| Subject: Story of Joanne - P1 Ch4 |
Author:
Rose
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Date Posted: 02:41:30 09/20/02 Fri
In reply to:
Rose
's message, "Story of Joanne - P1 Ch3" on 07:48:48 09/17/02 Tue
~Chapter Four~
The First Day
The next morning, around six, Joanne woke to a scuffling noise near her dormitory's fireplace. She sat straight up in bed; groggily thinking it might be Lucia going through her things. She blinked, and then remembered where she was. Swinging her feet out of bed and into her slippers, she caught sight of the disturber. Joanne squealed at first because she didn’t realise who it was.
The shuffler was a maid dressed in a short skirt and apron and also a frilly cap covered her curly head. She was about in her 20’s looking.
Turning around, the maid saw her looking at her, she quickly picked up the tongs and dustpan and scurried out the door, slamming it rather loudly, obviously she wasn't meant to wake them up.
But she did because as soon as the door banged shut the rest of the dormitory’s inmates woke up. Joanne saw Amanda in one of the beds near the window, the twins from the bus near the door, and the two other girls, Gen and Amelia were in the other two beds. All of them were rather grumpy and groggy, and all of them wanted to know what had happened.
Joanne reached for a dressing gown. “It was a sort of maid, tending the fire. I guess I shouldn't have screamed; I think I frightened her. She slammed the door when she left.”
One of the twins sighed. “Maid or not, I'm going back to bed.” And she did, falling back on her pillow almost instantly falling asleep.
Joanne rolled her eyes, as did the other blonde twin.
“How did we ever sleep through that?” Said Poppy staring at her twin, Rosa who was happily snoring away.
Amanda shrugged, tossing her long brown hair over one shoulder. “I'm just glad I did. I don't know how I did, but boy, am I glad I did.”
They all decided to at least get another hours sleep before they would venture downstairs.
Joanne woke up happy the next hour. She couldn't wait for that dummy Amelia to try and mess with her again. She was just like Lucia, so Joanne knew it would be easy to put her in her place if needed. She dressed in the white and blue uniform pinning her badge to her school cap. She also braided red metallic ribbons in her hair, which she put in two French braids. She and Gen were ready at the same time, and they walked silently down the stairs to the common room together. Soon Gen went off to breakfast on her own, and Joanne went down with Poppy, Amanda and Rosa.
As they walked through the doors leading into the Main Hall,
a fifth year groaned nearby, “Max Wheeler is such a moron, he’s been around with his mate soaking me and my friends with water balloons all morning.”
A third year that stood nearby snorted. “Water balloons? Is that all he did to you? I don't suppose you've had him empty your trunk over you, using the excuse that he thought you were cold.”
Several other students had started to filter in, all of them dressed, some of them wet, and all complaining about Max.
Joanne quickly sat down ready for a scrumptious breakfast. She looked down at the food displayed before her.
The golden plates were already filled with biscuits, bacon, porridge, toast, fruit, pancakes, and all sorts of eggs. She helped herself to some of everything, wondering how she could still have an appetite after last night's feast.
Amanda sat right next to her. “What is the point of that Max, I'd like to know? Practically all other creatures have sense, but Max Wheeler?” She went on like that all through her bacon and eggs, and Joanne sat next to her, bored, grumpy, and very tired.
She was relieved when some of the other students started to come in to breakfast, among them her four boy-shaped friends.
Ben pulled out a chair across from her, almost unnaturally awake. “Morning, Jo!”
She glared at him under half-open eyelids. “Go away and celebrate your awake-ness somewhere else. I'm trying to sleep.” Her head dropped back onto her arms; ignoring the schedule Ms Furniss was handing out, which landed on top of her milk glass.
Nicky sat down on the other side of Joanne. He picked up the schedule and squinted at it. “Hey, we’ve got PE first period with Miss Smith. Oh...let's have fun third period-we've got double Science with West House...like I said loads of fun with those morons.”
Ms Furniss gave Nicky his table, who was making second rounds with schedules. “Let's see...hey, Ben, we have Maths second with that Mrs Davenport, maybe we can try out our Nail-lose hoax.”
Joanne raised her head again. “Nicky, it's too early in the morning. Go back to bed.”
Nicky looked at her sceptically. “It's eight-thirty, the first school day of the year, and breakfast time. What more could you want and why on earth are you so tired?”
Joanne scowled. “Have you ever heard of noisy maids and snoring girls at six a.m.? I think that would explain my monstrous desire for a large mug of straight caffeine with only a little bit of coffee.”
Daniel broke in. “Nicky, all the North first year girls are gonna be like this. I’ve heard they have a noisy dorm maid, Sheila told me earlier. If you don't want to be clawed to death, I'd suggest you leave them alone.”
“Well, I’m going to see if we’ve got any post today.” Said Ben.
Joanne lifted her head, yet again, “Where d’you go for that?”
“There’s a post room just leading out there.” Said Daniel, pointing towards a room to the side, where Ben was heading. “But sometimes Ms Furniss hands them out, but she’s busy occupied with the timetables.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Asked Joanne grumpily.
“Have you ever read the programme about Canton School?”
“Not yet.” Replied Joanne, getting to her feet as Ben came striding back signalling there was no mail today.
A bell resounded through the corridors, and the multitude in the Main Hall started moving off to class.
Joanne headed outside with her friends where the PE teacher, Miss Smith led them to a detached building on the outskirts of a large grassy field.
Inside the detached building were a gym and the changing rooms.
Joanne went with Gen, Amanda, Rosa and Poppy to get changed into their PE kit, which consisted of blue shorts, yellow polo shirt and trainers.
