I scream into the white, soft folds of my pillow. The agonising, piercing sound is muffled into spasms of level-voice, pitchy, long noise. I hate Audrey. She's just messed up my entire 'good books' with Mamma. 

Checking my watch, I discover it's 6:58, two minutes until my alarm will go off for school. I want to get out of this apartment to school, but at the same time I want to hide under the warm covers, pretend I never existed and wait the four more years until I'm 18 so I can move out.

Deciding that I might as well get the first term of school over with, I roll off the mattress just as my alarm goes off with tinkling, gentle music. Then I bring out the plastic bag with my uniform, and have a look on how fancy the clothes will be.

The uniform is a white collared shirt with a dark blue tuxedo-like jacket and a matching skirt, white leggings and a stripy light blue and navy tie. I slip all of it on and brush through my hair, then braid it into a tight plait. 

I take out my suitcase and fold all my clothes in, pushing in my spare toothbrushes and toothpastes, my small toys and books, my art supplies, my notepads and, very gently, my leather sketchbook. All the copies of specific writing paper and dictionaries are stuffed into the last of the space, squishing against the shampoo and conditioner.

Then I go out of the safe boundaries of my room and cross the dining room, where Mamma's gaze seems unfocused and unseeing. 

I make some toast myself while Mamma changes and spread some jam over it. I munch it down quickly and have a mint, chewing it while my hands, fluent in this morning routine, pack my lunchbox with half a leftover raspberry muffin, an apple, a salad sandwich and a small chocolate. Filling up my pastel blue thermos drink bottle with one hand, my other one places it into my dark blue schoolbag. 

Upon my arrival at the bathroom, I lock the door and find my toothbrush in the silver cup. I fumble with the toothpaste and scrub through my teeth, then floss and wash out my mouth. Gently, I take a cotton bud and apply the teeth whitener from the bottle.

Once I'm ready, I wear my polished black school shoes and put my laptop in my bag and place my phone in my pocket. The simple white and gold marble case glitters as I place it in my skirt pocket. 

Typing in the address, I follow the path to the nearest train station and take it to 41 Broad Street, where Leman Manhattan Preparatory School is. I know I'm in the right place because of the kids all wearing the same uniforms as me, and the hanging dark navy sign with the name printed in white capital. 

I wheel along my turquoise suitcase and enter the school. It's made of brownstone and about 15 storeys tall, maybe. Inside there's a grand hall, with a chandelier in the middle of it and normal lights otherwise. There are black leather square block seats scattered against the sides of the walls, and grey sofas in rooms behind no-door archways. All the students are going up a flight of wide stairs to the next level, which seems to be the main assembly area. 

The assembly area has a grey carpet and foldable chairs in neat rows basking in the bright light of the fancy chandelier. The high wooden table is shaped in an upside down wide U with comfy armchairs resting at the far side. They are occupied by strict looking teachers with wrinkles or plastic surgery, but the middle woman, an old middle-aged lady, smiles warmly and starts to speak.  

"Welcome, students new and old! This will be a brand new year for all, and with many new fun and educational activities! School leaders, please come up to say your speeches and tell new students or year sevens what to do," she finishes gently with a last beam at her students. 

Two girls and two boys come up, all tall and good-looking, and start talking about all the good things that would happen this term, camps, activities, programs and how to fit in, safety restrictions when going the few blocks away to the apartments where the dormitories were and other things like where you weren't allowed to be.

"And, thank you for listening!" they all say in unison, then tell us to go to our dormitories.

"Except any new students, who will be given their keys and given an explanation," a boy says droningly, like he'd rehearsed this millions of times.

I walk up nervously with a few boys looking sluggish as always, one wiry like a nerd and four other girls, two with lots of heavy makeup like Audrey, one dressed in baggy clothes with her hair down and another looking normal but nervous like me.

"Welcome, students!" A girl with bright eyes hands us our keys with our names on them. "For your apartments, which you will be sharing with three other students," she tells us. 

I take my key hurriedly then walk to the apartment building once I exit the school and enter the location on my phone. The streets are grey and ragged, most unlike the modern skyscrapers and clear blue sky with a few smudges of grey. The air smells like garbage and rotten meat with a faint outline of sickly sweet something, maybe compost or whatnot. 

It feels like I'm enclosed in a bowl when I look up, if I imagine the towers bending and touching together, closing any way to escape, any getaway. 

