Clearwater Academy

Welcome to my story. I don't know how interesting this will be for you to read, but please do anyway! I'm just going to let you get on with it because I am rambling. Comments and votes are always appreciated! :)

Riley

The car door slammed shut with a bang. I grinned to myself; I had, over the years, perfected the art of door-slamming. My feet crunched along the gravel as I moved towards the boot. I caught sight of my reflection in the back window. I saw a tall guy with olive skin and black hair, with dark eyes framed by thick lashes. I had girl eyelashes, I swear. I opened the boot­ and pulled out a giant scruffy suitcase, its brown leather beaten down so that it was faded in some parts. I bent down to inspect it to make sure that it hadn't actually ripped anywhere. The front car door opened and I saw a pair of red-soled stiletto heels carefully approach me, trying to manoeuvre the gravel. I rolled my eyes. My mother, her dark eyes obscured by equally dark sunglasses, stood in front of me and waited for me to say something. She moved her sunglasses up on top of her head and held out her arms for a hug. I reluctantly stood up so that I was in her grasp, although she only held me for a couple of seconds before releasing me and shaking her head.

“Riley, are you going to say anything?” She asked, almost pitying. I raised an eyebrow in response, challenging her to do the same. Too much botox had left her with an unmoving face. Mother had two expressions: surprised and very surprised. She waited a few more seconds and sighed, “Really? You know this is for the best. You know that this place will be much better for you than anything your father and I could give you. You’ll be away from your old friends, old habits. This school will do wonders for you, darling. I hope you know that your father and I aren’t just shipping you off to boarding school for no reason. This is for the best, for all of us.” Once again, she waited for a reply. I almost laughed at what she was saying. I know you’re meant to respect your parents but when your own mother wants to ship you off to boarding school in the middle of nowhere purely because she can’t be bothered to try to handle your behaviour, how are you supposed to react? I understood that my behaviour hadn't exactly been the best as of late, but that was no reason to send me off to live on the other side of the country! Thoughts churning, ever-scowling, I stayed silent. When she realised I wasn’t going to respond, she said haughtily, “What, you’re not even going to say goodbye?” I looked at her in disgust. 

“Bye,” I muttered. I kissed her on the cheek, grabbed my suitcase, made sure the strap of my smaller bag was securely slung over my shoulder, and started walking up the long gravel drive. She didn’t even try to stop me.

I didn’t turn back. New start, you know? Mother was going to catch a plane to Switzerland in a few hours for a spa break; she’d forget about me then. I was just another piece of luggage she didn’t want to bring along with her. I dragged my suitcase up the driveway and passed a sign that read “Clearwater Academy” in dark blue font. Years of spending time locked away in my room with my laptop trying to avoid whichever nanny was on duty at the time, I recognised the font straight away. Almost straight after that  I realised how pathetically lame it was for me to recognise a font, and I vowed to myself that I would never mention to anyone my affinity with fonts. But, well, put it this way, from looking at the font on the sign...This was no Comic-Sans-MS-school. You know what? I'll just be quiet now. I'm an embarrassment to myself.

It wasn’t until I had reached the top of the hill that I saw my new school and home for the first time. Incredibly elegant, with wide, sweeping lawns, this school was definitely built those with money. From the roots of the old oak trees to the tips of the willows sweeping their arms into a distant lake, the serenity of the place was incredible. There appeared to be one main building, with smaller, just as luxurious buildings scattered around. Connecting all of the structures were gravelled paths and courtyards and tiny bridges crossing perfectly still ponds that provided me with a faultess reflection of myself. It was, admittedly, the perfect English boarding school. Upon continuing along the main gravel driveway I reached a large fountain which seemed to act as a roundabout. Well-dressed teenagers with designer suitcases lazily fell out of their Rolls Royces and Bentleys and started walking up towards the main building. I saw a signpost that read “Dalton House”, which pointed towards the building. Dalton House was tall and French-looking and seemingly very old. I followed the flow of people and was astonished to find that each and every one of them was beautiful or handsome in their own way. They all had this sort of effortless chic to them. They stood with their heads held high, confidence seeping out of every fibre of their expensive clothes. Many of the boys had messy hair and pink cheeks, as if they’d just rolled out of bed, but they still managed to look good. I ran my hand through my hair until it was satisfactorily messy and wondered if I would one day be able to carry off the effortless chic look too. I then stopped because I realised how much of an idiot I was. What was I actually thinking? I urged my brain to just shut up with the incessant thoughts and instead set about to seeing what was happening.

