"Beep Beep Beep Beep!!"

I groaned and opened my eyes, still groggy from sleep. Greg was standing at the foot of my bed making the loudest alarm clock noise he could. I groaned again and tried to cover up the sound with a pillow, but he just kept getting louder. Eventually, the room went quiet and I thought he might have left. I began to lift the pillow from my head when;

"SCHOOL!! WAKE UP!!"

"AHHH!!" I screamed and sat up, effectively hitting our heads together. Clutching my head I glared at Greg. He was already dressed in clothes that made him look like a 'Green Day' groupie.

"Why're you in my room?"

"We have school and you have less than an hour to get ready. It's 7:20."

"'Then why aren't you dressed?"

"I am, no uniform remember? That's one good thing about this school I guess." Greg shrugged as he finished talking and walked over to the door. "And hurry up." He said before closing the door behind him. I looked out the window to glare at the sun and wish it wasn't out yet, but just to spite me further, it was raining. Swinging my feet out of the covers, I stood up and dragged my feet to my wardrobe.

'Great. Now I have to choose an outfit for each day. I can't even dress myself without looking like an overgrown quilt.' And it was true. Looking through my wardrobe was like walking through the jumpers and sweaters section in the middle of winter. I sighed and began looking for something appropriate to wear. Something that didn't scream 'complete jumper nerd', 'new girl' or 'hello my name's oh wait you don't care I look like a retard.' So basically I had to choose the least worst of those, which was probably the jumper nerd one. I pulled out a maroon fleece knit jumper and some simple skinny jeans, along with some socks for my maroon converse and a black beanie. Then came the problem of what top to wear underneath incase it got to hot. I stared at my small collection of t-shirts, most of them having some fandom quote, logo or image. Which one wouldn't freak people out?

Eventually I went with a simple black shirt that says 'The Fandom Strikes Again' on it in different fonts. I quickly got changed and walked downstairs, still humming the music I'd gotten changed to. Mum was sitting in the kitchen at the breakfast bar, swinging her legs and laying her head against the counter top. Dad was standing over the sink, washing the plates from last nights dinner and Greg was out in the lounge room on his phone. I walked into the kitchen to announce my being awake.

"Morning!" Mum's head shot up and I could tell she'd been asleep a second before.

"G'morning Millie baby..." She mumbled through tired vocals before lowering herself back onto the countertop.

"What happened to Mum?" I asked.

"She was up all night writing again."

"That story she started recently?"

"That'd be it."

"And she thinks we're not old enough to decide our bedtime." I shook my head with an amused smile and walked over to where I remembered putting the cereal. I pulled out a box of Rice-Bubbles and grabbed one of the bowls from the cupboard next to it, along with a spoon from the draw. After getting the milk and actually making my breakfast I sat down at the counter and unlocked my phone. It took about ten minutes of eating and reading random chapters of manga before I'd finished. Dad grabbed my bowl while I went to pick up my bag and get my lunch from the fridge. After doing so, I realised it was time to go and called Greg over from where he was still on the couch. Dad woke Mum up considering she wanted to be awake for our first day. It was always funny watching her half-asleep walk around, but considering we had to actually get somewhere, we got the pleasure of watching Dad drag her by the wrist to the front door instead.

My parents relationship always seems to be somewhere between 4 year old sister and protective older brother and that really awkward but super cute couple from every corny high-school movie. You the one, with the really sweet, sorta popular girl and the loner guy that only acts sweet towards her. Yeah, them. Dads always been the type of person to avoid all human contact, unless it was for work, whatever that was. Mums always been that person that was nice to everyone, but preferred to hang out with the weird kids, the ones that liked watching movies and reading and trying out foreign foods and stuff. To be honest, if Mum hadn't told me the story of how they got together all the time, I wouldn't believe that they could even get together. But I'll save that for later.

We grabbed our umbrellas and Mum and Dad waved us off at the door, Greg still grumbling about school, but holding his red and black monster backpack close to his back and walking down the driveway to the road anyway. I rolled my eyes at his antics and waved to my parents as I walked after him, my Mum waving enthusiastically and Dad just giving a little smile.

