Mondays. Why did it always have to be Mondays? When it was Monday in New York, the one thing you could hear louder than the birds and the bees, were the yellow taxi cabs as they honked their way holding on to the life of others at the palm of their hands. But you didn’t have that problem as you drove into the parking lot at St. Clarence. The entrance lead into a parking lot, expansive enough to fit about 100 cars into it, and that was just for outsiders, there was a separate parking within the campus as well.

Where the parking lot ended and the school began, well that’s where she stood, at the entrance to one of the most prestigious schools in America. The walls were nearly 20 – 25 feet tall, but her perception of height, standing at barely 5”2’, was safe to say very skewered. The walls were brick lined, old but irreplaceable in terms of character and quality. The gates though, reinforced welded metal, had recently been painted black, and the metal laced and twined into the insignia of the school, a very complex C on a shield held by lions. One both of the pillars that held the gate, white marble reinforcements of the insignia with the school motto written underneath.

To the right hand side of the gate – a little old box of marble, with the names of the people who started the school and those who contributed to it, financially of course. Bella didn’t read. She knew it would look stupid for caring, and decided to google it at home, but somehow knew she’d forget about it when she did get home, just like everything else she wanted to do. To the immediately left, a huge building, fancier, newer versions made to look like the same bricks laid out years ago, and then stopping abruptly, and ending in what would seem like the forest a murder victim in CSI would run through, just to be stopped another mile away by another building, and furthest away, Bella saw something that caught her eye, something she remembered hadn’t been on the website, and began making her way to it.

Bella walked on, looking at the amount of people. If she didn’t have her iPod on playing through her noise cancelling headphones, she might have just run back out. There were just so many people, walking around, taking pictures, some with professional seeming cameras even. All wearing the same clothes, like clones, except for the few with different hair, glasses. They all looked the same though. As she walked on she stopped at a discussion with several people, who looked like seniors, on chairs neatly placed in a circle around a large tree, in it’s shade though the sun was yet to come out on this lovely September morning.

She walked past them, looking at her phone, deciding to play Smells like Teen Spirit as she walked on faster now, bobbing her head up and down, when she suddenly felt an onrush of air that made her freeze. A basket ball flew right past her face, and for a second she was stuck between a scurry of several very large boys trying to grab for one thing all at the same time. By the time they were gone, she was happy it wasn’t her they were trying to grab, when she slipped the headphones down and saw it.

The working bells of the Church rang, and she turned off her headphones, silented her cell phone and kept it in her bag before walking in, deciding to spend some time there, having come early to her first day of the new school. It was expansive and known to be sending out college ready students who, in most cases, did very well, and had a successful career. She went to the Church and dipped her hand in a little chalice of water, loving the cold feeling against the tips of her fingers and went to sit in a seat.

She sat there till a bell rang – and that wasn’t that of the Church’s. She came out and took out her cell phone, which with it’s GPS facility and the School’s functioning Application, lead her straight to her first class. There were small introductions, the teacher, the person sitting beside her, and then it began. It’s a rat race. Agnes had called it, and she realized what she meant when several students methodically wrote on paper while others began pattering at their keyboard. “Welcome.” The teacher said, staring at her, “To St. Clarence High.”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

His heartbeat hammered through his head, sounding like a bass drum mercilessly beaten right next to his head.

The incessant pounding in his head finally caused Dylan to stir from his bed, his eyes groggily noticing the narrow cracks of sunlight breaking through the thin slits between the blinds hanging over an inconveniently placed, sunward-facing direction allowing the full force of the rising sun to destroy his sleep. He would have to do something about blacking that window out. He dragged himself out of bed, noticing he was still rather early for waking up for school sober but he'd have to work on getting rid of the hangover that was pestering him. Whilst not his worst by a country mile, it was still something that shouldn't be around for hist first day of a new school but hey it hadn't been his choice to move schools and countries.