When the procession up to the building stopped, everyone waited outside; apparently the main doors were locked. I stood at the back of the group, although more people were arriving each minute, waiting impatiently for the doors to open. It occurred to me that I didn’t really know what I was doing; I assumed we were waiting to go into the building and find out our dorm rooms, but I wasn’t sure. I tried to subtly check out the girls, who all seemed to have really long names and "absolutely magnificent" summers. I didn't get a very good look but some of those girls were h-o-t. Like, woah. It didn't take me long to get bored though. I didn't have a good enough view to check out all the girls, and they moved and spoke too fast for me to keep up. After a while, I started to get restless, and when I get restless, I get nervous. For me, only one thing calms me down when I get nervous, and it's not strictly legal...I bit my lip, wondering whether or not I should do what I so greatly wanted to do. Deciding to go for it, I leaned my suitcase against the wall (I was sure that no one would steal it; everyone had everything money could buy; there was nothing in my suitcase that they didn’t already have) and headed for the side of the building where no one could see me. I reached into my small bag and found what I was looking for; a tube of rice paper about 7cm long, with a small amount of marijuana inside. I rooted around for a lighter but couldn’t find one.

“Shit,” I muttered, resting my bag on my knee and rummaging through it to try and find my lighter. A sketchpad, a phone, an iPad, a leaky inkpen, but no green lighter.

“Here,” a deep voice said. A hand reached out, holding a silver object that I knew was what I needed. I took it his lighter from him and said,

“Thanks.” I put the joint in my mouth, flicked open the top of the lighter and held it down until the material started to burn. I handed the lighter back to the guy and had a quick look at him while he put it back in his pocket. He was wearing a navy and white stripy shirt, with dark chinos and expensive looking shoes. His dark hair was messy and half covered his eyes. I could vaguely smell some expensive cologne that he must have been wearing. It was at that point where I wondered if he'd tell someone about my smoking. It briefly occurred to me that I didn't want to be kicked out of the school, at least not straight away. I took a breath of the joint and exhaled, letting the familiar feeling soothe me.

“Are you really smoking weed on your first day?” The guy asked in a lazy drawl. I took another puff and replied,

“Yeah, I guess I am.” He laughed and shook his head.

“Oh, I see we’ve got ourselves a badass here. Most people don’t start smoking weed in public until they’ve been here at least two weeks,” he added. The boy was incredibly posh; he almost sounded like he was mocking himself when he spoke. I grinned and he continued, “You wait until you get invited to the parties though. That’s when the fun really starts.” He held out his hand for me to shake and said, “Oscar St Clair.” I shook his hand and said,

“Riley Stevenson.” Oscar nodded slowly and said,

“Nice to meet you, Riley. Oh, and if I were you, I’d hurry up and finish that,” he nodded his head towards the joint, “The doors will be opening any minute now. You wouldn't want to be expelled on your very first day, would you?” He started to walk away, but stopped as he reached the corner of the building, bending down and picking something up from the floor. He turned to face me again and held up a familiar dark green object that I recognised. “Look what I found,” he called out. He grinned and threw it towards me. I caught my lighter and slipped it into my pocket, zipping up my bag and trying to finish up the joint all at once. (For the record, I'm not very well co-ordinated, so this was quite a task for me.) Watching Oscar’s figure turn the corner, I smiled. He hadn’t mentioned my obvious lack of an upper-class upbringing (my accent was nowhere near as polished as his own) and he wasn’t going to stop me smoking weed.

I had a feeling I would like it at Clearwater Academy.