Vinny Donovan made his way slowly to his new form room on the second morning of the autumn term. New to the school, he searched around the Art Department for a while, before finding Room Twenty-One and going inside.
A handful of students were already seated behind the desks. The form teacher, Miss Linney, had taken the register and was passing around a booklet to each student, informing them of changes to school policy made over the summer holiday.
"I'm Vin Donovan," Vin introduced himself to the teacher when he went in. "I think this is my form room."
The teacher smiled brightly at him; he decided she seemed nice. "We've been expecting you." She finished handing out the booklets to the other students, and took Vinny over to her desk. "Here's your timetable, your diary, your locker key - they're the blue ones, down the hall to the left - your lunchtime pass, and all the textbooks and exercise books your teachers have put aside for you. Write your name in them now. You need to fill out this contact sheet as well, in case we need to contact your family for any reason, and have your parents fill in their information and sign it. There's also a copy of the school contract, which you and your parents need to sign, and return to me by the end of the week."
"School contract?" Vin said blankly.
"It just lays out all the rules on uniform, behaviour, that sort of thing. Just read through it and sign it."
Vin took the stack of books and paper to an empty desk and began sorting through them. He filled out the contact sheet and slipped it into his bag for his aunt Leda to sign that evening, wrote his name in all the textbooks and exercise books, and skimmed briefly through the school contract.
He looked over his new timetable as well, pleased with his subject choices for the year.
Vincent Donovan, Form Byron13
Locker Number 45, Art Department (Blue)
8.00-8.45 - Breakfast Club, Cafeteria
8.45-9.00 - Registration - Miss Linney, Room 21, Byron13
9.00-9.45 - Period One - Ancient History, Mr Green, Room 45
9.45-10.30 - Period Two - History, Miss Robertson, Room 46
10.30-11.15 - Period Three - Human Geography, Mr Jenks, Room 31
11.15-11.30 - Break
11.30-12.15 - Period Four - Physical Geography, Mrs Quinn, Room 35
12.15-1.00 - Period Five - Digital Photography, Mr Scott, Room 17
1.00-2.00 - Lunch
2.00-2.45 - Period Six - Digital Photography, Mr Scott, Room 19
2.45-3.30 - Period Seven - English Literature, Miss Sylvester, Room 3
3.30-4.15 - Period Eight - English Language, Mrs Whitehall, Room 4
4.30-5.30 - After School Clubs
The bell rang, signalling the end of registration.
Vinny stood with the rest of the class and quickly packed his new books into his bag.
Miss Linney called one of the other students over, a tall boy with twinkling blue eyes and a ready smile. "This is Robert Mitchell. He'll take you to the humanities department, and show you around for a couple of days, until you find your feet."
"Where are you first?" Robert asked Vin, leading him down the hall to their lockers.
"Room 45, Mr Green." Vin checked his timetable.
He unlocked his locker and quickly stacked the books he didn't need into it, keeping his diary, timetable, pencil case, geography and history books. "How long have you been here?" Vinny asked Robert, as they made their way up to the humanities department.
"Since Year Seven. I've lived in this town all my life; I went to the primary school down the road. How come you're just here for the last year?"
"My parents died, at the beginning of the holidays. I moved here to live with my aunt."
"I'm sorry." Robert said, looking awkward. He didn't miss Vin's unconcerned tone, though, regarding his parents.
"Don't be. I wasn't particularly close to them, so..." Vin shrugged. He as used to people's awkward reactions to his lack of grief.
Robert looked embarrassed for a moment longer, before he stopped outside a door. "This is you. Room Forty-Six is right next door, and to get to your geography room, just go down those stairs there, turn left and it's one of the doors along that corridor. Check the numbers on the door. I'll find you at break. Wait for me outside your classroom, and I'll show you around a bit."
"Thanks." Vin grinned at Robert and went inside his classroom.
It was painted a deep blue colour, with new desks, chair and carpet. Large displays covered three of the walls, of the Romans, the Egyptians and the Ancient Greeks, with smaller displays of various empires blue-tacked to the wall around them. The fourth wall was a huge whiteboard. The teachers' desk was in the corner of the room, allowing the teacher a view of the room and the whiteboard, as well as the door into the classroom.
Vin watched the rest of his class come into the room, chattering and laughing about their holidays, and waited patiently for a space at a desk. The other students didn't seem to notice his presence in the room.
As the teacher entered, Vin made his way across to the only seat left in the room. "Can I sit there? There's nowhere else." Vin asked the desk's other occupant, a surly-looking boy with stormy grey eyes and shoulder-length black hair.
When the boy ignored him, Vin put his rucksack down anyway, and sat. He pulled out his textbook and exercise book for the class and waited for the teacher to begin.
Mr Green was a tall, thin, balding man, with an appearance that reminded Vin vaguely of a stick-insect, who looked rather vacantly at the class before him before he began.
"This is your last year at school before you take exams and go on to university. I will therefore be working you hard. You have coursework to produce, and two summer exams to sit - one on my subject and one on Miss Robertson's - and I expect all of you to get good grades; you are all capable of getting good grades." Mr Green cleared his throat loudly and stepped up to the whiteboard. "Your coursework is worth fifty per cent of your overall grade, so we'll begin work on it immediately to give you more opportunity to revisit and revise your work before your final deadline. You have a choice of subjects to base your coursework on. You can choose from any one of the Romans, Aztecs or Egyptians. Within these general topics, choose from war, the empire, religion, politics or society to base your main essay on."
Vin smiled to himself. He liked having a broad scope for his projects.
"Now, you're all going to pair up, chose a civilisation, and research two of the topics I just gave you. You have three weeks to produce a detailed project on each of them, which will act as the basis of your coursework, the foundation of your research. When it comes to writing up your coursework, you'll each take one of the subjects, research them more thoroughly, and write a five-thousand-word essay on your chosen topic. Pair up now, and start work."
Vinny glanced around the room and saw that everyone was already pretty much paired up with their friends; apart from his desk-mate, it seemed. "Shall we work together?" He asked the boy tentatively. "Everyone else is partnered."
The boy shrugged noncommittally.
"I'm Vinny Donovan. Or Vin. Whichever you like."
"Callum Janoff." Said the boy after a long pause.
Vin thought he had a very nice voice; rather melodic and very quiet.
"I want to see a draft outline of your project in tomorrow's lesson," Mr Green cut in. "So make sure you have a good plan ready."
"Which topic shall we have?" Vin asked Callum amiably.
"Romans. I'll do war."
"I'll have religion." Vin took out his pen and opened his exercise book.
Callum stared at him for a moment, before he did the same. Vin opened his textbook and began to read quietly.
By the end of the lesson, Vin had written the main aspects of Roman religion that he wanted to research into his exercise book, along with how he thought they might tie into Callum's topic of war.
Glancing over at the other boy's book, Vin saw Callum had done the same. He was surprised; something about the boy made Vin think he would shirk his work, and leave Vin to write the majority of the project.
This didn't appear to be the case, however.