"I win!" My mom squeals happily. She starts to jump for joy, her pin straight hair flying through the air. I walk past her and insert my key into the room, wondering if my roommate is in there or not. Before I open the door, I look around the hall and see that the majority of the dorms are all open, meaning there's a chance I'm the first here. I hesitate before opening the door, looking at both my mother and Jakob who are giving me looks that have 'Open the freakin' door already!' written all over their faces. I slowly open my door and look in, dragging my suitcase with me. All the voices of the people and music blasting have all faded out, replaced by the rapid succession of my heart beat.

I walk into the room and see that it is relatively small. On the far side are 2 bunk beds with a desk underneath the top bunks, where the bottom bunk would be. Two small dressers separate the two beds and double as the nightstands. A loveseat is next to the door with a closet that juts out of the wall on the other side. The walls are cream colored and have a few small windows in between the bunk beds. The floors are wooden, as are all the furniture.

"Beautiful place, sweetie." My mom says as she kisses the top of my head. "I think you're going to like it here. And don't worry; your roommate will definitely like you." It's like she can read my mind. Don't you hate when parents are able to do that?

Next thing I know, I'm shoved into the loveseat while Jakob makes the bed and my mom puts my clothes away. She throws me a few hang able items, stuff like skirts and nice shirts and dresses, which I take as a time to place into the closet. Jakob, my mother, and I work on unpacking all my stuff in nervousness; we all have the same thought, who's my roommate? We had left the door open in case my roommate comes in or if someone wants to come in and introduce herself, which has yet to happen.

"Hello?" We all look up from what we were doing to see a girl and two adults standing in the doorway. The teenage girl stands there shyly, with her arms crossed over her chest and her auburn hair falling in front of her dark eyes. Behind her, the two adults stand with drab faces, their hands placed on her shoulders. "Are you my roommate?" She asks quietly, almost afraid to speak. What, does she think I'm going to eat her or something? I notice that she has an accent, maybe that's why she's so shy.

"Yeah, my name's Charlie Cassell. This is my mom, Lanette, and her fiancé, Jakob. What's your name?" I say politely while pointing to both Lanette and Jakob, respectively.

"I'm Shiela Baker. These are my parents, Catherine and Russell." She says. Her mother and father both smile and then go back to being dark-faced. I bet they're way over protective of Shiela. "This is my first year at boarding school…" She says in such a quiet voice, I could barely hear her.

"Join the club." I smirk. "Hey! I have an idea! I'll help you unpack, and then we can decorate this room. I brought magazines, poster board, markers, glitter, and glue. We are so going to make some amazing collages." She blushes and smiles while brushing her hair away from her face. "I like your shirt. That scripture means 'Beautiful' in Chinese right?" I had seen that shirt in Target a while back, with a large gold scripture and a flower. It was really pretty.

"It does mean 'Beautiful' in Chinese." She responds. The room then fell in an awkward silence, which was broken when her parents suggested we finish unpacking. The unpacking was going pretty quickly, with us helping the Bakers' make her bed, unpack her stuff, etc. Then, my mom and I realized we were missing something.

"Where's Jakob?" I ask as I climb my ladder to my lumpy-made bed. Jakob can never make a bed correctly; every time he makes a bed, the sheets never get tucked in. How annoying. "Seriously mom, can you talk to Jakob? He can barely make a bed, it gets lumpier than a cobblestone road."

From under my down comforter, Jakob pops up and sternly says "HEY!" I scream and push away from the ladder, falling on my back on the ground. I lay there breathing heavily and whispering profanities and curses. "Don't ridicule my bed-making skills." He says while climbing down the ladder. He runs his hands through his dark hair and helps me up.

"You scared me shitless." I say and punch him in the arm. I see my mother grasping onto the dresser, laughing hysterically. "Look Jakob, your stupidity is causing my mother to die of laughter." I say while smacking his arm once more. Shiela is ferociously giggling on top of her bed, while her father—who's an engineer—bellows with laughter over her desktop. Her mom is smiling and shaking her head as she places clothes in Shiela's dresser.

