| Subject: Story of Joanne - P1 Ch3 |
Author:
Rose
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Date Posted: 07:48:48 09/17/02 Tue
In reply to:
Rose
's message, "Story of Joanne - P1 Ch2" on 07:19:07 09/17/02 Tue
~Chapter Three~
On the Train
Very soon, it was September first, and they were going to platform 6 at Marylebone Station. Joanne saw Nicky, Ben, Daniel, and Nathan hoisting their trunks onto the train. She started to run over to them, but her mother was telling her to be good and the like. She kept watching the boys, and she saw them get on the fifth compartment. Then she saw them hanging out the windows watching her.
Her dad was saying, “Now princess, remember, if anything goes wrong or you need us for anything, we're only a letter away. We will send post to you often. I love you princess, we hope to see you at Christmas.”
“Yeah, Papa, I love you too.”
“Now my dear, be good, work hard, and we love you.” her mother said.
“Yes mom, I love you too.”
“Princess, be good, we love you, we can't live without you, you're everything to us, you're our only child, who cares about Lucia.” Lucia said in an annoying voice.
“Lu, stay out of my room. If you don't I'll kill you. Bye, now,” she added in a sickly sweet tone.
“And good riddance, I'd say.” Lucia muttered, out of her parents' hearing, though not out of Joanne's.
“Right back to ya, Lu.” Joanne had answered. “When I come back, I'll make sure to teach you a make-up trick that'll make you look less like a horse.” She nimbly evaded a slap and, without waiting for a hug from her parents, dashed towards the train.
“I'll send you millions of letters, Mom! Bye!” She shouted as she lunged her trunk onto the train.
When Joanne walked on the train she saw Nicky, Ben and Daniel pretending to cry and say, “Oh, Joanne, we will miss you so much.”
“Would you shut up! Your parents couldn't wait to get rid of you!”
“Hey, our parents love us too!” Ben said indignantly.
“They love it when you're not there is more like it.” Joanne told them sarcastically.
Daniel said, “Actually, I think my parents do like the vacation away from me.” earning a triumphant look from Joanne and disgusted looks from Nicky and Ben.
Nathan stuttered, “My p-parents al-always t-try to get me t-to visit a friends house.”
“They're trying to get you out of your shell Nathan.” Ben said sarcastically.
Nathan crept over to a chair, and everybody followed, except Joanne. She didn't really want to butt in, so she continued to another compartment. Nobody noticed she wasn't following until she was gone.
“Hey, where did Joanne go?” Daniel asked,
“Who knows.” Nicky said,
“Really, you guys ought to be a bit more concerned, she's our friend.” Daniel continued.
“Actually, she's mostly your friend. She wants to kill me most of the time, she ignores Ben, but you two hang around each other like Gilligan and Skipper.” Nicky pointed out.
“Yeah, Daniel, you like Joanne don't you?” Ben said,
“Yes I like her, but she's only a friend. I actually try to be nice to her.” Daniel defended himself.
“Dan has got a crush on Joanne.” Ben sang, and Nicky joined in.
“Daniel and Joanne sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes marr---”
“STOP! I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON JOANNE! GOOD LORD, THE WAY YOU’RE ACTING YOU WOULD THINK YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON HER NICKY!” Daniel cut in.
“I most certainly do NOT have a crush on Joanne Beckley. You could find a prettier girl at a dog pound.” Nicky said to make his point.
“Nicky, you really went too far there.” Ben said, and Nicky turned around and saw Joanne storming out of their compartment.
“Uh, I guess I probably ought to go talk to her, huh?” Nicky asked.
“Yeah, especially if you don't want her to remain an enemy. I think she hates you now. And she's a lot tougher.” Ben said.
“No joke, I'll go find her.” Nicky decided, and started walking through the compartments until he saw her sitting with none other than, Max Wheeler. A tallish, greasy-haired kid, the same age as Joanne and Nicky and the rest.
“Joanne, don't sit with him!” Nicky shouted,
“I don't see why I shouldn't, he doesn't insult me and call me names like you do.” Joanne told him.
“Listen, Jo, about that, I was just trying to make a point-”
“About me being uglier than any dog? Yeah, that's really flattering.”
