Water Fay

POV - Alyssa

Monday, the first day of semester two, came round quickly. Although I still haven’t fully unpacked my boxes, mum, dad and I have quickly settled into a routine. Dad has booked a lane at the local pools for me every morning from six to seven, where I can shower afterwards and then come home for breakfast, After that, school. He got upset when I told him I was denied joining the school’s swim team, but I just shrugged my shoulders and got onto it. I'm still swimming, just not for my school, and I'm happy with that.

The pool is less busy today, I notice. I imagine that with school being back after a long break, meant the swim teams were doing their training at their schools, so I'm happy as I slip underneath the water, knowing that it's quiet. Usually I begin my swims freestyling, then finish with a back-stroke. Today I want to time myself. After ten laps to warm up, I pull out of the pool and press the start button on my Fitbit before I dive back into the water. After ten laps I stop and check my time. I smile. I get out and repeat, each time aiming to go faster, each time shaving a few seconds off my time.

I smile getting out the final time. I pushed myself today, but not as far as I knew I could. I walked to the showers and turned them on full heat, allowing the needles of water to massage my muscles.

Saying goodbye to mum after breakfast, I jump into my new little car my parents had bought for me the week before- a little red Suzuki Swift and headed for my first day of school. I sighed as I parked. I can do this, I repeated to myself. I had spent the days since meeting the principal studying my school timetable and the school’s building plan and was fairly confident, I could find my way round without help.

“I can do this,” I said to myself out loud, before hopping out of my car and locking it behind me. I walked towards the school entrance, observing the students around me. This school had a uniform- for the girls, it was a black and white pleated skirt with a white peter pan blouse. The boys wore black slacks with grey dress shirts and black and white checked blazer- in the same material as the girls’ skirts. Girls had the option of a grey cardigan or checked fitted blazer. I had opted for the cardigan; it was long and comfortable and hugged my skin warmly.

I noticed that most of the girls wore their white socks pulled up to their knees. Looking down at my ankle socks against my Mary Janes, I smiled. I wondered how long it would take me to join this trend, or how long it would take for me to not.

I noticed I got some looks, but I ignored them, more focused on the numbers on the walls of the halls. I wanted to find my locker first before going to my first class- homeroom. I turn down a few corridors before I find my locker. I key in the code I’ve been given and open it. I look in. It’s a long cupboard like box thing with shelves that I can put my books in. Why I would want to put my things in here when I could take it all with me, I didn’t know. I close my locker and go to turn towards the direction of my homeroom.

“You know you’re actually supposed to put things in there,” a voice says next to me. I turn to look at the source of the voice. It is a tall blonde, with brown eyes and glasses. She looks nice enough.

“I’m Allison Carter,” the girl says offering her hand.

“Alyssa Fletcher,” I reply.

“New here?”

“Is it that obvious?” I ask. She smiles and nods.

“What’s your homeroom?”

“Seven Blue,” I reply.

“Excellent, we’re in the same class,” she says, “I’ll walk you.”

As we walk Allison explains the school classing system. We’re in year seven, which is our final year of school, and each year has coloured houses, blue, red, green, orange, yellow, purple, brown, gold, black, white, and silver. Each house has fifty students, and we meet every Monday morning in our home room- then we go to our individual classes- usually with the people in your houses.

“What are your electives?” Allison asks as we continue to walk.

“Uh, sport, technology, science and history,” I say.

“Cool, are you in English Blue?” she asks. I’m about to reply no when we turn into a large room. We’re not the first one’s there but as we walk in people stop and turn to look at us.

I dismiss their looks and follow Allison to a table where three other people sit- two girls and a boy.

“Hi everyone, this is Alyssa,” Allison says, introducing me. I smile and nod.

“Lissa. Call me Lissa,” I say. They smile back, then Allison introduces us- the girl with the brown hair and glasses is Deborah, the red-head is Kyra, and the lone boy with curly brown hair is Cameron. They start talking and asking me questions when another boy walks over to us.

“Hi,” he says, giving Kyra a kiss on her temple and sitting down.

“This is my boyfriend Flynn, Flynn this is a Lissa,” Kyra says. He looks at me and smiles, giving me a hello.

Homeroom begins when the teacher walks in. He calls the roll quickly and then gives us a brief overview of the term and week. Thirty minutes later the bell rings and we all gather our books and bags to head off to our next class.

“What do you have next?” Allison asks.

“English G,” I reply, thinking in my head which direction to go in. The group stops and looks at me.

“Really?” Cameron asks. I nod.

“Why?”

