Sincerely, Red

Chapter Six

Dear Liv,

It was New Years Day yesterday.

It went by really quickly, with people counting down to twelve o'clock and the snow coming down in tonnes. The Christmas lights all got an upgrade and I watched them glow all the colours of the rainbow. They reflected in the shop windows and car mirrors, as they stole the glory of the regular old lampposts.

Some kids from school went down to the little archway near the bakery and took pictures of all the lights.

I guess I'm going to be seeing a lot of them soon, because we're going back to school on Monday. Considering that it's currently Thursday, we haven't got long to go and I'm not really happy about that.

I really don't like school. The lessons are boring and a lot of the teachers are really patronising, whilst some of the kids annoy the heck out of me.

I don't know if you remember how our social system basically works, since we've got almost everyone that was in our primary school still with us in secondary school.

There aren't really cliques. For some reason, people automatically assume that there are, but I just want to clear it up from the very beginning. There aren't cliques. There are just people who regularly talk to the same group of people, but also spend time with completely different individuals.

I don't know if you still read those weird teen fiction books about nerds and rebels and weird cheerleaders, who are way too cranky and awful to actually cheer. That was just in case you do and they brainwash you into thinking our school is like that too.

It's not.

We have some bike racks out back and some people go out and smoke, like blackening their lungs will really bump their coolness factor. There are only really two or three of this type of people in our year, and they're mostly the ones who are trying too hard to impress people. They're not 'bad' or rebels. They're either suffering from too much stress or, like I said before, think it's cool and will push them up the popularity ladder.

If you look a little further to the left, you'll find a group of maybe five people who basically wander around at break and lunch. They're incredibly nice and some of the quieter people in school, so they sometimes find it harder to make friends. They basically just hover within a metre of each other and occasionally murmur a few words.

Another thing is we don't have cheerleaders.

I mean, we have teams (for girls and boys) and they play loads of sports but mainly in the summer. That's it though. The team supports each other at the actual games and when they come back, there'll be an announcement in assembly to say where they ranked. Then, they'll just get a round of applause and it'll be over.

Most of the people who play in those teams are pretty nice, and smart too. You and Laney hung out with them quite a lot before the incident.

Anyway, the point was that we have so many different people within our school. We have the self proclaimed weirdoes, the smart people, the broken people, the sporty people, the cosmetics lovers and so much more. No one belongs to just one title. They're all made up of a load of different characteristics.

I want you to remember that, if you can.

I heard you're planning on coming back to school soon, so it'd be useful for you to have some background information and not rely on any books and films like you would've done before.

I've got to do some last minute homework now and hope that I'll somehow magically pass the class.

See you in school, Liv.