The Exchange Student, the Pop Prince and the Raffle Tickets

Chapter One: "You're New! Buy a raffle!"

The Exchange Student, the Pop Prince and the Raffle Tickets 

By Lauren B

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Chapter One.

I had already spent a week in my new high school and it was starting to remind me of home. I was an exchange student from England living in America. It was a programme at my old College for English students going to America to study for a year. Of course I wanted to go! The weather, the theme parks, the food and American accents on guys is hot! 

Flying there was fine. I'm a big aeroplane fan. I love the feeling of being really high up in the clouds. I'm not shy but as soon as I met my new 'family' I didn't speak at all. Joseph, Sarah, Bindi and Eli were great. They were a picture perfect family. Joseph worked as a lawyer for teenage criminals; Sarah was a primary school or elementary school art teacher, Bindi and Eli were both in their Senior year - which to me meant year 13. The two were born eleven months apart and looked nothing like their parents. Bindi was a timid wannabe novelist with straight black hair and light brown eyes whilst Eli had ruffled dark hair and grey eyes who was apparently a so called 'Jock.' 

Being allowed into this new family totally shook me. They had even given me a room to myself with my own laptop, desk and pictures plastered of England all around my room. The room was really English. There was one wall painted of the English flag that Sarah had done herself. The sheets and accessories were red, white and blue. I absolutely loved it!

But back to the real world of sitting in my English class next to Bindi who was making another chapter for a really boring book we were studying. I had quickly zoned out of the lesson as soon as the teacher started to talk. Mr. Elves was really boring. Bindi being very studious had sat us right in the middle row of the classroom but I'm definitely not anything like Bindi, I wanted to be near the door. The bell went for lunch. Half an hour for nearly 1000 students to get lunch and get back to class. I walked next to Bindi, her hair bouncing as she walked. She was smaller than me but a lot cuter. In black skinny jeans, hi-top converses and a pink t-shirt she was really cute. I kept on looking around me and just thinking how I really didn't fit in with this school. I loved my England and had pretty much dumped it for boys with American accents. 

"What we getting for lunch today?" I asked trying to make small talk. I noticed a couple of students look at weirdly obviously noticing my English accent.  

"Anything you want." That was Bindi. It was always anything I wanted, anything I fancied doing. Well, I would fancy doing a really good looking actor on 90210 but that was never going to happen, so I decided that we would fight for the food in the vending machines instead. 

That was when I heard the screaming. It was more of shrieking than screaming and it made both Bindi and I jumped around to see where it was coming from. 

"Oh god..." Bindi muttered quietly to herself. I looked from her to the shrieking. A very large crowd of girls were flocking from both behind and in front of us just shrieking. 

"Could someone shut them up please?" I said dumbfounded by the girls. I noticed more people staring at me now, some giving dirty looks.

"Eden, can we just walk the other way?" 

"Yeah, sure, they're giving me a bloody headache anyway. Girls..." 

"What you would we do without em?" I heard a deep voice behind me. Eli. He was wearing a tight grey t-shirt and jeans. When I first saw him I definitely thought he was good looking. My mum always said dark hair and bright eyes makes for a killer combination in guys. Ever since, they were the only guys I dated. But now, Eli was just a boy I knew. He had a girlfriend, Raine, who was really nice - though Bindi hated her but she would never admit it. 

"Going to fight it out in the cafeteria or the vending machines?" I asked, as I noticed Jesse, Eli's best friend and Raine gaining on us. Raine and Jesse were beautiful. There was no other word for it. Beach blonde with blue eyes, though Jesse's were a deeper blue than Raine. Raine was - obviously- trying to make it as a model and Jesse was the next American football star. I hated saying football, I always had to say American football but it was more like rugby with pads. I don't care if anyone disagrees. My football was their soccer. Their football was my rugby. We were never going to agree on it. It was that simple, so I went with agreeing to disagree so that there were no arguments.  

"Cafeteria or machines?" Eli called behind him for Jesse and Raine to hear. They agreed it was machines. 

"Did you lot hear that shrieking?" 

"Yep." Both Jesse and Eli didn't sound too pleased. I noticed a small smile from Raine as she swished her small hips and held on tight to Eli's hand. They stayed quiet so I prodded more. 

"So do you want to tell me abou-" 

I stopped to see a small boy scream out. "Raffles! Get your raffles! Cool prizes to be won!" He was definitely in the lower years. "One dollar for your raffles! Get your raffles!" 

The boy looked over to me. "You're new! Buy a raffle." He shoved the bucket in my face. 

So I brought a raffle and handed it to Bindi saying it was a present from me to her. She laughed quietly and accepted it.

So as the story goes in most fairytale books, Bindi won the raffle ticket and like the stories tell you, Bindi would love the prize. Except she didn't. She was probably the only person in the world who would hate it. 

"Congratulations Bindi, you're going to the Biblical concert tonight with one friend and a Q and A with them after." 

Bindi's usually cool as a cucumber face dropped dramatically. I looked around me to see girls crying out in protest. What was the prize? Who was Biblical? She better take me. 

I leaned over to Bindi, staring straight at the boy who had walked into our AP Biology class. He actually looked pretty scared and I would too if Bindi gave me the same face. "You are taking me right Bin?" 

Bindi gave me a small nod.  

"She's really happy about it!' I smiled to the boy making sure he stopped looking at crazy eyed Bindi. I asked him a question over the annoyed girls. "Who's Biblical?" 

Then they really moaned at me.