“Gold classes are the top ones- what about maths? What are you in there?” he continues.

“Black,” I say, hoping it’s just an average class. Flynn whistles.

“Third top group,” Cameron then says. I nod again, shrugging. Yeah, I was good at both areas, but average at everything else. I was a C student, and proud of it.

“I’m in English Y-1, so I’ll walk you, it’s next door,” Deborah states.

“Thanks,” I reply. We walk towards the classrooms and agree to meet back outside her class after the lesson is over.

I walk into the classroom and greet the teacher.

“Hi. My name is Alyssa Fletcher, and this is my first day. Did you have anywhere you would like me to sit?” I ask the teacher. She turns to me and smiles.

“Hi Alyssa. I’m Mrs. Wills. You can take the seat at the back. It’s not often we have students move into English G,” she says, indicating the desk I will be sitting at. I notice that there are only enough seats for twenty-six students. I walk to the back and take out my English books and pencil case. The class begins with the teacher checking attendance and then asking us to get our English workbooks and novel out. We are studying Romeo and Juliette, which I have already studied, and she asks us to begin reading.

About five minutes later the door opens and slams shut. I look up from where I am reading. A tall well-built student with black hair and blue-green eyes walks in.

“Well Zephyr, thank you for gracing us with our presence. You have a buddy to sit with now, aren’t you lucky?” Mrs. Wells says to the student. He harrumphs and turns down the aisle to sit next to me. I look back down at my book and try to keep reading.

The boy, Zephyr, is fussing in his seat, filling up the space with his body and knocking me a few times.

“Are you okay,” I ask, looking up at him. He looks at me, disdain in his eyes. I roll my eyes at his look, sliding my chair over to give him more room.

I continue to read, or at least try to, but I feel Zephyr’s eyes on me.

“What?” I ask, not looking up.

“What page are we on?” he asks. I look up at him and raise my eyebrows.

“Really?” I say. He nods.

“It’s on the board,” I reply, closing my book. I’ve finished the pages I’ve been asked to read, so I decide to sit back and wait.

Mrs. Wills wanders the room, watching the students as they read.

“How are you going, Alyssa?” she asks walking up to us.

“Good. I studied Romeo and Juliet last year at my old school,” I add.

“Really? How did you go?”

“Aced it,” I replied, smiling.

“Have you studied Hamlet?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am. Hamlet is about a prince who is haunted by the ghost of his father, the King of Denmark. His father asks him to kill the current king, his uncle- and Hamlet debates this, contemplating life and death and pretending to go mad. In the end there is a duel and Hamlet, the King and Queen are killed,” I say. Mrs. Wells smiles.

“I’ll have to find another text for you, how about ‘The Tempest,’ have you studied that?” I shake my head.

“Then I’ll look into that,” she smiles, walking away.

“Nerd,” Zephyr says under his breath as she walks away. I kick him, hard.

“Hey!” he says, looking at me. I turn and smile at him.

“I’ve only known you for five minutes, and already I don’t like you,” I say.

“Your loss,” he replies.

“Not really,” I say back- him laughing at my response.

I can’t wait to get out of there, as soon as the bell goes, I stuff all my books into my bag, noting that I may have to read ‘The Tempest,’ later. I meet up with Deborah who walks me over to my history class, and then I have technology. Before Deborah leaves me, she tells me to meet them at the big tree outside the canteen eating area and I nod.

I find out that Flynn and Cameron are in my technology class, so they ask me to sit with them. After Technology they walk with me over to the table by the big tree and I sit there with my new group of friends. I say that tentatively because I’ve only just met them, but they seem nice enough.

“So how were your classes today?” Kyra asks, sitting on Flynn’s lap.

“Yeah, so far so good, except I have to sit next to this arse called Zephyr in English…” I begin.

“Wait, what? You have to sit next to Zephyr, you mean the Zephyr Murphy?” Allison asks. I nod.

“Yeah…” I say slowly.

“He is so hot. All the girls want to sit next to him, you’re so lucky!” Allison squeals. I shake my head.

“Yeah- see there,” Deborah adds, pointing towards a table. I turn to look. I see a small group of boys, from the back of one’s head, I assume it’s Zephyr, but, who knows, and there are girls hanging round him, you can tell they are flirting, as you can hear their giggling and high-pitched talking.

“He never goes out with anyone though- rumours are that he humps then dumps- but he’s very very popular,” Kyra adds.

“Aha,” I say, not interested. I watch a little bit more- quickly turning back to my friends when he turns to look up at us.

~

Undas - (Latin) Waves

Zephyr - wind

Murphy - Sea warrior