"You're okay to catch the bus today right?" My mum asked, grabbing the cup of coffee off the counter.

"Yeah," I replied.

Despite moving to our new house a month ago, we still had boxes and boxes of unpacked stuff. Clothes were strewn across the couch because my mum had been too busy to fold them and I had been too tired to.

We hadn't done any of the typical touristy things or even gone around, hence leaving me with no idea of directions, forcing me to stay at home and surf the internet in my spare time.

After a few minutes on Google maps, I'd managed to work out exactly where to go to get to my bus stop. It was straight down my street until the roundabout, then a left onto the main road. It was stop number fifty four. Also, according to Google, it would take me twenty minutes to walk there, giving me about ten minutes to get changed before I had to leave the house.

Just looking at the uniform as it hung up in my wardrobe was a strange sight. My old uniform had been predominantly grey and somewhat boring. This new one looked like something straight out of a movie. The girls' uniform consisted of a navy pleated skirt, white blouse, striped white and blue bow, a navy blazer and black shoes.

My ten minutes was up and I grabbed my bag, locked the door and left. As I was walking, I kept an eye out for any strange slow moving cars or people walking around me. It was better to be safe than sorry. My friends would always tell me I had been watching too much of Criminal Minds.

My phone vibrated and I pulled it out of my pocket. "Hello?" I answered.

"Hi, is this Daisy Sorenson?"

"Yes it is."

"This is Marco Romano from Marco's Pizza. I've had a chance to look over your resume and I'd be happy for you to come in for an interview today."

I'd completely forgotten about the job application. Before we'd moved in I'd had a browse of job openings and applied. I'd held little belief that I'd actually receive a response.

"Okay, that sounds great."

"You're a high school student, is that right?"

"Yes."

"How does 4 o'clock sound?"

"Sounds good."

"Alright, I'll see you then."

"Bye."

Should I have added "have a nice day" to try and get on his good side, or would that have sounded too try-hard? Either way, too little too late, which was about to be my response to another thing if I didn't hurry up and haul ass to the bus stop.

I could see it coming down the road, currently behind a lollipop man holding out signs for the small kids to cross the street. I bolted down towards the roundabout, checked for cars, and sprinted left. The bus arrived just as I came to a halt and stuck out my hand to signal.

"Just made it," the bus driver said as I scanned my card.

"Lucky," I replied in between a breath.

There weren't many buses that went straight to Pemberton, and it wasn't hard to see why. As the bus pulled up to the stop just outside Pemberton, I saw the line of cars waiting to drop kids off, and the dozens of cars pulling into the car park.

Inside a small silver hatchback, I could make out a hand waving in my general direction. I checked behind me, and there was no one there, so they were probably waving at me, but the windows were tinted so dark I couldn't make out who it was.

The door popped open and Bonnie got out, turning momentarily to wave to the person driving before walking towards me.

"Hey," she grinned.

"Hi."

"Glad Pemberton Academy didn't scare you away after the first day. Just a heads up: expect a shit storm in the hallways sometime today. Holden just broke up with Courtney and there's going to be d-r-a-m-a."

I was pretty sure I'd seen all there was to break up drama, considering I'd already been in high school for a good five years.

"If you're thinking that I'm exaggerating. I'm not. You haven't seen drama till you've seen Pemberton Academy drama. It looks like something straight out of the soaps," she said, as though reading my mind.

"Looking forward to it," I laughed.

First up, we had physics in room 3C, which I now knew we had to go up three flights of stairs, and that it'd be the third room. The lockers lined the hallways and luckily, the seniors' lockers were located on the ground floor. It meant it wasn't too far to walk from anywhere. The only problem was that during the rush to class, getting books meant getting repeatedly knocked about by students scurrying around to the other floors to reach their own lockers and classes.

Bonnie and I made it to class a little early and had time to pick some seats. We sat on the right side of the classroom, second row from the back. Students slowly started to fill up the classroom, the last one entering as the second bell tolled.

"Okay, so as I mentioned yesterday, I've planned the entire semester so that we'll have time for two weeks of revision before your end of semester exam. That means that all your assignments and tests will be coming at a steady pace, probably one after the other. The first task for this year is an assignment. You'll be working in pairs to build a motor," Mr Michaels announced.

