Class of '19 (A Steps School AU)

7 - Last Summer

Lisa's point of view
For the first time all month we managed to have a day towards the end of the half term where it didn't rain. It was cloudy and quite breezy, but the weather was good enough to meet with the others outside. And I concluded I'd show them the park on the hill my brother and I had found last summer. The problem I then had was where to meet them, because while I knew where Faye lived and roughly where Lee lived from our adventures in the past I had no idea where Claire lived. All I knew was that it was up on the north side of town with us somewhere because she was adamant (and had been for the last couple of weeks) that us three girls needed to go round the the clothes shops at "the shopping park by Asda". I concluded we could meet there, then maybe we could go shopping afterwards.

I picked up my phone from my desk and opened Snapchat. The groupchat we'd made having given up with trying to fix Faye's phone's dislike of group text messages was at the top of my recent messages list so it didn't take much finding.
"Hey guys, do you want to meet up at Asda and then go to a park?" I sighed and deleted what I'd written, it didn't sound right.
When I eventually settled on a wording I sent it and got a reply from Faye almost immediately.
"Gods I thought no-one would ever ask and we'd waste the lovely weather and the half term 😂 Yes I'd love to come meet with you lot."
I smiled as Lee sent back a message expressing how he'd been about to say what Faye just had. After a few moments Claire replied too. We'd become so close in the past month since Claire had joined the school, and I was so excited to spend time with them outside the school grounds.
"Cool! Meet at Asda at half 1? We'll go to the park for a bit then maybe we can go back and shop." I replied.
Claire sent a grinning emoji and that was the end of that conversation.

Faye's point of view
I was excited to be going out with Lisa, Lee and Claire. I already knew it would be different to hanging out with the popular girls had been, because they only really hung around at shopping centres or coffee shops, but this time I was going out and going to do something fun.
I wanted to take my roller skates, I'd even typed a message to ask Lise if I could, but I couldn't find them anywhere. Of course I couldn't. When I'd tried to fit in with the popular girls I'd got rid of them. They hadn't fitted my feet properly by then anyway, but I'd decided that popular girls probably didn't use skates to get around and did away with them completely.
I ran down the stairs and stood outside my older sister's bedroom. "Bel! Do you still have your roller skates and if so can I borrow them?" I yelled hoping she didn't have her headphones on.
"No you can't. You got rid of yours, you brought this on yourself!" She called back without opening the door.
"But mine didn't fit me any more!" I moaned.
Bel opened her bedroom door. "Tough luck Fluff. Now get out of my head would ya! I have revision to do."
I groaned, and walked away. Guess I wasn't skating over to go meet my friends.

I was glad I hadn't been allowed to borrow my sister's skates when I'd got there though, because none of the others had brought any other means of travelling. I started laughing a little bit at the fact that for once Bel had helped me out by being evil.
"What's up with you?" Claire asked with a laugh.
"I was going to wear my roller skates over here, but I forgot I'd got rid of them. I'm kinda glad I didn't now though." I replied.
Lisa grinned. "It's fine we're going to the park on the Groundwell hill." She said.
"Ugh you expect me to walk up a hill? I'm a dancer!" I replied with a laugh. "Oh on that note. You guys remember I did the trials for the Competition and Performance team?"
Lisa looked at me hopefully. "Yes."
"Of course, you were nervous as anything in the lead up to it." Claire replied. I grinned. Last week I'd been terrified, knowing that it was unlikely I'd get onto the Competition and Performance team. I knew I'd be the youngest person if I did make it because 13 year olds, despite being allowed to try out, hardly ever made it on there.
"Yep I couldn't forget. She didn't shut up about it on the bus home last Friday." Lee added, more to our friends than to me.
I couldn't help but grin as I told them. "Well... I made it onto the team! Admittedly its the second group and I can't try out for group one until next year, but I've made it in!"
Lisa squealed and hugged me. "That's amazing, I'm so proud of you!" I'd told her for years that I wanted to get on the team, and now I had. It had been my main dream as a little girl, and now it had come true.
"Well done Faye." Lee added, patting my shoulder.
I smiled brightly. Until now I could only ever dream of getting onto the team, and now I was. It was great, but still not quite as good as being friends again with my old best friends.