Highmore Manor

So four weeks later my mum and my sister, Payton and Ricky and me and all my bags went to Auckland Airport squished into Ricky's van.

Telling Ricky had been a little bit easier then telling Payton because he saw it as a great experience first and then realized that I'd have to leave. He was a little hurt because he decided that he would never get a chance with me.

Richard 'Ricky' Garner and Payton have been my best friends since I was in Year 5, which means that we were about 9 years old. Ricky sort of developed a huge crush on me when we started high school but I didn't return the feelings.

I mean there's nothing wrong with Ricky.

He's pretty cute. He has adorable curly brown hair, amazingly brown eyes and a nice smile and he turns 17 in a few weeks. He's about 5'8" and he's on the rugby team so he's pretty strong and muscular but he's kind of skinnier then the rest of his team.
His personality is great too, he's really funny and he's kind of shy sometimes.

But the reason I don't want to be with him in that way is because we've been friends for so long and I know him better as a brother then as a boyfriend.

Plus Payton is basically in love with him and I wish he would just hurry up and like her.

Payton's beautiful. She's got perfectly straight hair that looks exactly like mine when I straighten mine.

People call us twins a lot of the time but we are so different.
We don't even look that much alike.

She's got blue eyes whereas mine are green, she's 5'5" to my tiny 5'2", she can't sing to save herself but she can dance, she worry's about things more then I do but when she's being herself she's loud and funny and worry free. She doesn't fall for guys very easily whereas I do. She hardly ever has a crush on anyone so it's a miracle that she likes Ricky. She's well rounded where I'm skinny and skinny where I'm well rounded.

But we could be twins, our birthdays are within days of each other and we love each other like sisters.

For a while, a few years ago, we could have actually been sisters.

You see my dad died 12 years ago, when I was 5. He was in the army and he got called out to Iraq a week after my 5th birthday and four months later a bomb went off near the village he was staying in.

He came back to New Zealand with only one leg and he was half deaf because of the bang the bomb made, and later he went into hospital with a bad case of shock. His leg ended up getting infected, the doctors tried everything but he was dead within four weeks of coming home.
I'm just glad I got to say goodbye to him first.

My mum's never really gotten over him.

Payton's mum left her family five years ago. Payton never talks about her and her dad moved on real fast.

Her dad was my mum's first boyfriend in more then 10 years but they were over pretty quickly.

"Honey we're here," my mum said from the passenger's seat of the van breaking through my chain of thought.

I still can't believe she let Ricky drive, even though it is his car. I'm also pretty sure she would have had more almost crashes more times then Ricky would've.

"Oh," I said shaking my head to clear my thoughts.

I looked out my window and sure enough we were already parked in the car park. I looked at Mum; her eyes were shining brightly.

She had been thrilled when I told her I had accepted. She leaped around the living room and dragged me around with her while Payton watched on, giggling uncontrollably. She had phoned her friend in England, who was going to help me buy a uniform and stationary, and told her the great news. Janae Cameron is her name and apparently she has a son going to Highmore as well, so I won't be going there alone on my first day.

We all clambered out of the van, Ricky took my suitcase, Payton grabbed one handle of my bag and I grabbed the other and I threw my carry-on over my shoulder. I went to the desk and they took my bags. My flight was called soon after so we traipsed to Gate Four and then the tears started flowing from my mum.

"I can't believe you're leaving," she sobbed pulling me into a hug.

"Mum you wanted me to go," I said.

"I know, Hayls but now you're going and I'm going to miss you so much," she said letting out a huge cry.

Libby, my sister, tugged on Mum's sleeve and hissed,
"You're embarrassing me." She's only 12 and everything embarrasses her.

My flight was called again.

Mum managed to let go of me and let me hug everyone else.

I hugged Libby first and she told me I was embarrassing her too, but when I let go she was wiping tears out of her eyes. I smiled at her and turned to Ricky.

He hugged me real tight and I whispered in his ear, "Take care of Pay for me," and then let him go.

"I'm gonna miss you, Squirt," he said using my nickname, named for my incredible shortness.

