Baywood - Chapter One

I put romance as the category because it comes later on, but it's mostly drama and a little bit of satirical humour.

Introducing the life of me, Laura Collins. I go to Baywood Arts high school...and that's all you need to know that's interesting.
I stood in front of the doors and sighed. My second year at Baywood would start the minute I walked through those doors. Six months exactly since the Darren incident. I was in the third year, but my mother had insisted on a year of 'proper schooling' before letting me go. I took in a large breath, and unfortunately ended up dragging in an inconveniently placed fly with it. I managed to spit it out and stumbled through the doors. Not my best entrance. Stumbling, dazed, with a dying fly in one hand and a violin case in the other. I quickly disposed of the now deceased insect and made my way over to my old locker to begin the laborious task of unloading my books. The book transfer was very satisfying, as the load in my bag decreased somewhat. When I'd finished, I glanced at the timetable and was blindly irritated to see that I had been lumbered with SPECIAL EFFECTS CLASS first thing on a Monday morning! Disgruntled, I selected the appropriate literature and closed my locker, having dumped my violin and my piano books in there too. I turned around and saw two of my best friends approaching, Jo and Henri. They're twin brother and sister, ten seconds apart. Jo has long, blonde hair and is inproportionately obsessed with it. Henri just has a sort of brown, and Jo seems to dislike that profusely.
"Hi Laura!" Jo exclaimed. She's an actress, like me, but can't play an instrument to save her life. She sings well and stops talking never, which makes up for Henri's shyness. He prefers to study special effects and building the set and the lighting. I don't understand why we have to study such things. I, an actress, do not care about how my set is made. It is purely there as a prop, no more important than a specific dress or a pair of glasses.
"Hey guys! How was Paris?" I asked. They'd gone there with their parents for the holidays, along with Avan, our artist friend.
"Hi Laura! Paris was great! There are these amazing little bakeries everywhere and they do pastry and it's so good." Jo said. Henri nodded his head, as he didn't talk much and preferred to let Jo speak for him. I remembered that he did special effects because he was terrified of the spotlight.
"Hi Laura." He muttered to me, eyes down to the floor.
"Hi Henri." I smiled at him, glad to be back.
"Hold that!" A voice from down on the floor behind me called. I looked down instantly to see Avan sketching us.
"Avan!" I exclaimed, half mad. "Don't draw me!" He stood up and closed his sketchbook.
"I only drew your feet." He said coolly. I didn't really know how to respond to that. Luckily, Naomi and her boyfriend Lee joined us at that point. Naomi was a street dancer, who strongly disliked anything formal. However, she liked her boy-friend's techno-style piano playing, which she often danced to. I was more at home there than at my house. My parents were both incredibly busy lawyers, and were fairly strict too. I was fairly sure that neither approved of my acting dreams, but indulged me nonetheless.
Suddenly, all the usual commotion before school halted. The instruments stopped playing, the dancers stopped moving, and, most eerily of all, the talking was replaced by whispering. I looked around, confused, until I realised what they were all gawping at.
Chapter 2 coming soon-
by Lex Soulsby.