Chapter 1

You know that feeling you have when everything is exactly the same as it's always been, but it all feels strange? That was exactly what Christina experienced when she stared at the blue wall before her.

Well, except for the fact that nothing was the same. Christina moved out of her town with her mum and her cats, and she lived in a small village in the middle of nowhere with an unspeakable name, that she couldn't even spell. And that day was the first day of the new school year, so, well no, not everything was the same.

Regardless of those changes, the routine was the same. She'd get up right before her mother left -they'd exchange a quick greeting and a "bye" -, Christina would get ready and she'd be off to school. She would come home to an empty house, she'd do her homework... In that regard, everything was always the same, and it always would be.

"Christina, sweetheart! You don't want to be late to school on your first day! Get out of your bed!" her mother called. Of course, she was already out of bed, and getting ready. But her mum always kept calling, loyal to her job as a mother.

She always called right before she left, so Christina stormed down the stairs to say goodbye to her mum, not wanting to let her leave without a word of goodbye.

Perhaps it was a bit dumb, but she experienced a feeling of insecurity when she thought about letting her mum leave without a simple "goodbye", as if something bad would happen to her if she didn't say goodbye.

She kissed her mum on the cheek and mumbled a quick "Bye, mum!" before heading to the kitchen and throwing open all of the cabinets on her epic quest to find the chocolate.

When she finally found it, she picked a random lunchbox (they had around twenty different lunchboxes in all kinds of colours and sizes) and headed to the table to rapidly form her lunch packet for the day.

No, she didn't oversleep, she just liked to be fast, that way she had some time left to read. She was a bit of a bookworm. Can't blame a girl for wanting some knowledge, right?

Her breakfast was simple as ever; to her, a simple slice of toast and perhaps a piece of fruit sufficed. A glass of milk followed, which she downed quickly.

She looked at the clock when she was done and saw that she still had 30 minutes before she had to leave for school. She grinned, got her book and sat down on the couch. After exactly six pages, it was time for her to go.

She got her backpack and her bike and went to school. It was a short walk, a mere fifteen minutes to the school she was to go to. Even though she could walk there without problems, she wasn't up to it that day.

She usually walked to clear her mind. It made her feel at ease, calm, free. When she walked alone, she just enjoyed the silence. Everything seemed so much clearer when she was alone like that.

But sometimes the loneliness scared her. She felt like crying then, and she hated walking on her own during those dark periods of time. It was one of her dark days again. And just to avoid the pending sadness of walking alone, she rode her bike.

After arriving there, she stood in awe in front of the magnificent building. It was an old building in an art nouveau style, with beautiful decorations and curves. It was old-fashioned, something she preferred over the modern houses that had no shape or decoration whatsoever.

She soon realized she was gawking at the building, so she went straight to the administration office and walked in through the magnificent double doors made out of mahogany wood, doors engraved with a simple flower pattern.

There was a fat, sorry, corpulent, lady with bright purple hair (obviously painted purple, though it would have been cool if people would actually be born with purple hair, I mean, imagine it for a moment?) who smiled brightly at her when she walked in.

"Hello, love," she spoke. She had a thick, unmistakeably Scottish accent that coated her every word and made it hard to understand her.

"Good morning, Mrs...?"

The fat lady laughed. "Call me Joanne, sweetie, just Joanne. I hate such formalities! What can I help you with, this morning, darling?" She seemed to absolutely love nicknames...

Which annoyed Christina from the first nickname on. Christina had immediately realized that "Joanne" was not really a person she would like to become friends with. She was too... enthusiastic and energetic.

She started to feel a little bit uncomfortable with the oh-so-warm and welcoming attitude of the lady. She wasn't used to people being so warm-hearted towards her at the first meeting.

"Uh... I'm new?" It came out like a question. Great, now she seemed to have the brains of a peanut. Right, peanuts don't have brains. Exactly her point, too.

The fat lady, sorry, Joanne, smiled even brighter, almost cracking her face. "So... You must be Christina Mariana Switts, right? Lovely name, love. Now people can call you Chrissy!"

Did she have something with the word "love"?

Christina started wishing a hole would appear in the floor to suck her in -it wouldn't even matter if she would go straight into hell at that moment.

"I'd rather you said "Christina", Joanne." She mumbled, but Joanne didn't seem to notice.

Joanne went on. "You're here for your schedule, right? Schedule, schedule... Ah, here it is! Here you go, Chrissy! You don't mind me calling you that, right? It's a small school, everyone knows everyone - well, if you don't call 357 students a lot, of course! I'm sure you'll be very comfortable with that familiarity, right? So... We don't do things like the other schools in the region do. We're a bit of a rebellious school, you might find.

You have a class, and you have all your lessons with them, got that, darling? Your class is class 5EcB, got that? Economics and stuff, right?"

Christina nodded, wanting to get out as quickly as possible. She couldn't say a word while Joanne was talking. That woman held a conversation all by herself! She was just nodding while looking around the place, not interested in what she was saying.

She finally received the schedule from Joanne and went out again, after waving for a second. Joanne called a cheerful "Bye, Chrissy!" after her, while she went out. Christina rolled her eyes.

She was certain she wasn't going to "love it, right" like Joanne had predicted. Joanne gave better speeches than the president himself, and that said a hell of a lot about her, right?

~Edited (if you see any mistakes that I've missed, please do tell)