The iron door stood ajar.

We gaped at ourselves.

Aubrey went near the door and looked at the open door swinging on its hinges. She traced a hand over the edge of the door and clicked on the handle to check if it was loose. It wasn't.

" I didn't know my hands had the strength to open things by hitting them." she mocked herself.

That was a positive comment. I would have rolled on the floor thinking it was a ghost.

Aubrey banged the door and stood by my side moving away from it.

We waited there to see if any other old door would swing open. Nothing happened.

Relief flowed in me. We left from locker room and started our sprint towards the west wing.

We managed to dash through the now fully filled classroom. I spot a woman standing in front behind the desk. I guessed it was Mrs. Martina.

She was dressed in a tight pink half skirt with a matching light yellow blouse. Her yellow heels matched the outfit. Her skin looked beautiful but her makeup gave a bold shade of colours to her face. Without it she would have looked much younger than her own age.

All eyes stared at us as we pried into the classroom. I checked my watch there were still 5 minutes for half past eight.

She was early.

" Well, well look who we have here." She cheered with her high pitched voice. She gestured us to enter the class extending both her hands. We were about to walk past her to our seats. But she stopped us with her hands in front.

We turned to face her. Her eyes looked creepy when it blazed on us.

" Late on the first day." her voice had lost the cheer it had before. It sounded more like "you are dead" to my ears. We didn't even make a noise in reply.

Aubrey and I stood there, staring at our toes.

" Heads up! Where were you both?" she squealed at a high pitch. The
words were loud in the silent classroom. Bad start of high school I guess.

"Weee....lockkkkeerrrr...thirteennn" I spluttered out.

Aubrey stepped on my toe to shut me up. I twitched my leg in pain.

"Mam, We went to keep our suitcases in the locker room. We came in by eight and left our bags in the seat before we went." Aubrey spoke out boldly and even pointed at our bags.
I stared at her with awe.

"Ohh! Good. I will leave you guys this time." Mrs. Martina excused us as the cheer catched up in her voice again.

We darted to our seats immediately. I let out a deep sigh after flopping in my chair. I saw Aubrey to my right. We stared at each other and giggled silently.

"That was close." I mouthed at her. She nodded in agreement smiling wide.

That was a wonderful science class. Though Mrs. Martina gave us the scares for life we both enjoyed her class since it was our favorite subject.

Yes it was science indeed. It was the first common factor we found out.

After our morning sessions we had our lunch in the canteen. The canteen was very furnished like a hotel's dining hall. I loved the lunch too.

Mathematics was scheduled for the afternoon. An old professor came in and started right away even without introductory prep talk. I believe he would have studied for long before he ended up here to teach us.

He started jotting down the basics of trigonometry right away.

"Ahhhhh... I lost my pen." I whispered to myself. But I think it was loud enough for Aubrey to hear.

She raised the pen in her hand and swinged in my direction.

I smiled at her act while rummaging through my bag. My wallet flew out in in my frantic search.

That small piece of leather fell down beside Aubrey's chair and a small blue ball rolled out of it.

The ball had even smaller balls inside and many whorls spiraled underneath the tiny rounds resembling the milky way of Universe.

It was my lucky charm.

It rolled forward and ended up being caught in Aubrey's hands.

She picked it up and inspected it carefully. She looked at it for few more seconds before handing it to me.

" Beautiful!" she whispered to me.

" Yes it is" I hissed back and secured my little charm deep in my pockets.

~

The first day went well. Aubrey and I collected our suitcases and headed to the hostels. The hostel wasn't far from the school building. It came after a short walk around the grass patches of the grounds.

" Do you play?" Aubrey quizzed, eyeing the basketball court as we walked past it.

"Sometimes. I had friends to play at my old school." I sighed at the thought of my friends.

" I would give you company if you want to." she suggested.

" Wow. I would love it." I leaped up in joy. "I didn't know much about it but my friends taught me most of it. I even learned to dribble." I whooped jumping around in joy.

We got one other thing in common. Basketball.

We continued our talk on sports, till we reached our room.

Room number 12.

We were going to spend the rest of our high school days in here. We went in happily without knowing this place would give us more memories than we expected.

Aubrey took the bed on the left and I took the right one propped against the wall. It was spacious enough for the two of us. We even had separate cupboards and tables.

"It is far better than I expected." I said while filling in my clothes in the empty cupboard.

"What did you expect then?" Aubrey paused resting the books on her table.

We were arranging the room. We thought it would make us feel more comfortable.

" I imagined cobwebs and spiders in the corners. Lizards crawling around catching insects." I hissed to make it sound creepy.

"Ewwww...That's disgusting, Millie. Turn off your imagination." Aubrey pulled a disgusted look on her face and continued stacking her books.

" No there is more. " saying this I crawled beside her and popped my head in between her books. " You know rats are good at hiding in girls hostel roo..." my voice trailed off when Aubrey plunged a rolled paper in my mouth.

" Now shut it and do the work." she started laughing when I choked on the paper in my mouth.

I joined in her laugh after taking it off and throwing it in the trash.

We finished all our works by 9. We tucked ourselves in the cozy bed after dinner and switched off the lights to get some sleep.

We needed a good night's sleep for the fresh day tomorrow.

~

I wasn't an early bird but was one today since Mom called in to wake me up at six.

What am I supposed to do waking up this early? I was not interested in starting a fight with her early in the morning. I gave in and got up from bed.

Aubrey was sleeping her heads off. I didn't bother to wake her up this early.

I decided to take a shower. At least it would make me lose some time. I didn't know what else to do.

I showered for almost an hour. Perfect. It was wise option to choose, to lose time. I came to the room after bathing. Aubrey was up by then because she was not in her bed.

I picked up my clothes to stuff in the laundry.

I felt something rolling inside my pockets. I thought it was a something sticking inside. It could be a spider or a lizard like I said yesterday.

I was frightened and started to thrust my pants up and down in the air.

There it rolled out again.

My lucky charm.

" Oh, it was you inside." I thought to myself and dashed to catch hold of it.

I tried to grasp it but ended by catching the air against its fast rolls.

It rolled away and disappeared under a door. I tried to unlock it but it didn't budge. I didn't know it was sealed from our side of the room.

The intersecting door to room NUMBER 13.