“If you think I’m doing what your idiot of-a-mum asked me to do, you’re more stupid than I thought.”
Mia narrowed her eyes at her supposed new sister. “Trust me, I don’t expect anything from you.”
Savannah flicked her golden hair off her shoulder in a well-practiced motion. “Good. Because I wouldn’t be seen dead with someone like you.”
She went to leave but turned back again. “Oh, and just to let you know, your outfit is beyond tragic.”
And with a final wrinkle of her nose, she took her leave, sashaying away in a pink mini-skirt.
Mia sighed and looked up at the brick building that was her new high school.
“Might as well get it over with,” she muttered to herself.
BANG. The thick mathematics textbook crashed into the locker door. Today was not going well for Mia Fernwood.
“Look at me like that again, and I’ll be throwing more than your books around,” sneered the blonde jock.
Mia gulped and bent down to retrieve the contents of her bag which was now littering the hallway of her new high-school. A crowd of people had formed around the incident, but none had come to her rescue. Not that she expected them to. After all, she was the ‘weird new girl’ that dressed in dark colours and spoke with a foreign Philly twang.
She hadn’t intended for the blonde meathead to see her roll her eyes, but she found it impossible not too when he strolled down the hall in his high school football jacket, tucking a loose strand of his locks behind his ear and followed closely by his cronies. It had been so cliché. The hottest boy in school, the football captain, the boy all the other boys wanted to be friends with, and all the girls wanted to date. Mia couldn’t help but shoot them a derisive glance. After all, sights like this were exactly what Mia had been dreading about moving to a small town.
The meathead had caught her disapproval though, and hadn’t hesitated before confronting her.
“Can I help you…? Freak.”
Mia almost laughed at his insult. Did he not think she had heard that word before?
After his crystal blues had looked into her own hazel eyes and found a lack of fear, his anger had only been increased. He was a hunter, and she was the prey. The prey must always show fear, because if they don’t, where is the thrill of the hunt?
So, he had ‘put her in her place’. Slammed his hand on the locker behind her, his large frame engulfing her small one. Despite feeling a little intimated by his muscle clad body, she was determined not to show it. After her continued insistence on maintaining his eye contact, challenging him to go further, he had torn the backpack from the shoulder, and proceeded to throw what was inside.
At least that action had forced her to look away. Had forced her to kneel down before him and pick up her things.
She watched him through narrowed eyes as he swaggered away, feeling triumphant that he had won this encounter. Mia had known guys like him before. She knew it wouldn’t be the last incident.
The rest of the school day was less dramatic. Although no-one spoke to Mia. She had very clearly been branded as an outcast. Trying to be friends with her now would essentially be social suicide. Mia didn’t care though. She liked it that way. She had no interest in making any friends in this awful town. What would be the point when she was planning to leave as soon as possible?
When she got back to the house she now had to call home, she found with relief that she was alone.
Hamlet, her faithful patchwork mongrel waddled over to her to say hello.
“Hello, boy. I missed you.” She scratched behind his ear in the spot he liked the most before walking through to the kitchen.
There was a note on the marble kitchen island from her mum, addressed to both her and Savannah.
“There’s fresh cookies in the oven, hope your first day back at school was a good one!”
Mia scoffed and screwed the post-it into a ball before throwing it into the trash. She pulled open the oven and found the promised baked goods inside. Grabbing the whole plate, she took it up to her new bedroom, her faithful companion following close on her heels.
Mia had barely unpacked yet. She felt that if she unpacked, it would be all too real that she had been forced to move here. She rested the plate on one of the cardboard boxes next to the bed with ‘BOOKS’ written on the side, and fell backwards onto her single white wire framed bed with a sigh. Hamlet jumped on next to her, nudging her for another stroke.
She obliged, while placing her Skull Candy headphones over her ears, hit play on Spotify and turned into a cookie-eating-robot. Hamlet faithfully hoovered up any stray crumbs. She’d almost managed to escape to another world of sugar and prog rock, when the tiresome image of her mom hovered into view above her.
She waited until her mom mimicked removing headphones before actually taking them off.
“So…how’d it go?!”
It never failed to amaze Mia how chirpy her mom could be, even when she damn well knew there was no reason to be.
“It was fine.” Mia replied flatly.