A rather careful stumble to the shower yielded a revitalizing result, suddenly he felt less filthy and more awake yet the headache and slight weakness to light remained, something that would simply fade as the day went by and water was consumed. A quick glance to the mirror revealed his eyes had developed some rather large shadows and his eyes still a touch cloudy yet by the time school was around they'd be clear and he'd simply look like he'd slept badly. He took no chances once he got back to his dorm though, knocking back two berocca tablets to give him a little boost with a tentative nibble on some toast for breaskfast and filling his rather oversized waterbottle to the brim with the solution to his hangover problems.

Spending a few moments to take in the somewhat formal blazer, trouser, tie and collared shirt laid out in front of him, he knew that he and this uniform were not going to get along today, the thought of a constrictive tie overwhelmed any notions of appearance. Getting into the uniform took a hardly any time, he even managed to keep it relatively neat as he packed his school bag with his laptop, notepad and stationary but in order to make the perilous trek from the dormitories to the main hall in the full force of the sun, he grabbed his pair of ray-ban sunnies from the desk. As he stepped outside the dormitory building, slipping between knolls of students form every corner of the globe, he slipped his sunnies over his eyes and immediately stopped wincing and strolled over to his first class, making a point of avoiding human contact, all the while sipping water. Once he found the room he slumped into a seat, disregarding the people around him and made a show of being relatively ready for a class all the while wondering how boring the people here would be. His timetable said he had some psychology unit, he hadn't want to take it but his dad had suggested a little bit of understanding about how the human mind works wouldn't go astray so here he was stuck facing down a boring lesson.

Feeling the full effects of sleeping on a new bed for the fourth day in a row, Kat managed to heave herself up from the still-unfamiliar bed. She'd thought maybe she'd be used to it by now, but, apparently not. Moving here from another country, Kat found that it probably would have been easier for her to count the things she found familiar as opposed to the newer aspects of her life. But of course, there were a few things that struck out at her. The smell of the city burned her nostrils as soon as she had left the plane, hitting her hard after living in the clean, clear countryside of Western Australia for the first 17 years of her life. Instead of the homely fragrance of dry grass and eucalyptus, there was smog, sweat and something that smelt an awful lot like burning.
The noise had kept her awake the first night too; even if the dorm was closer to the middle of the campus instead of the fence, she still could hear the carrying on of cars and people all night long. City that never sleeps indeed!

'First day today...' even the thoughts in her mind were coming out croaky and tired. None the less, she pulled herself out of the comfort of her blankets and stumbled over towards her bedroom door, grasping messily at the neatly pressed uniform that was hung there.
Dark grey button-up vest. Egg-yolk gold skirt and tie. Black thigh-high socks. Plain white dress shirt. Aside from the vest, it was pretty close to the uniform she'd worn back home. The vest made all the difference though, hugging her waist and fitting around her torso quite well.
'Must say, having a tailored uniform makes all the difference' She hummed, feeling a bit better as the moving around made her feel a bit less stiff and a bit more agreeable.

'Not all that subtle though...' she mused thoughtfully. The bright yellow stood out, glowing pridefully in the sunlight. Fitted quite well, considering the schools reputation - not to mention the reputation of Private School's in general.

After running a comb through her dark mid-length hair, Kat moved over to her desk and snatched up her thick-rimmed glasses before sitting down and feverishly shaking the mouse of her computer. The screen flickered to life, showing her the front page of her blog. She clicked refresh and let out a private, gleeful smile. Reblogs, likes - her newest post had gotten a fair bit of attention over night and seeing that always brightened her day.
Her eyes wandered around the screen, finally finding the set of numbers in the bottom right-

"Ah, damn."

The chair spun around as she flew out of it - first day, and by the looks of it she was already well on her way to being late. She lunged at her bag, cursing at herself for only half-packing the night before. With a fell swoop, she scooped up various bits of stationary and un-packed notebooks that sat on her desk before making a beeline for the door, nearly forgetting to lock it as she left.

