FicWad

1. SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY
I hated how my mother moved us everywhere.
So far we had lived in three different states of the USA. Nineteen different homes since I was eleven, which has got to be a world record, all of our moves were over a period of five years, five years of which has left my education severely and brutally fragmented.
I was barely surviving as my ‘average-grade’ student profile; the references get worse and worse. I mean, the principal at my last school didn’t even know that I had been enrolled and wasn’t at all phased that I was leaving.
Man oh Man did that one make me feel loved. But then again, what was I meant to expect from and alcoholic, divorcee, potentially-suicidal, High School headmaster that most probably hated that school more than even I did; I mean c’mon, there was no variation in the species that I had to involve myself in for the last almost four months.
I was there for half of the semester and still couldn’t wait to leave. Looking back at it now, I hoped that this place would bring more smiles than the last, even if I had to force myself.
We moved so often, that I started playing this game. Now, I did it just out of habit. I would pretend to be someone I wasn’t for three and a half months before the next move.
It gets me a valuable insight to how humans work, how the shallow cretins that I was institutionalized with for education’s sake lived alongside me, Whether, I was an overwhelmingly high status personal, or, a working class poor kid that didn’t have a Daddy.
I have a whole notebook of documentary type notes, one thing I knew for certain was that my schooling as never going to help me out in the future, so I taught myself the fundamentals of what I believed were important in life. Who needed book smarts when you had my kind of smarts; street smarts.
Surviving life in the twenty first century should be a qualification.
My notebook was like an encyclopaedia of personalities.
I was an analyzer. I liked to know who I was dealing with and what to expect from them. If I wanted to do anything after school it would be to go to college and study human psychology.
I am Zillah Norman; Born on a Wednesday night to a single mother on the unemployment benefit in a public hospital on the 12th of December 1992 somewhere in the Pacific region of planet Earth, a large island called Australia, not too long after was I shipped to the USA where I have been ever since.
Now tell me about yourself?
I don’t know who my dad is, I have never met him or talked to him or seen him even seen a photo of him, but I know that every birthday the lump sum in my savings rises healthily and my mother has never needed a job, her salary came in the form of a six digit child support cheque every month.
My mother… tut-tut, what a touchy subject.
She is a mentally unstable woman that needs someone in her life to keep her light-headedness and her airy fairy ways securely bolted to the floor. To me she seemed extremely selfish, sure she gave me almost everything I could ever want material wise—but she missed the concept of growing up normal, you know with all the trimmings like; friends, family, childhood memories, a dad etc.
It was all I ever wanted to do and here I am... not doing it.
Normal is the opposite direction to where I’m heading.
Where was I heading exactly? Well the last time I checked which was five seconds ago and felt like a million hours, we had just crossed into the… I don’t even know what to classify this place as, it wasn’t a city. Chicago was a city, it wasn’t a town, Donnybrook was a town, and it wasn’t a village… or was it?
It was Barrington.
Simple
To me, it looked like nothing but red brick houses and sculptured hedges.
A nice enough little place but, it was just like every other place I had lived. The roads were packed full of SUVs that were driven by high class business men; their wives waiting at home on their every beck and call.
We stopped at a red light and I looked at the sky. When we arrived at Chicago airport this morning at 10am and I was having McDonalds for breakfast, the sun was shining in the sky and the clouds were merely vapours of what the day might turn into.
I don’t even know how many hours later, the wipers on our small little car were flying by like bees wings. The rain made this town look sad, depressing, gloomy, miserable, unhappy, dull and loserish. I didn’t want to be here; just like I didn’t want to be anywhere my mother chose to live that had the potential to make her ever want to move again—because if I wanted to move, she generally had the same idea.
Three and a half months Z, you’ll be out of here soon.
I just hoped the house we were moving into was better than this copy-cat, street-side, garden-club crap that I was looking at through the fat sky tears that were making me sad.
“Can we turn around and go back to Chicago? I don’t like it here already.” I mumbled to myself.
The light turned green finally and we turned left into one of the neatest streets of houses I have ever had the misfortune of coming upon.
Even the rain fell in a designated ground-absorption placement pattern on the road! I didn’t like it. The organization of nature made me queasy, like synthetic wool, it should never be that way.
I spied a house a hundred meters away, it was the only one that the lights weren’t on and it made my heart plummet. Talk about conformity. The houses in this street all had the painted red brick look, combed lawn, brushed pavement, clean window look about them.
The house that I picked out drew closer and closer… and even closer. I just had a feeling that this house would be top of my ‘Houses to burn down when I finally get a life away from Karen’ list.
I wanted to throw up when I saw the hedges… dolphins.
I wanted to slit my wrists when I saw the neighbours… because that was it, I could see the neighbours. Not even a two foot fence divided us… gulp …from them.
Cue the Jaws music.
Our roofs were even connected by a beam that wired our satellites together. At least the neighbours will burn down too, I thought maliciously.
The driveway was a smooth pavement that lead up to a neat garage door, shockingly enough it was a replicate of the other eleven houses we had passed on our slow crawl down this road.
Kill me now in the most painful way possible.
She turned the car ignition off and we both sat there for a moment inside our dry cramped car. I didn’t want to get in that house…ever!!!
She just didn’t want to get wet from the rain.
I knew that we had bought the house pre-furnished. When you have to move as many times as us, there is no point in packing your house up and shifting it across the state line to un-pack it and then re-pack it again in three months time. It just wasn’t sensible.
I had my two suitcases full of clothes, my laptop and my notebook.
That’s all I needed. I never had anything of any sentimental value so I never had to worry about things like that. Like ever breaking the delicate china doll that my great grandmother had passed down through the generations, or a special canvas painting or a tea set or anything stupid and pointless like that that people struggle to protect whenever they re-locate themselves.
My mother sighed.
If it’s not obvious to you, my blind readers, my mother and I do not have a very sweet relationship. Despite me being an only child, her being the only parent and the amount of time that we spend together (more that we are forced together due to the extremely long periods in a confined vehicle at frequent intervals throughout the year when we are moving) we just don’t seem to click together as people. She told me that I was just like her father—stubborn and determined. Don’t get me wrong, I think I love Karen, I just don’t like her.
Oh goodness believe me she can't stand the distance I put between us, she tries to be the best mother in the world. But then she freaks out…
That’s when the realty lady starts preying on our house and before it’s even sold we’ve moved out and caught a plane to some distant new home somewhere in another state.
“Honey, we’re home.” She smiled at her pathetic attempt at a joke, I rolled my eyes.
“Ooh come on darling,” she turned to me in her seat and took off her glasses. She had these wire frame glasses that she wears day in day out. Her eyes were this watery blue colour and her hair was wavy blond; the picture perfect house wife; picture perfect Karen Norman.
We looked nothing alike. I did have blue eyes, but they were wider than hers, and almost black hair that was never delicate and wavy, it was always ringlets and curls and out of control.
“I suppose I can live with it right? We’ll be out of here before I’m seventeen anyways… that gives you—” I counted on my fingers “—just under four months to find us a new place to live. I can hate this place until then.”
Her shoulders slumped and she put her glasses back on, that’s what she gets for even attempting.
“We’ll see” Was her quiet answer.
She loved me so much. But I couldn’t stand it, I’d rather she hated me and had me locked up at home where there was a garage full of toys that had been collected over the years of living in the one family home, I’d rather I was forced to spend every waking moment with grandparents that smelled like cabbage, I’d rather that my dad forced me to wear ankle length dresses and shirts with sleeves until I was twenty one…
But unfortunately I had everything but that secure family home and weird smelling grandparents and strict father. All I had was a million and one reasons to want to switch my life with anyone of the people that I’ve met in my travels and bothered to log them into my notebook.
The rain had lightened to barely a falling mist. So I jumped out of the car and pulled all of our bags out while she opened up the house.
I stopped on the doorstep under a small awning and looked in the door before entering.
The light was switched on and the first thing I hated was the carpet.
Champaign Crème pukes.
I walked in and closed the door. The house was pale but with a warm gold tinge from the crystal chandeliers, there was a mahogany staircase that sat quite perfectly in the centre of the entrance and two neat plants at either side in blue ceramic pots.
I wandered upstairs, not bothering to check out the living room, kitchen, dining room or any of the other rooms in this ridiculously immaculate house which was far too big for only two people.
Karen loved the houses that looked like they were conformed into their neighbourhood. If we were even next to a slightly ostentatious house she would want to move again. It was a wonder she had anywhere left to move to, it wasn’t like there were many Barrington’s left in the world, she’d soon have us living repeated lives if she wanted to move too much more.
This house was the biggest of them all so far at least. Maybe I’d play popular and have a house party… oh how much I would enjoy disrupting the delicately balanced scales that this neighbourhood seemed to be sitting on.
Two bedrooms: double beds, wide windows, champagne crème carpet and walls. Two bathrooms: white tiles, frosted windows and glass shower, huge mirror surrounded by vanity lights. I was just beginning a prayer to God that this house had a spidery basement where the dust population won over the mites, when I saw the attic entrance.
