Chapter
Three
New
girls
Into this mix of the young, the new and
the entitled, came the new girls. The Bennets had just moved to LA from
somewhere in the Midwest. Paige, the girl who seemed to draw Darcy’s attention
immediately in the lunch room, dressed plainly in jeans and an old college
sweater. She dragged her dark curls back in a messy ponytail and wore glasses
and unfashionable clothes. But I’ve seen all the classic teen films, especially
Some Kind of Wonderful and she was clearly
hiding the pretty beneath the surface.
Her older sister Shiloh was both beautiful
and pristine. She wore semi-fashionable clothes and was regularly stopped on LA
streets by scouts wanting to sign her up for modeling classes (her father
didn’t approve and Shiloh hated to rock the boat).
At first sight, Mackenzie was jealous of
the older Bennet girls, until she saw the younger ones. Senta (the middle
sister) was as quiet and unassuming as a mouse and Sia and Rebel (the younger
ones) were outrageous and notorious down to the ripped black stockings and
denim jean shorts they insisted on changing into after they’d left the house in
the mornings.
Meanwhile, it had become clear that the
newbie boys were stuck in the wrong place.
“It’s either this or home schooling and I’m
not having that on! Just an excuse for teenage boys to bludge away an entire
semester. No way!” Darcy’s father was way overwhelming as I’m sure you’ve
gathered by his strange Australian yelling.
Even though Darcy and Ryan were supposed
to have been enrolled at an exclusive New York boarding school for the semester
in a moment of sublime (some thought divine) intervention, the enrolment forms
had gone astray. They were both posted by Darcy’s father’s short sighted
personal assistant, Macey, and Macey had posted them to the wrong place.
Usually, strings would be pulled.
Unfortunately, in this case, no string could be pulled until the following
semester.
Macey kept her job because she was ‘like
family’ and according to Mr Darcy, Sunrise High would ‘toughen them up’. Darcy
and Ryan’s parents promptly relocated to New York for the school semester,
promising to commute every weekend. Both Darcy and Ryan were mostly left in the
hands of their respective lawyer-guardians and housekeepers. It was a good
thing their houses were adjacent to each other in Beverly Hills and part of a
gated community that looked down on parts of Sunrise central. They hung out
like brothers, every day.
They couldn’t believe some lame,
artistically orientated establishment was the only place they could go at the
eleventh hour. It was precisely because Sunrise High had an arts program that
there were extra places for boys. Not many boys put the arts program down as
their first preference.
And so both boys were enrolled at Sunrise
and Darcy, in particular, had the wrong attitude. His Dad’s housekeeper, Macey,
was his formal guardian whilst his parents resided in Los Angeles. Macey had
known Darcy since he was a baby and could do no wrong in her eyes.
Nevertheless, Darcy thought it would be
easy. He thought he could just *”bludge” away the entire semester doing nothing.
(*Bludge is an Australian-English word for ‘doing nothing.’)
Ryan went along with most of his friend’s
suggestions. It was easier that way.
Neither Darcy nor Ryan had ever attended a
State (or Public) school.
“It’s so low class,” Darcy complained.
And Darcy was over it even before he and
Ryan rocked up in his Dad’s Ferrari, parked it with an arrogant screech of the
wheels and walked towards the school gates. Ryan, on the other hand, was
excited.
“I think it looks like fun,” Ryan noted as
he pulled up his sunglasses.
During his first weekend in LA, Ryan had
noticed an extremely pretty girl named Shiloh, standing in line at the local Sunrise
cinema. He’d been too shy to talk to her but he overheard her conversation with
her younger sister about the school they attended. It was called Sunrise. Ryan
was hoping Shiloh would be in one of his classes since she looked about the
same age as him and he was sure he saw a girl just like her walking through the
front gate.
On that first day of school, even after the
bell rang, peeps stared.
On the second day, peeps swooned - even
though Darcy had decided to lie low and not draw attention to himself. Only six
freshman dared to ask him for his autograph.
“I don’t usually do this,” he shrugged
reluctantly as he scrawled his name and the girls ran off screaming.
Ryan shook his head and laughed. Darcy’s
ego was more inflated than ever. It never occurred to Darcy that his pushy
manager had hired the girls to act like his professional fans for a week.
If I was to be completely honest I’d have
to say Darcy, being older by three months, taller and richer, was cuter than
Ryan (who was cute enough already to have been stopped on the street in The
Grove and given the card of a casting scout who asked him if he’d ever been
interested in acting). When he told his best friend Darcy about this, Darcy
scoffed and laughed so hard that Ryan was resigned to placing the card at the
bottom of his desk drawer.
On
the third day, teachers told the new boys they’d have to open up their folders
and do some work. The boys just shrugged. Ryan smiled while he did this as he
liked to get along with everybody. Darcy, on the other hand, got up and left
the classroom without a hall pass. He had a phone call to make.
‘Later,’ was all he said as Mrs Tartt tried
to stop him.
Paige Bennet, an honor’s student from a
humble background, noted in her journal at lunch that day; Darcy Donovan is the most obnoxious boy I’ve ever met.
He’d collided with her in
the hallway and had pushed her out of the way without even apologizing.
“I’m so over rude, arrogant jocks who think
they are it,” she told her sister and confidant, Shiloh.
“His friend’s cute though,” Shiloh
whispered with a smile.
“Where do they even come from?” Paige
asked. “They are so conceited.”
When Paige heard Darcy speak he had a
deep, rich, almost-English sounding accent as he said something about a girl
named Blair. Typical, Paige thought, guys like him had a woman in every port.
Her arty aunt Tia, who lived in New York City, would have agreed.