Of course, the question being whispered frantically around the room was "Will we get to choose our own pairs?"

"No, you will not be choosing your own pairs. I'll be giving you assigned pairs. In the real world, we don't always get to choose who we work with." He cleared his throat before taking out a list. "Listen closely for your name and the name of your partner."

I was hoping that with any stroke of luck, I'd be assigned to work with Bonnie. On the other side of the room, I could see Crystal and Rebecca. Given that there were few people I'd had a chance to talk to, anyone who I'd introduced myself to would be a blessing.

"Lauren and Daniel," Mr Michaels called. A hand shot up.

"Was that me, or Lauren H?" A girl I presumed named Lauren asked.

"That would you be you, sorry about that," Mr Michaels replied. Lauren nodded and waved at a guy on the opposite side of the room.

"Bonnie and Crystal. Jack and Rebecca. River and Teresa. Adam and George." He continued on and on, and by noting the others who looked up or responded when they heard their names, I had worked out at least a few more peoples' names.

"Daisy and Holden."

Holden? I had heard that name somewhere. Of course. I turned my head slowly to look at the opposite side of the room where Stephanie, Holden and Logan were seated. Holden didn't look bitterly disappointed or overjoyed, but he just wrote something down in his book.

Mr Michaels started to go through the theory behind the motor, the crucial elements being a coil, electric current and a magnetic field. At the end of class we were given a chapter to read from our textbook and the first 10 review questions at the end of that chapter for homework.

When we strode through the hallways to get to maths, I was half expecting chaos to unravel, the way Bonnie described the day's latest gossip. It was strange how no one was concerned about letting the new girl hear gossip. After all, it wasn't like I could tell anyone, since I had no friends and I couldn't even put faces to most of the names.

"I would not be surprised if Courtney came after you, with Holden being your physics partner and what not," Bonnie said nonchalantly.

"What?" I gaped. The last thing I needed was to be sent to the bottom of the food chain and spend my time suffering.

"I'm kidding," she laughed. "Should've seen you face."

"Not funny," I muttered.

We went through maths unscathed. The first topic was simultaneous equations and extension of those, which luckily, didn't bother me too much.

Bonnie's sources hadn't been wrong, because after maths, hell broke loose during break. We passed the gym on the way to the cafeteria and the screams coming from inside were more than enough to draw a crowd. It turned out that both the cheerleading squad and basketball team had their meetings in the gym. Holden was on the basketball team, and Courtney was the leader of the squad (according to Bonnie).

I'd known breakups to be bad, but not that bad.

Bonnie pointed out Courtney. She had long wavy brown hair with light blonde ends.

"Adira, get back!" Courtney screamed, lunging towards Holden.

"Adira? What are you, my mum Courts?" A tanned girl with dark brown hair yelled back. Courtney ignored her and continued yelling.

"I find that stupid thong in the back seat of your car, and then you dump me?"

"Maybe if you hadn't had your tongue shoved down Tyler's throat first!" Holden spat back.

A guy with messy brown hair in the back shuffled back. "That's Tyler by the way," Bonnie whispered.

Courtney grabbed a basketball from the ball trolley and hurled it at Holden. He caught it with ease. "You're going to have to try harder than that darl," he said.

We didn't stay to watch how it wrapped up because my stomach was growling, and I wanted to live through the rest of the day.

"I'll pay for food today," Bonnie grinned. When she saw the look of confusion on my face, she explained, "We sort of had a wager going to see how long they'd last. I put five dollars on a week, and I just won fifty bucks."

"They've only been dating for a week?" I asked, gobsmacked.

"Yeah, that's kind of long. Most people betted on three days or something. But I had a hunch. Holden's track record shows an average of about a week," she continued.

Tara lived for this sort of drama. Back at Carlson High, the most dramatic things ever got was a string of missing whiteboard erasers. It turned out it was one of the juniors trying to be cool.

I needed to give them a call that night, to update them on how things were going.

The rest of the day was fairly drama free, aside from the occasional groan that came up when one student had to relinquish their cash to another after losing the bet.

The three tolls at the end of the day set us all free, but the only thing on my mind was that job interview.