Neatly disguised to blend in with the ceiling, the outlined square above my head seemed to lure me in. I reached up, having to tiptoe and pulled the delicate chain that hung like a stalactite thirty centimetres from the centre of the attic door.
The stairs creaked down and opened up to the space in the roof. I smiled to myself and set the folding stairs securely to the floor before I climbed up into the roof, tentatively, secretly hoping to find a rotting body.
I liked what I saw! Unfortunately there was no foul smell of decay, or any evidence that there had been a murder, I found the light cord and pulled. Miraculously, a flickering warm yellow glow filled the dusty space. The roof rafters met at a beam running down the centre and made it physically possible to walk around comfortably without having to subject myself to hunching like Quasimodo. There was no hideous ‘vomit-material’ off white carpet; instead, the dark chocolate floorboards were visible at the edges of an ancient moth eaten woven mat from back in the 1800s or something close.
I loved it more and more with every breath that I breathed in the clouded dusty air!
The walls were wooden panels, the front wall being a huge domed window. I would put my bed right there. I made a rectangle with my hands and smiled at my ingeniousness. I walked open to the window and pulled the torn-in-places sheet that was casually pulled over to hide the glass. The afternoon sun over-powered any light supplied from the erratic surges of brightness from the single bulb that hung from the middle of the roof. I opened the crusted-shut window and let a warm breeze roll in.
Moving into pre-furnished houses did have another downside. The previous occupants left whatever they couldn’t bear to throw out yet couldn’t bother to take with them, behind so that the next owners can deal with them.
It was no surprise that there was a stack of sheet covered mysteries in the corner. I walked over slowly, watching the dust roll up around my feet with each tentative step I took.
There was a hidden figure beneath a pale sheet, towering over me, I felt like I was in forbidden territory standing in front of it and deciding whether I should uncloak the build beneath. Slowly, I yanked at the corner of the sheet and let it fall into a heap at my feet. I gasped.
A black marble statue stared down at me. The face and eyes of a wolf head and the claws on the hand of a man gripped a staff carved out of what seemed to me as gold. I tried to avoid the blank stare of its eyes. It was dressed in a black and gold cape that was cold to the touch.
How long had this been up here? It was amazing.
I felt like I had disturbed the resting place of a god. I bent down, not knowing if I was bowing or not, to pick up the sheet from the floor. I reached up high and draped it over the statue’s head, hiding it from view once again.
I smiled, I loved secrets, and here at least I would have a place all to myself, a place where I could be myself, if I still knew who that was.
*
“You are the strangest kid on the planet.” She [mother Karen] commented later that night when I had some how (super-humanly in fact) hauled one of the beds up into the attic.
And a chest of drawers.
And a desk.
And a pot plant just in case I needed oxygen up there in the thin atmosphere of the attic.
And a couch; it was an old chesterfield from in the ‘office’ where I also borrowed my desk from.
Man I was strong.
“Why thank you.” Actually she helped me get it all up there and didn’t complain when I took the desk, what a good mother.
“Okay, now what?” I asked her.
“Dinner?” she suggested.
I nodded, and it felt as if my tummy was trying to nod too. I hadn’t realised how draining moving furniture could be.
Unfortunately I hadn’t realised that I had been going non stop since I had walked in the door. My bedroom didn’t even have any afternoon light flooding it anymore, just an eerie silver glow traced on my floor by the moon’s light through my curtain-less window.
Learn the ways of the gypsy folk young grass hopper, tonight, we find some family restaurant to eat at and tomorrow morning I’d pray for the sky to rain pop tarts and take money to school and hope the cafeteria food isn’t cardboard.
We ended up outside your common ol’ pizza bar—Barrington Style.
It was a red brick building (shock horror bet you didn’t expect that one) with an Italian flag, or was it Spanish? Or French? A little voice in my head told red, yellow, and black was Spain, so I trusted the little voice and promised him that I would let him sleep tonight.
There was a banner of almost every flag in the world chopped up in segments and made into one massive pizza and it was pinned to the roof. Now that was stylish! I smiled at the pizza flag and followed Karen through the restaurant.
“I think I like this place.” I mumbled as we moved forward to the counter.
It wasn’t that crowded. I suppose Sunday night wouldn’t have a place like this packed to the rafters. It seemed more like a colourful place to come and appreciate life with your friends.
We took our seats at a comfy booth and I buried my head in the menu.
Hmmm… cheesy, meaty, veggie, chicken or nachos?
Sometimes the choices in life were just so darn hard, like what colour underwear to pull out of your drawer that morning, so I settled for the apricot chicken and Karen chose a predictable-Karen meal of Veggie. We waited in an awkward silence for the waiter, I flipped my place mat over and started to do the word search on the back with the little pencil in the jar in the middle of the table.
There was soft music in the background of the restaurant. I completed my word search and looked around; there was an old couple in the booth on the opposite side of the room, slowly cutting down the hugest plate of nachos I had seen in my life. Then there was a family of six devouring three pizzas next to us; four young boys, a dad and a sour faced mother.
And then there was some random person, asleep in the centre booth with one of his knees up and his elbow over his eyes.
“I need to go to the girlies room Honey, order for us will you?”
Karen made eye contact with someone at the counter and smiled, and then she got up and walked over to the counter again. My mother was the easiest customer ever. She never complained, wanted a refund, or asked for anything other than what she ordered. So that’s why she strategically went to the bathroom and let me do it.
A moment later a friendly looking plump woman in an apron bustled around. Her hair was streaked with silver and in a loose bun on the top of her head.
“So very sorry, my son is lazy; I have no idea where he’s hiding.” Her voice was heavily accented with Spanish when she spoke. She pulled a little note pad and a pen from her apron pocket.
I made a little cough into my fist and pointed to the sleeper in booth six
.
She sighed and tutted disapprovingly.
“Very sorry Miss, one moment please.” She turned around to the other booth and whacked the kid on the head with the note pad.
“levántese usted chico perezoso, se levanta o yo le tendré trabaja aquí hasta que usted sea treinta!” she shrieked in rapid Spanish and threw the paper at him then slapped him on the head.
“Geez Ma!” he sat up and rubbed his head and watched after her as she bustled back to the kitchen after smiling warmly at me. “very lazy, like his brothers...” she muttered.
I snorted.
He looked over at my table and frowned. Then he so obviously reluctantly lifted himself from the seat that I almost felt bad for the guy.
Not—Borat style.
“Good evening and welcome to Saporta Spanish Style Pizza Palace. What would you like?” he spoke in such a monotone drone like voice that I almost fell asleep.
He stared at me funnily while I said the orders, funnily as in ‘I cant believe you told on me’ not funnily as in ‘ ha! You have green hair ‘.
“Sorry, did I wake you?” I asked, annoyed with his staring, and his potential thought pattern.
“Actually, you didn’t. I was only resting.” He replied in sarcasm with a sick, fake smile on his face.
He dropped the smile immediately and turned wrote on his paper, “Any thing else ma’am?”
“Yes please. A cola if you don’t mind.”
He kept staring.
“And a flat white latté,” I said glancing at the drinks list.
“So that is one pizza, half veggie, half BBQ chicken and a cola… and a flat white?” he looked up form his list and stared at me with his dark almond shaped eyes.
“No... that was apricot chicken not BBQ thanks.” I said in my politest voice, not flinching my baby blues.
He sighed heavily and dramatically. “Sorry.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to speak up. “Are you always nasty when you wake up?”
He rolled his eyes, “I dunno, you tell me. Are you always this annoying when you go out to dinner?”
A challenge? I smiled. “I don’t know, you tell me.”
“Yes.”
“I appreciate it.” He smirked.
“I bet.”
“¡Gabriel! ¡Pare coquetear con la chica bonita y consiga esa orden arriba aquí ahora antes que yo le abofetee otra vez!” His mother yelled at him from the kitchen. No one else in the restaurant seemed to notice much that there was a screaming Spanish woman in the building; they must all be locals I thought.
He flushed a delicate pink under his golden skin and stormed off to the kitchen. I looked around the booth and saw the woman slap him again over the head.
I chuckled to myself quietly and Karen looked at me funny when she came back from the bathroom.
The food was delivered on the classic wooden Pizza shovel and it was divine!
The Apricot was so nicely sweet and savoury at the same time that the flavours just erupted in my mouth. I saw Karen’s eyes pop as well when she took a bite.
Karen finished before me and went to go pay.
I devoured my pizza and cola and let out a burp that no one heard because they had all diffused from the restaurant, while Karen and I took our sweet time enjoying the delicious food.
“Charming.” He commented, popping up from behind my seat.
I got a fright.
Had he been sleeping in the booth behind us? What a creep.
“Catching up on beauty sleep?”
“Trying to.”
“Don’t let Mother catch you. I really would hate for you to have to work here until you are thirty,”
He looked surprised. “You know Spanish?”
I nodded, “parts.”
“So are you just passing through or a newbie?” he asked, hanging one elbow over the top of the seat.
I wiped my hand and put it out to shake his. “I’m Zillah, new Barrington Resident. Pleased to meet you... uh?”
He nodded and smiled, “I’m Gabriel or just Gabe poor you,. This is my family’s restaurant.”
I nodded and scanned the room again.
“It’s nice.”
“So, are you going to school here or what?”
I nodded… again.
He nodded too.
Then we were both awkwardly silent. I had almost made a friend in my first twelve hours in this pathetic town! Yay me! Self Hi-five
There was quiet chatter coming down the aisle and Gabe leapt up and started cleaning up the dishes before his mother saw him slacking off again.
The old woman came down the aisle followed by Karen who was chatting away politely about how sweet Barrington seemed and how wonderful her vegetarian pizza was. The old woman was smiling warmly. She shot Gabe a stern look and he looked to the ground, avoiding her threatening glare.
As we got up to leave, Gabe, gave a ‘see you at school’ nod. I smiled and left the restaurant with my mother and we drove home in silence.

