Under Your Skin

Chapter 6

I'll get you my pretty, and your little kitty cat too

“Carmela, why don’t you go first?”

“Okay. Buon giorno. My name is Carmela Amelia Moretti. I was born and raised in Verona, Italy. Many of you might know that as the home of Romeo and Juliet. My mother is an Italian fashion designer, and my father is from America. I speak three languages, Italian, English and Spanish. I’m a girly girl at heart, I love to shop, and I model from time to time. It’s really nice to meet you all. I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you, Carmela told them, smiling brightly at everyone as she said it.

“Now, Lana, if you could please.”

“Hi, I’m Lana. I like writing and art and singing. I enjoy shopping but it’s not my favourite thing to do. I speak quite a few languages, but some of them I’m not that great at. I’m here for a year, and that’s basically all I can say.”

“Well, now that everyone’s been introduced, here are your timetables, so you can now get to class,”

Lana looked at the timetable she was handed. Spanish, break, Maths, lunch. Not too bad a morning. Spanish went quickly; the only unsettling thing was that Carlos was in the lesson with her. She spent the first break talking to the teacher, who wanted to know more about her. Maths went quite quickly as well, she didn’t really get to talk to anyone but Jack spent most of the lesson smiling at her from across the room. Then it was lunch. Walking out into the playground, she didn’t really know where to go. Jack was sat at a table with a few people and he motioned for her to come over, but before she could start to walk over there she noticed Josephine sat on the wall by the car park, curled up in a ball. Lana mouthed to Jack that she’d be there in a minute and then headed over to Josephine.

“Hey Josephine,” she said, trying to get her attention. It didn’t seem to work. The girl wouldn’t even look up. “I just wanted to introduce myself properly. I’m Lana.” She held out her hand to Josephine but still she got no reaction. Waiting around for a few minutes, she finally decided to go and see Jack.

“Wait. It’s Sephy, or Seph,” she called after her, and Lana stopped in her tracks, turning around.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Sephy,” Lana smiled at her, and Sephy tried to attempt a sort of smile back but it looked awkward, put on. Then she went back to staring at the ground, and Lana, not knowing what to say, walked away.

“Hey Lana,” Jack smiled as she approached the table, and he patted the bench next to him. She accepted the offer and returned the smile. “So, in case you don’t remember all the names from earlier, this is Sammy, Robyn, Mark, Sarah, Tara and Xavier.” There was a chorus of ‘hey’s as their names were called out.

“I know you probably got a really bad impression of us all earlier, but we aren’t all singing dancing shopaholics. Well, okay maybe Sarah is, but the rest of us are pretty normal. Ouch!” Robyn screamed as Sarah leant across the table and hit her on the arm. “Look what a bad impression you’re giving, Sarah. You should be ashamed of yourself. Lana, I apologise for her appalling conduct. Quit kicking me Sarah.”

“Lana, just to warn you, my girlfriend is the joker of the group. She also tries to act mature, but fails most of the time. I apologise for her in advance,” Mark laughed and Robyn scowled at him.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Lana. You see, that’s just what he is, I’m the one who wears the trousers in our relationship, aren’t I sweetie?”

“Oh yeah, that’s something else we forgot to mention,” Sammy began, “Robyn here played Dorothy in our year 7 school play, and guess what, she knows every single line from it still. Sorry to disappoint you Robyn, but I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.”