Just as the bell rang she'd managed to make it down the hallway, giving her just enough time to slow down to a more acceptable pace as she entered the classroom. Her waltz into the classroom would have appeared quite leisurely, although the hard thud and slightly breathless sigh Kat gave as she claimed the next near the window perhaps seemed enough out of place to make her entrance seem suspicious to the teacher. Kat met the challenging stare with an expectant look, offering no words. With a almost unnoticable shake of their head, the educator turned their full attention back to the class, offering up a professional welcome to all.
Drawn towards the window, Kat couldn't help but childishly think about how cool she thought it was, having her classroom up on a second floor. She could still see students down below slowly making their way towards classrooms, the various buildings that made up the campus and the uneven skyline of New York above that.

'My first day at St. Clarence High-School' her mind echoed as she reached down to her bag and pulled out her AP Psychology textbook and binder 'Hope it's not too boring.'

Franke could swear that the sound of his alarm was the sound one heard at the gates of hell. He immediately silenced to dreadful screech and and sat up, stretching and trying to wake himself up. It was early and his summer sleeping schedule did not prepare him for this. He got out of bed and went for the dorm's shower. Most people were still asleep but he wanted to be ready for the first day of the new school year.

He showered for about fifteen minutes before going back to his room with a towel around his waist. Franke dressed quickly in his school uniform. It had a starched stiffness to it and he had to move around to even fell comfortable.

"Why is there so much gray in the uniforms?" He wondered to himself. "So drab and dull." Franke ran a thumb across one of the yellow accents, at least there was a little color.

He went to the the closet and opened it up, digging deep into the pile of clothes in the back corner until he felt something cold and metal. It was his secret stash of goodies. It was a Christmas cookie tin that depicted a nature scene of a snow covered forest with little deer grazing. Inside was all sorts of drug paraphernalia, such as: His pipe, a lighter, a small baggie of pot, and ten edibles. When he opened it the stench of weed flooded from it and he inhaled it a bit. "Yummy." He said to himself. Franke grabbed a small cookie and ate it, he thought of it as a nice little way to start the day with a smile. Before he snapped the lid back on and replaced it in the recesses of his closet he noticed that his Baggie of little green buds was getting a tad light and made a mental note to get some more when he could.

And with that he grabbed his backpack and left the dormitory. By now class would be starting soon and he began his way to History. As he passed through the main hall he stopped a moment and looked around.

"Man. Look at all the freshies." He said eyeing at all of the people smaller than him.

As he looked around he noticed how similar and dull everyone looked in the same outfit and he wondered why uniforms were mandatory. He thought it was stupid and wanted to wear his own clothes. As he thought about the uniforms he barely noticed a small freshman girl nearly get pegged by a basketball, and almost trampled by the flurry of basketball players chasing after it. He laughed it off as the church bells rang, church was never his thing and he could already feel the cookie getting to him so he ignored it and kept walking.

When he got to history he took a spot in the back and waited in a giggling haze for class to start.

Bella pouted when she realized he only had one. She thought she’d ask the people behind her, the Australian! When he pushed his pen carefully on to her desk. “But aren’t you going to use it?” She asked him, taking the little pen, and then watched him resuming to stare at the ceiling. She then looked at the teacher who seemed mad – at her, for some reason and then began scribbling down several points on the pros and cons for taking AP Psychology, but mainly the need for it and it’s uses in various other college courses and how useful it would be to know the information!

When she had done, she was just reading – trying to fix typos when he asked about… “Parks?” She repeated unsurely, and then shrugged. “Sure, I know a couple. I’ll take you to them later or something, I did a street show at Central Park once, it was loud. But they gave us some sort of tour and there are cute duck feeding places through the park. Once I went through there and you wouldn’t believe it, there was a wedding and I caught a bloody bouquet – and I swear on God a woman tried to run me over for it.” She mumbled

“Do you like parks?” She asked, passing the pen to him, looking at the teacher she realized he was still angry and still staring at her. “Uhm. Can you please start writing?” She asked him, passing the pen into his hand and nudging him constantly. “The teacher is looking at us. Write that it will help you understand the human psyche and what not!” she urged him. “Also.” She smiled at him, “My name is Bellatrix Annalise O’Corcrain. What’s your name? Where are you from?”