Her mom was used to this kind of response. She sat on the edge of Mia’s bed nodding a little too much. “Good. Good…and er…” Her eyes flicked to the depleted plate of cookies. “Where’s Savannah?”
Mia shrugged. “How should I know?”
Her mom’s face faltered a little. “She didn’t walk you home then?”
“Nope.”
“Well…maybe a teacher asked her to stay behind for something.”
Mia snorted. “Yeah. Sure Mom.”
Mia’s mom, Carla, was desperate to make this whole situation work. It was their chance at a fresh start and a new life. Things had to go well.
“It would help if you made the effort too. I’m sure you two would really get on if you gave it a chance. And you always used to tell me you wanted a sister when you were little.”
“Mom. Those pom poms are permanently glued to her hands. Do I look like the cheerleading type?”
A wave of irritation crossed Carla’s face. She loved her daughter more than anything in the world, but sometimes she wondered if she experienced any other emotion apart from cynicism.
“It might actually be good for you to get involved with some of the school activities.”
Mia laughed. “And what would be the point in that?!”
Carla threw her arms into the air. “To make friends, Mia!”
“I don’t need or want any friends. Especially not here. What would be the point when I’m going to go back to Philly when I finish school?”
Mia’s mom rose from the bed and sighed before moving to the doorway. She turned her head back towards her daughter. “You know Mia, you may think you’re protecting yourself by not allowing other people into your life, but all you’re doing is living in the past. And that’s not living. It’s existing.”
Mia neglected to answer, and her mom didn’t wait for a response. As soon as she left, Mia got up to shut her door. She hated her.
The sound of an engine and the slam of a car door caught her attention outside her window. Maybe Bob was home. She went to look, but instead of Bob’s black truck, a red convertible was sitting outside the drive. She instantly recognised the blonde leaning against the passenger side as Savannah. Her red and white cheerleading outfit almost making her camouflage against the paintwork of the car. When Mia cast her eyes to the driver, her heart sank. She’d only seen him once, but that was enough to burn the image of his furious features into her brain. Only this time, he wasn’t looking angry. Very much the opposite. His muscled arm was draped over the frame of the door, his hand resting on the steering wheel. He was looking at Savannah with a mixture of lust and confidence.
She was too far away to hear what they were saying, but she could easily guess that it was laced with flirtation. The confirmation came when Savannah leaned into the car, placing her lips over those of the meathead jock. They lingered there, giving anyone walking by a clear image of their tongues colliding into the other. Mia curled her lip and looked away.
Great. Her new sister was dating her bully.
“So, girls, how was the first day back at school?”Bob was just as cheery as Mia’s mom. She wondered if that’s why they married each other. Just so they could be sickeningly optimistic as each other.Mia gave much the same response as she had earlier, while pushing the spaghetti on her plate to separate each strand from its twisted counterpart. Bob shot a look to his own daughter, who he then realised wasn’t even listening.“Honey? What about you? Come on put the phone away and tell daddy how it went.”Savannah rolled her eyes and pocketed the device before looping some of her dinner around her fork.“It was great thanks, Daddy. We had our first practice today. We’re planning on tackling a new routine.”Bob grinned at his daughter. “That’s wonderful!” Turning to Mia he added, “did we tell you Savannah is head cheerleader?”“Only a bajillion
Mia tapped her foot against the thin carpet, noticing how plumes of dust emitted everytime. Gross. The woman sitting opposite her was still reading the print outs Mia had handed her. She scrutinized them through thick-rimmed glasses that made her look more like a mole than a woman. The floral pattern of her blouse was giving Mia a headache, but she couldn’t leave yet.Finally, the woman who’d introduced herself as ‘Mrs Parkinson’, looked up and gave Mia a faint smile. “Well Miss Fernwood. You appear to have good grades in all your subjects, although you should work on mathematics to level it up more.”Mia nodded. She’d expected that anyway.“However, I am concerned that aside from your academic accomplishments, your extra-curricular activities are rather lacking. Remember you should be writing about those too.”Mia frowned. “What do you mean?”“Well, colleges want to see well-r
The diner was all mustard yellow walls and red shabby booths. A couple of women with pony tails and petticoat aprons walked around taking orders and pouring out coffee from a glass jug with a plastic top. It was a pretty standard American diner.“How did the meeting with the college application person go today?”Mia’s mom had insisted on picking her up after school that day and taking her for ice cream. It had been something they’d done back in Philly. Mia could tell her mom was trying to mimic some of those memories. But how could it ever be the same?“Bad.”She’d responded without even thinking, and now she wanted to punch herself in the face. She should have lied and said it went fine, because any other response would insight the upcoming barrage of questions.Carla left the long silver spoon suspended in her strawberry split, and looked at her daughter with concern. Mia hated that look.“Wh
When they pulled up to their destination, it soon became clear why the kids that hung out here might not want their parents to know. This was the spot for the ‘cool kids’. A few cars and trucks were parked up already, and down by the water a handful of teenagers were sitting on battered deck chairs, cheap brown bottles and cigarettes swinging from their fingers. A few girls were perched on the edges of boys laps, throwing their heads back in an exaggerated motion as if the boy had said the funniest thing ever.Mia realised that without the invasion of high-schoolers, the place was actually beautiful. Clear water babbled over the rocks of the river bed, bordered by foliage and trees on either side. Hamlet would love it here. She decided she would have to find somewhere similar that hadn’t been taken over by jocks and cheerleaders.She reluctantly followed Ryan and Savannah to where the group were sitting, making sure to keep her head held high.
