“Aren’t you going to drink that, hon?” Chantelle asked her best friend, Leo Reed. He was staring glumly into his paper cup of skinny latte – which was still full to the brim, despite having been bought over ten minutes ago – as if it were more interesting than any of his other surroundings, including Chantelle.
Leo looked up from his cup slowly and blinked blankly at Chantelle. His olive green eyes were still bleary from sleep and he looked short of a zombie – definitely not a look that Chantelle approved of. His light brown hair was mussed beyond the look of cool and his eyes had bags the size of Britain. Again, Chantelle wondered why she was still friends with him. He made her act like a total idiot most of the time. But then again, she couldn’t really imagine life without Leo, either. So she would have to put up with him. For now.
“I need sugar. Now,” he demanded. “This stuff is absolutely crap.” He chucked the skinny latte cup – still containing all the skinny latte – into a nearby bin, the contents very nearly missing a Year Seven As the cup landed a metre away from the bin and the contents splashed out, drenching the Year Seven’s leg in cold coffee. She glared angrily at Leo before stomping off in a huff. If Chantelle had been bothered, then that Year Seven would’ve had it in for it. No one glared at her best friend like that – even if he was sort of a sullen prick most of the time.
“Jesus Christ, Leo,” snapped Chantelle, rolling her eyes. If it had been anyone else – except for Lily, of course – then Chantelle might have had to spread another rumour about Misty Blake just to entertain and calm herself down, but this was Leo. He went through more sugar in an hour than an obese toddler in a day. She was surprised that Leo wasn’t severely obese with the amount of calories he took in – but no, he stayed skinny no matter how determined he seemed to give himself diabetes. Chantelle hated to admit it, but sometimes she was jealous of that.
She dug around in her Marc Jacobs bag and then threw him a Coke, which she had secretly taken from the car fridge this morning – not that they would miss it or anything. She had suspected something like this would happen. “I know it’s slightly warm, but it’s still sugar and caffeine. Satisfied?” asked Chantelle, scornfully. She hadn’t wanted to give him the Coke, but it was better than having Leo in an even worse mood than he already was. And hell could Leo throw a mood.
Leo ignored her as he quickly opened the can and started take large gulps from it as if he had been deprived of any drink for the past two days, which – for all Chantelle knew – could be true. Leo really didn’t know how to look after himself. Chantelle was almost surprised every single year when they came back from their summer holidays to find that Leo hadn’t just shrivelled up and died without her.
When he finally came up for air – approximately ten seconds later, having finished the entire can of Coke – he said, “You carry Coke around, Chance? Am I missing something here?”
“No, not really,” she said, shrugging slightly, a perfectly mastered look of nonchalance on her face. “I knew you were going to do something like this.” She quickly inspected Leo. Thank God. He definitely looked better after his morning dose of sugar – at least, good enough for her to be able to walk into form with him without being completely humiliated. “Anyway, we better get to form before we go from being fashionably late to slacking.”
“As if you care,” said Leo, rolling his eyes, as he put the Coke can into the bin – actually getting it in this time.
Chantelle narrowed her eyes at him. “For you information, I do actually, so move your butt and start getting to form,” she told him, drily. Leo scoffed, but quickened his pace to keep up with her long, but flawlessly poised strides. “Did I forget to tell you about the new kid in our form?” she asked him, as they walked down the cool hallways of the main sixth form building.
“There’s a new kid in our form? You do realize we’re almost eighteen, Chance. Therefore, not classified as kids.” Leo shivered slight – probably at how disgusting the word ‘kid’ sounded. Chantelle had to agree with him. That word was just simply hideous. She made a mental note to never ever use it again.
“My bad,” she said, quickly. “But anyway, all I can do to warn you, Leo, is to tell you not to scream or do anything gay – which may be hard for you since you are gay – because Jamie Verson is coming to Heather Franklin. And thanks to some tweaking my mother did, he’s in our form.”
Leo frowned at her. “Who the hell is Jamie Verson?”
“Only the son of Key and Marion Verson, who, by the way, absolutely adore me,” explained Chantelle, trying to smirk at that truth. She wouldn’t be too surprised if Leo didn’t know who Key and Marion Verson were either – which was almost impossible for anyone at Heather Franklin. They were two of the many people that the students at Heather Franklin worshipped. Leo may not have appeared camp a lot of the time, but if there was one thing he liked to do it was to read Cosmo, even when Chantelle tried to encourage him to read more productive things. Like Forbes. It was a hopeless endeavour.
“Oh, and by the way,” added Chantelle. “He’s mine, so don’t start getting any ideas. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s straight.”