Kat showed a surprisingly level of confusion with the American class system as he did which was rather reassuring to see, he wasn’t the only one in the dark here. “I believe I’m a Sophmore as well, at least that’s what my paperwork says. But who knows, maybe counting is just a little too logical for the Yanks. They certainly haven’t got the easiest system to understand” he replied back to Kat, somewhat smirking at the sheer stupidity of the system. It never ceased to amaze him how some people managed to take something excessively simply and complicate it just to inflate their own ego, as if to try and increase how fancy their schooling system was.

He saw the tall guy hand his only pen across to the short-ass and laughed inwardly as he heard it was the guy's only pen, what sort of muppet brought that many books but only one pen? He also saw them seemingly play with the pen between them and he though awww how cute, the two like each other and a slight smile danced across his face breaking his somewhat gloomy mood. However that slight burst of extended thought processes backfired as the needles started jabbing again in his head albeit slightly reducing due to the ever increasing dulling effects of the paracetamol. “So where in Australia do you hail from and what’d you do wrong to get sent off here?” he asked Kat, turning to look at her once again, glad that the conveniently sized student in front of him blocked the view of the teacher although Kat would probably have to be more vigilant.

Pree said “Parks?” She repeated unsurely, and then shrugged. “Sure, I know a couple. I’ll take you to them later or something, I did a street show at Central Park once, it was loud. But they gave us some sort of tour and there are cute duck feeding places through the park. Once I went through there and you wouldn’t believe it, there was a wedding and I caught a bloody bouquet – and I swear on God a woman tried to run me over for it.” She mumbled“Do you like parks?” She asked, passing the pen to him, looking at the teacher she realized he was still angry and still staring at her. “Uhm. Can you please start writing?” She asked him, passing the pen into his hand and nudging him constantly. “The teacher is looking at us. Write that it will help you understand the human psyche and what not!” she urged him. “Also.” She smiled at him, “My name is Bellatrix Annalise O’Corcrain. What’s your name? Where are you from?”

"You could say I grew up in the parks and resservations," Mr cunningham answered as he took the pen and began scribling about how psychology was a narrow field of study of sociology, often focusing more on the individal unit and how their interactions with other modify behavior over time; that he was taking it not-only for the credit, but also to apply that knowledge in his daily activites, at all times, and there will be nothing he can do to stop it (nor is he permited to ._.) "By the way, Bella, my name is Rob. Robert Cunningham of the land where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and the children are above-average."

He saw the teacher still glaring at them, for continuing to fraternize on his time, while quite possibly writing the shortest essays ever. He responded by flipping the page, and writing a series of seven numbers, with a dash between the third and fourth digits. It was his phone-number, which he quickly comoflauged as some random-ass math problem dealing with the ratio of ceiling-tiles to floor-tiles in the school. Although he made sure to underline the phone-number followed by a winking-emote in the magin just in case she missed it.

Kat was pleased that Dylan agreed with her as opposed to thinking that she was an idiot for not grasping to concept - even more so when it turned out that he was also a sophmore. Guess she was going to have a new friend after all. Suddenly aware of the fact that she shouldn't *really* be talking in class, Kat placed a hand in front of her mouth, hiding the fact she was talking. To anyone else, she would have looked like she was thinking really hard.

"I'm from WA" She replied as her fingers began to play with a small lock of hair. "My grandparents sent me here because..." She trailed off, looking down at herself momentarily before snapping back to reality. "They thought I needed to get away from home for a while. This school came high-recommended, and what's further away than the other side of the world than America."

"How about you?" Kat followed, throwing a glance at the boy beside her, who was looking quite comfortable while out of site of the teacher.

