Adopted by that OneBand! | ✔️

Mrs. Marshal and Costumes

Cheryl's POV -

An hour later, Harry came back with a takeout from a nearby Chinese restaurant. After a meal of dim sum and chow mein, Ruby departed.

She gave me her number and I promised to text her whenever I needed some female advice.

While I put on the indigo nail polish, Liam urged the boys to get ready to go to my school to register.

I can't help but think about Ruby. She was super nice too, acting like how I imagined an older sister would act. Kind, chatty and filled with random facts about boys and fashion—I secretly hoped that Liam would marry her one day, so that she would actually be my older sister.

Liam drove us to the school. The school, Willow Falls, was much bigger than I expected, with long, airy corridors and rows and rows of lockers. I felt intimidated.

We arrived at the office where the secretary, called Mrs. Marshal, gave us a stack of paperwork to fill in. I took a paper entitled Personal Information and began to write, but I was stuck on the first question.

Name (first name, last name):

What was my last name? I tugged at Harry’s sleeve and asked him.

“Tricky question.” He shrugged. "Boys! Urgent group meeting!"

And they huddled themselves in a circle. They started whispering among each other, glancing at me every 5 seconds.

After 2 minutes of their discussion, they faced me.

"We've decided that," Louis started. "You'll have last name Payne. Because if we ever got fed up with you, Liam will only be the reasonable one to take you in." He joked.

Cheryl Payne. Aha! It has a nice ring to it.

I filled that in, then printed in all the other information as well with my neatest handwriting.

“Here, clip these two together,” Niall handed me the paperwork which the guardians had to fill in. I looked at it, and smiled inwardly. There was this part in which they had to mention any good qualities the child possessed, and they wrote smart, imaginative and lovable.

“Thanks.” I said quietly, my heart warming.

“What?” Niall said in mock confusion. “You are lovable!”

After we finished signing everything, we handed them in to Mrs. Marshal. She didn’t even react when she saw that my parents were five members of a boyband. She simply handed me my schedule and locker combination, then we were free to go.

“Do you want to look around first, Cher?” Zayn asked me.

“Sure.” I said. We started looking for Room 520b, which according to the schedule was my homeroom. We walked around the campus for ten minutes before we found it.

There was an old-fashioned blackboard at the front of the classroom, and the boys immediately started writing on it. A minute later, the blackboard read:

ALIEN INVASION, HUMANS BEWARE. GO IN ONE DIRECTION, OR YOU’LL LOSE YOUR HAIR!

We fell about laughing.

“Don’t rub it off!” I said, my cheeks violently red. “Leave it here, so I’ll have something to cheer me up on the first day when I go to school.”

“School won’t be that bad, you know.” Liam comforted, putting his arm around me as we left the classroom. “I was always being teased during my schooldays, but look at me now!”

“I get it,” I said, smiling. “Very inspirational."

After that, we were in the car and rushing towards a studio where the boys would be doing the interview. Once we were there, we all ran in, but quickly ran back out because we had forgotten that I must not be seen. We ran to the back of the building and hid behind the dustbins.