Prepsworth Academy

Chapter 3 - "I'll take your word for it."

Harry

I directed Year Sevens to their various dorms, doing my best to reassure them. Prepsworth was beautiful, and entrancing, but it could also be fascinating. It was a Hunger Games of sorts, with the children of Australia's richest and smartest locked away at boarding school, left to fight for populaity and tear other people down. Still, it could be fun and exciting, and I felt a pang of sadness that my siblings weren't here. I was the third child in a family of seven, with my parents having had five children. We were a big family, at least, by typical standards, and, although we were undeniably rich, Prepsworth Academy was expensive. My two older siblings had all gone to Prepsworth, but when it came time to enrol the second youngest, Eva, in high school, Prepsworth was just a little too expensive. I was a little relieved, given that I wouldn't have to deal with my younger siblings, but I also missed them, and missed my entire family.

I knew that I was amongst poorer students at Prepsworth, but it didn't really affect anything. I had a large group of friends, good grades, and was the perfect child, the perfect student. Funny, likeable, but also studious, and caring. Balancing homework, and friends and soccer and basketball practices was undeniably stressful, but, if I got to be successful, I could help my family, and then, maybe, Eva and my youngest sibling: Scott, could spend a few years at Prepsworth Academy, the school they'd heard so much about.

I saw Emma Winter walking ahead of me, and opened my mouth to say hi, before deciding against it. I could probably talk to her later, at the party anyway. I felt someone elbow in the side and looked over to see my friend Millie, smirking at me.

"What?" I asked. Millie raised an eyebrow, before shrugging.

"Nothing." She replied.

"I'll take your word for it."

Amy

Ballet is the most important thing in my life. When I tell people that, they laugh, or roll their eyes, assuming it's a brief faze, or something silly. But, I've been dancing since I could walk – and ever since then, I've devoted all of my spare time to dance. Ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, I've competed – and won – in all of them. There's something fun in dancing until all of your muscles scream out in pain, and pushing yourself further than you ever felt able to. I liked creating the stories that came with the dance, losing myself in the choreography until I was a completely different person. I stood in one of Prepsworth's dance rooms, staring at myself in the floor-to ceiling mirror and stretching, before spinning gracefully across the hardwood floors. I'd always wanted to go to the Sydney University of Dance and, eventually, work for The Australian Dance Company. I'd been practicing my audition piece for what felt like forever, but nothing ever felt right. It needed to be perfect, and during the holidays, I often found myself practicing long into the night. I began to dance after I'd finished stretching, practicing a familiar lyrical routine to try to see if it would work the hundredth time I'd tried it. Once I'd started dancing, I knew it wouldn't work, but I continued to dance anyway, enjoying losing myself in another world, spinning and leaping across the room. After I'd finished the routine, I forced myself to stop. That was always the worst part about dancing – when you had to stop, to stop dreaming and come back to reality. I wanted so many things to happen – I wanted to get into The Australian Dance Company, I wanted to inspire people, I wanted to fall in love and to be loved. When I was dancing, all of that could happen and more. But when I stopped? Then, I was just Amy. And when I was Amy, I was nothing.

Dylan

Year Twelve. Big whoop. Everyone seemed to be just so excited for it, either because it was their last year at Prepsworth and before complete freedom, or because it marked the beginning of whatever long, difficult dream they planned to start, without anticipating that it would fail, and they'd become just what they'd always been. Losers. I was not excited for Year Twelve, because I already had enough freedom, and I wasn't planning to embark on some big adventure to follow my dream, or whatever. The truth was, school wasn't that hard. Ever since I'd been old enough to care, I'd been bunking off, going to parties and ignoring my piles of homework. People acted like it was such a bad thing, but no one else really took school that seriously but the people that were already set up for greatness. The good thing about Prepsworth was the fact that at least some other people shared my sentiment about going to parties and bunking off. Even if they didn't, they'd probably do it anyway to impress some of the more popular students. Another thing was the simple fact that I didn't have to try hard to get okay grades, and I could still do whatever I liked. I wasn't a genius, but I was smart enough that I could get away with doing the bare minimum. Besides, you only have to work hard if you're going to grow up and become a CEO or something, and that was the worst fate I could think off. I didn't have to be the perfect little child, like Emma or Elle, simply because I never was, and never would be. Life was pretty much perfect for me. I was popular without being pretentious, smart without being a nerd, and acting up without being a criminal. Or, too much of a criminal. But, Year Twelve was about to get a whole lot harder. I wish I could say it began with a single incident, a single conversation, but the change of events was set in motion long before the year started. But, none of us knew any of that. We started blaming other, and then blamed ourselves. The truth was somewhere in between, but the truth, as it always is at Prepsworth, was elusive.