“Shut the fuck up, Chance,” snapped Leo, scowling at her. “Just because I happen to be gay, it doesn’t mean I fancy every single guy in the whole fucking world – a concept you don’t seem to understand.”
Chantelle rolled her eyes. Sometimes it was “Oh, you’ll understand when you see him, Leo,” she told him, with utter confidence. Of course, she had yet to meet Jamie in person, but she had seen the photos – which Marion had shown her, cooing about how gorgeous her ‘baby boy’ was – and if he was anything like he was in the photos, then Chantelle would not be disappointed. Phase One of the plan would be completed.
They stopped outside of their form room. Leo glanced at Chantelle, sideways, sighing slightly. “Let me guess. You want me to go in first and then you follow me making an extravagant entrance?”
“You know the drill, hon,” said Chantelle, swiftly applying another layer of lip gloss, just in case. Of course, she wouldn’t want to put too much on – that would just make her look like a slut – but she didn’t want to look like a total loser either. Sometimes it was complicated, balancing out everything just right to make everything up to her own standards of utter perfection. Chantelle put the lip gloss back into her bag and smiled at Leo. As he put his hand on the handle, Chantelle suddenly said, “Wait! Let’s go in together for a change. Mark our beautiful friendship and all that crap.”
Leo put his hand to his heart and pretended to sob. “Wow, Chance. That’s so touching. I can’t process this new feeling which you’ve never ever shown for me before... what’s it called? Oh yeah, love,” he said, wiping away an imaginary tear.
“Yes, whatever, bitch. You can thank me later by buying my lunch,” she said. She quickly reached up to smooth down Leo’s hair – since he was seemingly incapable of doing it himself – and then took hold of his arm. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the classroom.
The noisy room instantly fell silent as Chantelle and Leo swept into classroom elegantly. All of the rest of the form were already there – Leo and Chantelle were the last people to arrive. “Well, well, well,” said their form tutor, Mr Harrow, looking down at his Rolex watch. “Five minutes late, Miss Radleigh and Mr Reed. You almost crossed the thin line between fashionably late and slacking. You were lucky.”
Chantelle’s lips curled up into a cool smile. Mr Harrow was one of the very few adults that she genuinely liked – or at the very least, could tolerate. “Very funny, Sir,” she told him, drily. She subtly swept the classroom with her gaze and smiled to herself with satisfaction. Her form – now called Thirteen Thousand – was finally perfect. After a lot of persuading and work, her form was now entirely Nobody free. All of the Populars of Year Thirteen were all together in a single class. It was just how Chantelle had always wanted it to be.
That was until her gaze landed at pair of seats at the back. Lillian was sitting at a desk with none other than Melissa. Underneath Chantelle’s look of indifference, she was seething. Why did Melissa always have to take what was supposed to be hers?
Then Chantelle spotted someone, sitting next to Callum Aston. The two of them were seemingly the only people not looking at her. Callum was on his phone, talking to the other boy who was nodding as he doodled on a piece of paper. Chantelle inspected the boy. The guy wasn’t just fit or good-looking. He was pure gorgeous, even by Chantelle’s standards. Jamie Verson looked even better in person than he did in the photos – that was official.
Chantelle saw Callum look up from his phone and then nudge Jamie, saying something to him. Jamie glanced up briefly, his hazel eyes meeting Chantelle’s, before saying something back to Callum and then finally going back to his drawing.
“Shame, you know,” said Mr Harrow, interrupting her thoughts. “You two missed the ceremonial greeting of our new student, Jamie Verson.”
Chantelle frowned. “We have a ceremonial greeting for new students?”
“That is correct,” confirmed Mr Harrow, as he handed Chantelle and Leo their personal planners and timetables for the year. Chantelle put hers in her bag without even glancing at it.
“Since when?”
“Since five minutes ago.”
“Right... that’s interesting,” said Chantelle, not looking the slightest bit convinced. “Let’s go and sit down, Leo.” She looked at her best friend and saw that his jaw was practically on the floor, gawping at the new guy. “I told you not to do anything gay, Leo,” she whispered angrily into his ear as they sat down in a pair of empty seats at the back.
“Well, I can’t help it, Chance,” said Leo, defensively. “Anyway, I was just demonstrating what you looked like – which is a total idiot by the way.” Chantelle rolled her eyes, knowing that Leo was only mocking her. “I don’t fancy him or anything. Is that the guy you were on about earlier?”
“Yes. And he’s totally gorgeous, is he not?”