 
2. REMEMBERING MONDAY

Today of all the days of my life, I actually wanted to get out of bed.
It was almost six in the morning when the sunlight filtered through the window and flooded my room with crisp morning brightness.
I must have been on some form of drug hat prevented me from being a normal sixteen year old kid because this was not a normal hour to be waking up.
Looking out the window I saw that the rain from the previous day had completely gone, there was not a drop to be seen falling from the sky. The sun had just risen and the birds were singing. I dressed in some shorts and a singlet and put on my running shoes.
I pulled my iPod from my backpack and plugged my ears up.
Mother Karen was in the shower when I emerged from my roof top sleeping quarters.
If I wasn’t careful I would probably end up like her… this early morning charade me made me queasy.
I stepped out the front door and breathed in the surprisingly warm morning breeze. It was still crisp and had the smell of spring with it, but it was light and summer was in the air.
I started running down the road. The music beat was in rhythm with my footsteps on the asphalt.
There was literally the same house copied and pasted constantly for nearly the whole street. It was only about a mile long, curving into a park at the end of the street. I ran around the footpath that made up the perimeter around the park. There were the classic oak trees scattered through the park, the playground for the wee ones, and the baseball diamond in the far north of the field. I watched my surroundings as I ran and I noticed that I wasn’t the only early morning jogger. There was a freakishly old man with a backpack who looked like he did nothing but run. Three people with dogs and a trio of joggers stretching in the diamond.
I stopped to stretch underneath a lamp pole myself before I started home again. I only walked, thinking about what had just run through my head.
Home?
Never had I called anywhere home. I like to say ‘the house’ or ‘my place’ never home... it was too heart felt, but I did kind of like it here. There was good food and my room was cool; my own little sanctuary in this town that had been plucked straight from ‘Stepford Wives’.
A woman with a dog briskly walked past me and smiled nicely I smiled back and took off jogging again.
Almost half way back my iPod died from a low battery. I stop and pull it out of my ear, while I’m winding the wire around the console. I decide to walk the rest of the way and scope out the neighbourhood.
The apple green grass on all of the lawns sparkled with the light reflecting from the dew drops.
“Zillah!”
I spun on my heel quickly.
Three guys were jogging behind me, the tallest of the trio had his hands cupped around his lips and he called my name again.
It was restaurant boy.
I smiled and waved. He and his friends ran up.
“So you live around here?” his voice was incredulous, and one of his friends snorted.
I ignored the snide.
“As a matter of fact I do. Do you?” I mocked his sceptical tone.
He nodded and pointed to the house directly across from mine.
MY eyes popped. I didn’t have a curtain up when I was getting dressed this morning! Oh joy this was going to be a fun three months…
“And so do these guys.” He motioned to his wing men.
“Shaant Hacikyan” the boy on the left put his hand out.
“Zillah Norman.” I shook his hand and when he smiled his green tinged hazel eyes smiled too. He was not quite as tall as Gabe, He had soft, wavy brown hair that hung over his eyes slightly so that he had to keep tossing his hair out of the way, and he was cute!
The same went for the other one.
He had olive skin, he was fairly shorter than the other two but he was till taller than me. Which was nice because I could see his face easier.
“I’m Alex DeLeon, I believe that you are my next door neighbour, my mother was talking about the two she saw last night move in next door to us.”
I smiled widely and shook his hand too.
So much for this street being a retirement Village, there was more youth next door than there was in elixir of life.
The boys walked me home, and Gabe said that they’d knock on my door when they were ready to go to school. Apparently there was only four of us that actually got up in the morning, but there were about three others that all met up at the bus stop.
Seven kids around my age on the one street. This was legendary history in the making.
I re-entered the house to the smell of pancakes. Not quite pop tarts but I’d take it any day over a cafeteria brunch.
I showered and dressed again.
Mother Karen was at the table with the paper and a coffee in her robe. A stack of food was set for me and I tucked in.
“How’d you make the pancakes appear?” I asked between bites. I was dreading the noises my tummy would have been making all morning until I could get my hands on some food. I mean we even had maple syrup for goodness sake!
“Did you get a good scope of the neighbourhood sweetie?” ignoring my jibe.
I clenched my teeth. I could handle, Honey and Darling… But sweetie? pukes.
“Uh… yeah, sure… Mommy.”
She made a face, “sorry Zillah.” It was a strange for her as it was for me.
I nodded. It was what I did. I barely spoke and I nodded.
“Did you meet anyone on your jog?”
I nodded, “The Pizza place family lives across the street, and a guy called Alex lives just there.” I pointed through the kitchen window to his house… that I could see into through his kitchen window. I shuddered.
It was so unnerving living so close to people. I mean sure, I had lived in an apartment and a flat and a few other houses, but there was more than a wall dividing the space between the windows in places like that. This was just down right strange and I was complimenting my bedroom choice for like the millionth time because of it.
Karen looked like she still had something to say. She always looked like that when I showed that I was actually listening to her or that I was willing to converse.
There were so many hidden agendas with my mother that I barely knew who she was as a person. All I knew is that for no decent reason that she could explain, we moved ridiculous amounts of places I impossible amounts of time and never once did she ask me if I wanted to.
I didn’t know any grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles.
It was me and Karen; it had been my entire life.
There was an awkward silence where I got myself a drink of water from the tap and stared out the kitchen window, right into Alex’s.
I scanned over the three faces in my head, they were all incredibly gorgeous. Maybe this town was more like Stepford Wives then I thought.
I couldn’t imagine Gabriel as a robot though.
I gazed off in space for a long time, humming to myself the song that I didn’t get to finish hearing before my iPod died this morning,
Something in my line of vision distracted me. It was Alex, he was in his kitchen window as well, waving to me.
“I think we should plant some hedges, and some trees, or build a fence.” I said sipping on my water; ignoring the distracting neighbours.
“I thought that too. This whole street is very open.” At least the woman wasn’t completely mad.
At eight fifteen, the doorbell rang. It chimed a huge deep bell sound right through the whole house. I bet it probably knocked dead spiders from their sill in my attic.
“Thanks for the pancakes.”
“Have a nice day Honey.” Her watery blue eyes smiled warmly at me.
I headed to the front door. I knew she cared about me. But sometimes it was too much effort to care back.
I opened the door to Gabriel and Alex.
“Are you ready?” Gabe asked stepping back so that I could leave the doorstep.
“I think so. What do you think I’ll need?”
He shrugged.
“Depends what kind of student you are.” Alex said.
“Zed grade. I fail everything.”
They both snorted.
“You’ll fit right in at Barrington High then wont you?”
Shaant lived two doors down from Gabe, I started to worry that my road facing window might expose me to these guys more than one morning when I was getting changed… note to self—don’t ever get changed by the window again.
Shaant was all energy when the walking bus picked him up. Then the four of us walked down to the end of the road where there was a neat little bus shelter. Three girls sat under the roof chatting carelessly about some nonsense when we arrived.
Gabe introduced me.
“Girls, meet Zillah. Zillah, meet the girls Sharlot, Cass and Hayley.”
Sharlot was the timid looking one in the middle with dark hair and cute freckles. She had the coolest pair of skinny jeans I had ever seen in my life.
Think paint ball on white denim.
“Holy crap I love your jeans!”
She smiled, “thanks, I designed the pattern myself.”
Cass—which I learned later was short for Cassadee, had straight hair that framed her small little pale face. Her hair had so many different coloured streaks in it, and Hayley had the most intensely red hair possible to get from a bottle.
They all seemed like a pretty chilled out crew, and I almost slotted in perfectly. They all talked amongst themselves while we waited for the bus to come.
I fingered my bus ticket; it was the only piece of mail that I had received before we moved. We had to buy it over the internet so that it would arrive in time before we left that address.
We usually just have a post office box that Karen empties twice a month, but since we had moved states form Arizona to Illinois, we didn’t have any postage here just yet. I think the only thing Karen looked out for was her monthly check, and I only looked out for something that would save me, and a birthday card.
It was strange how he knew where to send them...
“Don’t stress too much, Barrington High is just like every other school on the planet.” Alex whispered in my ear. He had broken from his little trio to come and talk to me.
“I’m not stressing. I’m just deciding something.”
I was. I was deciding who I wanted to be this time. Did I tell them that my father was an astronaut and that I was going to die in eight months from some strange disease that my brain surgeon mother is currently trying to find a cure for?
No, that one would be too hard considering the proximity of the neighbours, in a neighbourhood like this people would talk, and Karen would kill off my ridiculous story in a second. Then I’d be left up shit creek.
It had to be me, what could I be?
I could be a nerd… I could hang out at the library at Barrington High everyday and have the Librarian be the only on in school that knew my name. Or I could be one of the skater chicks that people thought was cool secretly but they didn’t say anything in case they were the only ones that thought that , or I could be one of those rock star girls that listened to death metal and ACDC, I could have an excuse to ignore anyone that talked to me as long as I had my headphones in my ears.
Give it a day Zillah. One days grace of not knowing then snap into character tomorrow morning.
Good plan.
“Deciding what?” he tilted his head to the side and turned me inside out with the silver grey of his eyes.
“What I should have for lunch.” I made up quickly.
He laughed. “Gabe told me that you ate half a pizza last night, its no surprise you have food on your mind.”
“So Gabe talked about me huh?” I looked over to the tall Spaniard and smiled.
To think I thought he was annoying.
“Yeah, when we were running this morning and then BOOM we cross the road and there you were just standing there.”
“Boom!? That’s me.”
He studied me. I can't tell you what it was like to be studied by Alex, but there was something about his eyes that made me not mind too much. He had honest eyes… they betrayed a few of his thoughts.
He didn’t know what to make of me… weather get close or extend the distance.
“So what’s you’re story Zillah?”
“My story?” I rose my eyebrows.
“Yeah, your story. Where you come from, where you’ve been, why’d you leave and why’d you choose Barrington? You know…Your story.” He leaned against the back of the shelter and I kicked the grass with my old sneakers.
“I don’t have a story.”
“Everyone has a story.”
“Not me.”
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
I sighed. Keen much?
“I suppose my story is just like anyone’s. I came from Arizona because our time there was up; I came here because that’s where my finger landed when I spun the wheel.”
It was my euphemism of saying; I don’t know why the hell I’m here.
He nodded slowly.
“You’re from Arizona huh? I have cousins there. How long were you there?”
I sighed. My one day of grace was being used up before I could set my story straight.
“About four months.”
“That would explain how you have no accent.”
I nodded, “surely will.” In an attempt at the southern drawl.
He studied me again. I wanted to know what he was thinking. For once I was the one being studied by someone else, I wonder if he was as weird as me and wrote his thoughts down in a notebook later. I wasn’t noting anything about his character in my mind. I wasn’t even considering it until now.
There’s an idea Zillah, keep your mouth shut until you know these people better.
“So what’s your story? I told you mine, now deliver the goods.”
He laughed. “Alright, sheesh, pushy.” He squinted and made a face for his remembering, I laughed.
“Okay, well… ever since I can remember… I’ve lived on this street… in that house, the end.”
I rolled my eyes. “Amazing story you know, you have a way with words, you should publish that one, instant best seller.”
He laughed at my summary. “Why thank you—Coming soon to a bookstore near you.” He did this weird little kung fu kick.
“Man, what the hell are you doing?” Gabriel slapped him over the back of the head.
“Advertising.” I answered.
Alex and I both laughed and Gabe gave me a strange look.
“Right… well in case you forgot, there’s that band coming to play at the palace next week and we’re opening.”
Alex’s eyes popped.
“Dude! I totally forgot! Shit!” he kicked a branch into the bush. “I can't get there; my mom and dad have their stupid ball room dancing classes on Monday nights.”
“Well, you have a week to sort your shit out could you catch a ride? I would take you but I’m working that night until the gig.”
“sssssssssshhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttt.” He hissed as Gabe walked back to his previous spot
“What gig?” I asked.
“Oh, these guys from Chicago are stopping on their way through and Gabe emailed them if they wanted to do a small show at the Palace, check out the local talent etc. and now I can't make it and Gabe and the guys are going to hate me forever.”
“Chill, Alex. I’ll borrow my Moms car and I’ll take you. Don’t fret.”
“Serious?”
“Just as long as I get a decent seat I’m in.”
He leapt like a bunny and almost crushed my ribs in his bear hug.
“I fricken love you Zillah.”
“A little less love would be real nice right about now.” I choked out into his shirt where my face was being squished up.
“Sorry, but thanks. Thanks forever, I promise I’ll pay you back for this.”
I smiled; I think I knew who I wanted to be this time round. Considering how cool all of these guys were right away, I was going to take a crack at being a cool kid myself. But only if that meant being myself. To be honest, I was sick of pretending, these guys liked me for me so far, why change?
I was kind of looking forward to being normal, being able to hang with the people that I thought were cool. Which were usually the indie kids that had ripped jeans and guitars.
Besides, Alex smelt really good, and he was definitely a cool guy.
 
