"Cause everything we know is just something we're taught."
....
The headmaster's office was empty, the school's receptionist was typing away at her front desk and Adora hid a yawn behind her hand as she slouched back in the couch.
"Did Dodge say what this was about? Couldn't he have made it for after school?" She turned lazily to look at her cousin seated beside her and raised an eyebrow.
Iain smirked. "Fresh blood, cousin dear, fresh blood, and being the ever kind Dodgers' that we are, we'll be giving them the grand tour of our marvellous facility!" He spoke as if he was rehearsing for a stage play, with over-emphasised hand movements and broad facial expressions.
Adora sat up straight. "Fresh blood? There's new people in town?" The surprise was obvious in her voice and as her older cousin nodded quickly, the door to the office opened.
A tall, blonde man walked into the room, and put a sports bag beside the dark desk. He looked like an older version of Iain; the same messy hairstyle, the same light blue eyes and the same infectious smile.
"Hey kids, sorry I'm late." He ran a hand through his long hair and grinned at Adora. "I take it Iain's told you about the newbies?" He asked as he took off the sports jacket and hung it over the back of his chair.
"Well, told me of them anyway." Adora replied, stifling another yawn. The only time she was OK with being a morning person was when she was walking the dog in warmer weather; being an hour early to school was not OK.
"They should be here soon. Three of them. Sorry about the wake up. I thought it would be easier to do it before the other students arrived." He sat down in the chair and opened the laptop that sat on the desk. A few mouse taps later and he leaned forward. "Thomas, Willard and Martina Taylor. The boys in their last year, and Martina is in your year, Adora." He looked up from the screen and smiled. "So, you can see where this is going..."
"Yea, I'm leading Martina around, and Iain has the boys. Are they city slickers or..." She let her voice trail off, allowing for other options to be imagined.
"Not quite, they're from Richieville." The young headmaster answered, his blue eyes looked up from the screen and let go of a sigh. "Their father has bought the Jones' bakery, so they've moved out from the suburbs."
"Delicious!" Iain bounced on the seat of the couch happily. "I was worried they'd have to close down after Mr. Jones' got sick."
There was a knock on the door and Adora looked over to the window to see two tall boys and a slightly shorter girl waiting on the other side.
"Come in!" The headmaster stood up and moved to lean against the front of his desk. The door opened and the three Taylor siblings walked into the room. "Good morning! I'm Sam Dodgers, Dodge outside of school, but unfortunately, Mr Dodgers during school hours." He extended a hand and shook one of the boy's hands. "This is my brother, Iain, he'll be helping you two get settled, and my cousin, Adora, will be helping you out, Martina." After he had shaken the three hands, he offered the siblings a seat each at the front of his desk; he then sat down in his leather chair behind it.
Iain gave the three a friendly salute and Adora lifted her hand in a wave.
She had never seen three more beautiful looking people in her life. The boys, Thomas and Willard, were identical. Their sister, Martina, shared their strong facial features, and while her roots matched their brown hair, most of her long waves had been lightened.
They all looked like they could be celebrities or models, and Adora had to remind herself to breathe as she took them in.
"Well, welcome to Wheeler Falls High, so who's who?" Iain smiled and pointed to the two brothers in turn.
"I'm Tom." The first Taylor sibling to speak, he put his hand to his chest and then gestured to his brother. "He's Will, we prefer the nicknames over Thomas and Willard, and Marti likes... Well," his laugh echoed on his sister's smiling face as he gestured to her. "Marti, not Martina."
Tom was clean-shaven; he had a white shirt neatly tucked into a pair of olive green skinny pants. If she wasn't looking at it with her own eyes, Adora would never have imagined the outfit to look good; but it did. Will, had some whiskery growth on his chin and under his nose, it seemed he cared a lot less about his appearance. He was simply wearing jeans, a grey shirt and a dark brown pilot's jacket.
"Excellent." Iain looked the three of them over as his brother started to introduce the school's policy to the Taylors.
Adora swallowed a lump and let her eyes take a little longer to study the newcomers. Marti was wearing black tights, a loose grey and white tartan skirt and a tucked in floaty type of shirt with sleeves. Her shoes were grey ankle boots and Adora felt envy slipping into her stomach at the style.
How could one family produce three such beautiful children?
There was nobody in Wheeler Falls that looked as perfect as the Taylors, were their parents just as attractive?
"Adora can help you out with any musical commitments you want to make, Will, and Iain is on half of our sports team, so he can introduce you to Coach Hannah, Tom. I understand you like to paint?"
Adora blinked out of a daze as she heard her name and smiled towards the desk. Will was looking at her, perhaps studying her as much as she had been him. He nodded slowly at the mention of musical commitments and then Adora turned her attention to Marti as Dodge addressed the slender girl.
"There's a pretty good visual arts studio on the main street." Adora suddenly spoke up.
Marti turned from Dodge to her and smiled.
"Really? You'll have to show me later. Richieville's was ok, but nothing special, and the beach right here... Well, much better than the mundane view of the suburbs." Marti chuckled and Adora suddenly realised she had been nervous the entire time the Taylors had been in the room. The anxiety seemed to slip into the background as Marti spoke to her and Adora felt her shoulders relaxing.
She didn't know why she had been nervous, but the relief washed over her entire body and she felt the smile creep onto her face. Fresh blood, Iain had said, fresh blood and fresh friends.
"Cause everything we know is just something we're taught."
....
The school corridors were littered with metal lockers, bins and posters.
'Join the Wheeler High Edition!' one advertised for the school paper.
