Ravenford Institution

Shayne was always mistaken for a boy and her name did not help at all, but she never would have had it another way.

In fact, she loved being mistaken for a boy. She loved not wearing heels, not being concerned about things like love, fashion and boys.

Shayne was perfectly happy when everyone mistook her as a boy. But-being totally misjudged as a boy- if her lies had its perk, it also had its downsides.

And one of these downsides, were the annoying group of girls giggling behind her. And this was exactly what Shayne hated. A group of girls-probably around her age-feeling all bubbly at the sight of her.

It was, in her words, pretentious. Completely annoying and irritating.

To avoid them, Shayne aimlessly walked forward. But with no luck. The three girls were still following her.

This could get ugly.

Shayne wasn’t the type of person who would just announce a fight, but today she was beyond moody.

She sighed, thinking that these girls were just giggling and not talking about her.

Probably, although that was extremely close to impossible.

But she wasn’t just about to back down and let them continue their eternal chuckling, hoping that they would just stop. She turned slowly, facing them.

“Excuse me?”Shayne asked in a rather, manly voice.

The threesome were quickly silenced and their faces turned pink. “Uhm, We were just wondering…” The blond stuttered, still blushing, as the other girls gawked at Shayne.

“Er,Do you study at Ravenford?” she asked trailing most her courage. Shayne, obviously, did not like the fact that these girls knew she was studying there.

For Pete sake, she barely knew these girls. And they were practically dazed at her presence. That wasn’t dazzling at all.

“Uhm, yeah.”Shayne replied, wanting to end the conversation.

“So, are you, like, Shayne Princeton?” The asked altogether. Oh, for Pete sake!Shayne thought. Now was definitely not the time to play 20 questions.

“Yeah.” Her answers were completely short.

Her phone vibrated. At last, the salvation she needed.

“Oh, sorry. My phone’s ringing.” Who could have saved her at this hour? Not that she cared.

“Hello, sweetie.” It was her mother. Of all people, -who were actual candidates in saving her pathetic little ass- why was it her mom.

“Hey, mom. What’s up?” She wanted to act nice to her mother, but Shayne despised chatting with her mother in a formal manner.

“Darling, there’s a bit of a problem.” Shayne knew what her mother meant. If it was bad news to her mom, then it was good news to her.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was curious. She was great at hiding enthusiasm.

“Well, remember that photo shoot we talked about?”

“Yeah. What about it?” She was praying, that what her hippie mother’s next words would be “cancelled”.

“It’s postponed to December.”At least that was close to cancelled.

“Oh.” Shayne replied, trying to sound sad.

Her mother, Elen , had actually agreed on playing along with her. Playing along with Shayne’s act. Of course, this was only because Shayne was great at playing the part of boys.

It benefited Elen nonstop. She managed to persuade her daughter to become one of her models. Not as a girl, of couse-that would be insane.

And that’s when business appeared.

Since Shayne’s appearance on a certain magazine promoting Elen’s clothes, her clothing business boomed.

Yes, that was the reason why she agreed on Shayne’s act.

But, in order to hide the truth, they had to put Shayne into a school that both girls and boys entered. It may seem completely irrelevant, but that was the key.

It was the key.

So that no one could accuse Shayne to be too mysterious. Shayne was now studying at Ravenford.

The perfect school where there wasn’t any uniform-then no one would notice that she really was indeed a girl.

The perfect school for secrets.

Even the School’s headmaster had agreed to this. The dean-as if on impulse- agreed to Mrs. Princeton’s idea of putting Shayne as a boy in the school.

It was out of greed that the dean had agreed to Mrs. Princeton’s conditions.

Condition 1: She would pay a lot of money. And she meant a lot of money.
The dean couldn’t simply say no to the ravaging amount of money.
Condition 2:Mrs. Princeton would donate a huge amount of anything to the dean.

And those seemed fair enough. But definitely not sane enough.

This is the year Shayne Princeton would enter Ravenford, go -and live- inside a dorm filled with boys. But, this was just the price she had to pay for all her act.

This was all worth it. At least, for Shayne it was.