Head Over Heels ✓

16 / lower sixth

september, age 16

The roads were busy on the first day back to school. Lucas sat in the passenger seat nervously clicking his nails until his mother put her hand over his to stop the irritating noise. She gave him a warm smile before glancing at the rear view mirror to check on her daughters. Liliana and Felicity, in the back row, were excited to be heading back to school, due to start Year Five and Year Two. Lucas couldn't believe that next year would be his last year of high school while his sister would be coming to the end of her primary school days.

Charlotte sat right behind Lucas, idly flipping through a picture book. It was her first day of primary school, off to start at Mountain Mews, a junior school for children with special needs. Less than ten miles from home, it had one of the best facilities for educating children with hearing disabilities and many of the students went on to mainstream high schools. Sarah and Truman didn't really mind where their youngest child ended up, as long as she found a school where she could be her best self.

"How're you feeling, baby?" Sarah asked, squeezing his hand. "Big day today, huh?"

He nodded. "Huge."

The first day of Lower Sixth was far more than just jumping from Year Eleven to Year Twelve. It was like a whole new school with new rules. There was a different uniform, a stiff blazer that itched his neck and trousers that would probably be too short when over the summer, a growth spurt had seen him shoot up to five foot eleven after finishing the year three inches shorter. There would be a wave of new students joining for sixth form, new timetables, new lessons.

A whole new form.

Lucas had grown comfortable after five years with Mr Finney. He and Mika had stayed in that same classroom ever since Year Seven and he knew it inside out, one of the little routines that had helped him in those long early days. By now, he was used to high school life but it was about to get turned upside down. No longer would his day be as structured with a handful of free periods every week and the ability to sign himself out of school without needing one of his parents to pick him up.

One of the major advantages of having a couple of extra parents was that there always seemed to be someone around. Cora was back to teaching Nursery which meant her afternoons were often free after the children went home at lunchtime; Truman worked closeby and was almost always free for lunch; Sarah's schedule allowed her to essentially choose when she worked from home, and Floyd worked alongside his sister who gave him more freedom than she gave herself.

"You're going to be absolutely fine, hun," Sarah said, her fingers slipping around his hand before she had to let go to change gears. "Just two more years, can you believe it?"

"Don't say that, Mum."

She sighed. She was never quite sure what he wanted her to say. Sometimes she thought he couldn't wait to be done with high school and fling himself out into the big bad world; sometimes he never wanted to leave and have to face real life. "I'm sure today will be fine. You've got Asher and Mika, right?"

He shrugged dramatically, letting heavy shoulders drop. "Who knows? We have new forms. I might not be with either of them, and I definitely don't have Mr Finney anymore."

"It'll be ok. When do you find out what class you're in?" she asked as she pulled up at the school's south gate, closer to the sixth form centre. Before the mid-twentieth century, the school had been two separate institutions for boys and girls that had existed on two different plots of land, separated by a road that could be a nightmare to cross between lessons.

"Now," he said, nodding at the gate where Mika was waiting for him already. Before he got out of the car, he saw Ishaana pull up a little way down the road and his jaw almost dropped to see that Asher was not only on time but twenty minutes early.