'Don't forget to buy your tickets to the Senior Formal!' that particular poster was bright and colourful, standing out unmistakeably from the others.
Iain took the boys to their lockers and waited while they put their bags inside. "There's not really much of the school to see." He explained. "It's actually an old hospital, they broke some walls down to extend the classrooms and added a few extra portables outside. The gym is probably the newest thing about the school, and it's pretty decent."
"That's the most important thing," Tom smiled. "How about you just bypass the boring stuff and take us straight to the good thing?"
Iain chuckled and shrugged. "Alright, to the gym it is! What sports interest you?" He started to lead the twins through the mostly empty corridors. There was still thirty minutes before classes started and it seemed the students weren't too interested in being at the school early.
Tom watched as Iain walked, there was a swagger in his step and he noticed the lean but strong figure underneath the clothes.
"I like ball sports." Tom replied. "Will's not much of a team player though." He teased and nudged his brother with his elbow.
"I just like being busy." Will started. "Mostly running, sometimes shadow boxing." He had barely been present since they had walked into the school and Tom knew it was going to take some effort to get his brother out of his cave.
Iain took them through a set of double doors that led outside and Tom looked around and took in the courtyard and randomly arranged benches and tables; obviously for recess and lunch breaks.
The gym was a light coloured concrete building with a curved roof made out of corrugated iron. It had two sets of glass double doors leading into it and a row of second storey windows.
"It's almost bigger than the school building." Tom remarked.
"Yea, well, we have a fair few sports fan parents that were happy to add funds for better facilities. It's only about five years old, I think. There are two courts, marked for basketball, tennis, soccer, and whatever other sports they could think of. I'm more of a track and swim team person, so you won't really see me running about on the courts too much. Coach Hannah's office is inside, I'll take you in to meet him so you can get a list of things you might want to try." Iain held open one of the glass doors and as soon as they walked in Tom could hear the sound of sneakers squeaking on polished floorboards and a basketball being bounced on the surface.
A smile broadened on his face and he followed Iain into the main room. The two courts were still like new and his eyes immediately moved to the handful of tall boys playing on the court.
"There's a training area in that room over there and we have fold out bleachers when we have games. There's no other school in town so we have two teams for that and sort of do a small round robin with the towns along the highway." Iain explained.
"Sounds organised, show us to this coach's office." Tom rubbed his hands together in excited anticipation.
"So, you're a painter?" Adora had shown Marti the classrooms and the gym building and students were now filling the halls. Principal Dodgers had put Marti into Adora's main classes so that Adora could help her to settle in and they were now sitting in the form room where morning roll call was taken.
"I try to be." Marti chuckled and started to take in the other students. She reminded herself they were now in a small town, tens of kilometres away from the next one, with ocean and cliffs on one side and hills and trees on the other. It was a picturesque town and she was excited to get her painting supplies out, it was also over 200 kilometres from Richieville. She looked away from a pair of boys and back to her tour guide with a sly smile. "So, what's the town like?" She asked, leaning in closer to Adora. "Is it really small town-ish?"
Adora's blue-green eyes widened in surprise at the question. She let out a scoff of disbelief and looked over at the boys, now looking Marti up and down. "Erm, well... My family has kind of been here for generations... I love it here, so I guess anything I say would be biased..." She started, pursing her full lips together. "I guess it would depend on what type of small town-ish you mean."
Marti looked down at the puckered lips and felt the corners of her own lifting in a smile. Her guide was a gorgeous girl; fair skin, which was surprising for a beach resident, her dark hair was long and wavy and the short stature of Adora only made her build look more petite.
"So, the headmaster and Iain are brothers and they're your cousins, is that right?" Marti confirmed. Adora nodded. "Is Wheeler Falls like the small towns in movies? Books? TV shows?"
Adora took a deep breath. "Well, everyone knows my family, and I can't say much about other small towns, but I suppose from my position Wheeler Falls is very much like a stereotypical small town." She frowned as the words left her mouth, as if she had never thought about it before.
Marti giggled a little. "We've moved a couple of times in the last few years, but we've never lived in a small town." She looked to the front of the classroom as a teacher walked in. "This ought to be all kinds of interesting." She turned her attention to him as he started shuffling papers. He was older; probably the oldest resident that Marti had seen so far, not that she had seen much of the town, or its residents.
They'd arrived on the weekend and spent most of the time arranging the house and unpacking their things, but now that the house was sorted, they could try and settle into the town.
The teacher opened a clipboard and a few more students hurried to chairs and tables as a bell sounded.
Marti could feel the eyes looking at her from all over the room, guesses about who she was, judgements on what she was like. She didn't mind so much what people thought about her, she was a lot like Tom in that way.
After their names were called, Adora turned to Marti with a curious expression. "How come you've moved so much?"
"Oh, well last time we moved because Mum wanted to work at a new office, closer to the city; this time it's because Dad bought the bakery." Marti shrugged. "I can't really remember the first town, but we've really only moved..." She frowned and started to count on fingers. "Midtown, Glenden, Richieville and here... So not that much I suppose. We spent most of our time growing up in Midtown. Glenden seemed to have a better school once the boys finished primary school, then when I finished we officially moved there for the high school, Richieville was closer to the city for Mum, and now... Dad's dream bakery is here with the beach."
"So, you've been to three high schools? Wow... How is that on your social skills?" Adora's face creased with concern.
Marti looked away and started to trace a scratch on the table. "Well, it's different for all of us. Tom's really friendly and outgoing, he's never had trouble making friends, fitting in, or getting girls..." Marti scoffed slightly and tried to ignore a pang in her stomach.