“He called you a dog?” Max said indignantly.
“Same as Max, he's always mean to me. He never has anything nice to say.” Nicky quickly said.
“Nobody insults ME and gets away with it.” Max said nastily, and pulled out his leg causing Nicky to trip up and collapse.
“Wow, Max, that's neat. Can you teach me to do that?” Joanne asked.
“He will not, because you are coming back to our compartment, and we are going to explain a few things to you.” Ben told her forcefully.
“And just who do you think you are? Maybe you ought to be concerned with taking care of Nicky and leave me alone.” Joanne said angrily.
“No, listen to us Jo; we need to tell you something. Please come back to our compartment and let us tell you something.” Daniel asked her.
“Umm, okay Dan. See ya later Max.” Joanne gave in.
“Don't count on it.” Ben grumbled.
Joanne docilely followed Daniel back to the compartment thinking, boy, he really is good looking. And nice. Extremely adorable too. Too bad he has God-awful friends.
She sat down across from Daniel, but wished she hadn’t' when it turned out that she would be between Ben and Nicky.
She adopted the stony stubborn look she got whenever she didn't want to do something. “What do you want?”
“Jo, Wheeler and his crowd aren't good people to hang around.” Daniel started to say calmly until Nicky broke in.
“He's the slimiest creature you'll ever meet! You can tell he doesn't know what shampoo is just by looking at him. And he's dishonest! He’ll sneak up behind us and use some prank on us. He’s done all kinds of tricky sly things.” Nicky almost yelled.
“It all started one time in Newby Alley last year, when the shops were first opened to the public, when he ran into us, then stepped on us. He didn't have the decency to help us up! Then twenty minutes later, he put something in our food to make us grow spots.” Ben picked up where Nicky left off.
“Well, I don't know…” Joanne was still hesitant, so the boys kept telling her more stories about all of the dishonest and mean things he had done. There was no way they could make this much stuff up.
By this time, the train had already started on its way to Canton. Joanne was the first one who noticed the landscape moving. “Guys, did any of you notice the train leave?”
Daniel looked puzzled. “Why? It didn't, did it--OH, S--”
Nicky slammed his hand against Daniel's mouth before he had the chance to finish the sentence. Daniel then lost his balance as Ben tripped him up from behind sending him to the hard floor of the train.
“Dan, that was uncalled for.” Daniel got to his feet glaring at Nicky and Ben.
“What happened?” Ben asked. “It sounded like something important.”
Daniel scowled. “It was. I left my other trunk at the station.”
There was stunned silence--they were a bit apprehensive of what Daniel would say if they started to laugh as loudly as they wanted to.
“You genius.” Nathan remarked. “How are you planning to get it back?”
“You're not even worried? I had a whole crate of Dung bombs in there! What if it's stolen?”
Joanne raised an eyebrow. “Who in their right mind would steal a pack of Dung bombs?”
Ben snorted with a bit of irrepressible laughter.
Nicky smiled at Joanne.
Gen came into the room at that moment as Daniel went to report his trunk. Gen excitedly told them that Max was having a fight with Argon.
The boys shrugged at her to say, “What’s new, they’re only messing.”
Gen went back to her compartment with a pouting face.
Joanne puzzled for a moment, “Who is Argon? Also how come you lot know these boys?”
Nicky took some Popsicle Sticks out of his lunch bag. “We know Max and Argon because Max used to live next door to Ben, so when I came for visits to Ben’s house Max would be next door and also his mate would visit, Argon. They’re nasty.”
“What is it with neighbours acting as rivals?” Said Joanne suddenly.
“I don’t know, but we became friends in the end. And I’m glad we did.” Nicky said, his face glowing slightly.
Ben started to snigger.
“Yo, Nicky, don't let Sheila know that you said that!” Said Ben. “She'd probably start pranking you with all the tricks she could get out of Wheeler; you know he likes her!”
“Indeed?” A hard, cold voice behind them made them all jump.
Nicky rolled his eyes. “Wheeler, it's not exactly a secret.”
Wheeler shook his, very greasy hair. “What isn't a secret?”