At the end of our driveway, from just across the road I heard my name.

"MILLIE!!" To be honest, if she was any closer, my eardrums might have burst. From across the road, I saw a blonde and blue haze sprinting towards me. Coral, dressed in blue jeans and a blue to grey gradient long sleeve t-shirt and neon blue converse came out of nowhere, with her blue umbrella flying along behind her, tackled me in a huge hug.

"Ahh!" The force of the hug nearly knocked me over, but luckily, one of my many skills is staying upright.

"Hi." Corals bright smile subsided my initial shock.

"Morning." I smiled back.

"Soooo, you ready for your first day?"

"Haha, nope. But would you if you were in my position?"

"Probably not."

"Exactly."

The walk to school was just as lively as it had been walking to the beach the other day. Coral laughing and talking, me listening to her rants and throwing in a few comments, only this time, I spoke a little more. I decided that, if I was going to try and have friends for once in my life, I should put in the effort to make them and keep them.

Now, I've said previously, and I thought this might be a good time to throw this in, that the only person I'd really ever been 'friends' with, was Jess from my previous school. Now one thing you should know, is that I didn't only have Jess because I couldn't make friends or anything. I didn't make friends with anyone because they were all boring, stuck up people. If I could give them a stereotype, it would be 'the popular girl', 'the jocks' or 'the rich bitch'. Literally everyone in my year was the same, it was like looking at clones. Jess was the exception to the rule, there for the same reason as me, 'because it was the best for my education'. Though my parents figured out quickly enough that the school wasn't the best people wise, I actually liked my teachers and the work we got there and told them I was fine with staying. Plus the library was better than the public one ever was.

Coral was different. She was genuinely nice. She was just the right amount of crazy and she liked talking enough for the both of us, even though I could hold my own. It was cool.

"... also I still have to introduce you to Taylor!" Coral piped up.

"Oh yeah, you mentioned her the other day right? What's she like?"

"Tough." Corals face was playfully serious. "Taylor is super tough and kick-ass and awesome."

"Ok?" To be honest, that made no sense. Was Taylor some kind of wrestler? Did she like sports or something? Coral smiled.

"You'll get it when you see her."

"Ok, that works." It was a few minutes after that that we actually reached the school. Once again Promise Collage stood before me in all it's school-like glory. It's cream coloured walls and green roofing, plus the flag, now hanging limp and damp from the light rain.

Greg had left us a while ago with nothing but a grumpy 'see ya', so we ended up walking there without him.

As we walked into the school, I glanced around to look at the people. I wondered if they would be anything like the ones from my old school, or if they would be entirely different. I saw a guy, about my age, possibly year 11, running from one of his friends and tripping into a puddle, and then him and his friends having a laugh about it. Looks like they're nothing like the last bunch.

I still had to go and get my time sheet so I parted from Coral and walked towards where she had said the office was so I could go and get set up. The office was quite pleasant to be in. The walls were pale green and trimmed with white. There was also a couch for people to wait at and a coffee table with a vase of white lilies and other white and pale yellow flowers.

A receptionist sat behind a desk, typing away at their computer, the nameplate in front of them reading 'Mr. Felps'. He was an older man, perhaps in his 40's or 50's, and looked as though his blonde hair had been receding for quite a while and had already started turning grey. I started walking towards him and he looked up.

"Um, hi. I've just started here and I was wondering if I might be able to get my timetable somewhere?"

Mr. Felps glanced at his computer, as if he thought that whatever was on the screen would be much more worth his time, then sighed and grunted out a yes and began typing something on his computer.

"Name and year." He said, sounding like he'd rather not be doing this.

"Millie Harris, year 12." He nodded and began sounding out my name as he typed it into his computer. I stood in silence for a minute, waiting for him to say something or do anything to indicate he remembered I was still there, but after standing there for a little longer, I pretended to cough to see if it would get his attention. It did, as he looked up at me and clicked once with his computer mouse. The printer behind him began whirring as it spat out a page with what seemed to be my timetable. He rolled over to it on his office chair, picked it up and walked back, leaving his chair next to the printer.

"Here you go." He said handing me the sheet of paper.

