"So I Haven't Written Anything In A While? So What? 'Much Ado About Nothing.'" - William Shakespeare

My new story. It's about a girl who cannot decide who she really is. Or what I've written so far.

I want you to tell me what you think...

So without further ado, I give you my story.

Hope.

It was the first thing I saw when I got to school Monday morning. Well, actually, I didn’t see hope, but I saw the word. It was written on a huge banner below our school sign above the gate. Written in huge, multi-coloured bubble letter.

The first thing that went through my head was, this is probably another fundraiser. It didn’t for one second occur to me that the school hadn’t put the banner there. After all, that’s where the banners go, when we have fairs and other events.

The banner was the first unusual thing of the week, but it was by far not the weirdest. When I reached my locker, I found a note. Well, that’s not completely true. I had to reach my locker, unlock the lock, open it and then let the slip of colourful paper slid out onto the ground at my feet.

Curious, I picked it up. I knew that I hadn’t seen it before, so somebody must have slipped it into my locker through one of the cracks at the top or bottom, or perhaps in the sides.

There were three bold words written on the paper:

PEACE

LOVE

HOPE

Actually, I was a little disappointed. I thought that it may have been a personal note, maybe a love letter from one of the girls that adores me so much, but it was just another tacky advertisement for whatever event the school was having.

After I had chucked my bag in my locker and locked it again, I turned to go look for Gary, who is my best friend. Unsurprisingly, he was standing directly behind me, so I got a full view of his face when I turned around.

It was almost as if I were looking into a mirror. Gary and I have the same brown hair, the same shaped nose; we’re the same height, same weight, same build, same skin, and same shoe size. Many mistake us for twins, because we’re almost identical. Except Gary has bright green eyes, and mine are a muddy brown.

“Have you seen her?” Gary’s breath smelled heavily of sardines and vegemite, a lethal combination that he enjoys on toast.

“See who?” I asked, trying hard not to inhale. As much as we look alike, Gary and I have complete different tastes in food. I prefer normal foods, while Gary likes the weird, wacky and wonderful world of creating new foods, like sugar on fish, chocolate on hot chips and dipping bread into Milo.

“Get with the times, Lu,” he said, whacking me on the back of the head. “The new girl! How could you miss her? She sticks out like a pimple on a pumpkin.”

“New girl?” I said, confused. It was August, term 3. We didn’t get new students half way through a term. It was strange.

“Yes, NEW GIRL. Is English your second langue or something?”

“Is she in our year?” I asked. What else was I suppose to say, I didn’t want Gary to think I was slow.

“I don’t know. I think she might be in year 8. She’s short.” Gary evaluated a person on their hight. I knew I wasn’t going to get much out of him.

“Where is she?”

“She’s standing outside the assembly hall. She’s handing out flowers.”

“What?” Handing out flowers? This girl did not sound right for this school.

“Come on,” Gary said. There wasn’t much more to say. When there’s something new at our school, we’re bound to be surrounding it like it’s some sort of zoo exhibit.

And it was the strangest sight at our school yet. The girl was indeed, very short. But what she lacked in size, she made up for in enthusiasium. She gave the impreesion of a hippy, with a tie-dye t-shirt and washed out jeans that were almost white and frayed out at the end. Her mousy brown hair was braided into tiny plaits, and atop her head she wore a Jamaican style hat. In one hand was a blue basket full of yellow sunflowers.

As people passed, she handed them flowers, saying “Peace,” “Love,” or “Hope.” She had a high pitched squeaky voice that didn’t really fit the hippy look she had, but her blue eyes shone every time someone took a flower. It was a sad scene, as the girl looked completely out of place trying to give flowers to the people ion our school. She definitely wasn’t the average girl.

The average girl wore jeans or tight mini-skits with tight singlets or top, with jingly jewellery and tons of makeup. Most girls wore their hair in a tease out pony tail, and they all seemed to want to die it blonde and have it straight. They all puck their eyebrows and shave their legs. They are all quite vain.

It was obvious that this girl was not obsessed with body image. It seemed that, from the look of her clothes, she only had one set of clothes that hardly ever got washed, and it was plain to see she wasn’t wearing any makeup.

As we got closer, I noticed that her ears weren’t pierce. I found this quite odd, as even the most individual girls had their ears pierced. Most had more than one piercing in each ear. But this girl was completely clear of the normal girly necessities.

She handed a flower to Gary. “Peace.” Gary took the flower and her eyes shone. I knew that she was going to hand me one too, even before she turned to face me. “Love.” For a few second, I simply stared at the yellow flower she held out to me, not knowing what to do. Quite suddenly, without even thinking, I reached out and grabbed the flower. Her eyes were shining brightly as she smiled at me. I could feel my face getting hot, so I politely walked away.

After I was a fare way away, I stopped to look at the flower. It was the most perfect flower I had ever seen. I wasn’t a fake flower, it was real, and looked so alive that it might have still been in the ground. But, though I wanted to preserve the beauty of the flower, I knew that, no matter what I did, it would eventually shrivel and die.

