CHAPTER ONE: Hey, I dunno.

Jennifer Vale was not the best student in class that was for sure. She sat at her desk chewing her favourite pencil and staring at the clock. Sometimes Jenna believed she had powers to make the clock go even slower.

She was in History Class and Mr. Robin was lecturing today. The only thing marginally entertaining about him was his funny grey beard. But that had lost its novelty some time ago. Jenna folded her arms on her desk to make a pillow when a pink note sailed across the room and bounced off of her blonde head.

The note was bright pink and “Sheryl Deeley” was signed on the back. Jenna ripped open the note and smiled at what was written. “Don’t let class get you down. Let’s go out after this – Sherry” And under that was a sketch of Mr. Robin in his lecturing pose surrounded by sleeping bodies. Biting back laughter, Jenna tore a piece of paper from her notebook to scrawl a note back to Sheryl. “Sure, I’d love to. See ya then. Jen”

Jenna looked up at Mr. Robin to make sure he was not looking which he wasn’t; he was immersed in his lecture. She threw the note to Sheryl who smiled a white smile in return. Sheryl nudged her sparkly eraser off of her desk and went to pick it up along with the note.

When Jenna glanced back, Sheryl gave her a wink and a thumbs-up. Well, at least she had something to look forward to now. Now all Jenna was waiting for was the bell!

Speak of the devil; Jenna thought when the clock ticked to 4:00. The shrill sound of the bell sounded and everyone jumped to their feet, stuffing books into their bags. Jenna crammed her worn notebook into her bag and then chased after Sheryl before she left the classroom. Jenna and Sheryl went to their lockers, chatting all down the passage.

“Are you excited about going out, Jenna?” asked Sheryl, fiddling with a loose strand of hair.
“Dunno,” said Jenna. “What do you have in mind?”

Sheryl skipped ahead of Jenna and twirled in front of her. She giggled.
“It wouldn’t be much fun if I just told you, Jen!”

Jenna started to smile too but when she saw Sheryl become anxious, she looked ahead.

The school bully Carla Randall was standing in the middle of the passage, holding a small kid up in the air by his shirt. The look on his face told you everything and soon like all of Carla’s victims, he started whining and dropping coins all across the floor. No one dared cross Carla’s path otherwise they’d be next so she merely scooped up the coins and dropped the boy without care onto the floor.

Jenna felt herself get tenser, almost defensive so that if she was victim she would be ready. But before anything could happen, Sheryl pulled her away from the commotion and leaned on one of the lockers.

“Why did you do that?” Jenna said, folding her arms. “I’m not stupid, you know. I wasn’t even going to get involved.”
“Because you might’ve done and I didn’t want to take that chance. I mean, really, Jenna. I know you don’t like it when Carla does stuff like that but nothing good would’ve come from it.

Jenna’s head sunk.
“It’s not that, Sheryl. It’s just that I don’t like the way she gets away with it so easily. It’s not even just Carla it’s just that it’s such a small place that she always avoids punishments, you know?”

Sheryl gave a sympathetic smile but walked on anyway. Jenna trailed behind her again but this time with less energy. The day had been particularly bad today and Jenna wasn’t really in the most productive of moods. She slung her bag over her shoulder and ran to keep pace with Sheryl who was surprisingly fast.

“Well? Aren’t you going to ask?”

Jenna looked up and cocked her head to one side. Sheryl had a tendency to just talk about something out of nowhere. “What?”
“I’m surprised you don’t get it. Well, weren’t you going to ask why I’ve been so excited today? And why I’ve been eager to get out of school?”

Sheryl’s eyes practically shone as she said all this and her face became paler than usual. Jenna scratched her head making her look a little dumb but Sheryl continued on nonetheless.
“Here, I’ll just tell you Jenna.” Sheryl said. “There are multiple reasons, really. But mainly it’s that we can go out into town today, you know. Actually into the big places.” She waved a hand but didn’t stop talking. “It’s going to be awesome, Jenna. We never ever get to do that and just imagine the places we can go to!” Sheryl jumped up and down, dragging Jenna along with her.

“Slow down, Sherry or you’ll make me sick!” Jenna complained.

Sheryl was too giddy to listen, though. She let Jenna go after that, she was still bouncing around everywhere. She eventually ran out of energy so she made her out of school. Although she wasn’t jumping around anymore, her shining face still made it obvious she was thrilled.
Once they were outside, Sheryl mellowed a little. The usually quiet school grounds were filled with chattering and students telling stories. This time though, there was no sign of Carla. Thank god for that, Jenna thought.

Sheryl looked over to a bunch of kids and her shoulders drooped slightly. “Have you heard about that too, Jenna? About the posh new boarding school that’s just opened?” When Jenna shook her head, Sheryl continued wistfully. “Yeah, it’s true. They call it The Southbury Academy. It sounds great, doesn’t it? I mean, imagine it. Having a bigger school, more girls to talk to... maybe even a pool!” She giggled. “It’s a boarding school too so we wouldn’t worry about parents’ telling us off! Imagine have a midnight party with 11 other girls without anyone interrupting...” Jenna cut through Sheryl’s gushing.

“I dunno, Sheryl. It sounds like it wouldn’t be much fun. Think of how many rules there might be in a place like that. I like a small place like this one a lot more.” Jenna said, although it was kind of a lie.

Truth be told, Jenna hated school period so it didn’t make a difference. But one of the things she really hated was the way the teachers always told you off and gave you silly rules you have to abide with them. Half of the time, it sounds like they just make up those rules on the spot just to get you in trouble or something. Jenna would know. She was pretty much always in trouble for something or another. Compared to Sheryl, she was like the devil.

“I suppose so,” Sheryl said, poking her cheek. “But it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Chances are we’ll never see a place like that anyway but I bet it would be great.” She ran up ahead again, to look at Jenna’s expression. “So, what about going to town, huh? You want to come, right? We can buy lots of clothes and food and stuff.”

Eventually Jenna agreed to come and Sheryl had her mum take her there. The town they lived in was a very small town but the centre was always bustling with people. It was the type of place that made you doubt Shilling was a small town. Jenna wasn’t really much of a shopper though. Sheryl bought a lot of the stuff and even got Jenna a few things, including a violet hairclip, a new bag and a few snacks, mostly chocolates. Sheryl ate some snacks too but hers were all non-fat ones.

Jenna would never understand why Sheryl obsessed so much about eating right and such. Jenna just ate what she liked plain and simple. It was part of Sheryl though. She was always fancy and hard to understand sometimes. But she a great friend so Jenna usually ignored this sort of stuff.

Sheryl’s mum eventually got bored of the shopping and so Jenna and Sheryl ended up going. Sheryl made the time go by talking about all we had bought and how happy she was to go into the town centre. And eventually Sheryl made it home but it was a little further till Jenna’s house, so she walked there herself. There weren’t many cars or people on the road so Jenna made it back quickly.

When she got back, the sky darkened and the wind had gotten colder. Jenna’s mum fussed about how long she had been out and sent her to bed immediately. But Jenna didn’t go to sleep for a long time. She reached for her fox alarm clock and saw it was 1:00 AM. Jenna sighed and flopped into her pillow. Eventually, she got to sleep but before that she had a strange dream of her and Sheryl being stuck in a shop.

Some dreams are best left unquestioned.


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