“Ahhh yes Miss Monterey, take a seat somewhere and you can collect all of the relevant materials you will need for today from the library. I’ll be sure to have Miss Carmichael escort you there as well.” She shoos me away, and I sit down as close to the back of the class as I can.
I can already hear the whispering begin, wondering who I am and what brought me here so suddenly? There’s a row of seats at the back that are already claimed by what I can only describe as the ‘beautiful people’.
Every school seems to have them, no matter which county or even country you call home. I’ve always taken to calling them Shepherds, because no matter where they go there is always a flock of sheep trailing behind them, begging for any scraps they may decide to grant them. They don’t care who they hurt or offend, or how their actions may impact on someone else. They only ever look out for number one or whoever can help them to rise even higher than they currently are.
A five second cursory glance, that’s all it takes for me to peg them for the Shepherds of this school. My first day, and I’m thrown right into studying, sitting mock exams so the teachers can see how well we are faring so far. Grades mean very little to me, but if I ever want to land myself a decent job and to get away from the parents, then I’m going to need to at least graduate.
These aren’t proper mock exams, they cover a wide range of subjects, simply just to test our aptitude, and the only way to get out of this damn school is to get C or above. I’ve always believed that if you aim low then you can’t disappoint yourself, not very optimistic but it hasn’t steered me wrong yet. There’s no way I’ll be walking out of here without A’s but that’s neither here nor there.
It’s not long before the pixie bitch is leading me towards the library, and I feel the first stirrings of excitement just imaging how many books they will have crammed within its walls. I stopped being interested in anything that would get your blood pumping after Elliott. No more stunt bikes, ice skating, being in a car while someone pushed the speed limit, nothing brought me joy. Except for reading, it was the only thing that brought me out of myself, ironically because I could be on my own and lose myself in a better world.
“You’re on your own, try not to step on too many of us little people on your first day.” With that last bitchy remark, she turns on her heels and marches down the hall and away from me.
I don’t understand all her anger towards me, none of us here are what would be classed as poor. Although I doubted most of these kids (students?) had ever seen the poor way of life. We came from one of the roughest parts of London; gang violence, break ins and people getting stabbed for looking at someone the wrong way. We grew up utterly broke, it’s only because my father moved and got made a partner that I’m here, and the fact that a grandfather I never even knew up and died then left everything to us.
I have a nice little inheritance waiting for me when I finish school—yet another reason why I have to graduate—I won’t get it if even one grade slips below a C. And I don’t want my mum to get it and have even more ways of screwing up her body.
So yeah, I’m bitter, hurt and angry with the world. But this library will be my own personal haven, I can just feel it.
English has always been my favourite, that and science, but maths is nothing more than a necessary evil. I’m smart, always have been and I’m not bragging. I don’t exactly make my intelligence public knowledge, but people find it hard to be around me. I’ve been bullied my entire life. Elliott kept me safe, but I no longer have a line of defence, and no matter where I go someone always tries to break me. A photographic or eidetic memory makes it impossible for me to forget anything, unless I take something a little less legal or age appropriate. So, yeah, bullies love a girl like me.
It has always been a waste of time, you can’t break something that’s already broken beyond repair but I keep my mouth shut and roll with the punches. It rarely ever got physical before, but the people here feel different. I don’t know what it is but there’s a suffocating feel to the air and the Shepherds are stealing all the oxygen.
The Shepherds group here is made up of three girls; two are blonde and one has honey brown hair. They’re the top girls here, and they have what I call their ‘apprentices’ or better yet, clones. I haven’t even made an effort to learn what their names are. Every class had a handful of students gossiping about them, didn’t take a genius to put the names to the faces.
Then you have the guys, and damn, if they weren’t Shepherds, I would have definitely enjoyed looking at them at every opportunity, but it isn’t going to happen. Not sure what their names are, there hasn’t been any whispering around those yet, but everyone is silent when they walk in a room. I don’t want people like that in my life, I don’t have the time or energy that it would take to keep any kind of relationship going with them.
I’m in the canteen at the moment, staring at the lasagne on my plate and wondering why I even picked it, oh yeah because it was his favourite and I’m feeling even more morose today then I usually do.
“Hello there, I’m Chelsea and I thought I would take this opportunity to welcome you to my,” she pauses on a laugh, “I mean our school.” She holds out her hand to me and I’m just standing here staring at it.
She has shoulder length, impossibly straight, platinum blonde hair. Her cheeks have a light pink tint to them, and her face has been contoured to perfection. She has crystal blue eyes, rimmed in long lashes and eyebrows that have been over plucked, in my opinion.
Her blouse is straining at the chest and she clearly pushes it out at any given moment, she’s even doing it now. Five-four if I had to hazard a guess and petite. She looks like a china doll, but her eyes are so cold I can imagine she had broken more people than she could remember.
“Look cheese girl, I’m offering you an olive branch right now. So do the right thing and shake my hand with a smile and think about how lucky you are to have someone like me trying to be nice to a nobody like you.”
I stand up from my seat, grab the back of her hand and push it down. Her jaw starts ticking and her eyes narrow, I don’t think she likes my handshake, oh no.
“Listen here Chelsea, I don’t care who you are, and I don’t want anything you have to offer. So run back to your friends and plot my social demise because I don’t care. I don't want to be the only good deed you do this year, and the last thing I would ever want to do is join your circle. I’m here to finish my education and then simply move on. I don’t have time for friends.”
I sit back down as the whole canteen stares at us, I wasn’t mean, not really. I was truthful, I don’t want anything to do with her and the Shepherds so why doesn’t she just run along and go back to her friends?
She walks back to her lunch table and I can hear her voice taking on a squeaky tone. I could have been a lot worse, but I don’t set out to hurt people who haven’t hurt me, not yet anyway.
I continue pushing my lasagne around my plate and a shadow falls across my table, I sigh before looking up into the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen.
Impossibly thick, dark lashes line those glorious eyes and I’m instantly jealous, not that my appearance is high on my list of priorities, but it takes so much mascara for my eyelashes to even look half as thick. He has a strong jaw, an aquiline nose, with a distinct crook hinting at a break in the past. His hair is the colour of dark chocolate-brown and damn, is he gorgeous.