TW: Swearing, as always

BEEP BEEP BEEP

"Ughnn.." I groaned whirling over to face the alarm clock. Harsh needles of sunlight peeked through the curtains and I shielded my face against it, blinking the sleep out of my eyes.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

I stole a glance at the time. 6:30. 

Why do I have to live so far away?? I blame mum. Just because she's an architect doesn't mean she's gotta show it off to everyone. Then I could live closer and I wouldn't have to get up so early.

BEEP BE-

I flung my pillow at the alarm clock, hitting the snooze switch on top.

"CONNOR!" My younger sister's shrill voice shrieked. "MUM SAYS YOU HAVE TO GET UP NOW!"

"SHUT UP GEMMA," I yelled back through the house, rolling out of bed.

Okay honest to god dunno how to spell that next word but-

It shouldn't've been so hard to get my school uniform on but I was tired, and because of Vega, running on 7 hours of sleep. Which may be a lot for most people, but I'm used to at least 10 hours. I need my rest or I'm really bitchy and I look like a frickin gremlin.

After 15 minutes of zombie-like sleep-deprived struggle, I was upstairs and ready for breakfast.

"You look terrible, honey." Was the first thing my mum said to me as I nearly dropped the cereal, spilling it practically everywhere.

"Didn't sleep well," The lie easily rolled off my tongue. I usually have a problem with lying, but it's fine if it's petty little things that aren't very important.

"Aw that's no good. I gotta take Gemma to school, can you get to the bus stop on time?" Mum asked me, shooing Gemma off the couch and bustling her down the corridor.

"Yep, I can,"

Not that it mattered because she was already out the door.

As soon as mum left I reached for the fridge door. Snatching two cans of iced coffee from the top shelf I tiptoed to the bench, even though no one else was home. I stared at my cereal for a second before opening one of the cans and pouring it into the bowl.

It was actually a terrible idea- despite mocha being a GREAT flavour, coco pops, when mixed with the iced coffee definitely WAS NOT.

Upon realising the time I tipped the bowl back and drank the rest of my abomination, recoiling at the horrible mix of something that should've tasted good. My school stuff was all on the counter in a pile, I swept my hand along the bench, pushing it all over the edge and into a jumble in my bag.

As I locked the door behind me, I hoped to god that I'd packed everything in my bag - I'd once left all my hockey gear and my entire lunch box at home, and, that very same day lost my school shoes.

I was pulled from my thoughts as I heard the bus coming round the corner.

SHIT!

I sprinted down the street, nearly tripping over my forever untied laces. 

Exactly 26 minutes later I was at school, thankfully on time. 

I wandered around school for a bit, but eventually the bell rang right when I was by the back entrance near ýylan. 

I had cooking. Which, might I add, was on the other side of the school.

So much for getting here early.

Although I'd say I can run pretty fast I was still quite far away from my class. Of course.

I dashed in late and sat down in the only empty seat up the front, next to some blonde girl that looked like she wanted to murder everyone in the room.

She gave me an absolutely evil stare before turning her gaze back to the teacher. 

"Uh hey," I said leaning back to rest my neck on my hand.

As the teacher wrote up instructions she flicked a disgusted look my way and opened her mouth.

"I swear if you're trying to hit on me, I'll break all your little fingers-"

I sat up, my hands staying in the air awkwardly before I crossed them.

"No, no, I swear I wasn't. I just sit like that."

She scrutinised me for a second longer before her face softened.

"Alright Connor, I believe you." She started pulling books out of her bag, and I did too, then stopped.

"How do you know my name?" 

She barely turned towards me and she said, "you came here late, you're the only person who didn't call out for the roll."

After my books were on the table I nodded. 

"Right. Shit." I got up to apologize to our new teacher (reaaally not off to a great start) and once I sat down again, the grumpy blonde girl didn't talk to me for the rest of the lesson. 

Although time flies when you're having fun, it, thankfully, went quickly through the tedious first lesson of cooking, aka, 'familiarizing ourselves with the kitchen'.

"Bye blondie," I said over my shoulder, and she snapped back almost immediately.

"Use it," she said, referencing the nickname, then pointed at my hand, "and lose it." 

I dodged around the finger she had pointed at me, she turned in the same direction as me so I continued talking.

"Okay, firstly, that threat is so specific it's scary, and two, I don't know your name."

She contemplated telling me, then must've decided that me knowing her name was worth not being called blondie.

"Laine," she just rolled her eyes.

"Cool, bye Laine!" I said running off so I wasn't late, AGAIN.

