From underdogs to top dogs

Chapter 1

As her alarm sounded, a sandy haired girl stirred from her slumber.

"Ugh. School." She groaned, hitting the snooze button and turning over. She suddenly sat up and smiled.

"Wait. School!" She smiled, almost running to her wardrobe. She carefully selected her outfit for the day; a denim skirt over black leggings with a long sleeve white top. She pulled on her favourite white lace converse and brushed down her wavy locks. As she listened to music and applied her makeup, she gave herself a pep talk.

"Ok. New year. New school. New people. Yes they might know of you but just relax."

She put down her mascara wand and admired her natural look, liking her appearance which nowadays was a rarity. She looked herself in the eyes through the mirror. "Come on Skye, you've got this."

As he walked to his locker, Chase sighed. Another year of high school, another year of bullies and another year alone.

Sure he had one friend, Marshall but it never made him feel any better. Marshall was the one person that didn't pick on him but he wasn't in today.

He looked at his class schedule and picked up his maths folder when he was suddenly hit by another student. He heard a group of girls laughing and turned to see an unfamiliar girl on the floor, her blonde hair swept over her face.

He glared after the group of girls that had pushed her, all of them now walking to the bathrooms. He knew them well, Brianna, Ashlynne and Carley, the biggest brats around. They were models and thought it made them special. Everyone listened to them and feared them.

He offered his hand to the girl who shyly took it and mumbled a thanks. As she looked up, the brunette noticed how pretty she was. They exchanged a small smile and the girl turned to the locker next to him.

"You ok?" He asked, putting his lanyard that held his locker key and student ID card in his pocket.

It was uncommon for Chase to start a conversation with someone but he felt like...well he didn't know how he felt. Most likely that he knew what it was like to be picked on but looking at this girl, he felt that she would probably be popular.

"Yeah thanks. She sniffed. "I'm used to them." She put away her folders and jacket before starting to hang up pictures and her schedule on the back of the door with magnets. The boy noticed that they had the same first class.

"You have maths first too?" He queried.

"Yeah. I have no idea where anything is."

"I'll show you if you want, I'm in your class." Chase closed his locker door.

"That would be nice." The blonde smiled shyly. "Thanks, um..." she looked at the boy quizzically.

"Oh I'm Chase."

"Thanks Chase. I'm Skye." She said as they walked to their first class.

Maybe this year won't be too bad after all. Chase thought to himself.

"Can anyone tell me what the quadratic formula is?" Mr Harlow, the maths teacher asked his class. No one raised their hand except Skye. The middle aged man nodded, acknowledging the girl and letting her answer.

"It's negative b added and subtracted by the square root of b squared times by four lots of a and c. All of that is then divided by two lots of a." She said, remembering the formula that was all too familiar to her. The brunette boy sat next to her open mouthed as the teacher praised her and wrote the formula on the board.

Sniggers could be heard from the back of the room where all the popular kids sat. Chase rolled his eyes as he heard their remarks but noticed Skye hang her head, eyes glazed over with tears. He tried to focus her attention on something else.

"Hey. What've you got next?" He hissed. The bell was due to sound at any point.

"Um, literature. Then history." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her golden ring glistening in the sunlight.

"Me too. Looks like you're stuck with me." He joked, suddenly feeling a bit more confident in himself.

"I don't mind that." She laughed.

That's the first time someone's said that to me. Chase thought, smiling.