Taking My Penalty

1: September 6th

TALIA

September 6th, the first day back after the summer.

I should specify that it was my first day in my new school too. Starting today, I'd be attending the highest-ranked school in all of England, Leland Darby Private School.

The uniform was just as posh as the name of the school sounds, believe me.

I stood in the mirror, smoothing my blue and white pleated plaid skirt with the palms of my hands before tugging at the matching navy blue jumper and untucking the collar of my polo. I didn't bother messing with my tie after I made my brother help me do it this morning.

The tie was black, matching my knee-high socks and coincidentally my hair. It was charcoal black and sat around the length of my waist when I curled the ends.

I tapped at the gap between my nose and lips and my forehead, assuring I wouldn't look like I sweating a lot in the face. I did the same under my eyes, this time for those annoying mascara smudges.

My eyes were green, like my dad's, and my eyebrows were thick, like my dad's too, but my lips, nose and hair all came from my mum.

My brothers looked very much like my dad for the most part as they shared the green eyes and the mouse brown hair, however we all still sort of looked alike.

We were the kind of siblings who were asked about each other in primary school by teachers who had already taught one of us. It was all because of the fact we were so similar looking to them.

Percy is the oldest, then Max, then Leo and me, Talia.

Please don't question why we all sound like the names of pets, it's unfortunate, I know. Those are just our nicknames. My Mum, Portia, had been given far too much creative freedom by my Dad, Carl, on naming us so now we have ridiculous names. In all fairness, mine isn't as bad as it is Natalia, in full.

However, Percy is Perseus, Max is Maximilian and Leo is Leondias.

I know. How cruel could someone be to name them like that?

My parents were great and worked hard for everything though. My Mum is a stylist for the Vogue magazine, which explains the creativity in the names she gave her children. I was close to Mum, though she was very protective of me. Dad on the other hand was the CEO of a company that provides military equipment for several countries. This meant he had to travel a lot, and I mean a lot.

I was never so close to him as he was rarely here throughout my life. When I was eleven months old, he spent a year in Germany. At four, he spent two years in France. Again, at eight, he went on a back-to-back trip to America and Canada for three years. Finally, at fourteen, my dad left for America again for just over a year, which he claimed was his last trip since he had become too old to keep travelling about.

On that trip, he brought Percy, who was starting to work with Dad, and Max, who got into Yale University on the East Coast of the U.S.

With this, my parents concluded that it was time we settled back into our family home in Westminster. Whenever Dad usually went away, we'd stay in the house, but since it was just Mum, Leo, and I, the house was nearly silent and way too empty. Mum became tempted to go stay in her penthouse that she had kept from her early twenties, which was a lot smaller and not as empty feeling, so we moved there for the while.

Me and Leo spending all that time with Mum got us places as her favourite. In all fairness, I was closest to Mum as well. I was the opposite with Dad, with all reasonable excuses. We rarely talked. The man wasn't even there when I turned one, nor was he there for many birthdays that followed.

Since he had come home late last night, I haven't said a word to him. I mean, I get it, he was on a ten-hour plane from the other side of the world. I can't lie that I would've liked to see my dad before my first day in my new school.

Ah yes. New school.

My parents had already sent my brothers to Ashton & Pitt's Private Secondary School. It was Leland's rival but Leland was always the better school, without a shadow of a doubt. My parents attended Ashton & Pitt's when they were younger before it started going broke. Ashton & Pitt's had become a breeding ground for failed students and unpaid debts of the school.

Though Leland Darby was much more expensive, its reputation had withheld itself and my parents were willing to take the chances of sending me there. Furthermore, some of our extended family had already began sending their children to Leland; my cousin Felix being one of them.

In fact, he still goes there but he's in the sixth form part of school now that he's seventeen, turning eighteen. Once he found out I'd be moving, he had told me he'd be happy to help me out with settling it. Even more fortunately, I didn't necessarily need to rely all on Felix for help around Leland as I had some good friends there already.

My friends Maeve, Delilah and Camila were students at Leland and in my year group.

Maeve and I had known each other since we were in nappies as our mums were best friends too. Camila and Delilah I met at Maeve's thirteenth birthday party. That's when I had also found out that Delilah's older sister had been Felix's girlfriend for a period of time. Not to mention Maeve's silly little crush on him; calling him fit every chance he sees him. At this point, I can't tell if she's trying to annoy me or actually thinks that way of him.

Asides from that, knowing that I actually had family and friends at Leland had eased my nerves. In fact, I was kind of excited. I was ready from the upgrade and friends other than my netball team, in no spiteful way of course.

My family were all home and I was going to be with all my friends.

This couldn't go wrong.

"Tals! Mum says hurry up or she's leaving you here." Leo shouted as he banged on the bathroom door.

"One sec!"

Mum always said stuff like that to try to scare me. Believe me, it never did because she knew she wouldn't leave me even if she was already an hour late.

I reached over to the perfume cabinet and gauged myself in perfume for perhaps the third time this morning before looking in the mirror for anything that I had missed.

You'll be fine.

Frantically, I unlocked the door, swooped up my bag and scuttled down the flight of stairs.

"Oo, don't you look pretty today." Mum smiled as she greeted me while frantically sorting through her bag on the same table as the nauseatingly huge bouquet of white roses.

"Thanks, Mum." I smiled.

"Take a picture with Leo." She insisted as Leo stood in the archway to the living room, not even half ready for anything to do today.

"Don't want to make you late, Mum." Leo excused.

"Just a quick one, please." Mum took out her phone.

"Just bloody do it." I rolled my eyes and yanked Leo by the arm.

"Smile, lovelies." Mum squeaked as she snapped a photo of us while grinning at the finished product, probably about to post it on her Facebook.

"Max told me to tell you good luck." Leo informed.

"Tell him I said thanks." I smiled. "Where's Percy?"

Leo scoffed. "Sleeping."

"Dad too?"

Leo nodded. I wasn't shocked.

"You don't need good luck from him anyway, you'll be fine." Leo reassured, like usual as the nice person he can be, occasionally.

"I hope so." I huffed.

"Just don't do anything stupid." Leo joked before patting my back in encouragement.

"Obviously."