She barely hesitated before yelling, "bye, dipshit!"

The sarcasm was heavy, but I hoped I wasn't delusional hearing some sentiment behind her words.

And now I had maths. 

Ugh.

"Hey, Vee!" I said spotting his familiar green bag.

"Huh- Hi." Vega jumped back as I put a hand on his shoulder. I pulled my hand back.

He coughed awkwardly and I followed him to a round table in the corner. Thankfully there was no seating plan and I wasn't with those gossipy she-devils again.

I kicked my heels under the table as I sat down.

"That's pretty sad," Vega said without warning, and I turned to him with one eyebrow cocked to say 'what?'.

"I'm your only friend in your class right now." He chuckled and I huffed.

I crossed my arms and sat up a bit straighter. "UM, I think you'll find I have a LOT of friends."

Vega patted my shoulder and gave me this weird patronising smile. "Suuure you do."

I opened my mouth to say I'd made a new friend just today, then decided telling him about the prickly blonde girl that low-key hated me wouldn't help.

"Oh? And what about you? Do YOU have any other-" I was cut off by Penny sitting down across from me and next to Vega.

Vega waved at her and shot me a horribly smug 'I told you so' face. I swatted at his shoulder and crossed my arms even tighter.

"Hey Piper," Vega greeted Penny for some reason, and then shoved my arm.

I threw my hands up in a 'what do you want from me!?' kinda way and he just stared at me flatly.

"You gonna say hi or not?"

I rolled my eyes, "Fine."

"Hi... Penny." I said uneasily, not sure what the deal was with her name. "I'm Connor and it seems you already know this smug little bastard."

She nodded and giggled, then started a conversation with me about bugs. Even though Vee was the genius with a whole two friends which sounds sad but is more impressive than what I've got... he stayed pretty quiet the whole period and barely opened his mouth at all.

He shrunk back a bit and ducked his head and Penny didn't seem to notice and kept talking. 

He's probably just tired. I shrugged it off.

Although as the hour passed he started looking continuously more unhappy.

"Vega?" I finally asked way too late.

"Mhm." He didn't really move, he just looked up through his dark eyelashes at me.

"You okay?" He shifted in his seat.

"Yeah sure." He said, tryna brush it off.

I turned around so I was angled towards him. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Vega hit me with the full force of his blue eyes. "I'm fine."

Ugh stupid infuriating boy. Why do I even care?

Maybe I can get him to talk about something he likes.

"You have a cat, right?" I asked him. That should get him talking. I tried not to smirk at my own brilliant-ness but Vega caught the look and narrowed his eyes.

"How did you know..?" He said cautiously.

"Maybe he's been stalking you!" Penny, who'd been quiet for a long time, jumped in.

"Ah," Vega said giving me a flat stare. "Holly."

"His creepy stalker girlfriend," Vega clarified.

I opened my mouth to protest and he just waved his hand at me.

"Yeah," He chirped. "I've got a cat and she's called Mochi." Vega then said a buncha words that didn't really make sense to me- I think he was explaining her breed but I'm not familiar with any of that stuff.

I didn't comprehend most of the conversation but it didn't matter. Vega was chatting happily to Penny about... Ragamuffins and Sphinxes for some reason? But they were happy so I was happy.

Even though most of our classes are pretty chill at the moment, being the second day and all, I'd completely forgotten about the English test. Even though I AM good at English which is so NOT SURPRISING, I'm still worried. Last test I did for English was supposed to take an hour, I finished in 15 minutes and got the highest mark in the class. Reading and writing is easy. Spelling just sometimes isn't my strong suit. 

Which is also NOT PREDICTABLE, thank you very much.

And even though I knew I was gonna do well, as soon as the bell rang for interval I was out the door to stress about it to Holly.

Holly placed her hands firmly on my shoulders and attempted to shake some sense into me.

"Connor."

My head shook roughly. 

"You are going to do fine. You always do." She was still gripping my arms tightly.

"Holly you can stop shaking me now."

She didn't stop. "Not until you admit you'll do fine."

I sighed. "Holly.."

"Say it."

"I'm gonna do fine!" I said, exasperated. She released me and I took a step back and sat down out of her arms' reach.

"And don't you forget it." Holly said with a note of finality in her voice.

We chatted about movies for most of morning tea and then went off to our classes at 10:20.

Vega was already there, talking to Penny while nervously twisting his backpack strap around his fingers. He started chewing on his lip and nodding at something Penny had said.

"Hi!" I said, appearing behind them.

