Highmore Manor

Early the next morning Callie shook me awake at about 6am. I groaned and rolled over, glaring at her. She laughed at the face I pulled and then pulled my covers off me. I gasped as the cold air hit me.

"You have to get up now, Hayls," she said trying to drag me out of bed.

"Why?" I groaned.

"The car arrives in an hour and we've got to get ready," she said and managed to pull me onto the floor.

"Oww, ok I'm up," I laughed and stood up slowly.

I went in the shower and got dressed into some grey skinny jeans, a white t-shirt and my new favourite purple hoodie and my black Keds. I dried and straightened my hair and then went downstairs.

Alex was sitting at the table in a white shirt, formal jacket and blue jeans. He looked really good dressed like that.

"Morning," he said and went back to eating cereal.

"Good morning sleepy head!" Callie's voice rang out from the kitchen where I could hear and smell something cooking.

"Good morning," I said and went through to find out what she was making.

"I hope you like pancakes," she said with a huge grin.

"Yes, I do but I've never had them for breakfast before," I said. She gaped at me.

"You poor deprived child," she gasped with a smile. "You have missed out on something truly…"

"Disgusting," Alex called from the other room.

"I was going to say delicious, but he doesn't like pancakes," Callie said leaning over towards me to grab a fork. I laughed at them.

They had been going out for a year now and had met at the start of the year just been, so their anniversary was in a few weeks time. Callie told me she had always been the shy, geeky girl who didn't talk to the likes of Alex Cameron, who was one of the popular kids. But when they had ended up in the same swim team they had bonded, become close friends and then finally he asked her out. I had sat there aww-ing and oo-ing because it really was a cute story.

Callie handed me a plate and put two pancakes on it.

"Maple syrups in the other room," she said dishing out a few pancakes for herself.

We ate our pancakes and Alex ate his cereal with his hand over his nose, 15 minutes later the doorbell rang.

"That will be our ride!" Alex declared, dashing out of the dining room as quick as he could. Callie and I laughed.

"Come, we'll go get all our bags and he can talk to the driver," Callie said dumping both our plates in the sink.

When we came back downstairs with all the bags Alex was sitting in the living room with another incredibly hot guy. They were talking and laughing and the other guy was showing Alex some pictures. They turned round when Callie and I fell into the room with a few screams and landed on top of everyone's bags.

"Ryan!" Callie cried jumping up and rushing over. I got up a little slower and checked I wasn't broken.

"Ryan was staying just down the road and we didn't even know, so he organized to get picked up with us," Alex was explaining as I wandered over. Callie nodded and hugged the guy again. The guy looked over at me and looked me up and down admiringly.

"And who is this?" he asked in an American accent, looking straight at me. Alex turned to look at me too.

"This is Hayley Jones," Alex said emphasizing the 'this' just as the other guy had emphasized 'who'.

"Oh, the scholarship girl," he said his tone suddenly going sour. I stared at him a little surprised.

"Hayley, this is Ryan Batchelor," Alex said looking at Ryan warily.

"Uh, hi," I said with a small wave.

"Yeah whatever," he said rudely.

"Ryan!" Callie warned.

"What? She's not a paying student so she's a lower class to me, she should be scrubbing my floors," he said in a very posh and snooty voice.

"Uhh excuse me. Just because I'm not a paying student suddenly makes me your servant?" I asked, shocked.

"Yes, got a problem with that Poor Girl," he said turning to look at me down his nose.

"Actually, yes I do. That has got to be the most stupid, rude and arrogant thing I have ever heard. I'm not coming to this school to get bossed around by some rich snob," I declared, he stared at me surprised, like no one had ever spoken to him like that.

"I…" he managed to say pathetically.

"And the names Hayley, ok?" I said.

"Ok," he said, wide blue eyes staring at me. I nodded and then looked over at Alex and Callie. Callie punched Ryan in the chest; he just put his hand over the place that she punched and continued staring at me. Alex was grinning at me.

He walked past me and picked up his bags. Whispering,
"Good on you," as he went past. Callie high-fived me and grabbed her bags too. I grabbed my bags and followed them outside.

Once I got outside I nearly choked and dropped my bags.

"What, never seen a limousine Poor…" Ryan started rudely and then caught everyone's glares. "Hayley," he finished in a much nicer tone.

"No, not in real life like this," I said following the other two round the back of the huge black limo to dump my bags in the back. Then I went round to the side. Ryan, very nicely compared to before, opened the door and held it open for me.