Ben raised thick, dark eyebrows. “That you sent Sheila a large bouquet full of roses last Saturday, --I should know because she’s my sister after all.”
“--Which you bought at 'The Rosette Shop', three shops away from that large fountain in the middle of Freedmen Square.” Daniel finished from behind Max, having just come back.
Wheeler's waxy cheeks went a bit rosy. He immediately turned and fled out of the compartment as all four boys collapsed on the floor, laughing.
Nicky recovered himself first. “Tracking and Sheila's big mouth. Works every time.” He started to laugh again and swallowed a huge chunk of ice from his Popsicle stick and started to shiver and shake, teeth shattering. “Pink roses with a red rim! Paid 50p for them!” he gasped out. Joanne joined in. trying to imagine Max and Sheila as a couple. She started to giggle uncontrollably.
“Anyway, you’re not gonna start hanging around with him again are you?” Asked Nicky.
All the boys stared at her.
“Fine, you guys. I'm going to quit hanging around Max, but I will NOT be mean to him.”
About that time a lady with a huge candy cart came by and said, “Can I get you anything off of here?” and four boys were immediately swarming the cart. They had bought everything except three bags of Jelly Beans and two brownie cakes, so Joanne bought these.
“You guys aren't really going to eat ALL of that are you?” Joanne asked in disbelief.
“You better believe it. We'll be lucky if it lasts the train ride,” Daniel told her.
After a while Nathan said, “Hey where’s all the food?” Having just come back from the front of the train to ask how long it would be until they get there.
Joanne stared. “All the food? There's still half the bag left!”
Nicky looked at her incredulously. “For them half a bag of candy? I bet on nine minutes, seventeen seconds that they’ll finish it all, though I might have to shorten it to nine ten. They keep going faster every time. Now, where...Oh, yeah, right, here.” Pulling out a stopwatch, he leaned back over his shoulder to Daniel and Ben. “Ready, set, go!”
Joanne watched in amazement. Pulling herself together, she managed to lean over to Nicky and look at the stopwatch.
“Nine minutes, nine seconds. What, why, when, where, and how did you guys even get all this unwrapped so fast?”
The compartment was littered with wrappers. Not one piece of candy remained besides some flossing mints.
True to their word about eating everything before they arrived, they just finished the last piece of flossing mint, when the five-minute call was sounded, and Joanne went to change into her Canton uniform.
An announcer echoed through the corridor. “Please leave your trunks on the train. They will be taken up to the castle separately.”
There was a mass exodus as students were piling off the train.
Stepping off of the train, Joanne found herself surrounded by a clear, starry night. There were no clouds, just a crescent moon hiding behind a tree.
“Jo!”
Someone had tapped her on the back.
“Amanda!”
“Jo, aren't you scared?”
“No, I think this is gonna be exciting, actually.”
Amanda breathed. “Good. That's a relief. Eeek! I can't wait!”
Joanne rolled her eyes. The first thing she'd try to learn was how to make Amanda never say “Eeek!” again. After three years, she was getting sick and tired of that word.
As Joanne and Amanda moved with the rest of the students they saw that a man was herding kids into mini buses, that could fit about ten to a bus because they were so small, but there was so many.
She had just got sat down in the bus with Nicky's sister, Amanda and two blonde twin girls, when Daniel came running over to the bus and sat down next to Joanne.
“Why aren't you sitting with them?” Joanna motioning to the bus Nicky, Ben, Nathan and now another boy was occupying.
“I didn't want you to have to sit by yourself.” Daniel explained, and the bus started moving. “Anyway, there wouldn’t be any room in that other bus once Sheila and her friends are in there.”
Joanne saw that this was true as she saw Sheila with a pack of girls jump into the mini bus Nicky was on.
She suddenly noticed something, “Sheila’s older than Nicky isn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Said Daniel, staring at her.
Joanne smiled half-heartedly; she thought she could melt into those brown eyes.
“Yeah,” said Daniel again, “Sheila met Nicky when he went to Ben’s house and then they started going out.”
Joanna was about to make an incredulous remark, but he cut her off, pointing.
“Look!”
