"Oh, good! Come on, let's go!"


You follow Dad to the car, and climb in the passenger seat. You don't even need to turn your head to know your brother's in the backseat, hearing the opening tune of Angry Birds: Stalin's Show Trials or whatever the fuck version they have now. You lie back in your seat and stare out the window as you go through the town. Eventually, you arrive at some shitty, greasy pizza joint, and get out of the car. You walk inside, and find yourself in a Chucky Cheese knock-off. You walk up to the counter and find yourself faced with a girl your age with long brown hair and a massive zit that looks like a red dot sight in the middle of her forehead.


"Hello, welcome to Pizza Corner, can I take your order?" she asks.


"Yeah, can we have a large Pepperoni Pizza and three Cokes?"


"Sure thing. Small, Medium or Large?"


"Medium."


The girl begins pouring the drinks as another, far prettier blond girl appears from the kitchen, holding a large piece of dough. She glances briefly at you, before grabbing a cloth with her spare hand and disappearing back again.


"So, are you new here?" the cashier asks.


"Yeah, I just moved in."


"I'm Lucy."


"I'm Hazel."


"Oh, really? Well, it's a good town. You can't find much work except in a dull pizza joint, but there ain't much here to even spend the money on. Some old clothes stores and a cinema, and that's about it."


"Do you work here full time?"


"Jesus no. If I got to the point where I was working here full time I'd dip my head in the deep fat… well, I wouldn't be happy. Im still in school."


"What grade?"


"10th."


"Oh, I'm starting there tomorrow. I guess I'll see you there."


""Sure. If you want, I can always get you a job here. Becca, the blond girl, has literally done shit all since we started. She's only working so her daddy an think she's learning real-life experience and still feel justified buying whatever she…"


"I can hear you!" a voice calls out from the kitchen.


"I know, Becca, I'm getting a point across!"


Dad appears standing next to you, grinning.


"Look who's already making friends!" he smiles.


You roll your eyes.


"Yeah, sure. Let's just sit down," you say, pulling Dad towards a booth to sit in.

Two Days Later...

The school is a shitty building filled with no good kids who are learning about geography and Shakespeare despite the fact that they'll almost certainly end up in the shitty jobs that are needed to keep this town running. You walk through the doors, a backpack slung over your shoulder.


"OK, it's not so bad," you mutter, walking past a row of lockers down the hall. "I just have to find my classes and…"


"Hey, Hazel!" a voice cries.


You turn to find the familiar, zit stricken face of the pizza cashier, Lucy.


"Hey," you reply.


"So, it's your first day, huh? Do you know what classes you're in?"


You search your pockets and pull out a crumpled class schedule, handing it to her.


"OK, we have the same Spanish, English, Math, History… you do Chemistry? Gay! That's the hardest class!"


"Well other than that we seem to share a suspicious amount of classes."


"Yeah, I talked to the principal and begged him to put you in my classes… it's a tiny school, what do you think would happen? Of course we share most classes. Oh look, Carter's here."


You turn to see Carter, the kid from the day before, bounding over.


"I know," you say. "We met the day before yesterday."


"Y-yeah. How've y-you been?"


"Good."


"Well, you made friends without me? I feel left out. Anyway, if you want, we can both show you around. Between the two of us, we should share pretty much every class."


"Except Chem… Chemistry," Carter points out.


"Yeah, you're pretty much fucked for that, but that's your problem. Now we have double Math and English, and Miss Loaves is genuinely the easiest Math teacher to have to deal with. She's the only one who lets you get books from your locker when you forget them rather than giving a write-out or detention or just yelling for ten minutes. Come on, we'll show you around."