The loud THWACK of leather binding hitting mahogany woke me up. Soft yellow rays of sunlight were drifting through my blinds and I could hear the engines of passing cars on the street.
Then I remembered...
It's Monday.
Groaning, I painfully rolled out of bed, my aching neck and back cracking. I rubbed my face, trying in vain to make it look more alive.
After washing and drying my face in the small bathroom across the hallway, I returned to my bedroom to change out of my slightly embarrassing Tweety Bird pajamas and into my school uniform. The usual plain, boring, white blouse, blue and black striped tie, navy blazer with the school emblem on the breast pocket and charcoal grey skirt with pleats at the front. I guess it's like any uniform really, skirt must be at a certain length, correct socks, shiny, black leather shoes. Nothing special. Just plain and boring, like you'd expect a uniform to be.
"Grace! I need you down here! I'd like some help with putting away some new arrivals before you go to school!" My mother's voice floats up the stairs as I'm brushing my hair.
"Coming!" I yelled back, quickly pinning the shorter layers of my hair back with bobby pins before racing downstairs.
After a bowl of cereal in the back kitchen, I headed into the store.
"Morning mum," I said as she appeared from behind a bookcase carrying a large cardboard box.
"Morning, hun. Sleep well?" She asked, placing the box down on the serving desk and using a Stanley Knife to cut open the flap.
"Yeah," I replied.
"That's good. I'll just get you to start by putting these in alphabetical order on the shelves," Mum asked, handing me a heavy stack of books.
"Okay," I said, walking through the shelves to the Teen Fiction section to put away the books.
The bookstore was a two-storey, old fashioned building cramped on a very small block of land between a grocery store and pharmacy made entirely of timber and mahogany inside and out, giving it a feeling of authenticity and warmth. The walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and there were aisles upon aisles of cases covering the space. The serving desk placed at the back of the room and the glass display windows at the front allowed sunlight through.
After putting more books into there correct places on the shelves, I grabbed my school bag, kissed Mum's cheek and left. Once I'd rounded the corner, I pulled a tube of lip gloss out of the front pocket of my bag and applied it. A car horn sounded behind me scared me so much I almost dropped the lip gloss into the gutter.
"Hey, Grace! Wanna ride?" Rachel yelled from the open passenger window, her blonde, almost light brown hair flying in the wind.
"Stupid question," I replied, opening the the back door.
"Hey Gracie!" Chloe exclaimed from the driver's seat before speeding through the Notting Hill streets towards school. She was almost a year older than us so she already has her licence.
Once at school, we were greeted by Cassie at the front gates.
"Oh my god you guys!" She yelled running over to us. "Guess what?"
"What?" Chloe asked as we got out of her BMW and she clicked the car lock.
"I'm in the squad for Nationals!" Cassie squealed.
"Really?! Cass that's amazing!" Rachel and I squealed.
We heard the sound of slow clapping and turned to see Sabrina leaning against the boot of her Volvo.
"I wouldn't get too excited, Cass," she said. "They don't need you calling in a month or two with diabetes."
"Oh, would you drop that already, Sabrina?! She's sick of it and so are we. You're just jealous that she's better at something than you!" Chloe snapped.
"Fine," Sabrina said, spinning on her heel. "I'm off to class. See you guys at lunch."
"God, she's so bipolar! One minute she's nice, then acting like the biggest bitch!" Cassie exclaimed as we walked to class, hugging our books and pencil cases to our chests.
"Maybe she's just on her period twenty four seven?" Rachel suggested.
"Yikes!" I exclaimed.
"That would not be pleasant," Chloe adds.
"Hmm. I'll see you later," was all Cassie said, walking into one of the classrooms of E Block.
"Bye!" Rachel, Chloe and I chorused.
Once she was out of earshot, we bent our heads together, to make our conversation as private as possible.
"I can't bloody believe her!" Rachel exclaimed.
"All she does is go around treating poor Cassie like dog shit on the sole of her Nine Wests," I said.
"Yeah," Chloe agreed, brushing a strand of fiery red hair that had escaped her ponytail off her face. "We need to do something about it."
"I agree, but ho-" Rachel is cut off by a familiar voice behind us.
"Is it just me, or whenever I see you guys, you're always in some heated conversation?"
We turned and Rachel and Chloe share a look.
"Boyfriend alert," said Chloe.
"Hi, Will. Bye, Gracie," Rachel said.
I stood and waited, watching my best friends entered their classroom.
"Hey, gorgeous," Will said.
"Hey, handsome," I replied.
Being the girlfriend of the captain of the football team definitely has it's pros. A year or so ago, we took a day trip to the sea not long after the inter-school league finished and when he took off he's shirt I literally couldn't talk for a whole half hour. Frankly, he's fit as! He's golden hair was always perfectly unstyled, but he seemed to pull off the look and his eyes were a mesmerising blue, almost like the sea when we went on that day trip.
"Are you on study period?"
"Yeah." I replied, taking his hand. "Let's go to The Hill."
'The Hill' was where the girls and I would spend every lunch break. It was a nice place to sit, except when it rained, which was quite often. It was a little hill - as suggested by the name we gave it- with a lone tree on top where sparrows and pigeons sometimes nested, near the playing fields for the nursery and primary part of the college.
"Oh my god I'm so lost. Help me!" Will said, throwing his pencil at his History textbook before looking at me with pleading eyes.
"Let me guess. You've got a essay due tomorrow that you haven't started and you're desperately hoping that I will help you with most of it?" I asked.
"You know me too well."
"Alright, what's it on?"
"The Minoans."
"You're lucky I know my shit."
*-*-*-*
Heyyy guys!!!
Comment if you're liking it so far!! (Even though it's like the second chapter)
So I haven't yet figured out how to do a cast with the new update so for the next few chapters I'll be adding photos of my cast and I'll also be saying who plays them in case you don't already know who they are. So this chapter it's obviously Grace who is played by the beautiful Saoirse Ronan. Saoirse is actually Irish so I'm like, why not make Grace part Irish, too?
Oh my god! How amazing is the Night Changes vid?!?!? Eeeeeeee!!!
Anyhoo...
VOTE, COMMENT, SEE MOCKINGJAY PART 1 WITH ME?!?!? (I'm seeing it today, HAHA SUCKERS!!!)
Love and cuddles,
Maggie xx
YOU ARE READING
The Pretenders (Niall Horan)
Fanfic"What happened to the girl in the bookshop?" Niall yelled at me, obvious pain in his eyes. "What did you do to her?" I shrugged my shoulders and walked past him without turning back. ****** It all started with a dare three years ago; to kiss the ho...