"I'll miss you too, Ricky," I said with a sad smile. I turned to Payton; she was struggling not to cry.

"I'll be back before you know it, Pay," I said putting my hands on her shoulders.

"Twelve weeks. So what's that in hours?" she asked.

"Umm you don't want to know," I said.

"No, I do."

"Umm, well…2016 hours," I mumbled.

"What!?" she screeched.

"I warned you!" I protested.

"2016 hours and counting, but 12 weeks is easier to deal with," she said putting a hand to her throat. I laughed at her and she laughed too.

"Well I'll ring you as soon and as much as I can, I'll email you and MSN you and we can chat on Bebo, ok?" I said.

"It'll have to do," she grinned. We hugged and were interrupted by my flight being called again.

"I guess I should go now," I said forcing myself not to cry.

Payton burst into tears, I sent a look at Ricky and he wrapped his arms around her. She buried her head into his chest and I grinned.

Mum fussed over me asking if I had phone numbers and email addresses and then I was walking away from them to the gate.

They scanned my bags, and then e, I walked to the escalator and then I turned around and waved until they disappeared, tears pouring down my face.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

I awoke with a start as someone shook my shoulder. I turned to find one of the air hostesses who had decided they loved my apparently 'cute Kiwi accent' standing over me.

"Time to put your chair up and buckle yourself in, we're about to land," she said with a smile. I smiled back and thanked her, pulling my chair back upright and clicking my belt in.

I looked out the small window beside me and sure enough it was drizzling. I was glad Payton and I had decided to take a shopping trip, only because I hardly had any clothes and also to buy myself some nice warm jerseys.

I watched as Heathrow Airport came rushing towards us through the drizzle and laughed slightly as the plane bumped down on the runway.

"Thank you for flying with Air New Zealand, please fly with us again," came the charming voice of the pilot over the intercoms, the flashing light above me stopped flashing so I took my belt off and grabbed my bag.

I had to wait for the lady beside me to get up, so while I waited I pulled on my deep purple hoodie.

Once I was off the plane I walked out into the main area of the airport and started searching for something that would give me a clue where Janae Cameron was.

I found it very easily.

A huge sign saying 'Welcome to your new home, Hayley!' was being held up above everyone's heads.

I blushed slightly and walked over.

An amazingly hot guy and a very pretty young girl were holding it, and another lady a little bit older stood beside the guy with a huge grin on her face.

"Janae Cameron?" I asked when I was close enough.

"Hayley Everett?" she replied.

"Yes," I smiled. She grinned again.

"My, how you have grown up. The last time I saw you, you were only 11," she said happily pulling me into a hug. She used to live in New Zealand for a while but her son stayed over in England for school so I'd never met him, but I was guessing the hot one was he.

Janae pulled away from me and turned and pointed at the hot guy.
"This is my son, Alex and his girlfriend Callie Stevens, she's staying with us while her parents holiday in China," she said pointing at the girl second. I smiled at them both.

"Pleased to meet you both," I said.

"The pleasure is ours too," Alex said in his beautiful English accent.

"You're so beautiful," Callie complemented in an American accent.

"Why thank you, so are you," I complemented back, and she was.

She had long straight dark brown hair that was almost black in this light and creamy pale skin; she had big eyes that were chocolate brown. Alex was beautiful too in a manly way. He had longish brown hair and blue eyes and he was tall.

"So, lets get your luggage before someone steals it and get going," Janae said walking away. I started at her, had she just said 'before someone steals it'? Alex saw my face and laughed.

"She's just joking with you, but she never sticks around to laugh," he said. I looked up at him and grinned, relieved.

"I was worried for a moment there," I said. They laughed with me. We walked after Janae and followed her to the luggage terminal.

Alex did the same thing Ricky had done and grabbed my suitcase, which was the largest and heaviest. I grabbed my bag at the same time as Callie. We both laughed and ended up grabbing one handle each just as Payton and I had done.

