The gates flew open, and children from all ages started running. It was just like any other school day except it did begin rather awkwardly. I stepped into our school, and found my science teacher standing beside me, “Not late to school, are ya?” he asked. 
“No.” To be honest, I didn’t feel like speaking to anyone then.

In the far playground, I saw two students handing out posters. I had to go see what it was. Running, at my normal speed, I reached them and tried to take a good look at what the posters were about. “You trying out for the athletics team?” one of the boys asked. I was thinking for a moment. I’ve got such fast legs, why not use them?
“Umm, are they expecting really fast people?” 
“That's the stupidest question I have ever heard. O'course they are!”
I sighed, “Ok, sure. Gimme a poster.” He handed me a poster, and I looked at it, excited. As I was thinking, I thought: isn’t this cheating? Anyways, too late now.

I looked closely at the poster; the try outs were tomorrow! How was I going to practise? Then there was the boy again. Sorry, I mean, Dylan. Nervously, I walked up to him and said, “Are you trying out too?”
“Uh huh. Look at these,” he said, pointing down at his legs. “There a master piece and I’m not going to let that go to waste. You too?”
“Yeah, me too.”
“K.” That was the end of our conversation, kind of depressing. 

It was time for the first lesson; all the students were already there and I was late, again. I walked in, placing my books on my desk, trying not to look at the teacher. Nobody was looking at me, and nobody said anything so I thought that maybe I was not late after all. Well, it was what I thought until, “Sarah, are you not going to say something?” Mrs Bimblish questioned. 
“What would you like me to say?”
“Sarah, you’re late. You know what that means.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Good, now sit down before I have to expel you.” I was sitting down already, anyways.

Two students stood up walking to the front. It was Carly and Dylan, what were they doing? It took me a while to understand what was going on, but I finally got it. They were new students, which is why I’ve never seen them around the school before. This day just keeps getting better and better. I was just waiting for the teacher to do her speech, saying, oh give a warm welcome. That speech bores me. Then the speech started, “Everyone please give a warm welcome to our new students, Carly and Dylan!” Everyone started cheering their heads off, clapping as if they’ve just earned more money than the richest person in the world. “Why, thank you. What lovely students; thank you for the warm welcome. I’m sure, Carly and Dylan are going to love it here.” They both went to sit down. Carly was in my class, and so was Dylan. That was a relief, at least I could make some good friends. Maybe school wasn’t so bad after all.

Ok, it was the next lesson, Spanish, which was the most boring lesson on earth. Nobody enjoyed it, and I felt sorry for Carly and Dylan. Then I remembered that it was the spelling competition next week and today we were going to practise for it and choose who’s going to take part. “Hola, hola. Buenas días!” Nobody would reply back, though, and I kind of felt sorry for the teacher. She was such a nice, and enthusiastic teacher, it must hurt to teach Spanish. If only she was able to teach a better subject.

“Ok class. As you all know, today we are going to pick who will participate in the finals for the spelling competition. This is what’s going to happen.” She clicked on the remote for the whiteboard and changed the slide to where it had all the rules. “The teacher will say a word, and you have 7 seconds to say all the letters in Spanish that spell the word. If you cannot get it, then you don’t receive a point, but if you do get it, you do receive a point. Simple as that. However, there is one rule. NONE of your classmates can help you, and we will check all of your pockets for notes, or things that will help you cheat. Now time for the good news. Whoever wins the whole competition, and remember, we’re going against different classes, will have a prize.” Now it was worth it, but what was going to be the prize? She wasn’t going to tell us the prize; at the moment, all I wanted to do was read her mind. 
All of sudden, Carly stood up, “Don’t you think that’s a bit too generous, miss?” Everyone turned their heads to look at her, thinking that she knew what the prize was. 
“What do you mean?” the Spanish teacher asked.
“Well, I think you’re being to kind giving all that. I know what the prize is,” Carly replied.
“Sit back down now! We’re not talking about the prize.” Carly shrugged her shoulders; she knew what the prize was.

As soon as the teacher turned around, all the students in my class turned to Carly and started asking her what the prize is, including me. Except, I didn’t ask her the exact same thing. I asked her how she knew, and that’s when she started listening. “How I did it?” she asked. “Well, you know how, Sarah. I don’t need to tell you.”
“But I don’t-” 
She cut me off, “Yes you do. Now that’s enough questions.” I sighed. But I didn’t know how, why is Dylan AND Carly thinking that I know everything they know. Uhh, they expect too much from me. It’s not like I have their brain or something.

