Silken Moon (On Hold)

Chapter 1-Trinken High

My car attracted stares from the people of Trinken High, students and teachers alike, and I'll be honest, I hated attention. I walked confidently with my bag to the revolving door to be met by a neat secretary in a black pencil skirt and a white top with fine blue stripes. Her hair was dark blond and pulled back into a neat pony-tail. A plain watch with a navy leather strap adorned her left wrist and rounded glasses were perched on her nose. She looked to be in her thirties and was already reading and sending emails to, at least I assume they were, staff. Damn the English are efficient.

"How can I help you Miss?" she asked politely in a slight Essex accent.

"I'm Katia Brown and I'm new here today," I said quietly to announce myself in my lightly Australian accent.

She nodded and looked at her computer screen for a moment. Her badge read Miss Rachel Dianna. Nice name, I thought. Miss Dianna pulled out an envelope of stuff and laid it on her desk which, I noticed, was spotless and tidy. She showed me a map and pointed out various places and then handed me my schedule. She also gave me leaflets about clubs and the school history that I would never read, and my locker number, a padlock and three keys. Two for me and one for my form tutor who would keep it incase I managed to forget both. Highly unlikely.

"I'll just get one of the prefects to show you around," she said, tapping lightly on her keyboard.

While I waited for her to do whatever she was doing, I looked around the reception. The door was a glass, revolving door with dark mahogany handles. The floor was that stiff carpet in school rooms, in a pretty shade of sapphire and had a slightly green tinge to it. Cabinets containing trophies stood proudly against the walls. They held sport, music, arts and inter-house trophies. Apparently the last winner of the house cup had been Grove in...wait what? The trophy read 1985, which was years ago!

"Uh, Miss Dianna?" I asked.

She looked up in surprise.

"Just Rachel," she replied briskly.

"Ok, Rachel, the house trophy there says 1985?"

She looked over to where I was indicating in slight confusion, which made me nervous. Then she seemed to recognise the trophy, and laughed slightly.

"Oh yes, we scraped houses. We swapped them for the prom I guess," she laughed at her own joke.

I didn't laugh, but waited patiently, continuing to scrutinise the room. Three doors lined the walls. One said, 'staff stairs' and was shut. One said 'headmaster' which was also shut. The third, said 'to school'. I pulled out the map I had been given, and located the reception. The door led down a corridor to the canteen, and then outside to the left of the maths department building. I nodded to myself, and committed the rest of the school layout to memory, listening to the oh-so-English rain beat on the buildings.

I watched the students pile into the building, screaming and shouting to people, holding books over their heads. The girls checked their make-up, and the rugby players stood in short sleeves being drenched by the rain as it rolled down their beefy, strong bodies. One of them was grinning from ear to ear as he tried to swipe the mirror from a girl's hand as she re-applied eyeliner. I assumed that she was his girlfriend from the way they were swatting at each other, and I had to admit that she didn't look like one to mess with. Like, ever. Finally, the Big-Guy relented, and pouted as she continued on with that muck, I mean foundation, while walking swiftly into the building.

From the way guys moved slightly to let her pass, and girls swarmed around her chattering, I could tell that she was well-respected and very popular. She had curly, light blond hair which was swept back into a high ponytail and very pale skin which was the kind that almost shimmered in the sun. Her eyes were searching and a hazel brown, but not at all soft, quite the opposite. Big-Guy had well toned enormous muscles and his biceps were twice the size of my waist. He wasn't overly tall, but was definitely one of the tallest there. As Blondie and Big-Guy disappeared out of sight, I turned my attention to the other students.