Schoolgirl Secrets

Chapter Two: The First Day Back At School

The loudly chattering cluster of children slowly split up into fifteen groups of two and took desks together. As was  expected, the desks on the back two rows went first and only the nerds and the oddballs ended up sitting on the very front row. Melanie Hudson however, hurtled straight for the desk directly opposite the large teacher's desk. Everybody groaned. Melanie Hudson was such a busybody and a know-it-all. All she cared about was being the best in the class and superior to all the other 'classroom babies'. Felicity Wells was the complete opposite. She was the least popular girl in the whole school and she always hid herself away in a corner, pulling her desk as far away from her neighbour's as possible without banging into the wall and knocking over something. Jenifer thought  she was a very odd twelve year old. Most of the girls and boys in Jenifer's class were soon to be thirteen in the next month or two. Melanie Hudson was going to be thirteen in four days. Jenifer could wait an eternity for the day when Melanie walked into class with her nose in the air; the oldest of the class. Felicity Wells wasn't going to be thirteen until December, which was four whole months away!

Jenifer sat down at a desk with her friend Jane, Tom took a desk with Nikola. Jenifer and Jane started to giggle. They had suspected for a while that Tom and Nikola might be hiding a slightly romantic secret. It was true, Nikola and Tom were at that moment, staring unblinkingly into each other's eyes.

Tom's hand suddenly lunged across the table and grabbed hold of Nikola's. Jane and Jenifer were so shocked they almost screamed! But almost at once started snorting into their sleeves again. Nikola was leaning in towards Tom, her head slightly to one side. Tom had done the same thing. Jenifer and Jane exchanged a comically horror-struck look and they returned to staring avidly at the love affair happening on their neighbouring table. Tom and Nikola were about an inch apart now, their lips parted. Jenifer and Jane were quaking with suppressed laughter, still glued to the disgusting and hilarious scene happening in front of them. Nikola and Tom were almost nose to nose...

The classroom door banged open and their new teacher strode into the room. Nikola and Tom leapt apart with a horrified expression on their faces. Jenifer and Jane couldn't help themselves; they burst into laughter.

"Shut up you two," snapped their new teacher. She was a tall woman, wearing a long, black dress and red heels and carrying a rather large, rather heavy pile of boring looking textbooks and reference dictionaries. She had pale blonde hair which would probably have fallen almost to her waist if she hadn't had it in a long plait curled neatly on top of her head. She had a rather pinched face, a sour expression, and long-lashed black eyes which looked rather foreboding, standing out against her pale skin and bright red lips. She had large, silver rods dangling from her ears and she wore a thin, delicate looking gold chain around her neck. But what hung from it was hidden down the top of her dress.

Jenifer and Jane looked at each other in mock shock and then started to hide their un-allowed laughter in their school dresses.  

The teacher had reached her desk and slammed the books down upon it. She then turned to face the class.

"Good morning children," she said. She had a very well-spoken voice. "I am your new teacher; Miss Brightlight." She wrote the name on the board. "I am twenty three years old," She wrote this too on the board. "And this is my first teaching experience. I hope you will be a good class to teach and that you will achieve good exam results at the end of the year."

Jenifer groaned. She hardly ever got good grades in the end of year exams. All she was good at was charging around the playground and spying on people! Neither of them would be any good in a test.

"I am quite a strict and formal teacher," Miss Brightlight continued. "And I will not tolerate any misbehaviour in my lessons."

"That we could guess," Jenifer whispered to Jane. Miss Brightlight's head whipped around. Her face took on a haughty expression and she walked around her desk and over to the back of the classroom where she stood over Jane and Jenifer looking extremely stern.