“What on earth happened to you?!”Mia’s mom rushed towards her daughter as she entered the house. Mia was now shivering from having to sit in the back of Tyler’s open backed truck. It had been yet another humiliating instalment in the evening’s events.“Fell into a pound,” Mia muttered. Savannah had already told Mia to lie, and Mia was happy to oblige. She couldn’t cope with the fuss her mom might make if she knew the truth. She also wanted to stop being the object of Ryan’s torment. If she ratted out Savannah, he might up the ante.“Oh dear. You always were a bit clumsy.”Mia gritted her teeth so hard she thought they might crack. “I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.”After she was washed and in fresh clothes Mia sat down on the edge of her bed with her head in her hands. Why her? Why was it that nothing ever went her way? She felt Hamlet nudge her arm with h
It took a second for him to register her presence, but when he did, he almost tripped over himself. “Hello F…Mia.”Mia resisted to urge the scowl at him in front of now what appeared to be his mother. Out of all the places she could have looked for work in…“You kids know each other?”Ryan seemed to recover from his small shock, because he managed to smile at Mia in that way of his. Now she knew why Angela had seemed familiar. They looked very alike.“Yeah, Mia is the girl whose Mom married Bob Miller.”Angela looked at her perspective employee with renewed interest. “Oh right! I should have known when you said you were new in town.”Mia did her best to smile back, but the rising panic she was feeling turned it into more of a grimace.“So, what did you come in for Mia?” Ryan’s voice was layered with false geniality.“Mia came into ask about th
When it got to lunch time, Mia took what was now becoming her usual seat right at the back of the hall. It seemed that most of the kids who didn’t have anyone to sit with chose these tables. Unlike the rest of her peers though, Mia was happy with this.She was so engrossed in her book, half a cheese sandwich held aloft, she didn’t hear her voice the first time.“Mia?”Tilly was standing in front of her, a crowded lunch tray within her grasp.“Oh sorry, I didn’t hear you. Are you okay?”Tilly flushed a little. “Er yeah, I just wanted to know if it was okay for me to sit with you.”“Sure, go ahead.” Mia tried to disguise the surprise in her voice.Tilly sat down, slinging off her backpack to the floor. “Thanks. I just wanted to check you were alright. After the run in with Brook.”“Yeah, I’m fine. That was weird though.”Tilly t
“Okay so today I’ll just ask you to put out some new stock and package some stuff up for me. I’ll teach you how to use the register next weekend if you pass the trial today.”Mia nodded her head and wrung out her sweaty hands on her jeans. She hadn’t felt this nervous about something in a long time. But she had no choice, she had to see it through. Part of her also wanted to show Ryan that she was going to do whatever she wanted too.“Okay yeah, that sounds great. What would you like me to do first?”Angela tapped the boxes that were stacked on the counter. “So, these are washers.”Mia bit her lip. She had no idea what washers were.Guessing her thoughts, Angela chuckled. “They are small metal discs that go in between nuts and bolts in order to keep the fixture secure.”“Oh…okay.”“It’s alright. You’ll soon pick everything up.