Someone knocks on the door before walking in a few steps. "What is going on in here? We heard something fall." We see a gray-haired woman standing at the door; her tight hair bun stretches her wrinkly skin across her face. She is has an angry face that doesn't seem like it ever loosens.

"Everything is fine, Ms. Hayes. Just goofing around is all." Mrs. Baker says and smiles kindly. Mr. and Mrs. Baker seem to be a bit over-protective of Shiela, and possibly not entirely liking the fact that my mom and Jakob both give me so much freedom. But all in all, they are very nice people.

"Well, don't let it happen again. Marten's International Academy is not a place for horsing around, riff-raff, and 'fooling with your peeps' as you young children call it today." She says sternly and glaring at Shiela and I. I am about to laugh at her attempt to speak as we "young children" do, but stop when I hear Jakob's warning cough. He uses that with me a lot, to stop me from getting myself into trouble or doing something that will quite possible kill me. He said earlier that I'm probably going to end up getting myself killed while I am here; which is probably going to happen.

"I'm going to keep my eyes on you young lady. I do not want you to influence other students to act as you do." She says while looking at me right in the eyes. I blink a few times and nod my head. I can't believe that I've been here for only a few hours, and already I'm being chosen out because I'm apparently a bad influence. Life sucks. "I am looking forward to seeing the two of you at the football stadium in one hour. It was nice to meet you all." Ms. Hayes then turns on her heels and leaves the room in a huff. There was about a minute's silence and then we heard her yelling at some other girl down the hall for something about not standing up straight.

I pull a face and imitate Ms. Cassell as I turn on my mother. "I'm going to keep my bulging eyes on you young lady…" I wag my finger at her and then go on to yell at the armoire for being so bland.

"I wouldn't underestimate Ms. Cassell, Charlie. She has a lot of power here. She is on the board of trustees to this school and is the head of admissions. She is one of the top 5 most powerful people here at the school." Mr. Baker says while turning the computer on.

At this point, I'm on my bunk finishing making up my bed. "Then I guess I'm going to have to befriend the other top 4, now won't I?"

"Charlie Myra Hayes. Be respectful towards the adults and teachers. I do not want to have to tell my business partners that my daughter got herself kicked out of Martens International Academy." My mother scolds me. She sighs and continues. "Please promise me that you won't try to get yourself in anymore trouble with Ms. Hayes or with any other faculty or staff members for that matter. In fact, don't even get into any trouble. At all. Promise me?"

I look at my mother, seeing her sadness and age in her eyes. For a forty-nine year old woman, the only age you see on her is in her eyes. That's only once in a while too, when she wants it to show. Other than that, she looks like she's in her 30's. I have to give her this promise; it'll be a good going away present. "Okay ma. I'll be good." I say and flip upside down over the side of the bed to give her a hug.

"Okay, well, Jakob and I have to catch a flight to Tokyo tonight. I have to negotiate a plan with some executives over there. I hope you have fun! Call me tomorrow morning, before you go to class." She kisses me on the cheek and heads out the door, waiting for Jakob as he says goodbye to me.

"Bye mom. Bye Jakob. Talk to you tomorrow." I say and wave, expertly hiding my disappointment. Why doesn't she ever stay to come to the dinners I have in my honor or something? She is such a workaholic; she doesn't know that tomorrow is not the first day of school. It's a Sunday.

"We better head off too Sheila. We have to fly back to Sydney, your aunt is having a dinner tomorrow and we're spending the night. We're so proud of you and remember to call every so often." Her parents give her a tearful embrace and goodbye, which is the opposite from my mother's goodbye. I guess it's because we say goodbye so much, that it's really no big deal to her anymore. Funny how it kind of is to me. Oh well.

"Come on; let's start to make our collages." Sheila says after a few moments of awkward silence. "We can even get a big picture of Ms. Cassell and blow spit wads at her face." A devilish smile stretches across her face. I think Shiela and I are going to have a lot of fun this year.