I waited at the bus stop, rapping my fingers against the strap of my backpack. I was going to be late for my job interview if it didn't roll up within the next five minutes. It'd take twenty minutes to get to Marco's.

The same silver hatchback I'd seen in the morning drove past. Bonnie rolled down the window. "Need a lift?" She asked.

"I don't really want to impose," I mumbled.

"Get in," she grinned, swinging the door open.

I clambered in. Her mum had been more than happy to drop me off at Marco's, and it was a great coincidence that it was on their way home. I arrived ten minutes early and waved them off before heading inside.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I went up to the counter and a waitress greeted me. "Hi, I'm here for a job interview?" I said.

"Oh, just a moment," she smiled.

The man I assumed was Marco came out and introduced himself.

He took me to one of the free booths in the corner and the interview began.

He asked me the pretty standard questions. Tell me a bit about yourself. Why would you like to work for Marco's Pizza? What are some of you strengths and weaknesses? What is your availability like?

I fumbled through the questions, trying to remain calm while also attempting to give off the aura of 'social butterfly' and 'I love people'. So far my awkward chuckle at the end of almost every answer had garnered a few smiles in response, and he wasn't looking at the clock waiting for it to be over. All in all, it could've been going worse.

Then he dropped the bomb on me. He handed me a blank white notepad and a pen.

"Now, go out there and serve," he smiled. "I like throwing potential new employees into the deep end."

There were only two booths that hadn't been served yet. The first was in the middle on the left. A woman and man had their backs towards me, and a guy sat opposite them. The woman had shoulder-length dark brown hair, and from the little I could see, she was wearing a cream coloured tweed jacket. The man next to her had a salt and pepper coloured regular neat looking cut and was wearing a black suit. The guy facing them had dark brown hair that was swept over to one side and was wearing a white t-shirt with a black bomber jacket over the top.

Anxiously, I teetered out to the table, realising that the man and woman were stern looking, and that the guy was probably their son.

"The last thing I need is for these guys to be following me around all day," the guy groaned, gesturing to the two men in black suits sitting at the table just behind them.

"They're there for your safety, and that's final," his dad said.

"When will you start accepting your responsibilities?" His mum asked.

"Shouldn't responsibilities come with freedom?" The guy argued.

"Is this not sufficient freedom? You have your own car, and you're able to go anywhere you want. The only thing we're changing is increasing security. For crying out loud, you're the reason we decided to come to this restaurant in the first place."

"Sorry it isn't a Michelin five star," he grumbled.

In between their heated discussion, they hadn't noticed me creep up by their table. Then the guy looked up at me and silence fell upon the table.

"Hi, how are you?" I asked, attempting to be cheerful and ensuring that there was a huge smile plastered onto my face.

"Good thank you," the woman answered.

"What can I get you today?"

The woman looked at the guy and he flicked through the menu before putting it down, as though he'd already known what he wanted to order. "A large cheese pizza with thin crust," he said.

I scrawled it down. The guy looked at me momentarily. More correctly, probably at my uniform. Pemberton Academy sort of had a reputation.

"You came here for a cheese pizza?" The man said, annoyed.

"Why? Did I keep you from another business meeting, Dad?" The guy mumbled.

The mum shot him a glare and he stopped speaking.

"Was that all for today?" I smiled.

"Yes," the woman replied.

I took the notepad back to the kitchen and gave it to Marco.

"Good job," Marco complimented. Marco tore off the page with the order on it and stuck it to the order panel.

I wiped my sweaty palms on the skirt of my uniform. "I'll ring up the total and leave it as transaction 5, so just click that when you're ready. When he comes up to pay, all you do is click cash or credit, and if it's credit, swipe his card on the EFTPOS machine. If it's cash, you just open the till and put it inside."

Once the order was ready, a proper waitress came and took the pizza out.

After a while, the woman and man left first. Neither of them had taken even a bite of the pizza. The guy finished it himself and came up to the counter to pay for the pizza.

"That comes to a total of twenty nine ninety five," I said. He slid his credit card over to me and I swiped it through the EFTPOS machine. It wasn't until I was about to return it to him that I saw the name.

Parker Lennox.

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Ok so this chapter was still sort of background.

Ok that just made me cringe

Anyway, please show some love with votes and comments! It really keeps me going!