3. LIFE IN THE FACILITY

I was quite surprised when I finally showed up at Barrington High and the whole little group diffused to their own corners of the school.
Alex, Gabe, Sharlot, Cass, Hayley, and Shaant were all pretty much categorized along with the entire population at Barrington High. Alex and Gabe rolled over to their place with the Jocks. Shaant and Hayley were hailed at the skater table under the oak tree. Cass and Sharlot went and sat next to a strawberry blonde haired guy by the library. I know it was strawberry blond, NOT ginger. There are a very obvious differences people, having a strawberry blond haired friend at my last school
It was hard for me being the new kid and all I had to talk to was them, but I couldn’t talk to any one once the bell rang and they all started being different to what I saw them as when I first showed up.
Maybe it was just me or was I totally wearing the wrong thing. It seemed that short skirts and tights underneath was the style of the girls at Barrington; I did distance myself quite well with my flower power skirt and headband.
There were your four main cliques at Barrington High School. These are all in order of ranking as well.
1. Jocks: all muscled up on steroids, wearing their varsity football jackets and sporting a cheerleader on their elbow in the cafeteria. Not one of them seemed to be particularly interesting or interested in school. They were like the jocks you see in movies, the same breed that was at every other high school across the state. Except the jocks at this school were the basketball kind.
A very close second place to the jocks was…. Drum roll please…
2. All-State Cheerleaders: every school has their token blond cheer captain bitch. Queen of the sideline and the pom-poms, allegedly daddy’s little girl that he didn’t know got shit faced at the last six of her school basketball captain boyfriend’s house parties.
I wanted to puke at how cliché the whole makeup of this school was. Third place was no surprise.
3. The Skaters and the surfers: actually one in the same. All very well aware of where to find their centre of balance and what the dictionary meaning of ‘Ollie Three-sixty Barrel roll double spin off a ramp landing’ was. Also. Probably knew the best place to party in the whole district, and the best people to party with too.
Only in fourth place because of the stereotype’s population, only after seeing Sharlot and Cass head over there would I be caught dead partying with his type, forgive me for being judgmental…
4. The Nerds: probably the most kind hearted people on the planet BUT cannot hold a conversation face to face without completely bumming you out or not mentioning the latest discovery or Bill Gate’s exclusive interview in ‘Technology Today.’
I didn’t know where I stood at all and I made my own way to the office to collect my time table and the other stuff that you get on your first day of school.
My locker was number 305 and lucky for me, it was right outside my home room. The only compulsory subject at this entire school was English, which suited me fine. I had it first with a teacher called Mr. Collins. He seemed pretty cool and he was from Canada.
I had Sharlot in my English class and I made sure I sat next to her. I was amazed at her writing skills! She had this mini novel on the go, about kids with super powers and they all wore skinny jeans in the story, which I thought was pretty cool considering what she was wearing.
My second subject of the day was trigonometry; it was pretty much the only math topic that I understood. It was strange because I sat next to the strawberry blond boy, who introduced himself as Patrick, and when Gabe walked in the door, he looked kind of torn between sitting next to a guy with super long legs, or me. I lost that battle, but my consolation prize was an apologetic look. I wondered if it was Patrick that made Gabe choose option B. If so, this school was twisted.
I saw Patrick listening to an iPod, I tried to tune into the music that was blaring through the headphones. It sounded good... decent music. So I talked to Patrick about music. Apparently whatever he was listening to was his own music, recorded, played by and mixed by none other that himself. I was amazed! I told him that I thought it was really good and he flushed the cutest tinge of pink and nodded, and then he walked off to his haunt outside of the library when the bell rang for morning break.
I was alone.
I stared around me. The school was one huge grey building with trees and a field. Pretty standard issue for a school I thought, wandering around looking for the cafeteria. All I needed was an apple and I’d be sweet for the rest of the day.
I saw Shaant not far off and I called his name.
“Hey Shaant, where can I find some food around here?” I asked rubbing my growling tummy.
He laughed, “That was my first question at this place too. Follow me.” He led me to a concrete ramp that declined down under the main building, underground cafeteria, sweet!
There were huge round tables straight out of HSM and the line wasn’t even that long at the food counter.
I jumped in line and Shaant grabbed two trays.
“What’s with all the groups?” I asked him, accepting my tray and letting him in front of me.
He shrugged, “I don’t know, its just school life.”
I blinked, “dude, I’ve been to a shit load of schools, but this is just OTT man.”
He nodded, “tell me about it. If I didn’t live on the same street as Gabe and Alex, I wouldn’t even know that they are human.” He said stacking his tray with chicken salad sandwiches. I grabbed my apple; it was only morning break after all.
He scorned at my tray, “if you want lunch, get it now, there will be nothing left at lunch time when the basketball crew own up in here.”
I grabbed a chicken salad too.
“I still don’t get it, you guys are like… mates, why all the stereotypes?”
He patted me on the head, “in a week Zillah, you’ll find that it’s just easier. When we all go to the palace tonight, it’ll be fun. It’s not who you are here, what you are and what you do is what matters to these people. If you take gym, or you play sport, you join them” he thumbed over his shoulder, “if you read, or do homework, join them,” he pointed to Sharlot’s spot, “if you don’t give a shit and like the beach, come sit with me. And if you like hair nails, and short skirts or you date someone from Alex’s crew, you join them.” He shuddered and looked at the cheerleaders with an evil stare.
“This is stupid though. I’m not either of those, I’m all of them.”
He looked at me as though I was mad.
We took our food out of the cafeteria and stopped half way between the four corners of the school.
“You can come hang with us, although, it might be awkward. It doesn’t matter though.” He punched my arm softly, careful not to drop one of his twenty chicken salad sandwiches, “you’re still our home crew. Are you going to go to the Palace tonight?”
I nodded, “yeah, I’m looking forward to it.”
“Mean. See you there then.”
And so I was left standing there, alone again.
I made a half turn and I saw a seat, half shaded by a tree, and half in the sun. I went over and sat under it. It was pretty much completely isolated from any four of the corners. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
I didn’t want to put myself in any of those little groups. I was going to be an individual.
Starting now.
I shoved my sandwich in my bag and took a bite out of my apple. Then I pulled out my latest book and I started reading, by myself, at the table away from everyone else, in the sunny part.

