as close to her as everyone else she loved, especially her bestie, Emily Philips. If they moved she might not see her again and that broke her heart in two.

Looking out of the window the familiar sights of her neighbourhood came into view. She pressed the button to signal that she wanted to get off. Before she walked down the gangway, she turned to look back at the man who sat on his own. She reached into the front pocket of her navy school blazer where she found a five-pound note. As she walked past the man, she allowed the money to slip from her grasp. He looked up. She smiled sweetly and gave a slight nod. Her pace quickened as the bus slowed to a halt outside the local pub.

"Thank you, driver," she said as she left the bus.

It didn't take her long to walk the short distance from the local pub and a few minutes later she found herself back at home. Charlotte paused for a moment. She was home two hours earlier than usual. But before she put her key in the lock to open the front door, something caught her eye. Her older sister's small black runaround sat parked outside. Why was Bella home and not at college? She looked further down the road, both her parents' cars were parked in their usual spaces. Again, weird.

Wasn't Mum due at work? Did Dad not have criminals to catch?

Charlotte inhaled deeply. The sweet floral smell of her mother's brilliant red roses that were planted in the front garden, drifted up her pierced nose. If the family moved away, she'd miss that smell. Key in hand she carefully placed it inside the lock and turned it to open the door. She carefully pushed it open, and on the tips of her toes, she entered the house.

The atmosphere inside number eight Smithy Close felt tense and uneasy. She walked through the hallway, and couldn't help but notice that the door to the living room was shut. That door was never shut. She paused for a moment and took a closer step. Charlotte leaned forward so close that her ear was against the wood of the door. Inside the room, muffled voices spoke quietly. It didn't take her long to easily identify them as Mum, Dad and.

"So that's decided then." Spoke to Mum, "We're moving to Scotland."

What? No? That couldn't be happening! Who were they to decide where Charlotte and her sisters lived? They didn't own her.

"No!" Charlotte gasped from the hallway. She took a step backwards, but her school bag knocked against the coat stand. It only took one slight touch for the heavy object to start to sway. The top moved an inch and tapped against the mirror, creating a sound loud enough to be heard in the next room.

"Shit!"

She placed her hand on the old wooden bannister, hoping inside that no one heard. But no. Charlotte Greyson wouldn't be that lucky. The lounge door opened, and her father stood in the doorway.

"Charlotte! What are you doing at home?"

Now she needed to think quickly. What would be a good enough reason why she was home instead of sitting through two hours of maths?
"My period." She said, saying the first thing that came to mind. "My period started and I didn't have anything with me and I can't stand those awful cheap ones at school. They all fall to pieces."

"Fine, do what you need to do and then we need to talk."

Charlotte nipped into the loo, and a few seconds later, headed into the room where her family waited patiently to share their news.

"Charlotte," Dad began, he knew his youngest daughter well enough to predict how she'd take the news. "Your mother and I have been talking..."

The girl stood still, her arms folded as she glared at her mother.
"I don't care!" She replied, "I'm not moving. End of!"

"Charlotte you are fifteen," Mum began, "you are neither old enough nor mature enough to stay here on your own. You'll love the new house."

Charlotte's mouth dropped open, "you mean you've already put an offer in?"

Dad nodded, "We're buying a slice of history and reuniting this family with our ancestral home."

"But that's in Scotland!"

This time Charlotte sunk into the settee, Mum sat next to her with Dad in his usual armchair and at the table. The tablet was open as she tapped a web address in the address bar, before showing the screen to Charlotte.

"Look at this," she said.

Charlotte's blue eyes narrowed as she took the device from her older sister's grasp.
"What am I looking at?"

"That, my girl," said Dad, "is the home of our ancestors, Castle Stone."

"I'm not going and that's final!" She stood from the settee and headed towards the door. The walls of the old property shook as she slammed the door closed.

