The Arabella Conundrum

Part One- The Rain and The Professional Principal

                 I trudged into school, soaked from head to toe. The wondrous erratic weather this country has never ceased to amaze me. The wide stone corridor echoed as I walked through it towards the main court of the school. The square courtyard which had four exits, each in itself a corridor, was open to the air so I sprinted across to the opposite side and into the corridor leading towards the school office. I shook my hair as I climbed the old stony steps. The obviously old school was built hundreds of years ago and amazingly the structure of this old private school still stood. Although it did have a few creaks and some rather worrying cracks in places which seemed to defy basic gravity laws. An example of the creaks was the door I had to practically force open. I pushed my entire body weight against the door and it finally flew open with an almighty force, practically sending me flying to the ground of the school office.

"Well hello there Miss Van Der Patel" An amused voice spoke from across the room.

I composed myself quickly, flattening my wet hair in an attempt to look less like a drowned rat.

"You really should fix this door soon Maria" I mumbled, closing the door but changing my mind in the end and leaving it ajar.

"If you graced us with your presence on time in the mornings you wouldn't have to come up here to sign in" She shot back before adding, "And it's Miss Dennis"

"It's Miss Dennis" I muttered sarcastically to myself, walking over to the desk she was sat at.
I scribbled my name in the box and explained my reason for being late. Maria, no sorry, Miss Dennis, grabbed the paper and frowned slightly.

"The train late again?" Disbelief in her tone.

"Uh-huh" I nodded absentmindedly whilst retrieving a piece of paper from my bag.

"Here's the form thingy" I handed her the piece of paper, which was due in about two weeks ago.

"Yeah, that's really handy now, FOUR weeks late" Maria sounded unimpressed. Four weeks? Really? Mhmm.

I was about to reply when the door from across the room opened and the principal Mr Whitehall walked out. Shit!

"If you would jus..."He stopped talking to the boy, who I had now just noticed sat in the little seating area of the office, and looked towards my direction.

"Excuse me a second Theodore" His focus now solely on me.

I couldn't help but smirk a little though at the name Theodore, I mean really? No offence to anybody who has a different name, I have some weird names in my family but I couldn't help but be reminded of a very famous cartoon Theodore, ie the chipmunk. The very movie I had been watching with my younger siblings at the weekend.

"Miss Van Der Patel!" Mr Whitehall's voice broke me out of my day dream. "Late? On a Monday?"

"Yeah, Trains you know, Late as always" I waved my hand around in disbelief whilst speaking in distaste and disapproval.

"Terrible isn't it, but what can you do?" I asked and then carried on. "I mean you write them emails, letters and threaten legal action, you even go to their head office but instead they threaten you with legal action back. Seriously Sir I've tried everything here to solve the problem but I've had no such luck yet. But don't worry I will not stop until I get the 7.15 service to run at 7.15! Even if it's the last thing I do. Despite it being a losing battle, I will not be deterred! I will not take another excuse from Southern Northern Trains again!" I let out a breath finally, giving him my serious face although deep down I wanted to crack a smile.

"Mhmm your imagination does not have a limit does it?" He cleared his throat, although I could tell he was slightly impressed by my performance, if I don't say so myself.

Whilst I began to seriously consider following through with some parts of my passionate speech, Mr Whitehall spoke once more.
"I see you've at least changed your hair to well.." He paused. "Less Blue"

"You know me Sir, model student and all that, I wouldn't want to break any school rule would I?" I said smirking.

I had indeed died my hair back to a more as he liked to put it "Respectable" colour. I had dyed it to blue, not bright blue, like a dark moony blue, about a month ago. Ever since then he had been on my case, so at the weekend I went back to my natural dark brown hair but with it gradually getting lighter, almost blonde, at the ends.

"I really need to talk to you about something though, so come back at lunch time," He added before turning back to the boy.

I only then got a quick glance at the black haired boy. I would probably guess he was around my age, 17 or so, I couldn't really tell how tall he was because he was sitting down but by no means was he short. I didn't really get to see any of his facial features because it would look weird if I was just stood there staring at him. I mean stalker alert much! I knew I was weird but I drew the line at gawping at people, particularly members of the opposite sex.

"Right okay," I replied to Mr Whitehall, I turned to walk out but literally jumped back around and clapped my hands when I suddenly remembered something. I think I might of startled Mr Whitehall a tiny bit from the expression on his face.

"Sir, you haven't seen a tiny French man today?" I enquired whilst pointing at Mr Whitehall.

"Mr Vicent? No I haven't, why?" He said exasperated, clearly he did not want to indulge in why I was enquiring or rather he was worried as to what I had done.

"I swear he is purposely avoiding me," I fake pouted, although in all honesty I wasn't that sad that a balding 60 year old was avoiding me. I just really wanted to get out of French.

"I wonder why that is," He said sarcastically.

I glanced sideways just in time to see Mr black hair boy smirk. I shot him a glare to show my disapproval.

"Ha ha!" I laughed humourlessly. I turned my back and started to leave for real.

"Bye Miss Van Der Patel, pleasure as always," He smiled sarcastically. And the award for the most professional Principal of the year goes to.. Mr Whitehall.

"Bye Mr Whitehall, Miss Dennis," I stressed the name Dennis, "Bye Chipmunk," I smirked whilst looking over my shoulder towards Theodore and exiting the room.

"Don't worry about her, we're obliged to keep her," I heard Mr Whitehall say. I didn't bother to reply like I usually would if I got called an obligation because I caught a glimpse of a tiny French man.

"MR VINCENT!" I shouted after him, whilst he started to frantically scurry away from me.

Hello, so there is the first chapter. I know it is short but another update will come soon. I'm sorry if the paragraphs appear all over the place but the words and sentences don't seem to want to separate when I type them into the edit box, hopefully I can resolve this. Until next time, thank you for supporting me.