My third class was gym. I liked to stay fit and I liked sport, so I took it. It didn’t mean that I was going to sit in any particular part of the school. It meant that I was going to sit back and observe.
Alex took gym too ‘surprise!’
He was in my class, which was cool because he offered to buddy me for badminton.
While we started out just hitting it back and forth over the net, I started talking to Alex about his band.
“What do you play?”
“Uhh, well I kind of do a bit of singing and guitar,” he said in hushed tones, going pink around the ears.
“Who else is in the band?” it was obvious he didn’t want to talk too loud so I kept my vice down.”
He smiled, “well, Sharlot is our kick ass drummer, Gabe does lead vocals, there’s a guy Pete who is our bassist and Shaant does a bit of guitar as well. It’s just like our whole street pretty much.”
I nodded, I couldn’t play an instrument to save my life, but I loved music, to listen to it all day everyday.
“What about Cass and Hayley?”
He shrugged, “Hayley does her own thing most of the time. Man she can sing. I’ve never heard much from Cass though. She’s just there for support I suppose.” He looked thoughtful.
I wish that everyone just merged together and hung out. There were so many lines boxing everyone in place, I felt like I was kicking up dust talking to Shaant and then Alex and sitting by Patrick and Sharlot.
“So, do you know any cheerleaders?” I spied the three in this class, chatting on the court over from us, with long legs from trig.
“A few, I d go to a couple of parties and places where they are, they’re all the same though. Love themselves…’cheerleading’s not a sport it’s a way of life’” he mocked in a high voice that made me laugh.
He smiled, then his face dropped, “you’re not a cheerleader are you?” then he smiled again, “that would mean I’d have to kill you, you know.”
I laughed again, “no don’t worry, I don’t do cheerleading. The uniforms kind of make me want to vomit.” I shuddered.
I kept looking over at the long legged guy. He didn’t look like he liked to stand in one spot, that’s all he was doing. His arms were long enough that he didn’t have to move to reach the shuttle with his racket, wherever it flew to on the court. I think I saw him step once, to save it from going out.
I laughed, “Hey Alex, who’s that guy?” I used my racket to point.
“That’s William, or Bill, he’s on the team. Good shooter.”
I nodded; Bill looked over and nodded to Alex who nodded back. They had this silent man wave thing going on.
After I showered quickly from gym, I had biology in a small stainless steel lab room. It felt like it was underground like the cafeteria. Cass was in my bio class so I sat next to her and she smiled at me friendly.
“Isn’t it weird, you know, knowing all of the people that live on our street, but ignoring them at school?”
She shrugged.
That was everyone’s answer and it bugged me.
“Not really, it helps having allies.” She smiled lightly.
“Allies?”
“You know, like, well, Gabriel keeps his friends from giving us too much stick, you know, and Hayley, she tells people to shut it when they pick on Sharlot. It’s better than copping shit just because you don’t sit by them. Its just life.”
I’d heard that one a lot today.
Its just the way things are or its just life, why was everyone so ready to accept it like that. I’d seen it everywhere I’ve lived. But here it was different because I lived on a street with a half a dozen really cool people that ignored each other at school because of a hobby or an interest. It was stupid!
At lunch time I sat by myself again in my same seat, the sun had moved around the tree and it was all in the sun then, so I sat on the far side and I watched them all.
I watched them all like a hawk.
One thing I decided that lunchtime, was that I wasn’t only going to be myself at Barrington, I was going to make everybody themselves. Well I was going to start with the people that lived on my street.
I was going to be so much of myself that whether it brought them to me or drove them away, it would open their eyes and they would stop being so damned blind!
No one in their right mind was as fickle and fake as these guys were. Sure, it might have been a good thing that Gabe and his crew kept the shit from being dumped on Cass and Sharlot and their crew, but wouldn’t it be better if they got to hang with Gabe himself. I mean, he was a cool enough guy but if I haven’t said it before, I’m sure I have, this is just too weird!
Someone waved at me.
I just saw the hand shoot up and wiggle in my direction, I guessed they were waving towards me, because a second later, I saw two people get up from their seat outside the library and make their way over to my remote little seat.
It was Cass and Sharlot.
“Hey Zillah, why are you over here on your lonesome?” Cass asked dumping her bag on the table and taking the seat opposite me. Sharlot did the same and sat down next to her.
I smiled.
My plan was starting to work even now, on day one of the ‘Plan Initiation’.
“Me alone? Na, I have my chicken salad sandwich and now you guys are here.”
Sharlot looked like she wanted to laugh; I don’t know why she didn’t though.
So I was funny now? Geez you learn something new about yourself everyday.
“So where about do you live on South Hagar?” Cass asked me.
“Next to Alex, across the street from Gabe, just up the street from Shaant, what about you guys?”
“I live right at the end by the park.” Sharlot said.
“I ran up there this morning.” I said.
“I know I saw you.”
That was weird but okay; sure I’ll go with it.
“I live at the house just by the bus stop, right on the corner.” Cass said.
“Too bad we can't point out what makes our houses stand out huh?” I joked.
“Yeah, I bet we probably all have the same shape lounge room.” Sharlot said smiling.
“I dunno, does yours have a window seat Zillah?”
I shrugged, “I wouldn’t know to be honest. I’ve only been in the attic, bathroom and kitchen basically so far. I moved in last night you know.”
“Whoa! And you went for a run in a strange neighborhood? Weirdo.” I smiled, I liked Sharlot. She was weird and quirky in her own little way and it made me want to just hug her and her awesomely stylish jeans.
“So is that how you met the boys?”
“Uhh… that’s how I met Shaant and Alex. I met Gabe when I and Karen went to The Palace for dinner last night.”
Sharlot went kind of pink under her cute little freckles when I mentioned Gabe.
Cass nodded. “Are you going to go to the gig tonight? I hear that those guys are from Chicago.”
“Yeah I am, Alex needed a ride and I needed directions.”
“Do you think you could bring me back? My dad can only drop me off on the way to work?” Sharlot asked shyly.
“Sure thing! I can't to see you bust your thing on the drums!”
She went pink again.
“Who told you….?”
“Alex is in my gym class.”
Cass butted in.
“You take gym?!” she pretended to be disappointed; “I suppose you were innocent before you came here. Not for long.” She patted my hand sadly, “not for long…”
We all had a laugh.
Those two girls were really funny. They had me smiling and laughing all the way until the bell rang.
My final class was the one I had been looking forward to all day; Media.
I was happy to see that Shaant and one of his friends were in my Media class. He had a black fringe that shadowed his face, but when he smiled he had incredibly white teeth that were straight as well.
“Zillah, come sit here.” he dropped his bag from the desk next to him and I took the seat.
“Zillah, Pete, Pete, Zillah,” was Shaant’s quick introduction.
“Pete?” I asked, “As in the Bassist?”
He smiled over the table.
“As a matter of fact I’ll answer yes to that one.”
“How’d you?” Shaant asked
“Alex.”
They both smiled.
Was it just the mention of Alex and Gabe that made people smile? Or was it because school society ranked them higher than everyone else?
Whatever it was I could see why, Alex and Gabe were two funny guys.
Media was just like all the other places I had taken it as a subject. Today we will be studying fast food advertisements. It was like a favorite topic for most media teachers, who all seemed to enjoy fast food on one too many occasions.
Shaant and Pete were funny guys too. Pete was part of the skater club with Shaant; it wasn’t really that either of them skated, as it was so much what music they listened to. There just happened to be a fair number of skaters and surfers that listened to the same music.
So now I find out that the stereotypes are wrong!?
My mission was going to have to involve anyone and everyone that showed up at The Palace tonight. I was looking forward to being a hero.


