28Chapter 1: Welcome to my life
It's the first day of school. I don't usually mind the first day of school because it's when we have a day off to settle back in and try to get into swing of our new year. But not this year. This year was going to be different. It was year nine which meant more effort and a hell of a lot more work- which means that we didn't get the first day off.
New year. Same people. Different ways.
It's the day when the head teacher gets all excited over a speech that he or she gets to deliver to each year individually. Usually about attendance, school events, tardiness, proper school uniform...yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah...
And it's the day when you see your friends again. I don't know about you but I was pretty busy this summer.
I went camping for a week with a load of friends. I went to Italy for two weeks and started to learn Italian. I went camping again with my mum, sister and my sister's best friend- my practically-adopted-other-sister- and just lazed about the rest of the time, chilling and occasionally going out.
But then you realise that in a couple of days time you have to go back to school and you start the homework that you got given over the holidays and haven't even attempted to start. Well, that's me at least.
So the dreaded day comes along and is started by my alarm clock going off at quarter to seven. Cockerdoodalool! Cockerdoodaloo! I've got one of those delightful talking alarm clocks- you know, the ones that try to do impressions of annoying birds just to wake someone up? If not then you are really lucky. If it were up to me I'd hunt down the stupid sod who invented them, stuff toilet paper into their mouths and stuff their bloody invention up their ass so that every morning they can wake up to the sound of a cuckoo or cockerel or something equally annoying from within their own body. But that's just me...
So, anyway, I get up force myself to stumble into the bathroom and grunt a good morning to my sister who's currently using up all the hot water in the shower.
Once having a mildly warm chance to refresh my hygiene I get dressed in the god-awful school uniform, all the while wanting to rip the tie to shreds and burn the rest. I can imagine the headlines: WHACKED OUT SCHOOL GIRL BURNS DOWN HOUSE! And the subtitle: School girl Natalie Hardy is being questioned about her sanity after she burnt down her house when she was attempting to burn her school uniform.
If only...
Anyway, carrying on with the delightful tale of my school morning.
So, once I'm dressed I rush down stairs to reveal my sister reading a romance novel at the breakfast table. (Appropriately named Lord Fox's Pleasure.)
I'd usually just ask her if it was good or if she borrowed it from Siobhan (my practically-adopted-other-sister). But sometimes my questions could stray to...errr...other...things...moving on!
When my mum eventually ventures downstairs it is my job to make the breakfast each and every day. Mind you, pouring cereal and then the milk isn't exactly hard, although my sister, Rowena – or Wena as I like to call her-, could actually do it for once...
The usual cereal choice is out of rice pops, bran flakes or wheatabix. Maybe the occasional fruit and fibre but apart from that there's not much choice on a school day. It's fantastic on a weekend because now that my dad is in charge of the food shopping he gets us hot cross buns, bagels and cream cheese, croissants, pa au chocolat, etc.
Don't judge me when I say this but a lot of funny things usually happen in our bathroom while me and Wena are cleaning our teeth. I don't mean abnormal funny but oh-my-God-that-was-so-funny funny. Things like taking the piss out of random stuff. Making up weird adverts for sex toys (most of which are made up by Wena; she's 16 by the way which naturally means that she's hormonally charged). I think the most polite one was: Mills and Boon- because you'd rather read it than do it!
So after cleaning our teeth while cracking up with laughter, we head off to school on Bessie and Bob. Just in case you're worrying at this point I think I'd better explain that Bessie and Bob aren't people but rather our bikes. We just get kicks out of making people freaked out.
After locking up Bob I head out to the front of the school where one of my best friends Charlotte Swan is standing, waiting for some company.
Charlotte is one of those people who you can instantly like. Well, that's the case with most people. Many people can like or a least learn to like Charlotte but one person couldn't and can't. Laura Jacobs. But you'll find out more about her later.
As I was saying, Charlotte is nice and sensible but underneath she has a crazy streak like the rest of my good friends. The only thing that some people can't understand about her is the fact that she is a complete nut case when it comes to being perfect. She's a perfectionist and likes absolutely everything to be nice and organised. This had to go with that and that has to fit in with this.
