We're Seniors, Baby!

Chapter Two

'Smile!' 

Piper grimaced as yet another flashgun went off, blinding her momentarily. Trust her mother to be so enthusiastic about her first day of school.  

First day of her last year at Willows High. She didn't really know how to feel about that. Time was passing much too fast for her liking. High school was a familiar place to her, and she couldn't believe that in 10 months time, she would finally get out of that 'hellhole', as her friends liked to call it. Personally, she rather liked that 'hellhole'. Sure, school was tough, and a mountain of stress would pile up as the year went on, but they'd had fun times too. 

And she was going to make sure that they would have fun times this year too! Waving goodbye to her mom, Piper stepped out of the house and made her way to the bus stop, where she met her best friend Juliet.  

'What took you so long?' Juliet asked, adjusting the strap on her brand new backpack.  

Piper grimaced again at memory of her mother prancing around with the camera to take pictures of her 'precious baby girl' on her first day of senior year.  

'Lemme guess, bet it was the overexcited mum. Thankfully I rushed out of the house before mine could do anything.' Juliet said, tying up her dark hair with an elastic band.  

Piper grinned. Juliet knew her too well. They both boarded the bus with the other kids and lo and behold, their regular seat had been taken. Piper sighed. They were stuck at the front with the perky bus driver today. As if right on cue, the yellow-teethed old man turned around and gave her a creepy smile. Fake-smiling back, Piper quickly shoved Juliet down into a seat so that she wouldn't be forced into conversation by the strange old man.  

The bus ride was quiet due to all the kids dozing off, not being used to wake up early for school. They reached school soon enough, and Piper and Juliet dashed off to the cafeteria to meet their 'gang' before first period.  

Piper was met with wolf whistles as she approached their usual table. She blushed slightly as she lightly pushed Luke's head and told everyone to knock it off. Sitting down and pulling Juliet to sit down with her, she smiled and watched all the bright faces smiling and laughing around her. This was like her second family.  

Her gang consisted of her, Juliet, Joelle, Gianna, Brandon, Zachary, Luke and Dashiell. Juliet had been Piper's best friend since 6th grade, an they'd met the twins in junior high. Joelle and Gianna were twins but they couldn't be more different. While Gianna liked to dress girly and discuss makeup, Joelle was the total opposite, preferring to do sports and talk about cars.  

Brandon, Zachary and Dashiell had been close friends and junior high, and when Dash and Piper had met in Chemistry on the first day of school, they had introduced their best friends to each other and everyone just meshed into the group they were in now. Luke came along later when he asked Gianna out and she'd introduced him to the gang.  

They knew people felt that they stuck together so closely that they were annoyingly exclusive, and not only did they not really care, they also liked to secret call themselves the Exclusive Eight. This was high school, people. Cliques are everywhere, just deal with it. They weren't considered popular, but they weren't losers either, and they liked to keep it that way.  

'So what's with the transformation, P? You look hawt!' Zach smiled, pretending to fan himself, accidentally smacking Brandon instead. 'Oi dude watch it!' Brandon retaliated by punching his shoulder, and ever the drama kid, Zach clutched his arm in mock pain.  

Juliet laughed. 'She didn't change that much! Just opened up to the idea of letting Gianna play around with her appearance a bit.' 

'And you have to agree that I did a good job!' Gianna flicked her perfect blonde hair over her shoulder, leaning against Luke, who was busy typing a text on his phone.