Background music: x

"Dépêchez-vous, nous allons être en retard!" Maria's father, Adrien, called to her hurriedly. Maria paused to look at the older man with a shocked expression, "what did you just call me?!" She said in a mock-angry tone. Adrien snorted, "very funny. I said for you to hurry up. The taxi is here and we're both going to be late for our first day." Maria let out a giggle before she quickly shoved the last bits and pieces of her art supplies and school books into her back before strutting out the door with a chuckling Adrien following closely behind. "Surely your French hasn't gotten that bad. I mean, your English and Japanese are perfect .. But mostly because you watch those shitty cartoons all the time.." Maria elbowed her father as they walked towards the brightly coloured taxi in front of them. "It's called anime. But to be honest, I'm not as into it as much anymore." Adrien sighed, "well, that's bad. Considering your mother probably has a basket full of different anime DVDs and mangos for you when she returns from Japan." Maria bit her lip to stop her from laughing. "It's manga, dad." He gave her a confused look before shrugging, "isn't that what I said?"

Squishing into the yellow vehicle, Adrien threw an arm over his daughters shoulder, hugging her close before mock-crying. "Ma petite fille est tout grandie!" which basically translated in English to 'my little girl is all grown up!'. Maria rolled her eyes and hugged her dad back lovingly. "Not yet, I still have a few more years left with you and mom." Adrien smiled, tilting his head in a 'yeah, I guess' sort of way. The two sat in silence for the rest of the drive, which took roughly 20 minutes. Maria loved living in New York. I mean, she loved living in Japan and France too, but the American lifestyle was truly for her - well she thought so anyway. Her mother thought she was more for the Japanese way of living, because of her polite and reserved nature. Her French father on the other hand, argued that Maria was more for French living, with her artistic talent and opened-mindededness.

Buildings passed, as did her thoughts. Maria couldn't help her nervousness for her first day back. I mean, no one really talked to her, so that was a plus, but just being surrounded by so many people - she wondered how she managed to survive in New York for so long. Before she knew it, her father pulled her out of her daze with a kiss on her cheek. "This is me!" Maria waved as her father left the taxi to make his way into a particularly tall building. It was a Law firm. As the taxi started moving with the traffic, Maria watched as the building flew by and in what felt like a matter of seconds, she was facing the front of St. Clarence. Tossing the amount of money she owed the taxi driver, she said a small thank you and scooted over the leather seats of the vehicle before taking a step outside.

Shutting the door behind her, the winter air was cool and crisp. Just how she liked it. Tucking a lock of her wavy dark haired behind her ear, Maria walked into the gates of her school. She managed to kill time sketching, but to be honest, she didn't really feel like drawing. Not in front of all these bozos anyway. Changing the song on her phone to Swimmers by Broken Social Scene, she figured this song would get her into a bit of a happier mood to be here, also it made her laugh listening to this particular band cause it reminded her of how much of a big fuckin' hipster she was when it came to music, Maria couldn't help but snort. She had been lucky to pause her song at the right time because at that very moment, the bell had rang. Picking up all of her belongings, she made her way to AP Psychology.

She honestly had no idea why she chose that class, considering she was pretty much, well, shit at any sort of science, but the idea of learning about how people think and feel was kind of interesting. And she figured it'd help her if she ever took up writing. Walking into the class instantly made her stomach ache. There weren't a lot of people at the moment, but she knew the class would fill soon enough. She nodded to the teacher at the front and quietly made her way to her favourite seat [Seat 49]. It wasn't too far that she couldn't hear the teacher but it was far enough that she wouldn't get picked on in class. Also, she loved how the sunlight from the windows warmed her up. Letting out a happy sigh, Maria started unpacking her things, humming happily.

The class was going pretty slowly, he'd not heard from the teacher for a while and everyone seemed more intent on chatting then learning about the human psyche which suited Dylan just fine right now. Plus he had the somewhat entrancing Kat next to him and a front row seat to some entertainment in the form of the mos mismatched pair he'd ever seen seemingly intent on hooking up in this auditorium, this seemed to be school completely different to the outside view. He watched as Kat rather intelligently used her hand to cover her mouth to talk to him, he liked this girl, she was crafty and seemingly more than prepared; a worthy friend to keep at school. Plus she was doing the same units which could always come in handy at assessment time.