We got in the car and drove away from the airport and towards London City. The whole ride was taken up by Janae asking questions on everything about me, I told her the best I could while trying to fight off jet lag. When the questions stopped I turned to stare out the windows at the country passing us. As we got further into London the houses started joining together and all started looking exactly the same.

Alex informed me that they call them terraced houses when they're all joined together and wall to wall.

He also told me it was impossible to do anything noisy with the neighbours so close, his mum looked at him oddly while me and Callie laughed.

Somehow Janae managed to find her house in one of the many identical streets. Alex was ordered to get all my bags while Janae got me inside and gave me a tour.

I'm used to houses in New Zealand being very spread out and normally one story but the Cameron house was tall, skinny and three stories high. The house was nice though; it was once of the more up market houses and you could tell by how they'd done it up.

On the first floor was a kitchen and an open plan living/ dining room and in the corner was a set of stairs. There was a huge flat screen TV against one of the walls and quite a few comfy looking sofas surrounding it, everything was painted in warm colours.

Up the stairs were three bedrooms, one was Alex's, one was going to be for me and Callie to share while we were staying there and the other was Alex's brother's room, his name's Jared and he was out with friends. There were also two small bathrooms; one an en suit for the parents and one an en suite for our guest room and it was joined through to Jared's room too.

On the third and last floor was one last bedroom for Janae and her husband, John who was at work, with it's own en suite and there was also a small study/games room and a balcony, which over looked the very small backyard and the next door neighbours yard backing onto it too.

I declared that I was in love with the house and everyone laughed.

Callie had come from quite a large mansion in LA so she wasn't used to the small spaces and little twists and turns like me.

I asked Janae if I could use the phone and assured I her I would pay for the call to New Zealand. I went upstairs to Callie and my small room and sat on the bed that was made neatly. I checked the clock, in was 9:30 pm here so it would be 9:30 am over there. I dialed Payton's number.

"Hello?" she answered in a bored voice.

"Why hello there, darling," I said in my best English accent but it didn't fool her. She screamed and I held the phone away from my ear.

"Oh my gosh, Hayley! Are you in London, like, right now?" she asked when she'd finished screaming.

"Yup I am," I laughed.

"Wow, you're so far away!" she said. I told her about Alex, which she was excited about, and Callie, which she was annoyed about, and Janae and the house. I told her about the rain, which hadn't stopped yet and the how all the houses were identical and joined together.

"I still can't believe I'm not going to see you again for 2016 hours," she said sadly.

"I know Pay, I wish you were here," I said equally as sadly.

"Yeah, well I'd better let you go, it's almost half past 10 and the phone bill must be huge," she said.

"Oh I'm paying for it," I laughed. "But yeah I'm suffering from a bit of jet lag." We said goodbye and then hung up. The hugest wave of tiredness hit me suddenly; I lay down on my bed. And for the first time I felt what it was like to be asleep before my head hit the pillow.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Over the next week and a half Alex and Callie took me shopping in London while Janae went to work.

I decided the uniforms weren't too bad and it was made better when Alex told me I looked good in it too. I was surprised when Callie didn't shoot him or me a glare for that comment but she seemed ok with it. She was a lot different to the protective girlfriends back home.

When Callie and I were going over our timetables one night I was glad to find we shared English, Maths and Art. Callie wasn't surprised though. She went on to tell me there were only about 245 students at Highmore and our year alone only had 40 people in it so there were only two classes for core subjects and only one class for electives, she told me to expect only about 10 people in our Art class. Alex was in the year above us so he would only be in the classes that shared years.

The way they did the year groups at Highmore was a little different too. At my old school in what would have been my Year 12 class (12th grade), everyone had to have turned 17 by April the 1st the next year, but at Highmore everyone in my new year group, Year 6, had to turn 17 anytime between January 1st and December 31st. I was turning 17 on December 31st which was lucky, so I was put in that year whereas Alex was turning 18 in December also so he was put in Year 7.

It got very confused when Callie was trying to explain it to me; it ended in a lot of laughing and re-explaining.

As I lay in bed the night before we were being taken to Highmore and thought about how glad I was that I had some new friends.

I was finally very excited to be starting a new school.