Leo paused, considering. “I suppose. And you’re just going to let the poor guy be a Nobe,” said Leo, smirking slightly at Chantelle.
Chantelle cocked her head slightly to her right and smiled at Leo. “You know what? That would just be cruel and such a waste. Jamie Verson is officially a Popular.”
Leo’s eyes slowly narrowed. “You barely know him, Chance,” said Leo, carefully. Then he shook his head. “Screw that. You don’t know him at all. He could be a total jerk for all we know.”
“You’re right,” Chantelle admitted. “But he’d still be a gorgeous jerk. A very gorgeous one. Besides, it’s not as if we’re unable to demote him to a Nobody.”
“Do I have to remind you that you have a boyfriend?” asked Leo, giving Chantelle an incredulous look. The same one that was normally directed at him, for obvious reasons. “One who is still alive and breathing?”
“Sure. I know.” Chantelle snorted slightly. Since when did Leo turn into the wise and thinking one? Especially now that he should be hyper on all that sugar and caffeine. She couldn’t quite figure out which was worse – Leo being hyper or Leo thinking he was suddenly a lecturer. “But breathing in smoke more like. Not. Attractive.”
Leo narrowed his eyes again, staring at Chantelle almost threateningly. “Chance, I thought I told you not to drink full-fat Cokes. Ever. They make you go out of your mind. Sugar makes you go out of your mind,” he said.
“Well that’s just fucking rich coming from you,” Chantelle scoffed, leaning back in her seat, casually, even though Leo was partly right. “Anyway how did you know I drank a full-fat Coke?”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “I know everything, Chance.”
You’d be surprised, though Chantelle, smiling to herself.
“Oh my God, Chantelle!” came a voice from the row in front of her, in what Chantelle assumed was supposed to be in a whisper. Instead it sounded short of a scream. “Let’s compare timetables! When are your free lessons?”
Chantelle gave her ‘friend’ Sasha Montague a withering look. “I don’t have any free periods,” she told the other girl, coolly. Chantelle was taking five A-Levels, meaning all of her lessons were taken up.
Sasha’s face considerably dropped as she realized that she would only get to hang out with Chantelle at break and lunch, seeing as they weren’t in any of the same classes. “Well, here,” said Sasha, giving Chantelle her timetable. Chantelle took it, reluctantly. “You can look at my timetable. Can I see yours?”
“No.”
Sasha narrowed her eyes and then turned back around to face the front. Chantelle skimmed over Sasha’s timetable, with Leo looking over her shoulder. “She still hasn’t dropped Drama and Welsh yet,” remarked Chantelle, sighing slightly with disappointment.
Leo looked temporarily confused. “What? Is it not ‘in’ to study Drama and Welsh?” he asked.
“No. It’s just embarrassing that she’s taking subjects that she’s inevitably going to fail,” replied Chantelle. She paused, considering for a moment. “But then again, at least she’s not in any of my classes.”
“And that’s what makes your friendship so great,” muttered Leo, rolling his eyes.
~~~~~~
Logan Deverall glanced down at his new timetable for the year. His best friend, Grady Itzocovitz, leaned over him from the desk in front, to get a look at his timetable. “Maths first thing in the morning?” said Grady, guffawing to himself. “That’s unlucky, Lode.”
Logan shot Grady a withering look. “You have maths too, Grade,” Logan reminded him. “And don’t call me Lode again.” That morning Grady had come up with a system to make nicknames for people by combining the first two letters of their first name with the first two letters of their surname. Grady had found it extremely amusing to call himself ‘Grit’. Logan had not.
Sitting next to Logan his other best friend, Corey Matthews, rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to Grady, Lo,” he advised, wisely. “I think he drank about twenty skinny lattes this morning – no kidding. Caffeine and Grady are never a good mix.”
Logan gave a half-smile. He still couldn’t understand how Grady could actually like skinny lattes in the first place. If he was perfectly honest, skinny lattes made Logan feel sick. His older sister, Lillian, had always advised him just not to drink them. That was easy for her to say. She was Chantelle Radleigh’s best friend and therefore got the benefit of Chantelle turning a blind eye to Lillian breaking all the rules she had set.
Sometimes it was sort of ironic. Lily always followed the rules, from the school ones to the ones where they said you couldn’t take photos somewhere or whatever – yet she never followed the rules her own best friend had set.
Grady shot Corey an icy look. “Shut up, Coma,” he demanded, scowling. “Just because you happened to be named after a state of deep unconsciousness and you don’t like it, it doesn’t mean you can ruin everyone else’s fun.”