"Fancy that, I'm from WA too, more the Perth Metro area though; oh yeah fair enough, sounds like a solid enough reason! I got sent here because apparently I was in with the wrong crowd in my last school, something about rocking up to an assembly half-cut didn't please my parents or my school so I got shipped off the America. Which doesn't seem like much of punishment unless this is one of those prudish old schools in which case this could be a rather harsh punishment". He realized he was overtalking just a slight bit for the situation so he contented himself to shutup and wait for Kat's reply.

The first class of the year was always chaos. Too many people, too many students, most of whom needed to find their friends for the rest of the year on that day for them to fit in like everyone else. People who don’t do that don’t end up doing very well, the teachers always noted, and hence the first hour was always burner. There were essays no one read, some teachers made students stand up and say embarrassing things about themselves in front of a crowd of strangers, others tried to keep apart the people from last year who had been too much trouble to be worth it.

Professor Wilke cared, he wanted to know what the students said and thought about his subject, but half an hour in and he had given up, not even telling them to keep their voices down, and he began getting his glasses out and walking around, taking papers from those who had bothered writing anything. He then saw the girl with her cell phone again, but she put it away and handed him the paper. She had written quite a lot and quiet and in a neat hand writing, and then the other boy.

When the teacher left she said, “I’m giving you a call so your can save my number!” She blushed when she looked at him, but then recoiled when he stretched his hand, it took her a second to take his hand and she giggled at him, “No one does that anymore you know! “And then she took his pen and wrote a nice little smiley next to his.

But before she could continue their conversation the bell had rung and Bella got up, smiling at him, “Robby!” She said, “Have fun at the next class. Call me if you want to go see parks!” She said, and then hopped away to her next class. She was able to find it easily yet again, and she sat down next to some random girl who chewed gum loudly. They shared their names but she didn’t want to share much else with a girl like that, especially one who wore her skirt so short! She scribbled notes down as she thought about Rob for some time and forgot about him, this teacher was much stricter, and she had managed to acquire a pen before then and started scribbling down things, even if she didn’t understand them!

Rutherford had sat in the back, keeping to himself. This was his final year at this school, and he had made some friends in the school but was mostly quiet. He noticed the other group but didn't join in since he was too far from them and didn't feel like yelling. He notice how everyone seemed to be loud and noisy, he had turn in his paper, As the bell rang, he went his next class.

He took a seat in the middle this time, and look around seeing any new people were in the class or not. He took out his pen, filling out the information the teacher wanted and then looked over the class info, He smiled at a friend as the teacher started talking, he then went to take his notes. In his mind, he was thinking what was going to happen after this year and what was going to happen this year also. These thoughts danced through his head as he listened to the teacher's lecture.

((Shit guys, I'm really sorry it's taken so long to do this >_< Hopefully you all haven't given up yet...))

Kat snorted slightly once the teacher had come around and collected their pages – obviously he must have just given up. She wasn’t sure whether or not to be surprised – this was supposed to be a fancy-ass prep school, surely they would have had teachers with a bit more resolve than that? But she supposed it was the first day of the year – not giving new students the chance to socialize and make friends was a bad idea anyways.

“It is a prudish, old school – but I suppose it’s not all that bad. The facilities that I’ve seen all look really top notch, so they’re obviously putting the money to places where it counts.”
Kat replied, looking around the room for emphasis. “Although, I still don’t really think that ‘hanging with the wrong crowd’ totally warrants sending you halfway around the world…” She added with a slightly frown. “I mean, I’ve never really spent a lot of time in the city before, I lived in one of the more rural towns south of Perth. Bit of a shock to be here to tell you the truth – the sky looks different, and the smell is god awful.”

“I guess it’s still an opportunity. I mean, they don’t have school as old or as pretentious as this in Australia, right? And we’re away from the prying eyes of parents, so there’s that too.”

Finally the bell rang – and what a godsend it was. Kat began to collect her things, throwing a glance at the couple in front of Dylan and herself. Cute, they’d exchanged phone numbers. And by the sounds of it, she was trying to line up a date as well.

“Don’t suppose you want company for the next class as well?” Kat asked, pushing her glasses back up her nose and stepping up out of her chair. “Us convicts have to stick together, right?”