After another 15 minutes, I've arrived at a tall twenty-ish storey accommodation made of a mixture of light brown-cream concrete and redbrick. Between every level there is a simple slight swirl of white stone. The black iron and glass balconies look dreary against the red, like evil and the outside walls are ribboned with tall, skinny fabric tapestries saying 'Leman Manhattan Preparatory School Apartments' in vertical lines of words. 

I enter into the fancy lobby, which has grey and white tiled marble floors with brown velvet rugs placed on either side of the entrance, holding white leather sofas with a coffee table between the seating, perfectly symmetrical. The ceiling has the same design as the floor, with white lights cased in gold around the perimeter. The reception desk is black shiny obsidian, with a thirty year old lady with brown hair and eyes and white-rimmed glasses behind the desk. 

I show her the key and pant the slightest bit as I wheel the heavy suitcase to the counter. She nods and points to the elevator.

I've got my travel backpack and my school one too chafing on my shoulders with a little pain. The elevator dings at floor 16 and I open the second room on the right. 

The room in front of me is inlaid with grey floorboards, and has whitewashed walls with painted watercolour flowers, and four of those bunkbeds where the bottom bed is a desk. The blankets and sheets are white, though I've already packed my extra covers and a pillow. I can change it to something more colourful, like pale green or yellow patchwork patterns later. The desk underneath is connected to the bed-wall, and is made of light wood holding a black lamp in front of a black wheelie chair. 

I put my suitcase next to the bed, and open it, putting the clothes into the closet on the other side, and stashing the art supplies onto my table neatly. I take down the hallway to the kitchen and living room to the bathroom, hardly noticing the three other girls who read books, reclined contentedly on the sofas. I put my toiletries in the last empty cabinet labelled, 'Haven' and then finally go up to the-my-roommates. 

One I recognise as the baggy-dressed girl who is bustling around, but the other two on the couch are Audrey and Summer. At least only one bully, but my chest is starting to spasm in tiny furious explosions and angry bubbles are licking like flames up my throat, screaming in frustration to get out and say the words they want to say.

"Hi, Summer." I plop myself down on the couch casually, desperately trying to ignore the smug smiles of someone, or that someone might find the lights have turned off, and when they turn back on again someone will be stabbed with a knife in their back.

"Hi, Haven. This is Audrey," she says casually but slowly, so I can understand.

"Yeah, whatever, I've met her, the little wretch who hit a poor deaf little girl." Audrey, the infuriating little liar, smiled sarcastically behind Summer's back mouthing, busted. And I know that moment I have lost Summer's trust as I meet her bright unbelieving sky-blue eyes. 

"Really, Audrey?" she asks unsurely as she glances at my pleading expression. I think she knows I wouldn't have ever done that in some small part of her head, but it looks like she and Audrey have been friends for a long time. 

"Yes, really. Would you believe a lying scoundrel who's too guilty to protest, or me who would never tell a lie?" she smirked. 

"She is lying, not me," I manage, unfreezing from the speechless deathly silence going on in my head.

"Mmm-hmm," Audrey murmurs, now distracted into applying her makeup.

I fume, glaring at the room around me. In front of me is the small kitchen, a black and white marble cooking stove and oven, grey suspended lights sitting in a row over the kitchen bench for four. Opposite it is where I'm sitting, the white leather sofas and brown coffee tables on top of cream white-diamond-patterned rugs, over the grey floorboards. There's a big black TV behind us, but I'm pretty sure that the sofa can be pushed to face it on the wheels attached to the stumps. 

I realise that everyone has left for the activites, except for the shy, emo-looking girl in front of me.

She has dull, curly chest-length red hair and hazel eyes, a stunning mixture of green, brown and orangey-yellow mixed into her irises. A sprinkle of browny-red freckles splashes across her nose, and her dainty ears are pointed like an elf's. 

"You don't speak good English?" she questions. Her voice surprises me. It's quiet, beautiful and gentle, in a melancholy way. I can think of other ways to describe it-otherworldly, ethereal. 

"Um, yes, from Spain and Spanish I speak," I say quickly. It's somehow easy to understand her because of her voice, and her pace, better than Papa or Mamma. 

I immediately hate myself for thinking that. I hurt Mamma last night, and now I'm think some rando girl I don't even know is better than her in some way. No, Audrey hurt her.

"I'm Phoebe," she tells me. "I get bullied too, and I really want to show those I'm-so-famous girls that they're not any more important than us by being ridiculously mean." She offers me a hand up.

"Now go to events and beat them," I suggest half heartedly. 

"You bet," she says, a mischievous smile creeping up her face. She brushes the curly thick hair away from her eyes. "Let me get changed. It's Phys-ed today."