I walk through the school gates, staring at the 'Oakland State High School' sign on the fence to the side. It is so old that most of the letters have worn off, and some people have found it funny to write in different letters. I shake my head. Some people are so immature.

Although I've been here for two years already, I've never really noticed it. The sign now reads 'Oat farm Space Fright School'. I know. It's stupid. I mean, couldn't they come up with something better than 'Space Fright'? Maybe since someone was scared of space or something. Still, if you're going to vandalise something, do it the smart way.

And, for some reason, they decided to leave 'school' alone. Is it because they still consider this place a school? I think the word 'jungle' suits it better.

I walked past our lunch spot, which is a huge tree right behind the school gates, and has heaps of shade, which makes it perfect to eat our lunch underneath. Plus it's usually quieter and less crowded. Walking towards the locker rooms, I will for things to stay the same, for people to keep not noticing me, for things not to change because of a stupid picture David put up on Instagram.

Instead, as I enter, I can feel all the students' eyes on me, burning a hole in my back. A group of girls have gathered nearby, whispering and sneaking glances at me.

My cheeks heat up as I bend down to put my bag on the floor and stick my hand in to fumble for my key. Finally, I find it and try to open the locker but there's something in the way of the lock. I pull an envelope out of the vents and shove it in my bag, just hoping to grab my stuff for my first class and leave quickly.

I gasp in horror as the locker swings open. A large stack of papers leaning against the door fly out and scatter all over the floor. And worse yet—they are copies of the picture that David posted.

Terrified and humiliated, I drop down to the floor and immediately start trying to gather the papers up.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the girls huddled in the corner staring at me. I mean, more than the other girls are. And she isn't laughing or pointing at me either. She's just staring at me. The thought makes me uncomfortable so I try to ignore it.

Too late, I realise Serena is making her way over to me. I back up against the lockers as much as possible to avoid her. Unfortunately, she corners me.

She stands next to me with a self-satisfied smirk on her face, and that's when I realise she is the one who put these pictures in my locker. So, so badly, I want to have a go at her, but the self-conscious part of myself thinks, what would she do to me then? What would happen? And I know that I can never sum up the courage to do that.

"Well, well, well," she scoffs. "I see there's a new wannabe slut in this disgusting place." She wrinkles her nose at me. "Next time, keep your clothes on!"

The students erupt in laughter, making my ears ring. Serena flips her gorgeous, shiny blonde hair and walks off.

I slump onto the floor and wipe a tear off my cheek before anyone can notice. I try to focus on calming myself and not bursting into tears.

Then the girl who was staring earlier comes over and starts helping me grab the pieces of paper. She pushes them in a pile, scrunches them up and throws them in the bin, ignoring the girls' nasty remarks and giggles.

She kindly offers me a hand and I accept, holding back a sob. She pulls me to my feet and I look up at her.

She is what boys would call 'hot'. She has shiny, red curls and a slim figure, pretty much what every guy wants in a girlfriend. The thing that sets her apart from my bullies are her eyes. She has pretty blue eyes that make you feel like you are her best friend, they give off that 'I'll take care of you' and 'I don't judge' look. The guys probably appreciate that too. She probably gets asked out a million times a day.

"Hey, I'm Rebecca!" she regards me carefully. "Are you alright? You look like you've been in a wrestling match!"

I smile at her. I am already feeling better from her strange sense of humour. "I'm Carrie..." I try to reply, but it comes out like a whisper.

"Well, nice to meet you, Carrie!" She extends a hand and I take it, marvelling at its smoothness.

"I'm sorry about them." She rolls her eyes. "They're really nice when you get to know them."

I glanced over at the group of girls in disbelief. Rebecca catches my look. "They're just... not nice to people they don't know, or whenever they can make fun of people." She smiles. "I don't like judging others. I try to convince the girls not to. Come on, I'll introduce them to you and you'll forget about Serena. Serena's just someone they pretty much worship for some reason. I let the others get away with a lot, but I don't give the same passes to Serena. Serena's never nice. I'm guessing you already knew that."