But we all love her for it!
'Hey Nat.'
'Hey. No one else here yet?'
'Nope. Amie should be here soon.'
'She better fucking be 'cause I wanna go inside! It's bloody freezing out here!' I was wrapped up in my school uniform with a t-shirt underneath, gloves, my winter coat, my nice warm boots and my lovely white scarf but still I was cold. What could a girl do to keep warm?
'You're always cold! How can you always be cold? It's, like, not possible!'
'Well at least I'm not a freak and I actually feel when the temperature is different!'
She shrugged and laughed at the same time. Then she spotted a black KA pulling into a street road just down the road from us. 'Amie's here.'
Amie and Charlotte have been best friends since...well...since for ages I guess! Apparently there were a couple of years in primary school when they were just friends but it doesn't really compare to how long they have been best friends. I remember when they both came up to me, Leah and Chris on the first day of school and kind of attached themselves to us. It's been like that ever since.
Amie walked up to us and started talking about an offer someone made about them adoptinga puppy.
'And guess what! Dad said no! How could he?! I mean it's a puppy for God's sake! A cute and innocent little puppy that needs a home! And he just said no! I swear he's not from this planet! I mean what human could say no to a puppy? Huh? Tell me Nat! Tell me!' Amie sometimes goes off into her own little world and rants on about things like puppies and penguins and totally random stuff.
Amie Priest is a bit of a weird one. She's pretty cool though and a lot of people like her. She can make anyone laugh; even the popular people and now they call her a legend. It's probably because of her famous line in drama: We're lost! Long story...
Even though her sir name makes her sound religious she isn't. She respects people's beliefs but she doesn't believe in God. If anyone does in our group it's me. As my best mate Leah Crawford would say: She believes in science over God.
Even as Amie carried on about the puppy more people from our group had arrived.
Chris Banks was one of them. He's very crazy and lives up to the nickname we gave him in year seven: crazy Chris. Quite a few people have snubbed him in the past but he doesn't care because he doesn't care what people think about him. He's slightly childish in a way as he insisted that we all have alien names. His was JJJ Flef, Leah's was Fluguff and mine was Filaffellum. We have other nicknames too like mine are Blondie and Sniz, Leah's are Charlie and Lilo and Chris' is Snoz.
Sian Elling, Lisa Flint, Fiona Diller, Laura Jacobs, Amy Sesim, Joanne Ackeyem, Wemmy Filano, Adine Noqueta, Fran Miles, Charlotte Polar and Lisa Flint's boyfriend James Trish had also arrived. There was no sign of Leah yet but that was no different from the normal, she was usually late.
When the bell rang we all headed inside and Laura, Wemmy and Adine stayed with me to go up the extra flight of stairs to get to tutor. We all sat down and I started humming to get Laura's attention. She turned her bright blonde head towards me. Well, it wasn't really naturally that colour but in year seven she got highlights and then decided to get even more done so now you could see her from a mile off.
'Excuse me, everyone. Can I have your attention? I need to take the roll and I have some announcements to get through before you can all talk.' Our tutor, Miss Simmons, was from Australia and she was as freaky as hell. The woman never stopped smiling! Once before she had been threatening to throw Lee Dunst and Dean Grady out of class and she still had that sickly sweet smile on her face! I swear she was an alien...It's just not natural!
'Okay, well first off information about the dance show. It's going to be in a couple of weeks so people who want to get their dances in you better get practicing!' Before term had ended she had given us this notice about a million times, repeating it to us every tutor time!
'Oh, spare me.' I muttered darkly under my breath making Laura laugh.
I was grateful when the bell went again as it meant that I could escape from tutor without my ears popping off from boredom.
I made my way to maths knowing that this year would be hell. I had my SATs this year and the teachers would be nagging us saying that we should do our best and get our brains into gear if we wanted to achieve good results and all that shit.
I sat down on the table with Wemmy and Voni- Yvonne Carina- and was immediately handed a photocopied sheet of questions from previous SATs papers.
Oh, hell. This was going to be a long year...