Outside on the field they were split into groups of five. Joanne was with her dorm girls, all except Amelia.
Miss Smith instructed them to practise controlling a football, and do some basic football stunts, like passing and scoring.
Everyone except Nathan (big surprise) managed to complete the tasks given.
At the end of the lesson, Miss Smith blew her whistle and told everyone to get changed, except Ben, Nicky, Daniel and Joanne. She kept them back on a nearby bench as the rest raced towards the changing rooms.
Miss Smith said, “Listen you four, you are all excellent players, and if you wish you may use the football pitch in the evening to practise if you wish. If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity come to the field from 4-5 every night available.”
“We'd love to.” Nicky said after getting confirmation nods from his friends.
Their day started out wonderfully, and it continued along that way. Their second class was Mathematics. It was hard, but fun. Fun especially because Nicky and Ben somehow managed to get Mrs Davenport stuck to her chair. Only problem was though, while Joanne was concentrating in finishing a hard sum, Amelia had carefully snuck the superglue into her bag after nabbing it out of Nicky’s bag.
Mrs Davenport was not amused as she tried to get off her chair. The whole class started laughing hysterically, until Mrs Davenport silenced them with the rip of her thin light trousers.
But them everyone erupted again into more fits of chuckles. Nathan laughed so much he dropped all his equipment on the floor.
“Quiet!” Shouted Mrs Davenport. Her face had gone a funny shade of purple.
Joanne quietly helped Nathan pick up his pens as he was sitting near her. As she bent down she saw a white lid of something poking out of her bag.
“Who did this?!” Demanded Mrs Davenport, pointing to her chair, which displayed a strip of her trousers glued, stuck.
At the same time Joanne opened her bag to find a bottle of super-glue. Quite shocked she handed it to Ben who was sitting right next to her.
Mrs Davenport immediately saw this and came striding up to Joanne and Ben, “Did one of you do this?”
Amelia stood up suddenly, “I saw her! It was Joanne!”
“No it wasn’t!” Cried Nicky, but lowered his head shyly as the maths teacher stared at him sternly. “It was me.”
Joanne stared at Nicky, so did Ben.
“Well, I don’t care who it was!” Shouted Mrs Davenport, “You three, detention! Tonight 7-8, in my office. Be there!”
“You can't give all three of us detention for that!” Nicky said indignantly.
“I most certainly can, and if you don't watch it I'll take merits from North House.” effectively shutting Nicky up.
As soon as they left the classroom Joanne slugged him with her school bag. “Way to go Nicky! You moron! You got us detention on our first day here!”
“Relax Joanne, it won't be that bad. We will still get to practice footy tonight though.”
“Well, isn't that just dandy. I had other plans besides football tonight. I'll need all the time I can get. I don't need DETENTION!” Joanne yelled at him.
“Well, exxcccuuuseee me. Blame Ben, not me. He started it.” and Joanne turned her furious glare on Ben.
“Daniel came up with the idea first.” Ben retorted, putting his hands in front of him defensively.
“Daniel, you dummy, its all your fault.” Joanne said, though she wasn't really mad at him.
Their next class was science, and Joanne wrangled her way between Nathan and Daniel. She could already tell that class would be a breeze as she mixed some chemicals together, and then it was over.
Immediately after they went down to the football field.
Nicky, Joanne, Daniel and Ben were all going to try out for their house team, and they all felt determined to do so. They practiced for their hour, and then went to dinner.
At 6:50 Nicky, Ben and Joanne dragged themselves away from the table to detention. They saw Mrs Davenport at the Staff Table, so they stopped to talk to her.
“Are we supposed to go up to your room for detention?” Joanne asked.
“Yes, dear. It’s too bad that you have detention; it’s the friends you choose.” Davenport said.
“So, you children already have detention? On your first day?” Mr Gilmore asked.
“Yes, sir. Gluing chairs.” Nicky answered.
“Ah.” he said, with a slight smile. As they turned to leave with Mrs Davenport they saw Mr Gilmore say something to Miss Smith next to him.
As it turned out, they had to spend thirty minutes washing mugs, then thirty minutes polishing gold trophies. Then they were finally released. Joanne rushed up to her dorm room, glad to find all of the occupants there except Amelia.
She rushed in and said, “Can you girls help me? As you can see, I'm nothing special to look at, and I was wondering if you could help me look, well, more girlie?”
“Sure Joanne, who’s the guy?” Gen asked.
“Uh, Daniel.” Joanne said hesitantly.
“Oh, okay, as long as it’s not my brother. I wouldn't wish that kind of torture on anyone.”
Joanne quickly took down her hair and said, “First, we should do something about this. Maybe cut it?”
“NO!” the four girls shouted simultaneously, staring at the long shining mass of dark red hair that reached below her shoulders.
They all circled around her and Amanda said, “Maybe we should trim the ends, and try a loose perm. That would make it a couple inches shorter though.”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Just make it into loose curls. It should be pretty low-maintenance if we do it right.” Gen agreed
“And maybe trim up the front so she has a strand of hair on each side about four inches long so that she could pull it back if she needed to, or curl to make a ponytail or braid look softer.” Poppy suggested.
“Excellent idea! Lets do it.” Said Joanne.
They spent three hours on her hair, and then went to bed, with the promise of make up instruction in the morning.
Sure enough, they all got up, with the exception of Amelia an hour early. They decided to go with Joanne’s natural look, and only used a few strokes of mascara and some pink lip-gloss.
After Joanne got dressed, with her hair down for once, she looked like a new person.
When Amelia got up, she was stunned. She knew she would have to revise her plot to win Nicky now, but she didn't know Joanne was after Nicky's best friend, Daniel.
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