“You’re blushing,” I heard Gary’s voice whisper in my ear. I jumped slightly, startled.

“What?”

“You’re blushing.” Gary was smiling in a mischievous way, and I knew that I would never hear the end of it. “You fancy her, don’t you?”

“Fancy her? Where are we, Ye Olde Britain?” I tried to shake of my nervousness with the lame joke.

“But you do like her. You were blushing when she was smiling at you.”

“I don’t like her, or fancy her, as a matter of fact. I was just, a little, you know…”

“Embarrassed?” Gary helped. I shot him an evil glare.

“No,” I said roughly. “Just a little taken aback.”

“Taken aback?” Gary laughed. “Louis, my friend, you were embarrassed. Hey, if you like her, that’s fine. Whatever floats your boat.”

“You are full of it,” I told him. “You really are.”

“I know,” He said adoringly. “Full of awesomeness.”

“Yeah, you’re full of awesomeness,” I said sarcastically.

I could see he was going to retaliate something back at me, but the bell cut him off. He glared at me. “Saved by the bell,” I muttered to myself as we both ran back to our lockers to get our books then go to home class.

I was very surprised to see the hippy girl at her locker already, which was right beside mine. Well, technically, it was the locker diagonally from me. I have a top locker, and the locker below me is used my Miles, another good friend of mine. The locker to the right of me is Lisa’s. She’s the meanest girl I know, and I’ve known her since Year 3, when she moved to the same primary school as me. It wasn’t entirely surprising to find out she was going to the same high school as me, because there are only two in the suburb, and the other is a rich, posh private school. As much as Lisa might act all rich and posh, she doesn’t have the money to back it up.

The locker below Lisa’s belonged to Monica Wilson. I didn’t really know her that well. She was a very quiet person who spent most of her time in the library. Apparently her family moved state, during the mid-semester holidays. For weeks, the locker has been vacant, and now it belongs to mysterious hippy girl.

I unlocked my locker and hid behind my locker door, hoping that she would leave before I closed it again. I took my time getting out my books, and then shut the locker again. If I didn’t get to home class very soon, I was going to be late.

Unfortunately, hippy girl was still there, looking happy, but slightly lost. She turned to me and smiled. I knew right away that she was going to ask me for help, and I knew I couldn’t not help her. If I didn’t help her, it would be mean, and I would not have made a very good first impression.

“Excuse me,” she said politely in her squeaky voice. “Do you know where H27 is? Apparently it’s my homeroom.”

I was gob smacked. The hippy girl was in the same home class as me. For a moment, I just stared dumbly at her, in a trance I was not able to break out of. Well, not for a few moments at least.

“Uh… Yeah, sure. I’ll show you the way. It, uh, it’s my homeroom too.” I suppose Gary was right. I was nervous. But that did not mean that I liked her. 

Her eyes shone. They seemed to shine an awful lot. “Really? That’s great. Thank you so much.”

I walked hurriedly to home class, the hippy girl skipping merrily beside me. We went up the stairs of the H building, which is the media centre. There are wires everywhere in the building, so you have to tread carefully for risk of tripping. The walls are painted a white that could almost blind you.

But none of this seemed to bother hippy girl. She skipped happily. We arrived at home class just in time, as the second bell rang to signal the beginning of home class. Hippy girl thanked me, and then sat at a desk near the front. I sank into a chair next to Miles. He gave me a funny look, but said nothing.

Our home class teacher, Mr. McLaughin, began to take the role. Mr. McLaughin is an old teacher, who teaches half the year 9 history classes. The rest of the time he is either sleeping or eating, or at home class.

My name is the second on the List. Louis Acklyn. The first name on the list is my twin sister, Amy Acklyn. It doesn’t take a genius to put the names in alphabetical order. Gary is one of the middle people, because his last name is O’Riley. Miles name is the last name, because it starts with a Z. I would try and spell it, but I can’t, because it’s an African name, and I wouldn’t want to offend the African’s by trying because they may think I’m being a smart-alec.

It was rather funny to hear Mr. McLaughin read the role on the first day. Being an elderly man, he read out everyone’s full names. I found out that Gary’s middle name is Christopher, and that Miles’ real name is much to complicated to pronounce, let alone spell.

But, after a week or two, it got a little annoying. Still, I was interested today. I wanted to know the name of the mysterious hippy girl. I waited patiently while he called out the names, one by one, listening for an unfamiliar one. Fortunately, I would have caught the name even if I hadn’t been listening.

“Oh, and we have a new student in our class.” Mr. McLaughin looked up and immediately spotted the hippy girl. “Welcome to our school. Let see, you must be… Elizabeth Charlotte Annalisa Starbell. That’s quite a name. Is there a… what do you call, a nickname, that you would like me to use.”

I sat up straight in my chair. Mr. McLaughin never used nicknames. In fact, he barely used names at all. He just pointed and said “You there!” or something along those lines.