Charlotte continued walking down the road, her face like thunder, her steps heavy and filled with fury. Her school bag swung as if filled with bricks that pulled her shoulder causing pain and discomfort. She turned the corner and as her sight set on a house she knew well, her pace quickened from a light walk to more of a jog. She moved at speed down the road. Pretty detached properties lined the street, their front gardens out in bloom, partially concealed by low stone walls.

She paused for a moment, and sighed, before opening the gate of number four Kent Way. Charlotte walked towards the front door and carefully closed the gate behind her. She knocked once, and then again, as she waited for someone to answer. After the third knock, she heard footsteps running quickly towards the door, a few seconds later it opened and a young girl about her age, stood in the doorway.

Charlotte sniffed back tears, "Oh Em!" Tears slowly began to fall from her eyes as she spoke and they ran down her face like a black river of sorrow. She flung her arms around her friend, "We're moving!"

Emily Philips, a slim girl with a brilliantly bold Afro, untangled her friend's arms from around her neck. She moved her gold-rimmed spectacles higher on her nose and stepped to the side as Charlotte entered her home.

"You ok, babe?" She said as they headed up the stairs towards Emily's bedroom. She opened the door and Charlotte dropped onto the bed.

"No," Charlotte sniffed again, her eyes were stained with running black mascara and her eyeliner also streaked down her face. "Mum and Dad say we're moving. I went home earlier and they told me we're going to live in Scotland. I'll be on the other side of the country, Em. We might never see each other."

Emily fell silent. Charlotte wasn't the only one with a deep secret and now was the time, to be honest.

"Em? Are you ok?"

Emily grabbed the hairband that was around her wrist and tied her dark curls back so they were out of her eyes.
"Hey, there's no easy way to tell you this, babe," the girl took a deep breath, "I'm moving on."

Charlotte's eyes widened. Did Emily say that?

Things that Charlotte never noticed before suddenly started to become visible. Piles of boxes that weren't there on her last visit, we're stacked up in the corner. The posters of horses and cute kittens that used to be stuck to the walls now lay inside the cardboard boxes.

"You're leaving?"

Emily sighed, "Yeah, mom's back and she wants me to go back to the States with her. Being here was only supposed to be temporary, Char, we both knew that."

"Oh Em, you can't leave. You've been here since year seven, please, Em. Don't go!"

"Look, I don't have a say in this. I go where Mom goes and since her European tour is over, there's no reason for us to stay here now."

Charlotte stood from the bed. Now she wasn't a reason for her best friend to stay?
"What's the point in this friendship then? What's the point of us being BFFs? That's best friends forever, by the way! If the second your Mum, who you haven't seen in four years, clicks her overpriced manicured fingers off you go back on a plane to the States. Back to your family, your culture and your sodding hotdogs!"

"Charlotte, please. Wait!"

"No! Why the fuck should I wait for you?" Charlotte headed towards the door, her hand touching the handle, "fuck you, Emily Philips! I hope you enjoy America so much you never come back! Hope you choke on a hotdog! This friendship is done!"

Charlotte's eyes were wet with tears as she hurried down the road and away from the huge fight with Emily. She couldn't understand why after all those years without her Mum, why Emily now wanted to return to her homeland. Why, when they'd been so happy together at school with all their other friends, didn't she just stay and see out the rest of their school years? Although Charlotte had never met Emily's Mum, she quickly began to resent her for taking her best friend away. But if Emily wasn't prepared to make the friendship work, why should Charlotte waste her time fighting for it?

She turned the corner back into her street but stopped in her tracks. No. She didn't want to go back, not yet anyway. And she couldn't go to Emily's, not after the scene she'd just caused. Charlotte crossed over the road and away from the street where she lived. She thought about going somewhere where no one would find her, just to get away from everything. But running away was a weak person's game, and Charlotte wasn't weak, she just wasn't quite ready to fight her parents, not yet, anyway.

