Chapter Two
"Just take a seat at the back there, next to Liliana," my maths teacher instructed, gesturing with a spindly finger and a kind smile towards the back of the room. "And here's a textbook." He looked so old that lifting it up to hand it to me was a tall task.
I'd been hoping that since it was the first lesson of the year everyone would just pick a random seat and have done with it. Everyone, instead, had headed straight for their seats from last year. I got a few stares as I headed to the back.
I approached a red-haired girl at the back of the classroom with a tentative smile. I'd been thoroughly put in my place during ballet practise and I really didn't want a repeat in the classroom. Part of the reason I'd gotten the scholarship is because my grades were up to scratch as well, but I was beginning to doubt myself.
The girl stuck her hand out straight away, a preppy smile covering her flawless face. "Hi, I'm Liliana. Nice to meet you."
It wasn't instant dislike, exactly, but a definite trepidation as I drew parallels between Amber. "Carly," I shook her hand with a firm grip and slid into the seat. "Nice to meet you, too."
"So," Liliana launched into conversation whilst the rest of the students filtered in. "I know this is the first academic lesson, but I heard you guys already had your first ballet lesson."
"Ah, yeah." We slept in dorms of six. She'd probably already heard about the embarrassing new girl's failed dancing. I, of course, shared a dorm room with Amber. Luckily, our beds were on opposite ends. I could have kissed my noise-cancelling headphones with me, otherwise I'd have probably gone insane from listening to so much bitching.
"So, you met Amber? I don't mean to sound judgemental, but I'm really counting on you despising her as much as I do." Liliana chuckled when my eyebrows shot up. Maybe it was the rivalry between two perfect people like happened in the movies. Either way, I was quite happy to insult Amber until the cows came home. Hypocritical, I knew.
"Unfortunately yes, the radgie bitch is in my dorm room, would you believe it?"
Liliana blinked. "I'm so sorry, what does radgie mean?"
My cheeks burned. This was going to be an ongoing issue, I could tell. "It just means she's a proper bitch. Let's just say I'm seriously unimpressed by her."
"Right." I was sure she was saying the word over and over again, committing it to memory. "And in your dorm room? That is unfortunate."
"Tell me about it. At least she's a good girl so I don't have to put up with her whining and gossiping too late into the night."
Liliana gave a tinkly laugh. "I had to share with her a few years ago. Torturous would be too tame. That was before we were sixteen, too, so there were no phones or music players or anything like that allowed. I had to get my mam to send me some ear plugs."
I found myself leaning back in my chair and grinning with her. At least we had something in common. "So, what are the teachers and stuff like? Am I going to be drowning in homework after a couple of days?"
"They're actually not too bad. I know only about half of the people here do ballet, but it is really their main priority, so they try not to completely swarm us in extra work. It is a blessing for people like me. Now I have a bit of freedom in the evenings."
"Oh, cool." That was a welcome relief. "Are we likely to be in the same classes for much stuff?" It was an exclusive school and therefore there weren't a lot of people in the year. Only eighty students at the most and so it boiled down to one or two classes per subject.
"Oh, sure! We can compare timetables." She dragged hers out and I saw we'd picked nearly none of the same things. "Oh, you're a humanities girl. We probably won't be together much then."
Even Liliana's timetable looked too technical for me. "Gah, that looks horrendous." The thought of having computer science, physics and chemistry in the same day sent my head spinning. "We do have politics together, though." Liliana might have said she had more time free in the evenings, but she was doing five subjects compared to the recommended three. I doubted she did much more than work.
"Politics is my one true love, no matter how much I'm normally into the scientific things. I assume you were studying it last year as well? Have you just carried over your subjects to this school?"
"Not exactly. In normal school we only had to do three or four subjects. Here you guys keep doing maths and English, which is just a bit weird to me."
"Oh, yes, of course, I forgot our teachers had said that. Universities love it, though. It definitely keeps us ahead of the pack." The fact I was no longer one of the pack was a bit disconcerting. "So, why politics? Are you very interested in the subject?"
Admitting I'd taken it because I didn't know what else to do and the only thing I really cared about was ballet might put her about a bit. "Yeah, I like it. Interesting stuff. Knowing what's actually going on in the country is pretty cool. I like being able to point out the things all the moron journalists are saying wrong."
"We do that in the Friday afternoon lesson for the last half an hour." She chuckled and pulled out a box of clippings. "We'll be doing it for articles over the entire summer next lesson, so you can have some of my clippings if you want. There are some crackers in there."
I took the box from her before quickly shoving it under the table when our teacher cleared his throat. The entire room fell quiet instantly. As if people actually listened to their teachers here? This guy would have been ripped to shreds at my old school.
When I chuckled at one of the blatantly false statements in the box, even Liliana frowned a bit. I held back a sigh.
At the end of the lesson, Liliana offered. "You should come and hang out with me and my friends at the end of the day. You're cool, they would like you. I like you."
It was something akin to relief that settled over my stomach. A friend? Far more than I'd ever expected after yesterday's episode. Liliana was probably the stark opposite to my friends back home, but that didn't matter. We seemed to get along well enough for now.
"I'd really like to, but I have a private ballet lesson thing later today. My dancing was so horrific that they've given me a tutor."
Liliana chuckled. "I'm sure it wasn't that bad, they're just perfectionists here." Liliana didn't strike me as someone approved of sloppiness. "I don't know a lot of the ballet staff, but who have you got? I might be able to provide some insight."
"Mr. Langley. I don't know his first name."
"Oh, you have Ethan," Liliana's eyes brightened. "So lucky. I might start ballet so he has to bring me up to speed, too."
I beamed. "Yeah, I'm already feeling a bit tingly. I think my posture is going to be particularly bad this lesson. A nice feel to the thigh to correct it and it'll make up for all Amber's bitchy comments."
Her eyes danced. "Well, I am sure you will have much more fun with him than with me, anyway." She paused when we exited the classroom, looking both ways before pulling her phone out. They were forbidden during the teaching hours. "Give me your number and we can work out some other time to chill."
I typed it in expertly quick and handed it back. "That'd be cool."
"Well, I have to dash, but I will talk to you later. Have fun with your private lessons!"
Bursting the bubble by explaining that Mr. Langley was utterly appalled by the idea of these sessions really didn't seem worth it.