Chapter 1 - Everything changes

Chantal

“Beck, I claim the seat next to you!” I shout over the noise.

“Okay,” she answers.

“No! I wanted to claim that seat!” Lotte yells, hurt.

“There’s still room on my lap,” Becky jokes.

“No, thanks. I’ll wait my turn then. For the time being I’ll just claim Laura.”

Laura hasn’t heard a thing, so Lotte pinches Laura in the side. As answer Laura squeaks. And as an answer to that, everybody bursts into laughter, which is pretty much the usual result when somebody pinches her.

“What?!” Laura says, undignified. She’s the only one who’s not amused.

“I’m sitting next to you,” Lotte answers when she has finally stopped laughing so hard.

We are standing in line for a rollercoaster at Walibi World. It’s the last day of our summer holidays. Tomorrow it’s back to school and moving out of our parents’ home and moving into school. Tomorrow my parents and I will part ways. They’ll move to the Veluwe and I will move into school.

Our school is a grammar school with an education program with a duration of 6 years.

So, to honour or last day of total freedom this summer, we decided to go to Walibi, and now, here we all are.

Our group exists of quite some people; Becky, Lotte, Laura, Jos, Kyra, Matthijs, Kayleigh, Liza, Kyra, Lisanne, Simone and me. Most of us are fourth year students, or sophomores, only Jos, Kyra, Matthijs and Liza are fifth year students, or juniors.

“Hey, what are we eating tonight?” Jos yells suddenly.

It’s only 11 o’clock in the morning, but of course Jos is already thinking about food.

“Who cares? We’ll go to a snack bar or pizzeria before we go to the cinema,” Simone answers.

Everybody agrees.

After ten more minutes we finally get on the rollercoaster.

The rollercoaster ride lasts about a couple of minutes, but we don’t care. We get inside and scream just because we can.

And afterwards we continue on to the next rollercoaster and when the park closes at 8 o’clock, we’ve seen practically every corner of the park.

“God, that film was awesome!” Becky exclaims as we leave the cinema.

We’d just seen Despicable Me and are now on our way home.

“ ‘It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!’ ” Kayleigh quotes.

“ ‘Let’s go and destroy another game!’ ” Lotte counters.

“ ‘My caterpillar never turned into a butterfly.’ ” Becky then quotes.

“ ‘You will not cry, or sneeze, or barf or fart. No annoying sounds.’ ”

“ ‘Does this count as annoying?’ ” Becky squishes her cheeks.

“Whaha! Awesome!”

“ ‘I go to the moon, I shrink the moon, I grab the moon, I sit on the toilet…’ ” Kayleigh says.

“ ‘Oh, look at you. A little, tiny toilet for a little, tiny baby… Ah curse you tiny toilet!’ ”

“ ‘When we got adopted by a bald guy, I thought this would be more like Annie.’ ”

“ ‘Unicorns, I love them. Unicorns, I love them. Uni-uni-unicorns, I love them. Unicorns. I could pet one if they were really real, and they are! So I bought one so I could pet it. Now it loves me. Now I love it. La-la-la-la-la,’ ” Lisanne suddenly quotes.

“You know, Lisanne, now that we’re moving into school, you could actually get a unicorn,” I say.

“Yay!”

“ ‘Why are you wearing pajamas?’” Becky starts quoting again.

“ ‘These aren’t pajamas, this is a warm-up suit,’ ” Lotte answers.

“ ‘What are you warming up for?’ ”

“ ‘Stuff.’ ”

“ ‘What sort of stuff?’ ”

“ ‘Super cool stuff you wouldn’t understand.’ ”

“ ‘Like sleeping?’ ”

“ ‘They are not pajamas!’ ”

“Guys! Please! I know we just saw the film, but could you please stop talking about it!” Simone practically yells.

“Sorry!” Becky says.

After that, it’s quiet for a little while.

“So, guys, when is the next train leaving?” Laura asks.

“We have about half an hour to get to the station. We can easily make it in about 15 minutes, so we’ll be one time,” I say.

“Okay, thanks.”

“So, are you all looking forward to tomorrow?” Matthijs asks.

“Yeah!” all of us fourth year’s yell. We are all really excited about moving into school, although some of us will really miss home.

After that, on the way home, we spent talking about school and laughing about nothing in particular.

By the time I go to bed that evening it’s about 3 o’clock.

“Everybody please be seated,” it roars through the auditorium.

Looking at my friends, I sit down and turn my focus to the front of the room.

Professor Dumbledore and all the other teachers are seated in half a circle on the stage.

Once everybody is seated and has gained enough sense to shut up, Professor Dumbledore rises, walks to the front of the stage and starts talking.

“Good morning, students. Welcome back at the Coornhert Gymnasium. You’ve all successfully finished your first three years. Right now, at this exact moment, nearly every aspect of your lives will change. The last three years you’ve begun to form a basic ground of knowledge. Right now, you’re going to start making the decisions that will influence the rest of your lives. So take good care to make the right choices.

“Furthermore, you will all move into this school. You will start to get used to living like a college-student. You will get more responsibilities for your actions, so that you learn how you’ll be able to manage life outside of this school. In this we will guide you. Living inside this school will also give you more opportunities to ask questions, get help and build a bond with your fellow-students and the professors. Another pro is that you will have full-time access to all the school’s facilities. Use them wisely.”

Lotte, Becky and I look at each other, already knowing what the next three years will mean for us: fun!

“Furthermore, every month, you’ll be given a trust fund. This money is for you to spent on food and school-stuff. To make sure you can’t misuse the money, we’ve made is so that you can’t use it outside this building, for it doesn’t look anything like the Euros. Be careful on how much you spent, for you will only get a certain amount of money each month, and nothing more. Let this be a warning to you all.

“Then a couple of standard rules. First up: Every weekend and every day after school, you’re allowed to leave the school grounds to visit family and friends and go into town. The only rule being you’ll be back on the grounds at eight o’clock on school days and ten o’clock in the weekends. After ten o’clock on school nights and ten o’clock in the weekends, all students are to be inside the main building of the school. Celebration days and Fridays count as weekend. During the summer holidays, the schools are closed. During every other holidays, the students are allowed to come and go, so long as they are back before the lesson commence again. Also, boys and girls are not allowed to be in the room of one of the other sex. They’re also never to spend the night together. The rest of the rules have been explained to you in the years before. However, because some students tend to be forgetful, you’ll all get a list of the rules along with a list with the specifics of this school year, a list of the rooms and roommates and your schedules. But before you can get those and leave, I have one more thing to say. The next three year you’ll have the same mentor. They’ll be your personal guides through the oncoming years. Any questions you might have, will be answered by your mentor. The mentor who’s assigned to you will also be mentioned on your schedule. And now, off to your rooms and the studying of yet another year. Off you go now!”