Corey gave him a deadpan look. It was honestly pretty hard to believe that they were in Year Eleven now when they were around Grady. He hadn’t changed much since primary school – except for the fact that he had inevitably traded Pokémon cards for girls.
“Fun? We’re meant to be having fun? I think the only think we’re having is a severe case of dying from tackiness. Besides, that’s rich coming from you, Grit,” Corey retorted. He rolled his eyes again before turning back to Logan. “Anyway, what room are you in for Maths? I think we’re in the same class.”
Logan didn’t have to look at his timetable to say, “B3” He already had his timetable for the day memorized. It was easier to do that than to keep referring back to his planner all the time.
Corey grinned. “What a coincidence! I’m in B3 too! And Grady isn’t with us,” he added, quietly, just so Grady couldn’t hear.
Logan let out a quiet sigh of relief. Having Corey in the same Maths class as him would make lessons much more entertaining. Like Grady, Corey enjoyed a joke. Unlike Grady, Corey knew that there was a thin line between being funny and being plain immature. Grady crossed that line quite a bit – the morning included. Logan liked Grady really – he was one of his best friends after all – but Maths was already going to be painstaking, without the addition of ‘Grit’.
The morning bell rang shrilly and everyone immediately got up from their seats and started pouring out of the classroom into the corridor as if they wanted to get to class – which was obviously not the case. Well, unless they had turned into total nerds – like Lil, who frankly was a nerd – over the summer. That wasn’t very likely though.
As Logan and Corey walked to their Maths class together, Logan decided that whoever had planned his timetable hated him. B3 was practically on the opposite side of the campus from his form room and since Heather Franklin’s grounds were huge it took them a while. When they finally arrived at their Maths room – after what felt like an hour – Logan asked, “Can I sit by you, Core?”
Corey shrugged nonchalantly. “Sure,” he replied. “As long as we don’t have a seating plan.”
Logan raised an eyebrow as they sat down at a pair of seats near the back – the front was practically reserved for people who actually liked Maths, of whom there were very little – and looked at their new Maths teacher. Logan had never had her before, probably because she was one of those teachers who specifically taught GCSE classes. She was a middle-aged woman with light brown hair which was greying slightly. She looked sort of nice, he guessed.
“Our teacher looks nice enough,” Logan remarked. “And nice teachers don’t do seating plans.”
Corey gave him a doubtful look, but said nothing.
When everyone finally arrived, the teacher clapped her hands together and gave them an excited smile. What there was to be excited about, Logan didn’t know. Teaching a bunch of unruly teenagers was no one’s idea of fun.
“OK, class!” she exclaimed, cheerfully. She had a soft Scottish accent which rang clearly around the spacious room. “My name is Mrs Hull and I’m really excited to be teaching you this year. I don’t think I’ve taught any of you because I only usually teach A-Level students, so I don’t know any of your names. I’ve made a seating plan for the next few weeks just to help me learn who you are.”
Corey shot Logan a pointed, but slightly smug look. “Yeah. Nice teachers don’t do seating plans. Isn’t that right, Logan?” he said, sarcastically, raising an eyebrow.
“She’s not nice!” said Logan, defensively, even though they both knew that Mrs Hull was practically the dictionary definition of a ‘nice teacher’. Not that you would find that phrase in the dictionary or something, seeing as it was so rare. “She’s a total psycho! If she’s excited to be teaching us, then there is something really wrong with her.”
Corey just sighed and stayed silent. At the front Mrs Hull started announcing her seating plan, which was in alphabetic order – since it was the simplest option and the easiest for learning names. “Marie-Rose Coltor, you will sit here,” she said, pointing to a pair of seats right at the front of the room. “And Logan Deverall, you will sit next to her.”
Logan froze as he heard his name being called. Corey gave him a sympathetic look, but no amount of sympathetic looks – not even from Lillian, who was the master of them – would’ve made him feel better. Not only was he right at the front of the room, where he was most likely to get picked on by the teacher and would never be able to sneakily get onto Facebook when he was bored, but he was also next to Marie-Rose.
Marie-Rose Coltor was the very last person he wanted to sit next to – in any lesson, let alone Maths. Not because he hated her – well, he would have to admit that he didn’t exactly like her either – but it was more because she hated him.
Marie-Rose Coltor was the only scholarship student in the entire of Year Eleven. Even though Marie-Rose was pretty and nice and everything, she was a loner. No one ever hung with scholarship students – not even Nobes – unless they wanted to ruin their chances of becoming a Popular. Logan thought that this was completely pointless, since their chances had always been – and always would be – nil.
