Leaving after one year in high school is horrible. You have just finished year one, thinking that education might be survivable, having finally mastered all the usual problems-locking yourself out of your locker, having trouble finding classrooms, ripping your bag open, stressing over homework-whatevs. But when you have to move after one year, all those problems come back for you to face again.

Phoebe and I walk through the school halls, our shiny black shoes click-clacking against the polished white marble floors. The locker hallways are lined with windows with black frames on one side and turquoise lockers on the other. Our lockers are organised in clusters by who is in your room. Me and Phoebe's are next to each other, so we both collect our things for the next class to stuff in our backpacks.

My lockers is already decorated from last weekend, where me and Phoebe went shopping for decorations. The lockers actually have little slots in the sides and back wall for you to fasten wallpaper on. I had replaced the plain soft aqua with a plain white fabric cover with pale mint green smudges of watercolour forming a few weirdly shaped clouds, with metallic gold lightning bolts. My name, Haven Cove, is spelt in metallic silver shiny paper in soft cursive and sewed onto the fabric. 

I haven't put too many photos, only one. It reminds me too painfully of home, and every minute I have to be away from it. Still in America, and not my homeland. I've made sure it looks neat, though. The shelf in the middle separates the halves. I use the shelf as a desk, holding some fragrant-smelling purple glitter candle, the one framed picture of me, Mamma and Papa just smiling, relaxing at the beach, my leather scrapbook that I used on the plane, and a shiny silver steel cup of my fountain pens and fine liners. 

On the bottom, I have neatly stacked all my books and hooked up my go bag. There's also another stack of notebooks I use for art, notetaking, and lessons and homework. In my bag, I've got a spiral notepad, an actual black hardcover sketchbook with one side lined and the right side blank, a few pens, my laptop and usually a book or two. This time it's math, and I'm pretty sure I'm great it. In Spain I was, but here, maybe. Numbers aren't as confusing as words. There's too many, whereas with numbers there's a actual non-confusing sequence you can follow to remember. When Mamma was in school she got a scholarship in academics. 

I take the bag along with Middle School Number and Algebra and walk with Phoebe to the Year Eight math classroom. I look down dejectedly at my hands: you can clearly see it has been sewed up and the flesh is caramel, and the stitches are white. They are still really fragile, everybody knows about the story. I've always thought the expression 'spread like wildfire' was more used in stories, but it's real. Everybody knows, though they don't whisper behind my back right in front of me. When they talk, they slink way towards a table far away so I don't hear. But i get a case of prickles when they are whispering far away from me. 

Anyway, I'm sitting down at my desk and Mr. Malkin is talking about physical substances and the periodic table, which everyone had to memorise last year but forgot over the summer. Bad news: my situation is bad, because I can hardly pronounce the elements in Spanish, and in English is on a way different level. The good news: they are pretty similar in both languages and I can just say them in Spanish when I'm giving the answer and the teacher thinks I'm saying it wrong. 

Eventually during the lesson, I realise that I've been thinking it's math. And I've got the wrong book (Insert really annoyed smack in the forehead here). Phoebe tells me that I can share, but I won't understand, because I've got my books printed in Spanish so I can actually understand the blabber that is going on about percentages, physics, area models, architectural weak points in archways (too many long and similar words) and more physics. 

And what's worse, there's a pop quiz, and the teacher is chattering on cheerfully (fake) but with a grim face about daring to talk and yell inappropriate things behind his back while he's drawing on the SMART board. I don't know what the words they called out mean, but I think they are swear words. 

Back to the pop quiz, it's just to see what you know about matter and plasma and physical sloshy substances and the periodic table. It's the start of a new year, so the teacher is going to organise this class into groups depending on your ability level. AND THERE'S NO SPECIAL SPANISH PRINTOUT FOR ME.

Oh great. And I'm receiving sympathy. I can only understand half the words, since I don't know what condolences and the other stuff means, but the drippy, sorry voice full of sugarcoating and urgh! Don't they get it? It's not like apologising will help anything. I'm still stuck here, and I'm not in Spain, and I'll get the lowest score in the class, and it's not fair the way Summer, Audrey and Tarini treat me, like I'm a piece of scum. They are the ones who are scum, and-

Oops. I've said the part where I complain aloud, in perfect English no less, somehow. And people are staring at me like I'm insane. The teacher's eyes go slit-pupiled, but no one's eyes can go like that. I'm just imagining it, along with the fact that my skin tingles because anger is heatedly radiating off him. 

I nervously shrink away from the thing that's scaring me. Which right now is the slit-pupiled teacher. Mr... Malkin, yes. Phoebe is right next to me and the defeated, dull look in her dark eyes emerges into daylight. Yep, the spirit of the girl that's been cruelly and mentally bullied comes back into her form. She's scared, I understand that, but why can't she defend me? It's like the fire in her has been put out by a bucket of water. 

So, since she or no one else in this class will defend me, I will defend myself. I push the chair back and stand up straight, looking him dead in the eye to prove that I'm not to be messed with, and that moment where the teacher develops strong hatred for the student happens to me. He despises me. If you say a large class of rowdy, teenage students will never completely shut their pie holes, you're wrong, because this room is silent. Not silent. It's more like the sound of nothing, not even silence. Silence sounds like noiseless ringing and hollowness and empty darkness. This is even quieter. 

As I'm about to get myself detention, a really shriveled, hunch-backed  teacher swings open the door. "Anyone who would like to enroll for Prefect, please exit your classroom and follow me," she tells us in a croaky, forced-sweet voice. I look at her clothes. Ugh. Old wrinkly ladies trying to act younger by dressing like a kindergartner and not neat and tidy like other aging people. 

I start quickly towards the door, and Summer and Audrey follow me with a bunch of other 'popular clique' girls, Phoebe, and a few goofball ruffian sport boys. Nearly all the nerdy kids and 'frequently bullied' kids stay behind. I shoulder my bag nervously.

Fast-forward to when we enter the Grade Eight Homeroom, which is really cozy, by the way. it's decorated with fiery colours, but emits a soft, rosy glow. The carpet is plush, red and deep, and the walls are installed with fabric wallpaper that is designed with gold arrows in columns over grey. Comfy armchairs stuffed with fluff are scattered over the room in front of large bookshelves stuffed with a million thick novels, white with orange swirls in colour. There are a few long dark rosewood desks planted in rows parallel to the walls, with a bit of space for kneeling cushions that act like seats for your knees.

Everyone's in class except for this guy with blonde hair and black square glasses. This boy has two of his legs in a cast, and his arms are busy stealing cushions to put behind his back as he's sitting on a black wheelchair. The purple and red blend nicely together with the dark. 

"Do you mind, Ronald?" the old teacher asks. She's wearing a bright red frock and green leggings, by the way, so I think she's the image of the expression, 'Christmas has come early', and she is pretty (really) well camouflaged with the carpet.

"No," he says absent-mindedly. He's picking at a pillow on his lap. 

"Right, let's get to business then. Anyone from Grade Eight can submit a short speech, maximum two A4 pages long, depicting why you would be good for Prefect. A Prefect will meet with the other Prefects at a certain time each week to establish school events and lead them. You shall present it this Friday, which gives you today, and the next two days before Friday. Today, you will have thirty minutes to write. Begin!" 

There's rustling as everyone rushes to get their laptop out of their bag. One girl, Fiona, complains, "My laptop has run flat!" and is told to shut up by one of her friends. Oh, yes. I'm smiling. If the Spanish girl gets Prefect... it's the perfect way to get back at Audrey and Summer. The perfect Prefect.