4. 11.11PM

“Thanks so much for this Zillah, you don’t know how dead I’d be if I couldn’t make it tonight.” Alex said, thanking me for like the hundred and forty-seventh time today when he jumped in the car outside my house.
He waved to Karen who was standing in the door way. She smiled and waved back.
“So, hey can I call you Zee?”
I smiled, “sure thing, can I call you Alex?”
He laughed, “How was your first day at Barrington High, Zee?”
“Well Alex, I found it quite interesting.”
He spluttered. “Barrington? Interesting? Wait, were you at my school?”
I grinned, “Well actually it was! I suppose you wouldn’t think so, but I think I might enjoy my time here at Barrington.” No matter how short lived it is.
“Well I hope you do, and don’t worry, I’ll pull the cobwebs out of your hair at graduation.”
I smiled, “that’s if I pass!” or if I stay.
“Why wouldn’t you pass?” I felt him watching me while I drove.
“Because… I’m not really your book smarts kind of person.” I admitted rather sheepishly.
“Oh that’s right, the Zed grade average kid right?”
I nodded
“That doesn’t matter at Barrington, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, you know?”
“No.” I answered.
“Ok, I’m lost,” he laughed.
“Gosh me too.” I said, referring to the driving.
“Take a left up here; it’s the red building, park around the back.”
So I did as I was told and we arrived safe and sound at an almost crowded Pizza Palace.
“Thanks again Zee.”
“Don’t mention it… Serious, if you say thank-you one more time I’m going to break your nose.”
He laughed and stepped back, hands in the air. “Sorry officer!”
We pulled his gear out of the trunk and went inside through the back entrance that Alex knew about.
Mrs. Saporta was inside bustling around the kitchen just like she was last night, speaking in her rapid tongue to Gabe and another grey haired man, and in English to another waiter and waitress.
But Gabe wasn’t in his apron tonight, he wasn’t sleeping on booth seats or taking orders either, he was running around the restaurant, setting up a stage in the corner and pulling amplifiers and drum parts out of cupboards and car boots all over the show. Sharlot waved to me from the little stage and motioned me over.
I dodged guitar cases and I made my way over to Sharlot.
“Hey Zillah! Did you have a good day?” she was piecing together her drum set.
“I did actually. Thanks for baby-sitting me today in English and at lunch.”
She smiled up at me from the floor where she was fixing up the pedal for the bass.
“Hey, you sat by me in English remember, but it was nothing, you know, you can sit with us if you like. Patrick told us how you and Gabriel sat by him in trig.”
“Yeah I know, his eyes almost popped out of his skull when Gabe sat down. Hey do you know if he’s coming tonight?”
“Ummm… I think he said he’d try and make it if his brother didn’t need his help moving out or something like that.”
I saw Pete and Shaant walk in the front door and cheer.
They made their way over to the stage where Sharlot and I were. I felt kind of useless standing there doing nothing while everyone was busy doing everything.
“Are you going to be our groupie Zillah?” Shaant teased.
“Ha!” I laughed, “You wish Shaant, besides, it all depends on how well you play to who you party with.”
“I like that rule.” Pete interjected.
Gabe walked past; I snatched him by the arm.
“Gabe, what can I do to help?”
“Nothing, just sit down and relax.”
“No please, I’ll help in the kitchen or something, I feel bad just sitting here.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes, then he got behind me and pushed me by the shoulders into the kitchen.
“Ma, yo tengo a un ayudante para usted, pero soy shes agradable un voluntario.” Gabe said quickly to his mother who looked at me as if I were and angel in disguise.
“Por último usted hace a un amigo decente mi hijo.” She smiled and hugged me.
“That means she likes you.” He whispered in my ear, then she shooed Gabe out of the kitchen.
She got me to set the tables in the center of the room up to face the stage and then I put little candle lanterns on each table and a jug of ice water.
“You eat here last night? Did you enjoy the Pizza?” She asked me in her thick accent.
“Oh yes it was delicious. I can't wait to bring my mother back.” I answered smiling nicely at the old woman.
“Such a sweet girl, you live over the road yes?”
I nodded. “We moved in yesterday.”
“Yes, yes I know, my husband knew the man and woman that lived in that house before you, very nice people.” She said while she gave me a tray of glasses, “four on each table, querido.”
I set up all of the glasses and took the tray back.
“Anything else?” I asked her.
She shook her head, and then Gabe popped around the corner.
“La exposición está a punto de comenzar, Ma, toma su asiento, you too Zillah, the shows about to start.” He said, buzzing with excitement and dragging us both out of the kitchen. He sat his mother in one of the back booths where the grey haired man also was and then he dragged me by the hand and sat me at one of the front tables where William was also sitting with a friend or two that I didn’t recognize.
I smiled over to him and he smiled back shyly.
Then the lights went down and a spotlight opened up on the make-shift stage.

*

“You don’t know how amazing you guys sounded!” I just had to hug Sharlot; Alex hadn’t been lying when he told me that they had a kick ass drummer.
“Aw thanks Zee, yeah I made my mind up, you can stick around.” Shaant teased.
“I appreciate your permission, hey, would you mind if I breathed?” I poked my tongue out at him.
“Ladies, ladies, please, let’s toast.” He stood up and raised his cola can, “to a successful night, and to a new friend.” He said nodding in my direction.
We were all sitting around a few of the tables after we had cleaned up, packed up and fare welled the band from Las Vegas. They were a cool bunch of dudes that really played some good music. I was amazed at ho young and talented they were. AND they were funny! Was it just me or did everyone in Barrington make me laugh?
“Here, here!” Sharlot said raising her cola.
“Here, here!” we all said together and then the boys being boys all tried to skull whatever was left in their cans.
Shaant had it coming out his nose in a matter of seconds and Alex was thumping him on the back. Gabe had tears in his eyes and Cass and Hayley were holding onto each other for laughing so hard.
Sharlot and I caught each others eye and soon the whole entire room was full of us mad kids’ laughing about pretty much nothing and it was great. It really was.
The best things in life, people, and place to be in my entire existence relied solely on these guys right here. I was accepted in barely a day and I was smiling! I didn’t go home and complain to Karen how most kids would have a friend to talk to on the phone that night or a movie to go to and hang with a bunch of mates; no instead I was having the time of my life with people I barely knew!
Life was a beautiful, fantastic, amazing, wonderland and I never wanted to die!
“I never pictured you to be one to sing Gabriel.” I said once we had all finally swallowed the laughing bug.
It was weird cause he actually could, and Alex! Shaant was kind of quiet on the stage besides his mean shredding towards the end of their first number.
All in all I was graced by the presence of so many talented people.
Gabe smiled, “why thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the show.”
“Definitely!”
We hung out for another half an hour making a tower from all of the coke cans.
Some people that I never would have expected to show up did. Like long legs (or William) was at my table. I thought him to be a basketball head through and through and stick to the persona as if it were a matter of life and death, but not actually… he was a really cool guy!
And there was also this girl called Victoria who Sharlot didn’t seem to like too much, because, well I think it was because Gabe was hitting on her all night, but she was the only person that showed up from the dreaded cheerleader crew.
William had two friends that came with him, a guy that they called Chislet who was from Australia, and a guy Sisky (real name Adam) that I recognized from biology.
Then there were these two out-of-towners, well actually they were locals that no one really knew because their Mom home schooled them because she was afraid of gangs and things that were so obviously not a part of Barrington that I wanted to laugh. They were brothers; I talked to them for about ten minutes before they left at the end of the show.
Mikey, he liked to be called. Tall skinny, a thin face, thick framed glasses but electric eyes that made you forget how awkward he made everything seem, his brother Gerard, shorter with a pointed face, bleach blond hair and red rimmed eyes (don’t ask) he was eccentric, excited like a little kid but in a very infectious way all he could talk about was how as soon as he and Mikey got home they were going down into the basement to write a song that he had an idea for in his head at that exact moment, then he went on to say how he couldn’t play guitar to save his life and he apologized in advance to Mikey who was going to suffer under his hand of dictation. They bid their farewell, promising to a return trip to Barrington.
And Patrick! Remember the kid from trig? The strawberry blond? He was there too! He smiled shyly and ended up sitting next to Shaant and Pete, at first he looked kind of awkward, but he got comfy once they all started talking. What do boys talk about? I found myself wondering.
There was something about the whole town that was starting to grow on me. I loved the way everyone just accepted some things like they were natural, I mean why go against the grain?
I loved the way that because I lived in the neighborhood I was pretty much instantly part of the crew.
I loved how much I was happy for the first time in my life at a place that my mom had chosen for us to live, and I didn’t want to leave.
“So when’s the next one?” Sharlot piped up, twirling her drumstick in her fingers.
Then Hayley broke in, “why don’t you play at the next school dance?”
Everyone kind of stopped drinking and laughing.
They all gave each other these side looks as if to say ‘no offence but…’ and leave it at that. I watched Hayleys face fall and I knew exactly how she felt.
She hated that all of her friends were almost ashamed of each other.
It wasn’t right, and Hayley was about to be my first recruit.
After a very dramatic and tearful (acting of course) goodbye from Shaant, a muffin in each hand from Mrs. Saporta on the way out the door we all eventually left the Palace and of course Gabe whining “ma! Let them go home already!” when she kissed everyone in her son’s band on the cheek.
Alex and bounced to the car afterwards scoffing back mine and Sharlot muffins because he had to miss dinner. Sharlot and I followed him like little sheep. She didn’t say much did our Sharlot, but you could hear the gears in her head grinding away. She laughed and smiled when you would crack a joke and she would answer when I asked her a question, but something made me feel like she was thinking something way bigger and better than what was happening right here on earth.
We all jumped in the car, the first thing I did was blast the heat for three minutes, and then I turned it down a bit. The evenings here weren’t quite as nice as the mornings, but there were stars.
It wasn’t an awkward drive, but it was pretty quiet. We dropped Sharlot off first, she waved madly at her front door and then retreated inside where she was alone and had no distractions of her huge dreams and ambitions, that’s what I decided she was thinking of, constantly imagining the future.
“You guys did play amazingly.” I mentioned to a very quiet Alex as I crawled the car down the street.
I felt him watch me again. It was weird but comforting to know that I was being assessed as well as doing the assessment. I liked it better.
I pulled up in my driveway and turned the car off.
Alex was still looking my way and it became too hard to avoid his eyes.
We sat in the dark car for a while in silence.
I waited for Karen to switch the outside light on and come out and wait for us to step out of the car, I could imagine that if my life was a movie, my ‘dad’ would turn the spot light on the car and call over his loud speaker “step out of the vehicle with your hands where I can see them!”
In the dark, it was hard to read Alex’s expression, so I felt very useless.
The only light was the analog clock display on the dash, I glanced at it quickly.
11:11PM, all ones.
My first day at Barrington; my first concert; my first day of my life where I didn’t want to go to sleep…
I looked back to Alex.
“This was really fun tonight Alex.”
“Yeah, thanks for giving me a ride.” He said cheekily.
I sighed, “Alex…”
“Yeah, yeah,” he laughed cheekily.
“I have to break your nose now you know.”
“How about this instead?” He said, leaning over the center console and kissing me lightly. It was the softest anyone had ever kissed me before; his palm caressed my cheek softly, his thumb tracing small circles on my skin.
I kissed him back, and all I could think was ‘holy crap he smells so good!’ yes, that’s how dumb I am… I thought about how good he smelt while he was kissing me.
He pulled away gently, “good-night Zillah. See you tomorrow.” Then he opened his door and stepped out of the car.
I sat there like a stunned mullet, not knowing whether I should get out of the car as well.
In my peripheral vision I saw Alex’s porch light come on for about three minutes, then I heard the door close and the light switched off.
 