"Oh, hey." Vega said with a forceful smile. It's not that he wasn't happy to see me, I think he was just anxious.

"You are much too cheerful for the test that's about to happen." Penny said to me with an almost stern look on her face.

"It's not that important, you know. You guys are acting like it's some big thing" I used a jazz-hand-like gesture, "but it's not like they can move you to a different class or anything." I'm really not that good at calming people down, I need Holly.

Vega exchanged a glance with Penny and she gave a little shake of her head.

"WAIT- THEY CAN DO THAT?!?" This was news to me.

"Yeah, can and will if they think they need to." Penny shifted her jumper and fidgeted with the edge of her skirt.

"Huh," More people were arriving now and I could see Mr Castillo down the hallway.

"Either way, I'm sure you'll do completely fine," I put my hands on her shoulders to reassure her and she gave me a stressed hug, earning an odd glance from Vega.

Penny stepped back again and did a weird jumpy dance, moving from foot to foot. "But I always run out of time! And then I can't answer the questions."

"Penny, trust me it isn't that bad, if you're really struggling just don't read the texts- only read the sentence it tells you to. The texts are a waste of time." At least, that's what I always do and I always do fine. Hasn't failed me once.

Penny nodded vigorously, her sandy-coloured fringe bouncing weirdly along with the rest of her hair. "Okay, I'll try that." She fretted.

As the teacher unlocked the class Vega decided to actually say something. "It's Piper." He said, following me into the class with Penny on his tail.

"What?" I asked as we made our way to the back of the class.

Brian, Kyle and Leon were still being dicks. Brian smirked at me when he opened the door and proceeded to talk about me obnoxiously loudly to the others. George wasn't so bad, though. He shot me a 'sorry about them' look and offered a shy smile.

At least one of my old friends wasn't an asshole.

"Oh yeah, I prefer to be called Piper," she shook me from my thoughts.

"Less girly," Vega shrugged.

One day and Vega and Piper were already besties talking about deep stuff and 'ragamuffins' and  'sphynxes' which Holly had informed me were cat breeds. Hahaa Vega's a cat nerd.

"Shit, sorry." I apologised.

Piper shook her head. "No, it's fine. I really need to get it changed or something."

The three of us sat down, with me in the middle and Vega and Piper on my two sides. Vega had sounded pretty smug about the test last night, but now he wasn't looking so sure of himself. I guess you can be organised and unprepared at the same time. 

Not so high and mighty now, huh?

Sir said a buncha stuff I didn't really listen to, then told us to get our computers out and log in. 

It's the same thing every year- it's just a harder version of what I was doing in primary school. As soon as Mr Castillo told us to start I was skimming the massive texts and answering the questions.

It tells you to 'read all of the passage carefully' but usually it directs you to a sentence and that's really all you need. Sometimes the test'll ask you what the 'overall tone is' or something like that - even then you can just read a couple of sentences and take a guess.

You know what they always say, work smarter not harder. Maybe teachers would disapprove of my... technique? But it works and I get good grades.

Pretty soon I was finished and I usually wouldn't submit the test straight away, but one time I accidentally exited the tab and had to start it all again. The good thing about these online tests is you get your mark back straight away.

6A. (aka really really good.) 

It's the highest mark you can get before it just says: higher than 6A. I've never really understood the grading system, it's quite confusing honestly, but if it was normal it would've been excellence.

I looked across at the clock, the test had taken me only 14 and a half minutes. 

And now I had to wait.

Inevitably, the teacher would've given me some spiel about taking my time and shit so I just clicked the mousepad and stuff to pretend I was still doing something.

I looked across at Vega. He had his jumper sleeves over his hands and he was resting his chin on his palm, picking at the nails on his fingers. 

I wish I could do something to help him and Piper. I guess the point of tests is to assess the individual's knowledge or whatever. Still, I like helping people. It makes me happy.

I scanned the class and about halfway in I spotted George sit back, and slowly more and more people started finishing. And then with about ten minutes to go Vega and Piper both finished at about the same time, of course, and the whole class started whispering to each other about their marks, and Mr Castillo looked like he was too tired to shut us up.

We were all done anyways.

I looked to Vega.

"How did you do?"

Heh, it's been a while. New character! Grumpy blonde girl. The cast is growingg. Connor, very UNSURPRISINGLY is good at english! Piper likes bugs and Vega likes cats. And Connors. Sorry about how long the update took.

I hope you guys like the chapter picture lol I spent aaages on this one.

° . * ° . * 2639 words ° . * ° . *

Published January 29, 2023