"Smile!" I give my best grin to the camera as my mom takes the picture. The click is followed by her taking hold of the picture and looking at it with a happy smile. Her smile quickly sours. "Why are you scowling at your sister, Jake?"

I turn to see my brother fixing his face, quickly hiding his attempt to screw up our photo. "Jake!" I say, pushing him. He sticks his tongue out at me. "Jerk," I mumble. We take another picture with him smiling as well, and mom glares at the ruined one.

"What a waste," she says.

"I'll take it," I say, grinning. I love my brother and today's a big day, why not? I take the picture and put it in my backpack.

"I gotta go," Jake says. Mom forces a kiss on his head as he scampers away, dragging his bags behind him. Mom laughs.

"So, you have to go too," she says, and I sigh. "My baby," she cries, pulling me in for a hug.

"Mom, I'll be fine. Jake's survived, I think I can too," I tell her.

"I know," she mumbles. "You sure you can carry all of this?" She stares at my things which barely fit in the car. Between my clothes, my toiletries, my surfboard and everything else in my life that I had uprooted to bring with me, I'll be struggling to carry it all, for sure.

"I'll be fine," I say, less sure.

"Alright," she says. "Goodbye, baby." She kisses my head, like she had my brother's. "Call us, okay? I know Cliff will miss you." I laugh but feel a pang in my chest.

"Bye mom." I pull away and pick up my backpack, surfboard and then weasel the two suitcases into following me. I look back once to see her watching me from the car, and make my way to where I think my new room is.

I find Butler Hall and struggle my way into my new room. I choose the bunk bed, lower bunk, and set my things down on it. I start unpacking, getting my clothes out first and putting them all neatly away, deciding to tackle the rest of my things when my roommates are around, so I don't take up too much room.

I'm almost done, and am just putting my shoes away when I hear a loud scream. I run towards the sound, and end up in the bathroom, another girl arriving just before me.

"Hi, did you just scream?" The blonde asks, as we take in the stricken brunette. She's stood in the middle of the bathroom and I can't imagine what's spooked her.

"Yeah, are you okay?" I ask.

"I don't know, did it sound like this?" She asks us, screaming again in the exact same way.

"Yeah," we say, grimacing.

"Yeah, that was me," she says, not explaining anything at all, and I share a look with the other blonde.

"So, what's the matter?" She asks.

"Why'd you scream?"

She points at the wall. "That's the matter." We all look to see a urinal. I can't say I'm thrilled to have one in here, but PCA was always just for boys, it's not like it matters much that it's here.

"So?" I ask.

"This is a girl's dorm, and that is clearly not for girls," she says, obviously. I stare at her, wondering how she copes with life.

"Clearly," the blonde says. "Okay, well, I'm gonna head back to my room."

The brunette stops her, "wait, what room are you in." I watch curiously, wondering if one of these girls is my new roommate.

"One-oh-one," she says, and another scream rips through the air. "Wow, you scream loud!"

"What now?" I ask, clutching my ears.

"I'm in room one-oh-one! We're roommates! Shall we hug? Let's hug!" She hugs the blonde and I feel a secret relief that I won't have the excitable brunette as my own roommate.

"Thanks, I'm Zoey, by the way."

"I'm Nicole," they look at me after this.

"I'm Harper," I smile, waving shyly. "Im in room one-oh-seven," I add.

"Wow, who'd have thought we'd meet by a urinal," Zoey says, and Nicole shushes her.

"Don't say that out loud." She pauses, "why's it in here?"

"Cause this used to be a boys dorm," Zoey says.

"And boys have them," I say.

"Well it creeps me out," Nicole says.

"You act like it's the first time you've seen one of these," Zoey says.

"Oh, please. I wasn't born yesterday, I know about boy stuff," Nicole says, clearly lying.

I think about how easy it would be to go 13 years without seeing a urinal. "Well you don't need to have seen one," I say, hoping she'll feel less pressured to lie.

"Yeah," she says, slightly happier. "So, how do they sit on it," she asks, and I am forced to contain my laugh.

"We'll talk later," Zoey says, "come on." We leave the bathroom and I wave goodbye to them, each going to our own rooms.

I finish putting my clothes away and then hang fairly lights over my bed, using the top bunk to hang them. I finish making up my bed and stuff my surfboard and skateboard under my bed. There's some shelves around the room, and with no sign of my roommates I just take one and put up my trophies, and hang some posters on my wall. I decide to add the picture from this morning, just because. I sit down briefly, not sure what to do, and then a girl comes in. "Hi!" I say, and she jumps.

