Colder than ice

'That bloody Mary's lacking in Tabasco'

Monday September 7th, 2009

The door swings open, revealing their head of year. The class stand up, saying good morning. It's unusual for their head of year to be in their classroom during form time on a Monday, they saw her in assembly on a Friday. There had been a rumour that they were getting someone knew in their form, after Katie had left at the end of last term. As far as they were aware, it had just been a rumour.

That's when they noticed the dark-haired girl standing behind them. Someone that none of them recognised, dressed in their school uniform. 'Morning 8V.' She said, 'I want you to give a very warm welcome to your new class member, Dianne.' She smiles at the girl, as the girl nervously walks towards them. 'She's moved here from Australia.' She's met with a couple of smiles, 'Right I want you to sit next to AJ.' The girl looks bewildered. 'AJ wave, you have all the same lessons, so you will look after her.' He nods, as she gracefully walks over to him.

The pair find out soon enough that they have a mutual love of ballroom dancing, going as far as training in the same studio, having not met before because Dianne's only been here three weeks, so she's only really gone once or twice. The bell rings, the pair of them making their way to Maths.

She's separated from AJ, not that she minds too much. She wants to make new friends. She is put next to Joe. The pair of them sit in silence most of the time, only talking to discuss the work that they had been set. It was at that point that Joe realised that he had a crush on her, inhaling her scent. He recognised it from his sister's body spray collection, it was the Charlie Spray, the skin coloured one. The one he complained about when he had to get into the shower after she had been in the bathroom. On her, though, he liked it. It wasn't overdone, not like Zoe's.

They got put together in RS too. They would spend the next year causing trouble in the lesson. No matter how far away from one another they still knew how to cause trouble. It wasn't just RS, this would extend to every lesson they were in, until they reached sixth form where he would take a level's and she would go to college to study hairdressing. The first time the pair would be separated since they got together in September of year ten. It became evident early on that she was a prankster, maybe that's why Joe fell head over heels for her. To him, she was everything that he wanted in a girl. She was beautiful, she was funny, and she had a great sense of humour. She was still beautiful, but she's lost her sense of humour. They would laugh and joke almost every night, but not anymore. He missed the way they used to howl with laughter, their kids coming into the living room and telling them to shut up. Maddie had confided in her dad that she missed them laughing, she would do anything to hear the echoes of their laughter ring throughout the house. Joe told her that he missed that too.

She spent lunchtime with AJ and his friends. Joe liked AJ, they were a nice group of people. To be honest they were probably a lot less intimidating than his friends. There was Caspar the giant, there was Jack and Conor who were plain annoying, Josh looked like something out of a horror movie and then there was Mikey. Mikey was just Mikey, enough said. If you got rid of them, the group would be less intimidating. He loved his friends, but even he knew who irritating they were. They were still good friends with most of his friends, a few had dropped off the face of the earth, but the majority were still there. He knew Dianne had isolated herself from almost all of her friends, they tried to understand but they couldn't. Joe had spoken to her friends, reassuring them that it wasn't personal. They reassured Joe that they knew that, and they would be there for her, when she was ready.

He didn't see Dianne after lunch registration, they were separated. He would make the point of speaking to her next morning, being one of the many people trying to talk to her. She became popular, her personality amusing pretty much everyone in the whole class. She was a mischief maker, something which never failed to amuse the class. As they became closer, she would confide in him that she hid behind the masquerade because she didn't understand the work and she didn't want to be seen as thick, it didn't matter if she was in the bottom set for most of her subjects because they would associate her with being funny. If people could believe that, then she wouldn't look stupid. Joe took it upon himself to help her pass her GCSE's, and she did. She made a good hairdresser, she enjoyed it. She told him how she used to want to be a professional dancer, changing her mind after she injured her foot. He knew how much she missed dancing, only dancing with him at parties. She taught him their wedding dance, a waltz to rainbow connection, her favourite song. They would listen to it more or less daily. It had been a toss-up between that and a Viennese Waltz to this year's love, the former being chosen out of a hat. He worked his arse off to make it perfect, and it paid off. They haven't listened to either of those songs for the best part of a year.

He first saw her dance when they did PE. They were in those god-awful white polos, it became fashionable for all the girls to wear coloured sports bras under the top, so they stood out. Something that Joe would never understand. It was at the end of year nine, after all the exams were over and the gym had been cleared. They had been allowed to choose what sport they wanted to do. He had noticed that a few people had ditched the rounders match, including Dianne. He went to get something, and he saw them practising in the gym, Dianne, AJ, Amy, Chloe, Neil and Kevin. It occurred to him that they have this dance competition and they were representing the school. He stood at the door, watching them rehearse a dance to an ABBA medley. They were in those awful polos, and baggy shorts. He couldn't think of anything more unflattering, yet she still looked stunning. She had dyed her hair red three weeks before, telling the class how her parents got mad, but she didn't care. She was stunning before, but he didn't have words to describe how amazing she looked with red hair. She's religiously dyed her hair red since then. She still looks stunning.

A/N Kudos if you get any of the title references (I'm totally gonna title each chapter with a song lyric...) Oh and holla at me if you get this one as I am currently addicted to this song/band. Oh and let me know what you think of the story/chapter. I feel like it's slightly disjointed at the moment, but as the story goes on it should become clearer :)