“Call me Lizzie for now.”

“Ahh, Lizzie it is then.” In that moment, I saw Mr. McLaughin’s eyes sparkle the same way that Lizzie’s did, with that brilliant shine. The two seemed to be sharing a private joke.

After home class, my first lesson was Mathematics. My Maths teacher was Mrs. Thomas, who was a kind but strict teacher. I didn’t mind maths much. I suppose whether you like the subject or not depends as much on the teacher as it does on the subject.

I was half-hoping that Lizzie would be in my maths class. But she wasn’t. Apparently she was doing Science while I was in Maths. Well, Gary tells me that he’s in her class, so I suppose he’s telling the truth. I’ve known Gary since kindergarten, and he has the best poker face around, so sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Second lesson was PE. PE use to be fun, when we played basketball and soccer. Now we’re playing badminton. I mean, that can barely pass as a sport as it is. Next thing you know they’ll be getting us to play table tennis and hacky-sack.

Once again, no Lizzie. I was a little disappointed, to be perfectly honest. But, at the same time, I was a relieved. I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of her when she wasn’t there. Still, I wanted to see her shining eyes again.

During recess, Miles, Gary and I went to sit with Gary’s new girlfriend’s friends. Gary’s girlfriends name is Kayla, and she’s nice, and her friends are good company, but I don’t want to get too attached to them. I know what Gary’s like when it comes to girls. He’s been picking them up and dumping them since year 6. I think he’s only ever got dumped once, by Lisa. But he didn’t even know that they were going out. I suppose she hit him back first.

After I had eaten my chocolate cake and finger bun, Miles and I raced back to our lockers. We had the next lesson together, in woodworks. I am making a toy train, and it’s coming along nicely. All I need to do is sand it and paint it. Miles is making a rocking horse. It’s still under construction, but he has the bulk of it done.

Our technology teacher is Mr. Finnegan. Some people say that his first name is Michael, but it’s really Philip. He’s a very down-to-earth person, and quite kind, but a little deaf from working with all that loud equipment.

Surprisingly, Lizzie came to the technology lesson. She came 5 minutes late, but Mr. Finnegan did not mind. He simply turned and said:

“Thank you for joining us, Lizzie, please don’t let it happen again.” And then he turned to continue to talk to us about our projects. I wondered how Mr. Finnegan knew Lizzie’s name.

We all then continued our work. I watched, out of the corner of my eye, as Mr. Finnegan and Lizzie had a short discussion, and then Lizzie walked off and picked up a knobbly piece of wood. She examined it, and then, after some time, set it on a table a drew a design with one of those flat pencils. I couldn’t see what it was. She then began to sand the piece of wood.

After that, it became a little boring to watch her, so I continued with my own work until the bell rang and it was time for French.

And that's all I've got so far. She has many names, but I've not got around to them yet.

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75%. Maybe. I don't know anymore.

I rate myself in percentages. pyhsical, mental, emtional, feelings. It's never been less than half the pie, yet it's never been all of it either.

Okay, a little bit about me. Well, lets start with the basics.

Name: Octavia Anna Kelly

Nickname: Many. Too many. Call me Ocy. Or be creative. Many have tried and failed.

Height: Somwhere around 135 cm, I think.

Weight: Once Obese, Currently Overweight, Eventually Ideal (I Hope!)

Hair: Brown. Long. Wavy to curly. Fringe. Bad dandruff, but it's covered by the increadible amount of hair that I have. It's actually quite fine, there's just lots of it.

Eyes: Blue-ish grey, or so I've been told.

Nose: Apparently I've got an Aboriginal nose. It is rumored that my great grandfath on my fathers side was an Aboriginal.  

Ears: Small, or so I've been told.

Skin tone: Pale. Ghostly. Also acne. And streach marks. Not that you really wanted to know.

Neck: Long, slim looking, I believe. Birdlike.

Arms: Shortish, pale, noticable lins of hair. Hurts to look at when the sun hits them.

Hands: A little chubby, normal lenght fingers, unusually uneven nails.

Stomach: Chubby. Image Pooh Bear. Same stomach.

Legs: Pale, thinner than they once were, still too big to wear long boots, look extremely brused even though they are not. Prickly.

Feet: Narrow heels, wide foot, fat ankles, chubby toes, long toenails. Hard to find shoes that fit.

Make-up: None. I prefer the natural look. That, and I cannot be bothered.

Jewellery: Gold chain with gold cross, dimonties. Golden studded ears, one percing in each ear.

Clothes: Whatever fits. (So not a lot.)

So that is the basics of the physical. All the stuff you need to know, want to know, and don't want to know about my apperance. I cannot actually tell you about myself. It would not only take much too long, but I am not actually very honest. I can tell you one thing.

I have been told that I am a nice person, but I can make anyone feel guilty without knowing it, and can put people to sleep with my constant lecturing. If you need a good sleeping pill, I am the person to talk to!

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