She tugs my arm. "Oh, I'm being really talkative again, aren't I? Come on! You'll feel better when you meet them."

I stand frozen to the spot, terrified. I absolutely do not want to meet them but, of course I can't tell Rebecca that. She has been so kind to me! I start forming an excuse to get out of meeting them, but she pulls me along and I have no choice but to go along.

"Hey, guys, this is Carrie!" Rebecca introduces. I do not get the nice smiles and welcome that Rebecca promised. They just stare at me, no one daring to say a thing.

There is a silence until one of the girls recognises me. She's a short, brown haired girl I'd seen making goo-goo eyes at David once before when he drove me home. She had also been in my P.E class last year. Kate, I remember her name is.

Kate blinks once, then blurts out, "Are you Dav—"

I really can't take it anymore. I interrupt her, not caring if I'm being rude. "Please! Please don't!" I beg.

She stares at me weirdly.

"I hate it when people only see him in me." I explain. "Yeah, I know he's like a football champion at this school. And...some people say...cute." I choke out for her benefit. "But he's a terrible person. If you knew him like I do, you'd want to punch him in the face too!"

Then the most unexpected thing happens. She starts laughing. "Omg, I can totally relate! Although I can't imagine David being like that, I have an older brother who thinks he's better than everyone!" I smile at her in relief and gratitude.

"You've got it easy!" a tall girl with hazel eyes and short black hair exclaims. "My younger brother takes all the attention, and thinks the world revolves around him! Literally! He orders me around and if I don't do what he says, he'll start crying and make up some lie about me. And my parents believe it!"

"That's not as bad as what I have to deal with," a girl from my science class, Amber, butts in. "My sister's only four, yet she always beats me in fights by scratching me, pulling my hair and biting me! She's a feral animal," she grumbles, twisting her blonde hair.

As we all share our stories, I feel them slowly accepting me. I have never had people become so comfortable with me so fast.

I feel so happy because my conversation with them is going perfectly! None of them are making rude comments or laughing at me. Rebecca was right! They aren't as mean as I'd made them out to be. I smile, finally realising that I can be myself around some other people, even the ones labelled 'cool'.

We are all so busy laughing and joking together, I don't notice how long I've been there for. "Oh! I'm so sorry, guys, I have to go. I loved meeting all of you!" I smile broadly.

"Bye!" they chorus together, except for Rebecca who gives me a wave and 'I told you so' look.

I turn around to leave, but Kate stops me. "Wait! That picture—was that David?" she asks.

Relief washes over me like a wave. "You'd better believe it! Though it's nothing compared to what he does to me weekly!" I laughed it off. It felt nice to know people knew it was a fake picture.

They all laugh and I quickly shove my bag into my locker and shut the door. I run to our tree where we meet each morning. Jasmine is already sitting there with her earphones in.

She looks up and takes an earphone bud out. "Oh, hey!"

"Hey." I sit down next to her. "Watcha listening to?"

She gives me one of the buds and we sit there, listening to music. I hum along with the beat of 'It's you' by Ali Gatie. I didn't usually listen to this song but it's pretty good. I am so lost in the music that I forget Jasmine is sitting right next to me.

She speaks up, startling me. "Oh, I forgot to ask. How were things this morning?" she asks. "You know, about the Instagram incident?"

I think back. Thanks to Rebecca, it was all well by the end of it. "Actually, it was fine. Nothing too bad."

She raises an eyebrow at that. "Not too bad? Okay, what happened?"

I give up and tell her everything about how I was so surprised that all the girls were nice.

"Well, think of it this way. And, by the way, my theory is tested and proven." She took a deep breath.

"You like people, or they like you, depending on how well you know each other, or by how much time you spend with them. So pretty much everyone's a nice person."

"What about—"

"Serena doesn't count," she informs me, and I nod my head at her logic. Now it makes sense.

