Audrey (IN EDITING)

And The Ditch

Walking into the school was different this time. It's not how I typically walked in everyday last year in Washington. Everyone I walked by looked at my with their eyes popping out their skulls. I feel like I may as well take my clothes off and have a nightmare. I don't know what was fascinating about how I looked today. For me, wearing skinny jeans, a sway top and a beanie with bed hair and no makeup isn't a big deal. The annoying thing about the hair rule is that you aren't allowed to cut it. You get allocated one haircut a year from the Dream Team, but that's all. Even if you have hair in a critical stage, you can't do anything about it. And mine is now really, really thick and I have to wait till next year for my next haircut. One of these days, I want to find the meaning behind these rules and why we have them.

I headed straight to homeroom, avoiding the eyes gazing into my soul. As I entered, I saw Hadley sitting on a desk in the far back corner and she waved at me to come over. "Hey, Audrey," she shouted quite loud, a few of the students turned around. I'm not one to like being the main focus, which is why I was. The other students in the class started to stare at me. I usually don't mind being the center of attention, but I don't like it now because I'm the new girl, I need to settle in first. When I approached her, I felt obligated to ask her, "Do you always speak that loud?"

"I'm sorry that my vocal chords have a volume set to high, that's just who I am," She defended as she made weird hand gestures to emphasise her point. I do like people who aren't afraid to stand up for themselves. I plunged myself onto the desk next to hers.

"Oh yeah, Audrey, that's Lily, Claudia and Danica," Hadley said, whilst pointing the three girls sitting on the desk in front her.

"Hi," I said to Hadley's friends. Lily had these beautiful big eyes with such a lovely shape and colour. They were light green with teal on the edge. Claudia has the nicest skin tone and completely pimple free, and Danica has the best eyebrows and the perfect bone structure.

"Hi," I believe Lily greeted. "Wow, you are super pretty," She complimented with her beautiful big eyes expanding even more.

"Thanks," I chortled. I'm not used to compliments. It's like when you are trying to put money into a vending machine and it just doesn't accept it. I have no idea how to take it when people compliment me.

"Why are you laughing?"

"I don't know how to take compliments, it's...foreign to me," I responded.

"Honey, you better get used to it because there aren't exactly 'lookers' in this area,"

"This is Venice. Los Angeles,"

"Yeah, the Venice you see on TV is nothing like the real version. You'll probably see about 20 'lookers' in the whole year level, genders combined, and they're all horrible people,"

"Don't say that about you and your friends," I condemned.

"Please don't flatter us," Danica butted in. "we're all just the minor characters,"

"You girls may be, but I'm definitely the star," Hadley flattered herself.

"Well, the minor characters are usually the heart and soul of the story. All the shit happens to the main cast," I joked, but I guess it's kind of true. Take any story, you see the minor characters lead a happy life and the main attraction gets all the crap.

"Miss Thomas!" I hear a screeching voice from the door. It gave me a jolt I turned around to see the angry looking teacher someone told me was called "The Grinch" with her hands firm on her hips and her MacBook in her other hand.

"Do I need to write you a detention slip for swearing?"

"No, I don't think you do," I sarcastically replied.