"Thanks, have a good day."

Mr. Felps grunted out a similar response and I left to find my first class.

----

The way the classes were set up made it relatively easy to find where English A.12 was. I knocked on the door to the classroom and waited to be either called or let in. When the door opened, a lady with glasses and brownish-red hair cut in a frizzy bob stood before me.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"Hi. I'm new here and I was supposed to come to English A.12. Is this it?"

"Yes it is. Come in." She smiled and I smiled back at her.

I walked into the class and for the first time released I was meeting my new classmates. I looked around nervously, and as expected, everyone was staring at me. Well one girl wasn't, but she looked like she was sleeping.

"What was your name?" I noticed that my new teacher was talking to me.

"Millie Harris."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ms Casberry. Welcome to our school Millie. Take a seat wherever there's one empty."

"Thank you."

I looked around the class again and found a seat between the sleeping girl and the wall, at least then I wouldn't be bombarded with questions. I don't know how to be the new girl. I'd been to two schools in my entire life, Lebel Primary school and Gilligan High school, but it didn't matter that I was new there, because so was everybody else. To be honest, the only experience with being 'the new kid' was the stuff I'd read about or seen on T.V. I was surprised when Ms Casberry didn't make me stand at the front of the classroom and talk about myself.

Ms Casberry began to address the class again and went back to talking about the upcoming assignment.

"Now, as you all know, we have your first written assignment due next Wednesday. I expect to see your 3 part stories on my desk by the end of that lesson. And would someone please wake up Miss Kelly?"

The girl next to me began to sit up and looked right at Ms Casberry.

"I am awake. I was listening with my eyes closed." The girl said with a lazy tone.

"Sure Taylor. Show Millie what we're doing with this assignment." Ms Casberry replied and went back to talking about the assignment, leaving Taylor Kelly to tell me what we were supposed to be doing.

"So you're new huh? What's your name?" Taylor asked, not seeming to care that she wasn't making any effort to be quiet.

"Millie Harris." I said, not really knowing what else to say. Taylor was kinda intimidating.

"Taylor Kelly, as you've just heard. Well, welcome to Promise Collage, may the odds be ever in your favour and welcome to the dark side." She said with a completely indifferent tone and expression. I smiled and quickly thought of something to say back.

"Good to see we're all mad here, and that some people are worth five pigs at least."

Taylor smirked and pointed at me.

"Alice in Wonderland and Supernatural." I smiled and pointed back.

"The Hunger Games and Star Wars." Taylor smiled approvingly.

"Millie Harris, we can be friends."

----

By the end of English, Taylor and I were friends past the fact we're both nerds that remembered quotes from random T.V shows and movies. The assignment had turned out to be a short story with three chapters and a minimum of 3000 words, maximum of 6000. They had been given it the first Wednesday of term and were expected to write at least one chapter each week. As I'd come in the last week that they had for the assignment, Ms Casberry another week to do it, before they had to move on to the next one.

"MILLIE!!!! TAYLOR!!!!" We both whipped around to see a bundle of blue sprinting at us. Taylor put her arm out and caught whatever was yelling our names. Coral grinned up at us, obviously pleased about something.

"You guys have already met!" We stared at her for a second before I realised what she meant.

"This is the Taylor you mentioned?" I asked.

"Yup!! Are you friends yet?"

I looked over at Taylor. I thought we were, but maybe she didn't. That feeling was quickly shoved to the side though.

"Duh, have you ever seen me walking with anyone I didn't like before?"

"Year 1, Tyler Presley, you stalked him for a week because he tried to kill your pet spider and he ended up crying in the middle of class cause you wouldn't leave him alone."

"True, very true. But she's not crying yet is she?"

"Also true. So, how was your first class?" Coral suddenly turned to me.

"It was pretty good. Very class-like. Our first assignment should be fun if I can think of something to write about."

"Well thats good. What do you have now?"

"Uh," I unfolded my timetable. "Home Economics with Mrs Ishida." Coral's face lit up with a smile.

"Us too." Taylor replied with a half-smile. I smiled back and started walking along with them.

'Maybe this place will be even better than I expected.'