Sitting in an English lesson, Alice pulled her art notes from her bag. She jotted away, pretending to be taking notes from the lecturer, hoping to finish at least the written portion of her art project by today—the deadline. Well… technically the deadline had been this morning. “Alice?” Miss Henbury interrupted Alice’s furious scribbling. “Yes?” Alice asked, hoping she wasn’t about to be scolded for working on her art project during an English lesson. “Mr Yates wants to see you,” Miss Henbury revealed. “He’s in room 23a.”

Joseph sped to Alice’s house as quickly as he could drive without drastically breaking the speed limit. After she never returned, he’d started to worry. Then one of Aleks buddies had mentioned her leaving with him. “Please be home,” Joseph muttered to himself. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you that third drink.” As Joseph got out of the car and half-ran, half-skipped up the path toward Alice’s front door, he caught a glimpse of something moving in the bushes. Stopping, he frowned and parted the shrubbery. “Erm… hello?” Joseph said.

Jamie plonked the shirt on the counter and coolly told the cashier he wanted to return it. The girl looked at him, swallowed, and muttered, “Erm, you can’t return it if you’ve worn it—” “The stitching is coming undone. I’ve worn it once. It’s shoddy,” Jamie told her. In truth, there was nothing wrong with the stitching aside from the portion he’d unpicked by hand. It hadn’t been easy either; the quality of the garment was, in fact, annoyingly high. The truth was, Jamie had spent the last of his allowance on clothes and left himself short. Now he c

Ste sat at the table, pretending he didn’t hear Alice pleading with her brother on his behalf. ‘You can be the better person’… those words stung. He knew what she meant; that Jamie didn’t have to stoop to Ste’s level. Still… she was trying to do him a favour. He must really look pathetic. His reflection in the window confirmed this. He looked life ‘death warmed up’ as his granny would say. Ste still felt awkward enough as it was, being at Jamie’s house. Even dressed up in Jamie’s designer clothes—like a living Ken doll as Jamie pu

Alice smiled to herself as put her phone down and got ready for school. She was still smiling as she brushed her hair and applied her lip gloss, happy with how she looked today. After practically floating down the stairs, Alice greeted her family in the kitchen. “Yay, panda-cakes,” Alice cried, seeing the pancakes. “Thanks, mum.” Alice poured syrup and blueberries onto her stack, then tried to eat the pile of food without messing up her makeup. “You’re cheerful this m