"Hey," she mumbles. "You're my roommate," she asks, and I nod, standing.

"I'm Harper," I say, as she puts her things on the single bed.

"Delilah," she says. We shake hands, awkwardly, and she begins to unpack. "So, you excited about school?" She asks, and I shrug.

"I'm excited for the beach!" I point to my backpack, which is neglected on the ground. "I haven't even looked at my schedule yet!"

She laughs, "me neither. I spent most of the summer painting PCA," she says.

"Painting it?" I ask, confused.

She nods. "I'm an artist, so I thought I'd paint the school to make myself feel better about leaving home." She pulls a sketchbook out of her bag and shows me one painting.

"Woah," I say. "That's really good." I'm not lying, either, she's talented. "So painting, art, that's like, your thing?" I ask.

She nods again, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "What's your thing?"

I grab one of the medals from my trophy shelf and bring it over. "Swimming," I say. "Although I don't mind any water sports." She laughs nervously now.

"You're brave," she says. "I can't even go near the water." I shrug and put my medal back. "I'll unpack later," she says. "Wanna check out the lounge?" I say yes, and we go out into the lounge where Zoey and Nicole call everyone together in a huddle.

"What's going on?" I ask Zoey, and she begins to explain how the boys don't think that girls are capable of playing basketball, and that we'll be playing them in a few days. "Great," I moan.

"Why are you complaining," Delilah asks. "You're a champion swimmer!"

I turn to her, gravely. "I can't catch a ball to save my life," I groan. "I'm terrible at ball sports, I nearly flunked gym last year." She frowns and we hear another voice jump in.

"I'm no good either," we look to see a redhead.

"Hey," I say. "I'm Harper."

"Delilah."

The new girl smiles widely, "I'm Jennifer!" She pulls her book closer to her chest. "I'm in room one-oh-seven, but I only just got here," she says. "I got distracted by this book, it's so exciting!" We smile at her.

"We're you're roommates!" Delilah says, and Jennifer's face lights up.

"Yay!" Her face drops for a second. "What bed do I have?"

"Uh, top bunk?" I say, hoping she isn't going to start crying. Her face twists into a bigger smile.

"Great! I sometimes read late into the night, so this way my flashlight won't disturb you."

I grin at my new friends. "You know, I think we got a pretty good deal, here." They agree and we listen to the rest of the talk from Zoey.

The next day, we go to the basketball court to meet the rest of the girls. I'm wearing the clothes I usually wear for jogging; gym shorts and a loose shirt with sneakers. Not everyone seems to prepared.

"Okay," Zoey begins. "How many of you have ever played on a basketball team?" Some people raise their hands, and while I've played during gym class, I leave my hand down. "Okay," she says, disgruntled. "How many of you would say you're good at basketball?" Only one girl raises her hand.

"Um, I once made a basketball explode," the girl says, hand still raised.

"I don't know if that counts," I say, kindly.

Nicole, however, asks what everyone is really wondering, "how?"

"Chemicals," she says, shortly. With suspicion now ripe, we move on from the girl.

"Okay," Zoey says but the other girls are fed up now, already.

"Look, this is stupid," one girl says.

"Yeah, there's no way we're gonna beat the guys at basketball," another girls adds.

"Why not?" I say, mad that they're not even considering us winning.

"Do you think we can win?" She says back.

"I don't think I can win but shouldn't we still try?" I ask, as murmuring breaks out.

"Look!" Zoey says, stepping towards us. "This is not about beating them! This is about proving we can do anything they can do!"

I nod firmly in agreement, putting my hands on my hips.

"Except use those urinal thingies," Nicole says. "Which apparently they don't sit on," none of the other girls seem shocked by this, although I see Delilah and Jennifer looking at each other, as if asking what's happening.

"Guys, this is about respect!" Zoey says.

A girl I don't know, says, "what's so respectable about a bunch of girls getting their butts beat? You know what? I'm out of here." She leaves and others start to seep out too.

There's not many of us left. Myself, Delilah, Jennifer, Nicole, Zoey and four girls I don't know remain.

"And then there were nine," Nicole says.

"Well, that's enough for a basketball team!" Zoey says, optimistic somehow. "And the game's not till Friday. So we're gonna practice hard and we're gonna win!"