"Thanks," I said as I climbed in. He climbed in after me and sat across from me, said 'no problem' and closed the door.

The inside of the limo was nice; there were comfy tan leather seats along both walls and nice thick black carpet on the floor. Right at the end was a small drink bar that only stocked soda and fizzy drinks as far as I could see. There was a tinted window between the back part and the driver's cab that could be put up and down by pushing a button that I found on the arm of my seat.

Callie and Alex got in and sat opposite each other too, with Callie sitting beside me. We drove off, away from London.

Two hours later, after a whole lot of talking and listening to music, we arrived on the coast of Kent. I gasped and looked out the window. We were driving along the top of a really high cliff with the sea crashing against the rocks at the bottom. Every now and then the hills dipped right down to sea level were a few beaches lined the coast, it was absolutely stunning.

"I left my camera in my bag," I said sadly, my eyes still glued to the window. I heard Callie laugh.

"Don't worry you'll have heaps more chances to take pictures of the coast, you might even get someone with their license to drive you back out here." I turned around just in time to catch Callie glaring at Alex as she talked about licenses.

Obviously he didn't have one.

"That would be awesome," I said excitedly.

About 15 minutes later we rounded a corner to see a secluded beach at the bottom of a hill and then behind that a small peninsula sticking out into the sea. On top of the peninsula was a covering of tall oak trees just as the booklet had described.

"That my Kiwi friend, is Highmore Peninsula, home to Highmore Manor," Ryan said proudly substituting Poor girl for Kiwi friend.

"Wow," I managed to gasp.

We dipped down in the road and drove into a small town of Highmore. I could see one road leading out of the town and off towards the peninsula.

The town was absolutely adorable; it was right above the sea so the smell of salt continuously wafted up the cliffs and into the town. All the houses were made out of a sort of brown coloured brick and had cute little red roofs. All of the houses were at least two stories tall and it reminded me of an episode of Emmerdale I had once seen. The roads leading through the town were all winding and hilly.

We stopped at a small restaurant and ate some lunch and then afterward we climbed back into the limo and drove through the town.

We had to stick to the main roads because the car was too big to get down the windy roads but after a few minutes we were out on the open road again and getting closer to Highmore Manor.

We turned into a driveway with huge gates and a huge sign saying 'Highmore Manor' in big fancy lettering. My heart sped up. The driveway took us about 7 minutes to drive down, it was so long, it had trees along each side and created a sort of arch above our heads.
The drive had obviously been cut into the woods that were surrounding the school.

Suddenly we emerged into a huge courtyard area with a large fountain in the middle and an enormous brick mansion. The original building had a few additional features recently added to it like some big white pillars on either side of the front door. It was all pretty overwhelming and beautiful all at the same time.

The driver pulled up in front of the door and then came round and opened the door to the limo so I got out and thanked him.

I took a minute to look around. The wind was blowing through the trees softly, producing soothing noises of branches swaying in the breeze and causing the salty air to blow up over the edge of the peninsula on the other side of the building and spread out everywhere. The huge house, three stories high and incredibly long seemed to tower above the driveway in all its magnificence and looked amazing against the white stones that had been laid out on the driveway and looked stunning against all the green surrounding us.

It was relaxing standing there was my eyes closed listening to the rustling of the leave and smelling the salt.

"Hayley? You ok?" Callie asked coming up beside me. I turned to her and nodded slightly.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just - this place is amazing," I managed to say. She laughed.

"It sure blows you away when you first come here, ae?" she said. I nodded and followed her to the front door in a kind of trance.

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Once inside we went to the administration room and collected our room allocations. Callie and I were sharing a room with two other girls, Brittany Evans and Phoebe Brooks.

When Callie heard this she groaned and hit her head on the wall, which must have hurt.

It turned out these two girls were the "popular ones", part of a very stereotypical preppy group of three blondes. They weren't going to be too happy about being split up and dumped with us, apparently.

We went up to our room, which was amazing. There were four huge beds and small en suite bathroom.

I was all set to relax when Callie declared a Grande Tour and proceeded to show me everything.

She was just showing me the courts when she saw Alex practicing tennis with one of his friends and demanded we go see them. So we headed over to the seats, where their bags were, to watch. I was just glad of somewhere to sit and rest, the school was big and tiring to walk around. I looked up to watch the two boys play.

