Second Identity

Chapter One : social change

I woke up to my alarm at exactly 6 am. It was Monday morning, my first day going to Amundsen High School in Chicago, Illinois, argggg. I did my research the night before going to the school and with over 1000 students attending I know that its going to be hard finding the things I need to. Amundsen luckily didn't have a uniform so I didn't have to waste money on clothes that I would be only be wearing for a couple weeks, for which I was extremely thankful for.

I got dressed in my grey knit sweater with my dark blue skinny jeans, my grey wrap scarf, my brown winter boots and my red beanie. I ran down stairs in my haste to get to school, grabbing a nutrition bar on the way out. I hoped in my silver convertible and revved the engine, backed out my driveway and drove the 5 kilometres to school.

When I arrived I noticed everybody staring at me, cause that's right, I'm the 'new girl'. I parked in an empty parking space and while staying in the safety of my car I spotted my next destination; the Main Office.

The school was pretty ordinary for Chicago, red brick, three stories high with hundreds of windows lining the walls. It had a white concrete arch over the door way with two stair wells leading up to it. The lush green grass was cluttered with obnoxious teenagers doing their own thing-apart from the ones staring at me. I stumbled out of the car, keeping up the clumsy girl facade, with my bag slung over my shoulder. I could feel the eyes of my 'peers' as they watched me head into the office.

A chubby middle aged woman sat at an old wooden desk in the middle of the tiny room. Her curly red hair bobbed slightly as she typed stuff onto her ancient computer, muttering words I couldn't understand as she went. The dull light that was switched on flickered creating a luminous glow. I subtly cleared my throat. The woman's head snapped up in surprise when she saw me.

"Oh! What may I do for you my dear?"

"um... I'm new I was told to come here to collect my schedule, locker combination and a map?" I questioned nervously.

"Of course! What's your name dear?"

"Tanzin Hope."
She rustled through some paper work sitting messily on her desk.

"Alright, here's your schedule and your locker combination is written underneath, and here is a map showing each level of the building and where each of your classes are as well as your locker." The office lady pointed to the various locations on the map as she spoke. "I hope you have a great first day, here you go," she said holding out the small pile of paper to me.

"Thanks." I walked out of the office and into the main hallway that was lined with people collecting and discarding things into their lockers. I looked at the numbers under my timetable; locker 728 level 3. I found my locker number on the map and started walking up the two flights of stairs.

When I reached my locker I fumbled in the combination and stuffed the books I didn't need for the day into it. I now only had 10 minutes to get to class on the other side of the building. I raced down the stairs stumbling every few steps until I reached the second floor. My first class was calc in room 302 so I headed to the right of me following my map. When I reached the class 30 or so people were clambering around to try and read something on the wall. The seats were all separated neatly into groups of two. I spotted Caleb, who was also undercover, sitting at a desk at the back. Caleb is meant to be my 'boyfriend' for this mission but in reality I can't stand him. His black hair had swayed in front of his right eye making him look dark and mysterious.

He looked up then and saw me, a smile plastered his face as he waved me over to him. "The seating plan says that you sit beside me," he smirked. I scowled at him before looking away and dumping by books onto the desk beside him.
He lent over and whispered in my ear, "you know we actually have to pretend to like each other for us to seem like normal teenagers."
"Whatever."

5 minutes later I felt weight on my shoulders. I looked over only to see Caleb wrapping his arm around me. I raised my eyebrow at him,
"People are staring at us," he whispered. I rolled my eyes at him before looking around the classroom where indeed a few people were staring at us curiously.

~*~

Time past painfully slow as I waited for the bell to ring for interval. And when it finally did I quickly packed up my things and headed out of the classroom. I heard footsteps running towards me echoing off the white marble floor and then a hand shot out and grabbed my arm. Caleb. "What do you want?" I snarled at him. "I was just thinking that we could go check out her locker?" "Fine! But we need to actually find out which one was hers first."

"Already done and dusted," he said flashing a smile. I raised my eyebrows at him.

"I told the office lady that I was her cousin and that I needed to clean out her locker...simple."
"What if her locker was already cleaned out and she knew? Don't you think it's a bit suspicious?" I questioned glaring at him.

Caleb shrugged, "I took the chance. And it worked didn't it as I have her locker number right here." A piece of paper flashed across my face.
I grabbed the paper out of his hand and read the numbers 253 written in a messy handwriting.
"Well? Do you want to go or not?" he raised his eyebrows at me. Jerk.

"Fine, but if-" "Great lets go!" Caleb started pulling my arm in the direction of her locker.
"Argh, you are so annoying!"
"I know, but you love me," he smirked. I want to wipe that smirk right of his face.
"You wish."

The cream colored halls were crowded with kids talking in their different cliques. I never understood why schools had cliques, I mean why can't you be friends with anyone?

Caleb and I soon arrived at the locker. He put the combination in and when it opened we were taken by surprise. The only things that this girl had in her locker was one book, one pencil case and what looked like red pencil shavings.
Caleb put the book and pencil case in a spare bag that he brought while I cleaned up the shavings. As soon as I held the shavings I knew something wasn't right. I had a closer look and saw that they weren't shavings but scrapings; something was scraped into her locker.

"Caleb? Hand me your torch." Please say he brought it. Phew, he pulled out his small black pocket torch and handing it to me, "Why? What is it?"

"Have a look at this." I shone the torch at a spot above where we had found the scrapings. It was at the back of the locker so we could both easily see it. There carved into the metal was a secret code.

"It's just a whole lot of dots and lines," Caleb said with a confused look on his face.
"No it's not, its Morse code and whoever wrote it must of known that she knew how to read it." "How do you know that she didn't write it?" "Well... we'll find out when we figure out what it says." "Okay, here's a piece of paper and a pen," "thanks."

I grabbed the paper and gave the torch to Caleb so he could hold it. I wrote down: •--, •-, -, -•-•, ••••, -•--, ---, ••-, •-•, -•••, •-, -•-•, -•-.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and searched up Morse code, and there right in front of me was the alphabet with their morse code written beside them.

I pulled the piece of paper I had already written on and gave the rest to Caleb.
"Okay, write this down, ready?" "Yup."
"W...A...T...C...H...Y...O...U...R...B...A...C...K."
We spoke at the same time,

"Watch your back."