5. SWEET TALK 101

I woke up early again and went for another run, it was weird and I felt weird. It must be what being weightless felt like, I floated all the way to the park, and when I stopped to do my stretches at the lamp post, I looked up and through the branches of a huge oak tree; I saw one of the top floor windows of the house on the corner, of Sharlot’s house. I remembered what she had said yesterday. “I know. I saw you.” Kind of weirded me out slightly, but then when I stood there and waved, I felt, no that’s not weird, she might have been brushing her teeth and looking out the window and saw me yesterday. It wasn’t like she was watching for me. So yes, yes go damn it, I waved to a window.
I didn’t have my iPod this morning. I left the house without music and I felt quite naked.
But never the less, I ran on. Well I jogged on, I wasn’t much of a sprinter, I couldn’t save myself if I had to run from a pedophile in the neighborhood, but a good thing was, I knew enough houses that I could safely run to if I was being chased by a pedophile. Not that I expected it to ever happen while living on South Hagar.
I crossed the road when I could see around the corner and I jogged slowly, secretly hoping that the trio would sneak up behind me so that I could talk to them, well, okay then, talk to Alex.
What is wrong with you girl? He lives right next door to you and you are waiting for a chance to talk to him?
I suddenly realised that my notebook lay unfilled from the pages of Barrington. I hadn’t had a chance t write one thing in my notebook since we moved in.
Who’s the paedophile now?
Shut up brain, sheesh, can't a girl get a break around here? I finally had an answer for why I listened to my music so loud, I had to drown out the sound of my common sense and the part of my brain that likes to insult me.
I jogged almost all the way home and I didn’t even see a neighbor pop out to get the morning paper.
I grabbed ours and scanned the headline on the way inside.
Nothing of any importance to me, just that there was a huge search for about twenty women that stole babies from a hospital and that they finally had a lead on where to try ad look, the headline read “Cradle Snatchers Case Re-Opened: New Lead Opens the almost two decade old case of the Eighteen Mothers that snatched new-borns from the women’s refuge maternal clinic.
I rolled the paper back-up and tossed it on the kitchen table when I went to get my glass of water.
Then I ran upstairs quickly, and dug out my note book. I flipped it open to a blank page.

The Barrington Species
1. JOCKS………….The Basketball boys:
> Gabriel Saporta: Spanish basketball player sits with fellow team mates and converses regularly with cheerleader type. Family owns restaurant in town, lead singer of high school band. Tall, Dark, Handsome, seems very down to Earth, further insight is needed.
>Alex DeLeon: Very nice, funny, also on the school BBall team, friends with Gabe, kind natured, neighbor, guitarist of above band. Also avoids conversation with neighborhood crew at school. Would like to get to know better as of yet, but still unsure.
>William Beckett: Not a part of the neighborhood crew, does visit extra curricular events with lower society population. Very long legs, ‘good shooter’, need more information.

2. SKATERZ………………No Surfers at Barrington High
>Shaant Hikacyan (or something along those lines): Also in said band but does not converse with above jocks when is in the presence of the public eye i.e. school peers. NOTE: doesn’t actually skate, common music interest.
>Hayley Williams: Nice, at times quiet, in a different band, can see that she doesn’t enjoy the separate school lives that her neighbors live. Good friends with the above, Extreme red hair, potential attention seeker?
>Peter Wentz: Emo fringe, good friends with Shaant in media class, does not live on the street yet is tight knot member of ‘crew’ outside school hours.

3. NERDS……………Prefer to be considered ‘bookworms’.
>Sharlot Taylor: Strange small person, awesome drummer in crew’s band. Very quiet, good writer, lives on the corner by park, close friend to the below Cass, obvious crush on the jock Gabriel. Sat with me at lunch o first day—dared to part from group. Has very trendy fashion sense.
>Cassadee Pope: also known as Cass, quiet, not very interesting as of yet, lives on the corner by bus stop. Reminds me of a sheep, quiet, follows Sharlot, when she speaks she is funny WHEN she speaks, Groupie for crew’s band.
>Patrick Stump: Strawberry blond, trig class mate, not part of neighborhood crew, friends to Sharlot and Cass, story unknown, yet to be further assessed and noted on.

4, CHEERLEADERS…….……….…By far, most disliked genre by the above people
>Victoria Asher: The only known cheerleader, attended band function at Palace, flirts with Gabe, Sharlot doesn’t think of highly, doesn’t live on street, and doesn’t talk to any of the above species except for those in the jock pile, also known as Vikki.T,
SUMMARY:
The Barrington Species are very nice people, very accepting, the band is awesome, Sharlot is pretty cool Alex is pretty cool, high respect for Hayley. PLAN: initiate school group collaboration, I think my time at Barrington will open my eyes to the way the four main species really do co-exist in some places and that once the school day has ended, they are all friends.
Hope that I can stay in Barrington longer.
FUTURE ASSESMENT:








I left a page after that for when I look back. I usually take the firs assessment and the second one I do when I move away. I wished that I would never have to write in the stupid note book again.
I took a quick shower then I dressed in jeans and a tee—very normal.
I arrived in the kitchen to find Karen reading the paper. Helped myself to an unopened box of cereal and sat down at the table and started eating.
I day dream when I eat. It’s a really bad habit that I picked up from not talking at the table when we have dinner or whatever.
“Did you have fun last night honey?” Karen asked, peering at me over the top of the news paper.
I nodded, “yeah, there’s a fair bit of talent in this town.”
She smiled, “so I take it you’ve made some friends?”
“More like ‘acquaintances’, I tend to try and not make too many friends, it makes leaving all the more harder.” I always said thing like that to make her feel bad.
“Well. Acquaintances then, are they nice?”
I rolled my eyes, “if they weren’t I wouldn’t talk to them. What is that story on the cover about?”
She frowned, “oh, some homeless, jobless, teenage mothers claim that their children were ‘stolen’ from them about sixteen years ago. The millions of dollars that have gone into that case is just astounding, listen to this,” she cleared her throat and began reading from the paper, “seven hundred million dollars has been spent on detectives, fraud officers and other such facilities to track down the Eighteen women that allegedly ‘stole’……………” that’s where I lost focus and went off in a day dream about learning guitar and being in a band.
“Isn’t it a little bit over the top?” she muttered.
“Uh huh.” Was my mindless answer, I ask a question, I get the whole case study. This is why we never talked much.
Just then the doorbell rang its deep chime that rattled my brain.
“Catch you later.”
“Have a nice day Zillah, Darling.” Her voice broke.
I turned back to look at her quickly, she was rubbing her chest like she does after she coughs or sneezes.
I didn’t think anything more of it and I opened the door.

“New rule: knocking only, I hate that door bell.” I said when I stepped out.
There was no Gabe, it was only Alex.
Secret smile and self hi-five!
“Hi.” He said rather nervously.
“Hey,” I replied, smiling shyly.
He smiled and we started walking.
“So where’s Gabe this morning?” I asked making small talk but trying to seem casual at the same time.
“He, uh, he’s gone ahead.” He looked at me sideways.
“Please lets not make this awkward Alex; it’s only my second day here.” I cut straight to the point.
He laughed, “Ok, im sorry, I’m sorry about last night too, that was a bit forward of me.”
“What have I told you about all the apologies, I really don’t want to have to break your nose.” I said.
“So I wasn’t too forward?”
Hell no! Do it again!
“No it was fine, it is fine.” I added on the end.
It was quiet; all I could hear was our footsteps on the loose stones of the tarmac.
“So explain to me why you hate your doorbell?” Alex sniggered.
“Well!” I started, “every time it rings it goes ‘boooom boooooooom booooom bonnnnngggg!’ and it shakes the walls! I can't stand it!”
“I think we have the same doorbell does it go like ‘booooom booooom booooom bonnnnnggg booom’?”
“Yeah! Is yours really deep and loud?”
He nodded, and then we both started cracking up laughing.
“They have officially lost their minds!” I heard Shaant cry when we were ten feet away from the bus shelter.
Alex pulled the finger to him.
Then we parted. I was hoping for so much more, but it was weird and it was awkward. I couldn’t help but feel like Gabe and Shaant were both looking at me funny, or maybe it was just my paranoia.
“Hey Zillah,” Sharlot started when I went and sat by her, Hayley and Cass on the bench, “did you wave at my house this morning?”
Cass and Hayley both looked at me and had to stifle their laughter.
So did me, so I just nodded.
“My Grandma was in my room and you scared the shit out of her.”
Hayley lost all self control and she collapsed on Cass’ shoulder, clutching her tummy with one arm while she was laughing.
I mouthed a very shocked ‘sorry’ to Sharlot and I hung my face in my hands. She patted my back and had a chuckle too.
“Zillah!?”
I shot my head up and looked around.
I saw Alex’s concerned face peering at me intently, everyone’s heads swiveled.
“What?” it sounded urgent.
The laughter had died completely and they were all looking from me to Alex and back.
“N-n-n-nothing, I thought you were—never mind.” His sentence died. I saw Gabe hit him over the back of the head, and I felt the girls’ eyes on me.
“He thought you were crying?” Cass leaned over and whispered loudly.
I could feel myself going slightly red.
The three of them tittered amongst themselves while I sat there blushing like a moron.
“He doesn’t waste his time does he?” Hayley asked me over Sharlot’s shoulder; it just made me blush even harder.
Thankfully, the bus pulled up at that exact second.