The lesson flew by, and we were already out of the classroom. This random Spanish girl in my class got chosen, and not one of us was surprised. I mean, she could do three words in seven seconds. She’s such a show off. Like, nobody cares if you’re good at Spanish.

Anyways, it was finally break time. I went over to Carly to see if she wanted to hang out with me but I found her with Dylan. They were whispering in each other’s ears about who knows what? I was not going to give up. No. I was sure they wouldn’t mind if I just secretly joined in their private conversation. Looking around, kicking the rocks that blocked my path, I walked up to them and softly tapped Carly’s shoulder. “H-hey, Carly! Was wondering…maybe…if I could join you guys.”

Her look gave me the shivers; it felt like a cold feeling of hatred swam over me. That was just my imagination, though, I thought. Carly was a nice and cheerful girl, nothing could go wrong around her, right? She moved her eyes so they stared into mine. I thought she was going to scream at me or something but then a smile grew on her face and she happily replied, “Hi, Sarah! Yeah, of course you can join!” She held out her arm, and pulled me in for a hug. “Remember this guy,” she said, pointing at Dylan. “He’s the one that raced you on the bus. Gosh, I never thought the first day was going to be this lively and adventurous.”

“Lively?” I asked. “Adventurous? This place is nothing but a jail.” Then I realised, Carly was getting a bit nervous, or scared, I couldn’t really tell. “But if you have friends, it’s really fun. Yeah, I remember, Dylan. Great race, by the way.” Dylan didn’t answer, though. He was too focused on the kids that were bullying a year 7. “Earth to Dylan,” I said, waving my hands in front of my face. 
Straight away, he looked at me, “Sorry. Yeah?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna get a snack, you guys wanna come?” I asked. Again, none of them were listening. Becoming impatient already, I walked off, “I’m going to take that as a no.”

I was happy, even though, I had the weirdest friends anyone could ever find. As soon as I was about to grab a granola bar from the shelf, the bell rang. “Oh, come on!” I mumbled under my breath.  Carly and Dylan were nowhere to be seen. I thought to myself: I guess I’m all alone again. How silly of me to even think I could have a friend. Two, to be precise!

But just as I was about to walk into the next corridor, Carly ran up to me. “Everything ok? Dylan and I were looking for you everywhere!”
“Oh, really?” I rolled my eyes at her. 
“What’s with the attitude, Sarah? Did someone bully you?”
For some reason, I was going to start crying and I didn’t want her to see that. “NO. Just leave me alone. For once!” Carly didn’t say anything; she just ran off. I don’t blame her; I wasn’t supposed to act like that in the first place.

Our next lesson was geography, and as I was crying in the toilet for the first ten minutes of the lesson, the teacher said that I had a lunch time detention tomorrow for being late. Man, half of my life is detentions. I swear that one day, ‘cause of all my detentions, I’ll be living in the school. With that thought, I better not be late to anything ever again.

Normal, boring lesson, as usual. What’s great about this school is that we only have one lesson between our break and lunch. You guessed it! We had lunch next.

Walking into the canteen, I saw a smoky, grey, striped cat surrounded by many students. It looked like as if it was about to kill someone. Hmmm, I was half right. The cat crawled itself over to a fairly short boy with short, blonde hair who screamed, “Aaaah, the cat is going to eat me!” Everyone began to chuckle uncontrollably. I mean, I understand why. It’s impossible for a small cat like that one to eat a human. Unless if they take it really slowly. Maybe like a few bites a day. I stared into the cats cold, deep eyes and it stared back. Unknowingly, I whispered to the cat, “It’s not worth it. What’s hurting him going to do for you? Go home, this place is not fit for a cat like you.” It looked down at the floor and it seemed like it understood me. She (I found out it was a girl when she turned her eyes to me) stumbled back to the door, out into the wild, hopefully never to come back again.

It was after quite a while until I took notice of everyone’s beady eyes, jaw dropped, looking at me as if I just saved the world, which I obviously didn’t. If I really did save the world, then I think this would’ve all been just a dream. The same boy who was about to get attacked, stepped out of the crowd. “How?” he said. “How? You just talked to the cat. You saved me!” The claps and cheers from everyone grew louder. What did I do? I thought to myself.                                                                “I didn’t know you could talk to cats!” an older girl pointed out.                                  “Wow! Are you a cat?” another younger boy asked. Then after a few seconds of silence, a really little girl said, “She is a cat. And a hero too!” In this kind of situation, I was supposed to feel proud or happy but instead I felt confused, maybe a bit angry too. I was full of mixed feelings.

