Her

Chapter One

"Ellie would you wake up!" I hear my mum screaming from the bottom of the stairs.

"I am up!" I yell back, before setting an alarm for an extra five minutes. Five minutes can't hurt, right?

A sudden brightness causes a stinging in my eyes and I feel cold all of a sudden. I open my eyes and see my mum standing over me. She's turned the light switch on and opened the window fully so that the cold breeze from outside washes over me.

"I told you to get up twenty minutes ago! What do you think you're doing sleeping in, if you don't hurry up and get out of that damn bed you'll miss your ride!" Mum shouts.

What ride? Oh shit.

Mum signed me up to go to a boarding school for this term. I don't know why, I was doing just fine in my normal public school. I mean, I did fail maths and science, but you can't have it all, can you? Not that I liked my school, the teachers were all useless and the students were all completely stuck up. I will miss Alice though, my best friend. We'd been best friends since the time we made up that silly dolphin game when we were ten. I told her about me going to the boarding school and she was completely on board with packing herself in my suitcase.

"Ok Mum I'm actually getting up now," I mumble and crawl out of the bed. "See?" I state proudly.

"Get dressed and go get your breakfast, it's already nine so you have an hour to get ready," Mum says. She turns to leave my bedroom but then swings round and embraces me in a warm hug. "I'm really going to miss you," she whispers sadly. I'm really going to miss her too, I get terribly homesick and nearly always begin crying when I think about leaving. When I was younger and tried having sleepovers at my cousin's houses, I would always end up crying for Mum in the middle of the night and insist they take me home. I must have really been a pain for all of my relatives.

"Ok," Mum sighs and leaves the room. I yawn and look around my bedroom. The suitcase I hastily packed last night sits in the corner and I think about what a hassle it's going to be to carry. I eventually change out of my cotton pajamas and into a pair of black leggings and a grey half zip hoodie. I tie half of my curly brown hair back and pull out a few pieces to frame my face. I sigh and turn to study my reflection in my standing full length mirror. I look exhausted and there's dark circles under my eyes but I can fix that later with a bit of concealer. My blue eyes look tired but full of worry and excitement. My millions of freckles randomly placed all over my face look kind of nice in the lighting and I smile slightly at my appearance, which I only appreciate during certain moments like this.

I make myself a bowl of cereal and some lemon infused water and sit at the table to eat and drink it. Mum wanders in and out looking for last minute essentials. I'm trying to act calm but inside I'm extremely nervous. I don't like leaving home but at the same time I'm desperate for new experiences. I scoop up the last bit of cereal then put the bowl and spoon into the dishwasher and head back up the stairs to do a little makeup and get my suitcase.

10 minutes later I'm sitting in the passenger seat in my mums car on the way to the school. It's about four hours away so there isn't a very big chance of sprinting home at midnight. We listen to a CD of Mum's choice and I don't complain for once because by now I'm even too nervous to speak. I mumble a few "yes" and "no"'s to Mum as she asks me little questions here and there throughout the journey.

We pull into a gas station halfway through our journey and Mum runs inside to pay for the gas and walks back out smiling holding two huge ice cream cones. At this point she's making me want to turn the car around and go back home. She pulls two large chocolate bars out of her handbag and hands them to me incase of a "midnight craving" and I thank her gratefully.

I try holding back my tears as we pull up to the gates of the boarding school but I can't help my eyes watering slightly. Mum embraces me in another warm, tight hug and reminds me that it's going to be absolutely fine and she'll see me at Christmas and call me every night.

"I love you," I cry and she replies with, "I love you too Ellie."

I feel embarrassed as I step out of the car and know that my face is stained with tears. My relationship with my mum is so strong and I'm so thankful to have such an amazing mother to look up too.

I look up at the ginormous building in front of me. It's made up of strong, grey bricks and has thousands of vines growing up the high walls detailed with sharp looking leaves and tiny wild flowers. It looks at least four stories high and there are about ten windows in a row. White lace curtains can be seen hanging from the railing on the inside part of the window hiding what the inside of this school holds. A separate brick tower can be spotted on the left hand side. Rose flowerbeds surround the tower and carry along creating a pathway leading to the main building. Four great steps lead up to the red painted wood doors that lead into my new school. I take a deep breath and walk along the pebble coated laneway heading straight towards the massive doors.

But what awaits inside? In my mind, I'm hoping for a Hogwarts experience. It's an all girls boarding school and I've been in mixed schools my entire life. I've read fiction books about boarding schools before. How girls sneak out for midnight feasts in the kitchens and make secret groups and share secrets and gossip. This all sounds very fairytale storybook to me, but I guess that's what all them books were.

I push open one of the heavy doors and step into the next, newest chapter of my life.