I went to my locker first. We had ten minutes before class started and I pulled out my English book and my trig book and shoved them in my bag. Other than the five main books I had for school, my locker was otherwise empty. I sighed at the whole newbie-ness of myself and I turned around.
“argh!” Sharlot was right behind me, “holy crap! You scared the shit out of me.”
She smiled evilly, “you and Alex huh? I considered it last night when you dropped me off because I had seen him checking you out when you were helping me pack the drums down but I thought he was just being a guy you know…”
“What are you talking about—wait, he was what?” cue the gosh-darned flushed cheeks again.
She nodded slowly smiling like a mad woman.
“You like him don’t you?”
I didn’t meet her eye.
“Holy crap! What did you two get up to?”
“Nothing! Geez keep your voice down, it was nothing, I… just dropped him home.”
“Did you guys like make-out or what?”
I could feel my eyes almost pop out of my skull for a second, but then I tried to change the subject, “so did you hear about the seven hundred million spent on trying to catch those baby stealers?”
She hooked me under the elbow and dragged me over to a corner where there was a little seat.
“Spill.” Was all that she said once she had me rammed into the seat.
“Please Sharlot don’t make me—”
“Spill!”
I looked to the ceiling and started praying, “Lord, if you save me from this mentally unstable—” she Charlie horsed me.
“Ok! Ok, I’ll talk just don’t hurt my family!” I begged, trying to distract her.
She crossed her arms.
“fine.” I gave in, “one kiss.”
Her face lit up like a lantern! “Oh God! Whoa, OK, ok, ok…”
“Breathe Sharlot.”
She smiled at me and squeezed my hand. “This is big.”
“What!?”
“No! Yes it is, Alex is like, sacred ground. Honestly, Hayley tried to go there once… that was ugly… but this is big, you’ve been here what? Thirty-six hours and he kisses you. This is huge! This is like, Rose and Jack on the Titanic honestly! I’ve lived close to Alex my whole flipping life and… I thought that he took his time, you don’t know how weird this is!”
“Oh come on, I bet he’s had other…” she sat there shaking her head until I shut up.
“So you have to be real gentle with him.”
I snorted, “Ok, gentle, right.”
“Alex is a good friend, you need to group all of your experience and use it to your advantage! Believe me, we all thought about going there once, it took Hayley to warn us all off.”
“Yeah, uh about that experience thing…”
She leaned away from me like I was poison, “what do you mean?” she said in a low voice.
“I mean…… it’s just that… I haven’t really… had that much experience.”
Her face said shock in any language.
“You? Whatever.” She looked at me and then looked away quickly, “shit, you’re serious?”
I nodded slowly.
“You my dear… we have a lot of work to do.” The bell rang. “I will talk to you in English.”
She leapt up and whipped out her phone and started texting like crazy while she walked down the hall way.
I picked myself up and dragged my feet off to homeroom, shrinking from the idea of the bell going in twenty-five minutes when I had to endure an English lesson.
 
6. THE BIRD AND THE WORM

By some genius twist of fate, we ended up being issued a novel in English that we were going to do our novel study on. And thank fully the whole lesson was reading a book called ‘The Power of One’ by Bryce Courtenay. I think everyone in the class had seen the movie anyway so most of us just pretended to read it.
I recognized a face in my class from the Palace last night, the guy Michael Chislet. I don’t know if he recognized me or not but I smiled anyway and started reading. Then I did my best to avoid her eyes as I darted out of the class room and tried to remember where my trig classroom was. I passed Hayley in the hallway and she smiled at me slyly.
Not another one, please, what have I ever done that was so bad?
Patrick wasn’t in his seat when I got there, so I saved him a seat and I sat in the middle seat of the three seat row. I pulled my trig book out and hunted a pen out of the bottom of my bag. When I looked up there he was, towering over me, William behind him, towering as well.
I kind of leapt off my seat and squeaked at the same time.
“Jumpy?” Gabe asked sitting on one side of me and William on the other.
“Ummm, sorry but that seat is for—”
“He’s not here today.”
“Oh.”
“So Zillah, did you have fun last night?” his voice was taunting.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from him.
“c’mon, Zee, okay, we won’t give you the third degree… but I have to tell you…he is fair game.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Are you?”
I looked at him with one brow raised. “Gabe, I do appreciate you looking out for your friend and everything…but…” what the hell was I going to say to get him off my case? “But... I kind of just want to lay low for now. I’m new, let me try and memorize my class schedule first.”
He nodded slowly, and his face dropped like a little kid when you tell them that they aren’t allowed the puppy in the window.
“So… William, how’s life?”
The rest of the trig lesson passed with small talk between William and I and Gabe sulking in his seat.

At break, I made my trip to the cafeteria and bought my chicken salad roll and a pear. Then I wandered over to my seat that was half shaded by the tree because of the early morning. Three minutes after I sat down, I saw Hayley’s red head bobbing over to me. She dumped her bag on the table and sat down.
“Humph.” She rested her chin on her arms that were folded on the table top.
“I’m going to fail calculus.”
I nodded, “ouch.”
“Then my mum will hang, draw and quarter me. That’s if my step-dad doesn’t throw me out of the house first.”
“It can't be that bad can it?”
She looked at me as if I were crazy. “When you meet my parents, you’ll know.”
When, not if…when, I definitely feel like I’ve been here so much longer than two days.
She sat there staring at the table top, while I sat there staring at the school population before my eyes.
“Where does everyone go when it rains?” I wondered out loud.
Hayley laughed. “They” she turned around and pointed to where Alex and Gabe sat, “go and dominate the cafeteria. While they,” Sharlot and Cass, “hang in the library, and Victoria and her friends [AKA cheerleaders] hang out in the top corridor and we usually just go and hang in an empty classroom and chill out in there.”
“Hmm, ok.” I took a bite of my pear, “so, whats your story Hayley?”
“My story?”
“You know? Where you come from? Why you left? Where’ve you been etcetera?”
“Oh, well, um, I was born in Mississippi, and then I moved to Tennessee when I was like twelve or thirteen, then like a year later, we moved here. And here I am, failing calculus to the days.”
I came to the conclusion that Hayley wasn’t sent to sit here, nor did she come to sit here with any purpose in mind at all, she just wanted to sit, away from all the shit.
“I’m in a band you know.” She said. “It was funny cause they didn’t want me until I started writing songs and singing for them.”
“And now they wouldn’t swap you for a million bucks and you guys are as tight as a sumo wrestler’s thong?” I teased.
She laughed, “Yeah…something like that.”
We were quiet again… I could barely hold it in; I wanted to ask her about it, but I wanted to know about her band as well but… in about three seconds I almost exploded from topic one.
“Hayley, what happened with you and Alex?”
She looked at me sideways, “how did I know that you were going to ask that if I came and sat by you?”
“Because Sharlot texted you?” I guessed.
“Ha! Yeah, pretty much.” She sighed, “where to start… ok, well, it was last year, and it took me like a month to convince him to go out with me in the first place. Then I think we were together for like a week or something pitiful like that. He was always really distant, like we never talked about any of the stuff that we did when we were just friends and it was like boring and it wasn’t fun any more. It just went downhill, real fast. Gabe told me this story, because Gabe and Alex have lived in this town their whole lives you know, right across the street from each other and they were tight like brothers.
“Any ways, Gabe told me about Alex’s mum going through this real bad stage with his dad—oh yeah and Gabe only told me this after we broke up—His mum kind of slept with the guy that lived next door and then his dad got really… violent.”
She was silent for a whole minute.
She took a deep breath and kept going though, “I can understand why he didn’t trust women after that. His dad left for three months then came back and now his parents are sweet as. But he goes distant—this is my theory—he doesn’t want to get too close incase he gets in an argument and ends up like his dad. You know, he’s too cautious.
“Then one night we were at this party, and I had just one too many drinks. He was talking to a couple of guys down stairs, and then, this guy was coming onto me, like intensely as and I couldn’t do anything. I think one of the guys heard scuffling so they thought there was a fight and they all came to watch.
“When Alex saw the guy attacking me, he ripped him off and fully punched his lights out. We decided that it wasn’t going to work on the way home after that party. Then the next day, the whole school heard about it and Alex and I have just been friends since.”
I exhaled the breath I had been holding throughout her whole story.
That was intense, like watching a whole season of Coronation Street in one five minute story.
Poor Alex, I knew he wasn’t always present when he was there. His mind wandered just like Sharlot’s did, but I bet Alex always thought about the past.
“Thanks for that Hayley. I appreciate it.”
She nodded, “I hope it works out better for you than it did for me. God knows Alex deserves it, even if we don’t know you that well just yet… We all want to give Alex a break.”
I nodded softly, “so do I. But I feel like an intruder.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” she asked, flicking a twig off of the table top.
I nodded.
“I think… that the second you stepped in this town, we realised that shit wasn’t working, and everyone is tired of it all and wanting to pretend that you have been here forever, so that they don’t have to admit that they are too afraid to shake things up.”