From Silver to Diamonds

Chapter 1

The final bell rang for the day. In the building, all you can hear are the scraping of chairs being pushed in, lockers being slammed and last but not least the rising racket amongst each other. Students began to pour out of the gates with grateful looks on their faces as they stepped out of the school grounds.

Hugging on to my books with my dark auburn ringlets dancing crazily against the wind, normally I would go nuts when the wind decides to mess up my hair but today I just let it go. I stared at the century year old buildings. I sighed heavily and turned around towards the gates.

These days I have been keeping my head low since trouble had hit my family business hard in the face. My parents were away on a business trip out there defending the company. Not only that, I missed those days that I spent hours in the library exploring the private collections in the teachers only room. They had ancient documents, records of the school’s past history and other miscellaneous remains from the founder of the school. But unfortunately the library is under maintenance and wouldn’t be open for a while.

Ahead of me, students hung around the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive. I decided to join them since walking wasn’t much of an option to me because I lived in two suburbs after this one and usually dad or mum would pick me up.

At the front of the line, ring of boys jabbed and joked at each other. They were all smoking pot and occupied themselves with at least one chick wrapped in their arms, except for one who hung back further from the group and refused to smoke with girls all dotted flirting with him. He had plain brown eyes, wispy brown hair that needed to be cut and a bored look on his face. Overall, to me he was ordinary and arrogant whose name seemed to be Nicholas and his locker is just right behind mine. To me, who have no interests in boys wouldn’t understand what’s so great about them instead seeing them as bothersome and handful or maybe it’s just that my pheromones aren't working properly.

The bus finally arrived. One by one we flashed our cards at the machine. When I managed to get on the bus, it was already pack. I ended up smelling some guy’s armpit. EEERK I thought I was about to die when I noticed a year 7 running towards the bus and tripped as the bus began to pull away.

“STOP” I screamed to the bus driver. “STOP THE BUS,”

Startled, the bus stopped at a halt. People began to search for the owner of the voice. The guy whose armpit I smelt let go of the handle and stared at me. I pushed my way pass the crowd and demanded the driver to open the doors for the girl. He gave me a long hard stare then opened the doors. I leaped out and helped the poor year 7 girl who had scraped her knee.

“Thank you,” she said in teary eyes.

“It’s okay,” I said softly and brushed a tear with my thumb.

I could feel everyone on the bus staring including the wispy haired guy who I’ve notice earlier with an amused look mixed with apprehension. Ignored them and lead the girl to the bus. She was all smothered and dazed by my actions. I sighed again but this time softly. I didn’t have the ability to capture guys’ attention but the same sex.

When I arrived home, the front door was unlocked with a familiar pink leopard patterned key purse still in the hole. With joy, I quietly took the keys out and sneaked in hopping to give mum and dad a surprise. As quiet as a mouse I placed mum’s key purse holder onto the glass table beside the coat hanger and tip toed to the office. 

Mum’s sobs stopped my track. She was sitting in front of the desk her hands clutched together tight with her back facing towards me. Dad stood in the far corner, a distress look plastered on to his face. My knees began turning into jelly. I leaned against the wall keeping out of sight but clear enough to see mum and dad’s face.