Suddenly, I think about Georgie. "By the way, where's Georgie?" I asks.

"Oh, she's sick today." She waves her phone at me. "She texted me. Something you cannot do." She grins at me.

I give her a glare. "Yeah, thanks to you! I would have been fine if you didn't turn up."

She pretends to look hurt. "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't have learnt the struggle of not having a phone."

I open my mouth to respond but get unkindly interrupted by the school bell.

Now, let me make something clear. Our school does not have a usual school bell. Our bell makes a deafening sound, so loud you can hear it from blocks away, and...well, it's a cow.

No kidding. Our bell doesn't ring—it moos.

Last term, apparently our school just 'wasn't enthusiastic enough' and there had been too many suicide attempts at school so our Government was concerned for the students' mental health. In the end, they changed a ton of things. Like the bell (that moos loudly for about 10 seconds) they also changed the colour of the bathrooms, (all of the bathrooms are painted in different colours) and the desks that are of weird shapes.

The desks are alright but a mooing bell? Seriously?

"Guess we gotta get a moo-ve on." Jasmine grins at me. I groan.

"Again with the dad jokes?"

She pretends to be offended. "I'm female, thank you very much."

I roll my eyes at her. She gets up and dusts the dirt off her bum, and I do the same. We walk over to the lockers together and after finding Eric, we split up, promising to meet up at first break. Jasmine grabs his hands and pulls him away as I go to grab my books for the first period. I go to check my phone to find what I have first, but then remember I don't have it so head to my locker instead.

When I get to my locker, I yank it open, realising straight away that it isn't locked. I must have forgotten to lock it with all the drama before. After checking my timetable and finding out my first period is English, I take my books and shut my locker properly this time. I shove my keys in my pocket and line up for form.

Instantly my form teacher appears at the door and slides it open. "Two lines!" he yells over the noise. "Come in!"

I pass by him and go to the back row, where my allocated seat is. I usually sit next to Ebony, she's really nice and I really like her. We could be closer friends if we both wanted to.

Mr Trovalli shuts the door, goes over to his desk and starts calling out names. He has a long beard and looks about seventy years old. He has a really gruff voice and is sometimes hard to understand.

I glance at the door, deep in thought. Huh. I guess she won't be here today.

Just as I'm thinking that, Ebony runs in, attempting to catch her books as they slide out of her reach and fall to the floor.

"Hey!" she exclaims loudly, flashing me a bright smile. Ebony's pretty popular, and very likeable.

She sits down and her shoulder length, black hair swishes beyond her ears. "I like your earrings!" I tell her, admiring the sparkly ladybugs she's wearing. She touches them for a moment before smiling at me in thanks. Ebony pulls out her books and glances up as the teacher yells out her name.

"Ms. Draycott! Why are you late?" he asks as he goes to change the roll.

"Sorry, sir. I got... caught up," she replies before rolling her eyes behind his back. "So," She turns to me. "What's up?"

"Nothing really. Hey, I've got English, you do too, right?"

She scoffs at me. "Are you trying to change the subject?" She wiggles her eyebrows at me. "I heard you had a moment with Hunter," she says, eyebrows raised.

I slap her lightly. "He was just giving me something from a teacher."

Ebony leans in with the strangest expression on her face. "What was it?" she presses. I shove her away and she slouches back, laughing.

Shaking my head, I ask her, "What was that expression for?"

"I don't know, you tell me!" she howls with laughter.

She leans forward, clutching at her stomach, still laughing, and suddenly something squirts onto the desk.

I'm horrified. I make a fake throwing-up gesture. "Something just came out of your nose!"

"I just drank a carton of milk!" She snorts.

"A carton?" I ask, flabbergasted.

"Ladies, keep it down over there!" Oops. Mr. Trovalli is glaring at us.

"Sorry, sir!" we say in unison and giggle.

Suddenly mooing sounds ring out.

"I guess it's time to go," she giggles, quickly packing her stuff up. "Want to walk to English block together?"

"Sure."