Tick Tock

Chapter I

Kaly walked through the halls, stopping every now and then to check if she was walking the right way.

She had thought moving from L.A to New York City may be hard, but she hadn't expected it to be this hard. Her three older brothers seemed to be doing fine, and her six year old sister barely seemed to notice, so it seemed like seventeen year old Kaly would be doing okay.

She stopped again, to see if the next room was the right one.

Aha! Kaly thought, room 202! She opened the door, to see a small man with wide glasses and a shirt decorated with dancing pineapples with mustaches, the teachers beedy eyes glared at her own. The rest of the class seemed no more kind than the teacher, murmuring about her "unfashionable bracelets" and her "boring white filthy converse," they seemed to be just as judgemental as the kids at her old school. The teacher reached up to adjust his glasses. She looked at her new classmates and slowly walked over to the only seat open, with her name on a small plaque. Wow, she thought, high tech. As she sat down she noticed the boy's name sitting to the left of her was Connor, and to be honest, he wasn't so bad looking. He had dark hair and green eyes, when looked at closer actually had a few rings of brown in them. No crushes, she reminded herself, that only leads to attention, which you don't want.

"Good morning class!" Mr. Dancing Pineapples With Mustaches chirped, his voice so high it made Kaly flinch. A girl walked past her, the girl's blond hair tied into a high ponytail, her face startlingly pretty. Her face was scrunched into a look of pain, as if Mr. Dancing Pineapples voice hurt her ears just as much as it hurt Kaly's. Looking at the seat she had come from, Kaly could barely make out her name on the plaque. Elise.

"And welcome back to a new school year!" As he rambled on, she took her little name plaque, and looked into it, to find it was just like a mirror, with it's reflecting metal surface. She stared into it, glaring at her dark brown hair, and normal brown eyes, that looked to her as if a little kid had mixed all the water color colors together, and ended up with a disappointing dull brown hoping that if she stared hard enough she would disappear, right back to LA.

"Elise?" I recognized the voice so high, the one that she thought would have shattered glass by now. "What is it sir?" she asked. "Elise, could you come with me? Just for moment. I'll have you back with your little, friends," he made unpleasant motions with his hands to her small group of friends sitting at the table "Soon enough. Don't worry." Despite his attempts to be reassuring, she still felt uneasy. She had never gotten in trouble before, much less enough trouble to be torn away from lunch to be told so.

"Right this way. The principal would like to talk with you, nothing bad. Don't worry." A polite, kind young girl sat behind a small desk observing a document with a pen in hand. She sounded british when she spoke. "That's a lovely accent you have." Elise mentioned. "Oh, thank you. I'm from London. I only moved here a month ago. I'm Rose." she extended her hand. "Elise. It's nice to meet you." she accepted it. "Oh, I hope I wasn't interrupting anything." announced the principle. "Quite the contrary." Elise responded. "Good," The principle snapped with a deep laugh that Elise knew must be fake. "Please, follow me to my office."

Elise's knees began to buckle, and her hands, tremble. She continued to tell herself it was nothing, maybe he wanted to confirm a test result, or perhaps it was to secure my application for this years spelling bee. Whatever it was, she put a smile on her face and walked.