So, she walked further down the road and through the eight-foot-high gates that lead to the local park. With it not even three o'clock, the park was almost empty. She passed through the gates and sat down on her favourite seat near the duck pond in the middle of the wide open space. The peaceful sound of the happy ducks going about their lives was just another thing she'd miss if the move went ahead. She sat for a while on her own just thinking, reminiscing of times long gone when friends were forever and everything just stayed the same.

She breathed in the fresh air and the smell of the pond. She thought about how her life would change and how she wasn't near ready for any of it.

"Charlotte!" A familiar voice in the distance called her name, but Charlotte stayed focused on watching the ducks and the geese.

A hand touched her... She peered over her right shoulder. Bethany stood behind her. "I thought you might be here," she said, "either here or at Emily's. I thought you'd most likely be there, to be honest. Why aren't you?"

Charlotte sighed, "She's going back to the States. So, no. She's not my friend anymore." She paused, and looked back at the ducks swimming in the pond, "Look, Bethie, are you here for a reason, or not?"

Bethany moved and took a seat next to her.
"There's something you need to know," she started.

"Yeah! We're moving to sodding wet Scotland. I know!"

"No, not that. There's something else. I mean have you never wondered why we're moving so far away?"

"Err, Mum won loads of cash, so she clicked her fingers and we're moving. End of!"

Bethany sighed and moved stray strands of shoulder-length dark hair back behind her ear.
"Yeah, if only it were that simple." She inhaled deeply before continuing, "You know about Jase, right?"

"Yeah, he and Bella split last night, he's got that chav, Chantelle pregnant."

"Oh god sis, you don't know the half of it!"

Charlotte thought she knew everything and the fact there was something she was unaware of, was a feeling she didn't like at all!

"Now you don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, Char, promise?"

"Yeah. Course!"

Bethany moved closer to Charlotte, the sound of her voice dropping to almost a whisper as she began to fill her younger sister in on the latest family gossip. Throughout the chat, her face remained straight, as she fought back her emotions.

"When you were at the stables yesterday, all hell broke loose. Dad found a packet of cocaine in Bella's room. Turns out it's Jase's. He's on crack. Dad called his colleagues, and they arrested him but he phoned  an hour later asking her to give him an alibi."

"Alibi? For what?"

"Someone reported seeing a guy in a grey hoodie with a black baseball cap and joggers selling crack and weed to some of the sixth formers. Does that sound familiar to you?"

"Yeah. Jase always wears the same outfit.  It's like the guy doesn't have a change of clothes or something. I mean he's got a job, why can't he buy some?"

"Anyway, he wanted Bella to say he was with her that night and not where the police thought he was. She's nipped to the loo, Dad answered her phone and told him where he could shove his alibi as he wasn't getting one." Bethany paused and waited as Charlotte began to absorb the family's latest drama.

"Poor Bella," Charlotte said, breaking the silence that lingered between the sisters.

"That's why we have to move," Bethany continued, "Mum and Dad are worried that if we don't go now, and Jase gets off it, Bella will take him back and then who knows what will happen to her. She could end up like a drug addict, selling herself to fund her addiction."

"So no uni then?"

Bethany's eyebrows knotted tightly, and she looked at Charlotte through slanted eyes. "One way or another, we could lose our sister. This move is life or death. We can't have her get back with that plank. He'll ruin her. We have to do this for Bella."

The sound of the phone rang loudly, breaking the girl's conversation. Bethany quickly answered it, but instead of sitting near Charlotte, she stood and moved away.

Charlotte listened carefully, but with her sister standing away from her, it was difficult for her to hear what was being said.

"Yes. Right. That's great news.... I don't know... Do you want me to tell her? Yeah, I'll do that... See you later."

"Who was that? Your boyfriend?"

Bethany shook her head, her expressionless face made Charlotte worry. But no way was she prepared for what was about to happen.

"That was Mum," Said Bethany, "We need to get home. We're moving next week!"