Chapter 1 - Change is Everything
When Gwen Chance arrived at her new school, there was silence. Then a girl with long blond hair skipped up to her, her hairclips clicking.
‘I’m Hepzibah Base,’ she said, eying Gwen’s dark clothes and dark blue hair.
‘Gwen Chance,’ Gwen said. Gwen tried to get her dark brown eyes to appear dull and lifeless. She looked into the other girl’s sparkly blue eyes, and saw hope looking back at her. The girl has a sparkly smile that glowed and glittered. She sighed and walked into her classroom, Birch Class.
‘Kids, we have a new kid joining us today. Everyone, this is Gwen.’
Gwen looked at everyone with a fire in her eyes. Everyone immediately looked away, coughing and avoiding eye contact. Gwen smiled proudly.
‘Right - uhm, Gwen, you’ll be seated next to Hepzibah.’
Hepzibah sent Gwen her sparkly smile and motioned at the seat next to her. Gwen sat down next to the beautiful girl. Gwen looked to her right, with the same fierce look. The boy next to her matched it, staring her dead in the eye.
‘Gwen,’ Gwen said, putting her hand out.
The boy smiled. ‘Tom.’ They shook, and went back to the work. Halfway through, Hepzibah leant over and asked, annoyed, ‘Why did you talk to weirdo Tom?’
‘He’s nice,’ Gwen shrugged. Hepzibah sneered and returned to her book. Gwen watched her closely. She was smirking, gossiping with her neighbour, and then when the teacher asked her a question, she would sit up straight, don her sparkly smile, and everyone loved her, the teacher didn’t notice her talking, and Tom would shoot a disgusted look at her.
At the end of English, Gwen saw Hepzibah talking to Tom, who was rolling his eyes and flicking his blond hair out of his eyes. Hepzibah stabbed her finger at him and Gwen got a bad feeling. But she needed a friend, so she pretended to turn a blind eye to Hepzibah’s cruelness.
But there was one thing eating at Gwen inside, inside her hard, thick, people-repelling shell. Her mum and dad got a divorce 2 months ago. She’d been mainly living with her mum, who was mean, hard, and looked exactly like Hepzibah, and acted the same. She only sat around. Gwen just hated her mother, so she went out and met Polly, Maracena and Eren. But they dumped her when they found out she was a freak.