Alex was pretty good at tennis I found out, and he looked good in his white top and shorts. But it wasn't him I found myself staring at. It was the guy he was playing against.

He was gorgeous. He had very messy, kind of long blonde-brown hair, which was currently that way because he was playing sport. His face was just perfect and slightly god-like. He was tall and muscular and tanned, surprising for England's lack of proper sunlight.

I found myself absorbed in just watching him hit the ball back across the court to Alex, watching the muscles in his legs tense as he skidded across the court, watching him laugh when he missed the ball and run to go collect it.

"Uhh, Earth to Hayley?" I heard someone say. Suddenly someone hit me in the arm and brought me back to reality.

"Wha - what?" I asked drunkenly.

"You're a dork," Callie laughed. "And now you can tell me what you were staring at." I shook my head to clear it.

"Umm, I wasn't staring at anything. I was just thinking and kind of spacing out," I lied with a small smile. Callie looked at me suspiciously.

"Oh," she said narrowing her eyes slightly. I turned back and looked at the boys. They had stopped playing now and were heading towards us. They both grabbed their drink bottles and downed about half of it before turning to look at us. Callie jumped up and gave her boyfriend a quick hug.

"Eww, you're sweaty," she complained and pulled away. Me and the other boy laughed and Alex grinned, whipping his wet arm on her cheek. She screamed and jumped around saying "ew" and scrubbing her face with her t-shirt. Alex rolled his eyes and turned to look at us.

"So Hayley, this is my friend, Jace," Alex said pointing at the God standing beside him.

"Uhh, hi," I said with a small wave. He nodded his head at me like guys do and took another swig from his drink bottle.

"So are you in a good room?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, sharing with Callie and two others," I said.

"Brittany Evans and Phoebe Brooks!" Callie stopped her jumping around saying "ew" to interject. Alex burst out laughing, Jace snorted and basically drowned in the contents of his drink bottle. Callie and I stared at them as Jace coughed and spluttered and Alex bent over in hysterics.

"I personally don't see what's so funny," I said to Callie.

"I know, it certainly isn't funny enough to drown yourself," she said pointedly at Jace. After about ten more minutes the boys calmed down enough to actually speak coherently.

"Sorry, I really do feel very sorry for you," Alex apologized clutching his stomach. Jace was leaning over the seat and panting slightly.

"You two, must be the most unlucky girls in the whole school," Jace said and I finally heard his amazing voice. He had an English accent, and his voice was deep and velvety.

There goes Hayley into outer space again.
What did I tell you? I fall for guys pretty easy.

I managed to shake myself out of the trance by myself this time and also managed to stutter out a "you think" in agreement.

"Yeah," Jace said quickly and looked away.

"I was just giving Hayley the Grande Tour when we stumbled across you two, so it's all your fault if Hayley doesn't get to see the whole of Highmore before the sun sets," Callie said jokingly.

"Well you didn't have to stop," Jace said coolly.

"Well maybe I wanted to see my boyfriend," Callie snapped back.

"You could just see him tonight at dinner," Jace said, his eyes darkening suddenly from grey-green to a very dark green. I turned and caught the glare Callie sent him back. Alex and I glanced at each other at the same time.

"Oooookay, well we'll let you two get on with your tour. No point in holding you up any longer," Alex said grabbing his bag off the seat; Jace broke his glare with Callie to do the same. Callie nodded and gave Alex a quick kiss before the two boys headed off towards the main building. I turned around just in time to catch Callie glaring after them.

"Woah, Callie. What the heck was that?" I asked, slightly surprised.

"Jace and I don't get along," Callie said dismissively.

"Uhh, yeah that much was obvious. But he seems like a nice enough guy, why don't you get along?" I asked.

"You don't know Jace. He doesn't get along with anyone apart from Alex and Ryan, everyone else he either barely puts up with being around or completely despises them. With me, he just hates me," Callie said with a shrug of her shoulders.

"He was nice to me," I protested. Kind of hurt that someone so godlike was so disagreeable.

"You're new. He'll be nice for a few hours. But don't expect any friendliness in the next few days," Callie said with knowing look at me, the look said 'I know what your thinking'.

"What was that look for?" I asked.

"Jace is hot, I'm not going to deny that. But don't fall for him, he'll crush you and it will hurt," Callie said. I smiled.

"Yeah right," I said to her.

'Too late,' I said in my head.