What am I doing?

4. The school

She went back up to her room and grabbed her grey backpack from the side of her empty suitcase and stuffed the things that Mary had given her and slung it over one shoulder.

The time was currently eight forty-five, she did not have to be at school until nine but the school was five minutes away and Carrie predicted traffic and Lynn may get lost so they were going early.

Her mother had a large 4x4 BMW that was ridiculously big for one person. The car stank of alcohol but Carrie had obviously sprayed air freshener to mask it, at least she was trying. Lynn and Carrie sat in silence as she pulled away from the house and down the gravel track onto the main road. Carrie had given her the house landline and her mobile number in case Lynn's plans of getting picked up change.

The school was a red brick entrance, all the classrooms broke off the main square and recreational ground, the front had some stone steps that led to the door and above that stood a clock that was broken. The front was clearly designed to look posh from the front and to hid the probably tatty classrooms and gum covered tables from view. Lynn hopped out of the car and stopped outside her mothers window and Carrie rolled it down.

"Have a good day at school" she said. Carrie's eyes were shielded by huge sunglasses but it did not filter the conflict of feelings in her voice on what to do.

"Thanks Carrie" Lynn replied, with an almost genuine smile before turning to face the steps. Just before leaving Carrie told her that someone would probably meet up with her to help if she needed anything. Great, Lynn thought, that would be a huge signal to people saying that she was special and that only leads to one thing for her, bullying.

Lynn almost raced up the steps whilst other new students huffed and panted with the exercise. She reached the top and started to migrate to the bottle neck flowing through the front doors. Someone was bellowing out instructions to new comers and surnames from a-m one way and m-z another. Lynn's last name was Stevenson so she made her way to a cluster of students all pushing and shoving around a desk with a flustered teacher trying to sort them out.

Why was there no queue, no order, it was complete chaos. Lynn just stood off the the side and watched the madness, she missed England, the order, the queues, she had never appreciated them until they were gone.

A hand fell on her shoulder and she turned around to see a teacher handing her her timetable. She thanked the teacher and left the crowded quad and into an bustling corridor. At least the hallways were well sign-posted.

On the back of her timetable, in pencil had a locker number. 'C-148'. Block C, that is obvious, but she would have to just go up the numbers, but it was okay, she still had ten minutes before class. Walking quickly up the corridor, numbers 001-100. Lynn turned the corner and walks straight into something solid, she stumbled back and looked up.

A tall man with dark brown hair and eyes, with a quite a few books on the floor that were his. Lynn felt extremely awkward and apologised for running into him.

"No problem", he says in a mild American accent. He gives her a quick look up and own, taking in her hoodie, baggy jeans and red hair. "You're not from around her are you?", he said, his soft feature's definitely showed mild amusement. "It's that obvious?" Lynn asks, but she knows the answer. The man smiled and introduced himself as Clyde. He then offered to show her where her classes were.

He took her timetable as Lynn put her padlock on her locker. Clyde goes still. She asks him what's wrong. "What classes did you take?" he says.

"Uh... um... photography, art and uh music. Why?" Lynn replies.

Clyde looks down at her, her hair hides most of her face. She's cute, but just really shy. "I think that we are in the same classes", he said. Lynn did not seem like the sort of person who likes other people.

Lynn looks at Clyde's timetable they were identical, he is a first year too, but he seems like he knows his way around the college, so there must have been an inductions day she missed. She sighed.

"We are going to have to start heading off if we are going to make it on time"

Lynn nodded. She followed him through the crowd and the body of people seemed to part for him like he was Moses and they were the Red Sea. Her father was always dragging her to church and apparently she had remembered some of it.