Scholarship students always came from modest families who couldn’t afford to send their children to any private school – let alone Heather Franklin. They shopped in high street shops and couldn’t afford to blow a hundred thousand pounds on a birthday bash and did other things that separated them from the rest of the student body. Marie-Rose hated the other Nobodies, but she loathed the Populars – and probably had good reason to do so.
Logan reluctantly picked him his shoulder bag and slowly walked over to the seats which Mrs Hull was pointing at. He felt everyone staring at him, wondering how this unlikely – and unlucky – combination would turn out. Marie-Rose looked pale as she robotically slung her Primark tote over her shoulder and sat down next to Logan. She didn’t even look at him. She just kept staring at the blank space in front of her most probably fantasizing about being anywhere other than there.
Logan meanwhile, drummed his fingers on the table – something he did when he felt bored or felt something was turning awkward. Or rather was already awkward. He cursed slightly at his last name. If only he had suddenly taken up his mother’s maiden name – Mason – because then he would be next to Corey instead of here.
“Um... hi,” said Logan, brightly, trying not to sound too much like a freak – which was hard when he was a freak. Maybe Grady was rubbing off on him a little too much. Bad thought.
Marie-Rose ignored him – or rather, pretended that she hadn‘t heard. She kept on staring in front of her, blankly. Logan sighed inwardly. Screw what he had said earlier about Maths lessons being entertaining with Corey around – since, frankly, Corey wasn’t around. Instead, Corey was sat next to Freya Neilson. She was a Nobody, granted, but at least Freya didn’t hate Corey’s guts – in fact, Logan had a feeling that Freya liked Corey just a little too much. Logan couldn’t say the same about him and Marie-Rose.
“Hi,” he lamely tried again.
This time Marie-Rose whipped her head around and looked straight at him, her brown eyes boring into him. Her expression was mixture of irritation, hatred and fear. “Can we not do this bonding thing, please?” she asked. Her voice was soft, but somehow dangerous at the same time. It reminded Logan of Chantelle’s voice when she was tormenting somebody. “I mean, you could get into a lot of trouble for talking to a lowly Nobody like me – not to mention a scholarship student.”
Logan almost choked on his own spit. This must have been the first time Marie-Rose had ever said anything to him since she had come to the school last September – and she didn’t seem too pleased about it, either. “I’m sorry!” he said, taken aback. “I just thought that since we’re going to be sitting next each other three times for the next few weeks, I may as well try to make some conversation.”
Marie-Rose studied him for a second before looking away and saying, “Really? Well, I really do hate to break it to you, but I – unlike the rest of the population of the school, it seems – am not exactly your biggest fan. So just screw the conversation, alright?”
“Shoot the guy for trying to make it less freaking awkward,” snapped Logan, angrily. He had tried to be nice, but obviously going down that route wasn’t making any progress. “It’s your decision. We don’t talk and we sit here in awkward silence for the next few weeks. Or we do talk and try to at least get along.”
Marie-Rose looked back at him, her face crumpled in shock slightly. Logan suddenly felt a twinge of guilt. Snapping at her wasn’t going to do any good. She looked so vulnerable when she looked at him – after all, she was vulnerable. She was a loner in a pretty ruthless school.
To his surprise Marie-Rose suddenly gave a small smile and said, “Well, we’ll talk if you insist. But this doesn’t mean I like you,” she added quickly.
Logan smiled back. “It’s still progress, isn’t it?”
--------------------------------
A/N: So I've done a pretty long update to make up for all the time that I, well, haven't updated. So yeah. I know there hasn't been much on the Nobodies yet but I'll get to that. Just a recap of all the characters we have so far incase you're hopelessly lost:
Year 13:
Populars: Chantelle Radleigh - Head of the Populars
Lillian Deverall - Chantelle's best friend
Leo Reed - Chantelle's other best friend
Melissa Fort - Chantelle's step-sister
Jacob Davies - Melissa's boyfriend
Callum Aston - Lillian's best friend
Sasha Montague - Chantelle's 'clone'
Ellie Hillman - Overdramtic people please
Nobodies: Misty Blake - A Popular-hating Nobody
Danielle Hearnshaw - Her best friend
Year 11:
Populars: Logan Deverall - Lillian's brother
Corey Matthews - His best frined
Grady Itzcoviz - Other best friend
Nobodies: Marie-Rose Coltor - Schlorship student
Wow. Lots of characters. Hope you're not too confused! ~ Laura.x
{Dedication goes to _YouAgain_ Thanks for the beautiful cover, Loey!}