She gasped. In front of her, a tall castle towered against the starry sky. Light streamed from every window, including the tops of about twelve towers.
“I-is that--”
Daniel grinned. “Yeah, that's Canton Castle. Neat, isn't it?”
Joanna gulped. “It's beautiful.”
Once inside, a rather stern-looking lady with her hair in a tight knot welcomed them.
When all of the first years met in a room outside of the main hall Daniel received several teasing looks from Nicky and Ben.
The stern woman with the tight knot, who they all found out was called Mrs Davenport, put a finger to her lips, signalling to them to be silent.
Then she began reading from a list telling them which House group they were going to be in.
There were four Houses, which were North, South, East and West. Which also explained which tower their sleeping dormitories were in.
Joanne soon found out she was in North House, along with Nicky, Daniel, Ben, Nathan, Amanda and Gen.
To her relief, Max and Argon were placed in West House.
After explaining briefly about their future at Canton with their separate Houses, Mrs Davenport led then towards two huge doors, behind which, judging from the noise, the whole rest of the school was gathered. The noise increased rapidly, and the doors opened slowly.
As the first year students walked through the doors they were given their badges, which had Canton School, embroidered along the top and bottom and on Joanne’s one, a big capital N was stitched clearly. She soon found out, by looking at the other students that there were four different coloured badges, North House had gold badges, South House had purple badges, East House had silvery-grey badges and West House had green badges.
Each House had tables of their own along the sides of the Main Hall and the staff table was placed in the middle of the hall.
The Head Teacher, who was a tall man with grey hair and a grey moustache, strolled up towards the stage area at the front of the Hall.
“Hello Students.” Said the Headmaster; “I am Mr Gilmore to those who don’t know me. Everyone now should know the school rules by now and I wish to include an additional rule. This is that after a few complaints at Canton Village last year I’ve decided to cut down the number of students going there for weekend trips.”
A murmur rose around the Hall.
“So,” continued Mr Gilmore. “Only students in Year Three and above may be allowed on these weekend visits.”
Some students groaned at this, which were mainly the first and second year students.
“As all know,” Finished the Headmaster. “This school specialises in the football area and tryouts will begin for each House in one month. Now everybody enjoy the feast our cooks have prepared for you.” and everybody was able to follow that rule easily.
Joanne immediately asked Nicky, “Will you please teach me to play football after our lessons tomorrow. I would like to play on the house team.” receiving surprised looks from them all. She knew that the boys probably thought she didn’t like playing football, but Joanne was a sporty girl and she wanted to play when she could. It was obvious they didn't think she could do it, and she promised herself she would.
Dinner was finally over around eight o'clock, and the prefects, (who wore plain blue ties instead of the striped ties), led the new students to their dormitories. The North first years stopped in front of a solid oak door, after climbing many winding staircases and being completely exhausted.
Joanne went straight up to the first year girl’s dormitory where she found her new roommates. When she walked in she saw five other girls there already and she said, "Hi, my name is Joanne Beckley."
“Hi, I'm Amanda and we already know each other.” the brunette with medium height said.
“You know me, Joanne, but to everyone else, I'm Gen Stanton.” Nicky’s sister with his black hair introduced herself.
“I'm Rosa Walters,” said one of the blonde twins
“I'm Poppy Walters,” said other blonde twin girl who was about five inches taller than Joanne.
“I’m Amelia, I saw you with Nicky Stanton, and I want you to introduce me. Now.” Said a brown haired girl with lots of freckles.
Joanne started laughing, “Who do you think you are? I don't have to do anything besides go to sleep right now.”
“Yes you do. My father is the second in command to the owner of Mentinen, the computer company.” Amelia said.
“MY father is Logan Beckley that ring a bell? Well it should. He owns Mentinen. And its sister company Mocanting. That means my dad is your dad's boss.” Joanne said in an equally nasty tone, two could play that game.
“Well, I never.” Amelia said fussily
“Well, I have.” Joanne mimicked, sending Amelia flouncing to her bed, drawing the curtains.
“That was great Joanne she’s been like that ever since she got here.” Said Gen.
“Anytime. I'm going to sleep as well.” Replied Joanne, pulling the curtains around a bed she chose.
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