The High School Notebook

Chapter 4

"CASS, WAKE UP!!" Daphney boomed in Cass's room.

Shocked, Cass woke up, and realised she had fallen asleep soundly on her bed after finishing her assignments, while waiting for her mom to return home.

"Yeah mom, give me 5 minutes!" Cass shouted back through the already closed door.

She turned on her speakers and let her songs on her playlist play out loud while  brushing her teeth, choosing her outfit of the day and get ready.

"I'm ready mom," announced Cass as she ran down the stairs, almost tripping.

"How was yesterday?" Daphney asked, her face full of high expectations.

"It was way better than I thought but..," Cass replied happily but stopped as she thought of Abigail.

"But?" Daphney asked waiting Cass to continue, with a typical curioisity of a mom.

"Erm nothing, I mean I already had tons of assignments to do and it's the first day," Cass said, telling half the truth.

"Okay, " Daphney said.

"Mom, do you know our neighbor? The one behind? Are you friends with whoever the owner is?" Cass asked, although it was kind of random.

"The Styles? Yeah sure, Mrs Style used to go to the same high school as me, but we lost contact after that," Daphney replied, "Hold on, if I've not mistaken, her son goes to Quens High too?"

"Yeah, we're in the same class, I sit next to him" Cass said, trying to sound normal.

"That's great!" Daphney exclaimed.

"Yes that's great," Cass thought to herself.

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"Morning class! You may hand in all your assignments and you may go for break," Mrs.Clare, Class 5's biology teacher said .

Cass, grabbed all the papers that she had been trying hard to focused on yesterday from her file, and was first in line to hand in them. For some reason, she couldn't wait for break, or maybe to just go to the lockers.

The first bell of the day rang and Cass rushed on, she felt familiar enough of the school after the walking she had done to the lockers.

"Hey, how's second day?" Jackson asked. He was already grabbing his books for the next period they can finally attend as the same class.

"So far so good," Cass said and looked around as she remembered she hasn't seen Zoe yet.

"So, do you wanna come today?" he asked and Cass immediately knew what he meant.

"Yeah okay," she said, since she guess, Zoe wasn't there.

"Great! You may want to grab your stuff now?" he gestured to Cass's open locker when he realized she was just standing there, looking around.

"Yeah, I was going to," Cass protested, but felt silly. She grabbed all her Maths books and only remembered that she didn't pack food from home today.

"Okay, you lead the way," she said as she slammed the locker door shut.

They was about to walk in straight to the cafeteria but something caught Cass's eyes. There was a poster which out stands the dull wall. "If you have VOLLEYS for a BALL,  you should read this!" the title read out.

"You got volleys?" Jackson asked. Cass realised whoever made that pun could be Jackson's other twin, but probably less charming. Cass swept the thought away immediately , thinking that her cheeks would be flashing red .

"Yeah, for a ball," Cass played along and added, "I was in school team in my old school, volleyball is literally part of me, just like football to you, I guess."

"Ooh that's cool! So , you wanna join?" he replied gesturing to the sentence after the heading. "Quens High is currently recruiting new volleyball players, if you're interested, hit Ian Kyle up at Class 19 before next Friday!"

"Erm....I haven't trained in a long time though," Cass said unsurely.

"Who needs training when they have volleys for a ball?" Jackson said, and cracked up.

"Who laughs at their own jokes?" Cass remarked but couldn't help laughing too.

Surprisingly, in a swift movement, Jackson gripped her wrist and started dragging her into the cafeteria towards a round table. A few equally good looking guys were sitting on those chairs. Each of them looked up as Jackson took his seat on an empty chair, which seems as if it had been left just for him .

"Jackson, Jackson , she's hot," a boy with blond spiky hair started , and winked at Cass. A  shiver of uneasiness ran down her spine.

Jackson shot him a look and said, "Excuse him Cass, he's just being himself, you'll get used to it soon." and gave a assuring look.

Cass just smiled.

"Let me introduce them, he's Ethan, this is
Jordan," he said, gesturing to a dark haired boy, half of his hair is covering his equally dark eyes.

"I'm Ian ," the last boy left unintroduced , with slightly dark blue hair spoke up,without waiting for Jackson to introduce him, "Quens High volleyball captain for girls and boys. "

"Oh you're Ian Kyle!! I'm Cass! Erm I just saw that poster on the wall , and I was about to hit you up!" Cass replied.

"Oh sure, look for me during last period kay?" he said.

Something in his voice made Cass feel as if it's not just that simple, but it's not something bad or threatening, just something.. Cass couldn't explain.

"Yeah okay," she replied and added "I'll go get food right now,"just as she felt her stomach growling.

She was few steps away from her seat, the extra chair Jackson took for her , when she saw Abigail, the same time she noticed her too. She ignored her and felt that cold stare that followed her when she made her way and sat down.

"You're back! Let's steal your food!" Ethan said playfully.

"Dude, seriously, it's her first day with us, don't scare her off ," Jackson said.

"It's fine, oh look what's that?" Cass replied and jabbed her fork onto Ethan's macaroni just as her turned to fall for her trick.

The group burst out laughing, Cass is really enjoying her new start.
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As Cass made her way to one of the stalls in the restroom after break, something stopped her on her tracks. It was like some few memories started to untangle from her messy mind.

The vision brought her back to the cafeteria, where Abigail glared at her. There were voices , conversations, before she made her way back to the table of boys. She couldn't really make out the exact conversation and from who actually said it but it was definitely from the table of boys.

"What's going on now? Before it was--- ," Ian , probably, said, "now her?"

"You don't understand," from what Cass thinks, it was Jackson.

"Look bruh, you gotta make up your mind--- not going to be happy--- although she's kinda letting this go at the moment," Ethan said.

And that's what it's all Cass could remember .

She comforted herself not to over think, although she doesn't even know what was she over thinking about, and splashed the cold tap water over her face, feeling refreshed.