My feet were normal and I had no tail. Finally, I spoke for myself. “W-what? I’m no cat. Look at me!”                        
 “Yes, you are!” they all said, together. Not bothered to argue, I sighed. Was I a cat? What was I supposed to feel? I’m normal, I kept repeating to myself. But then I thought of the morning that day and how I sprinted faster than any known creature in this universe! Maybe I wasn’t normal after I all. Maybe I was something else.

After my very noisy lunch time, I skipped back to my classroom (computer science) looking extremely heroic on the outside but feeling the complete opposite in the inside. “Someone looks happy!” a very smiley teacher said, pulling his trousers up. I just nodded. My delighted expression slowly faded away. Luckily, the teacher left before he could comfort me.

For the first time ever, I was actually on time to a lesson. I don’t know why I was so excited about it. I mean, it’s just a lesson. The most boring one, in fact!

Mr Mocado (our teacher) smiled down at me. I guess it was because I wasn’t late. For once. As usual, he talked us through the keywords and we started doing some coding, which I could never understand. Though Mr Mocado was always very supportive of me, even if I got zero marks on our daily quiz. He was the best teacher! Sadly, teaching the worst subject.

As soon as my fingers started dying because of all the typing, the bell rang. This meant it was the end of the day for everyone, except me. Not wanting to waste any time, I ran to my detention room. “Hello,” I whispered. “Umm, I think I have my detention here.” The teacher slowly lifted her eyes, so she could look at the ceiling. She had frizzy hair and big, black boots. Something that was very noticeable was her face. Weirdly, her nose leaned over to one side more than the other.

An old woman, she was. Ok. Sorry. I meant to say: really old. But it’s true, I mean it! I don’t know how someone can have that many wrinkles on their face. She got more wrinkles than hair! If only you saw her ugly face, you’d believe me. It took a really long time for her to reply. Like, a really long time. When she did reply…

Oh my, her voice was a croaky as a crocodile. Her mouth moved slowly and steadily. “O-oh. Oh, dear. N-not a-another detention. P-P-please. S-sit.”                           I looked at her weirdly; she reminded me of the three witches that we learnt in English. I gloomily replied, “Sure.” I toppled over to the nearest seat and gradually began sinking in it. As soon as I put my bag down on the floor, then looked up, the teacher had already fallen fast asleep.

At this point, I really wanted to leave but I couldn’t because there were two teachers standing outside the door just in case, I tried to run away which I’ve always been trying to do. Instantaneously, the door slammed open. I shivered: didn’t dare to look back. Though I couldn’t hold it, my eyes were controlling me and they moved to look at the doorknob. As the silence swam around me, my eyes had been blinded by the shine of the doorknob. Scratches cut diagonally as if someone had tried to dig through it looking for money. So old, so ancient, so….

Priceless.

It was not on single colour: the maroon, rusty colour melted into a newly painted layer of glistening gold. The curve of the doorknob was patterned with circles and petal-shapes.

BANG!!!

“Who’s there?” I stood up straight away, more cautious than an eagle. Then, as the seconds went by, someone crawled in from the corner. “DYLAN?” He didn’t say anything, just stared at me, motionless. I was about to slap him in the face so he could wake up, but before I could do so, Carly jumped into the room like a kangaroo.
“Today?”
I was literally so confused. “Huh?”
“OMG. Just hurry up, we don’t have all day.”
“But.” I pointed at the sleeping teacher.
“Really?” Carly sighed. “You have the chance to run away and now you’re thinking about some random old lady.”
“She’s not-”
But Carly cut me off. “Shut up, and let’s go. I really don’t have time for this.” I pinched myself, checking if I was in a dream, which I obviously wasn’t. I slowly walked over to the door, to find the teachers who always stood at the door, on the floor.
“You-you killed them.”
Carly looked back in a split second. “What? No! They’ll be awake in a few minutes which is why we have to hurry!” I just rushed over to her as she sprinted over to the gates which led us out of the school. My mouth widened, big enough to fit a whole herd of elephants, my eyes grew bigger, and I was just an ice block: Dylan was sprinting in front of us. So, I sprinted for him.
“How?”
“No time for questions,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.” For the rest of our journey, I didn’t ask a single question even if I was bursting to, I was able to hold it in. I kept thinking to myself: If I can run faster than Usain Bolt, I can hold in a question. That message of mine only lasted until we arrived at my house. Then, I was about to faint.

Few hours later…

I heard mumbles and footsteps travelling towards me; my eyes gradually opened to find nothing.
“She’s awake, she’s awake!!” somebody shouted.
“Sarah?” someone placed their hand on my forehead.
It took a few moments later of realisation, when I mumbled, “Where am I?”