Underworld

Lara was known as a simple girl. She had simple tastes and simple wants. She loved the simplest things in life and almost anything could make her smile. She was bright and often compared herself to a pale shade of yellow. She was simple, calm and went with pretty much anything.

She didn’t pay much attention to the dark side of life and saw her life like a rainbow, colorful but not in any way sinister and if there was a pot of gold to fall in her life than that was just a bonus.

Lara didn’t quite know what she wanted to do with her life career wise, at twenty two years old she was starting a second three year degree. Her first was in creative writing and her current course was in public relations. As previously stated, Lara didn’t know what she wanted to do, but she wanted to deal with people.

She liked the idea of helping people and of seeing a smile on someone’s face. Although she had just started another three year degree she already had her sights set on another course, occupational nursing and after that maybe midwifery. However, getting into those courses would require a transfer in university and that was hard to say the least.

Unlike most characters you would usually read about, Lara had no skeletons in the closet, no deep dark secrets and no traumatic childhood. Lara was born to Sicilian and Calabrian parents (none of which had any connections to the underworld,) in the working class suburb of Preston, just north of Melbourne. She was from humble beginnings and embraced it. At age three her parents moved to the leafy suburb of Ivanhoe it was safe, close to schools and parks and provided old homes on large blocks of land at a decent price.

Lara was an only child but unlike many others, she never grew up in a lonely world. She had a large extended family consisting of over eighteen cousins. Her home was never quiet with a revolving door of people coming in and out.

Her family were also well respected, law abiding citizens well, most of the time. Every now and again (usually on a special occasion such as birthdays, Christmas and Easter,) the police would show up on their doorstep asking them to quiet down as there had been numerous noise complaints. No, there was no post techno house music pumping throughout the house disrupting the tranquil street, and if there was it would’ve been drowned out anyway. No, her family was talking. Well, Lara called it talking while most others would say screaming or shouting. It wasn’t like the family deliberately screamed until their voices were horse even though they were sitting less than two meters away from each other, it is just the way they were. There were always so many people talking about so many different things that the noise couldn’t help but rise to the point where one couldn’t even hear themselves think. But they were the Bianchis, and that’s just the way things worked.

Lara was often thought of as rather unusual for a girl of twenty-two years. Unlike most, she preferred quiet restaurants to crowded clubs; she was family orientated and loved little kids. She didn’t pay an overt amount of attention to the media or news and couldn’t stand horror film, blood or even hearing about pain. However, like most other girls, she loved her clothes and shoes, a little too much. She wasn’t a big fan of stereotyping but like all others she did it and she didn’t have many friends, just two or three really really close ones. Lara was an average student, work and school didn’t come naturally to her but she managed a score in the mid eighties on her VCE. That wasn’t enough to get into her preferred course so after a diploma, she finally was able to start her degree.

Lara in fact, didn’t even have a criminal record. Jenna regarded that as rather sad, claiming that she had not truly lived until she had been arrested or spent a night in the cells, but Jenna had a fascination with crime and crime figures. That was her life goal, to write up book detailing the lives of the worlds most feared and dangerous crime figures. One time, Lara got a speeding fine, in was one hundred and sixty dollars and she lost 3 demerit points, she was only driving ten kilometers over the limit.

“So love, I’m guessing you won’t be coming to the next horror movie marathon?” Jenna, a close, if not one of Lara’s best friends asked.

“I really, really don’t like you right now” Lara frowned, refraining from using the word hate, she only used that when she absolutely loathed something “You know I can’t put up with those types of movies, I couldn’t sleep without a nightlight for two nights!”

Jenna laughed “Love, you’re so cute, you’re like a little kid.”

“Thanks” Lara rolled her eyes sarcastically.

“Ohh, someone’s pissed” Jenna teased.

“I just don’t like being scared out of my wits just so you can have a laugh.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the only one laughing!”

“That’s not the point.”

“Alrighty you two can you stop fighting like an old married couple”

Enter Spencer Smith, the walking news dictionary. He was like Gossip Girl on legs, he had an uncanny way of knowing everything about everyone and everything at all times. Lara recalled this one time in business and communication last year, when the lecturer had asked if anyone could tell her how the then rise in interest rates would affect the economy. Lara, who was never the best with numbers tried to make herself invisible by sinking down in her chair, she noticed the rest of the class doing the same, well, all but one. Next to her was Spencer hand high in the air and almost jumping out of his seat in Hermione Granger fashion. Spencer was the opposite to Jenna law wise, he had to be if he wanted to be the Victorian Police Chief Commissioner. That’s why he was here at uni studying law enforcement and communication. “You know that work placement crap?” he smiled.

Jenna rolled her eyes at it, she had been placed at a children’s book publishing
company “Yeah, what shit hole have you been placed at Smith?”

“Victoria Police’s Ravvena taskforce” he smiled

“Never heard of it” Lara shrugged.

“Of course you haven’t,” Spencer noted Lara’s lack of trivial knowledge “It’s a new one, in charge of bringing down the underworld.”