It was time. The moment had arrived, but somehow I had managed to sleep in. I was woken by a faint call from Mother, who had just seen Father off to work. She was in a much better mood than she was the day before, and in her voice I could tell that her considerable increase in joy was because of her happiness for me. She would always put my interests first, and was clearly overwhelmed by her elation. This was how she functioned, prioritising me over all. Thinking of this, I got up as soon as I heard the call and went downstairs.

As always, Mother had lovingly made me my breakfast. I sat down and started to indulge in the bowl of fruit she had prepared. I was biting into a segment of nectarine when she started the conversation.

‘So, Alice,’ she coughed, ‘What are you most looking forward to doing today at NLCS?’ I honestly had no decent response to give, since I had missed most of the induction days so had no idea what I would be up to once I got there. ‘I don’t really have a clue, honestly. They haven’t told me a thing,’ I said as an answer. This is where she revealed something to me that I didn’t know before. ‘Well, Mr Gatwick e-mailed me this morning, do you know him?’ Mr Gatwick was the teacher involved in transitions. I had only met him a few times, but more than any other staff member. ‘Yes, he’s the one you had a conversation with in the north hall, while I was taking the EPC test for French and English.’ ‘Oh of course! Anyway he sent me some information that he wanted you to read,’ she said way too enthusiastically.

It was merely a breakdown of school expectations and rules, with a brief explanation as to what I was completely clueless about before. I was to meet my peers in the south hall, where we would be assigned our form tutors and given our full timetables. The schedule for my first day was on the e-mail, and when I looked at it I was disappointed to see that lunchtime was only half an hour long, a lot shorter than at primary school. Each lesson was forty-five minutes and we had four of them. This is except for the last one, which was to last an extra half hour. On my first day my last lesson was Russian, which was extremely exciting as I had never studied it before. I had a natural proclivity towards languages- so I thought I would probably learn very quickly.

Russian was certainly the most interesting thing I would be learning about that day, but I was also looking forward to my three other lessons. These were: history, which didn’t intrigue me quite as much as geography; art, which I found relaxing and was a strong subject for me; and maths- which I had improved significantly in during my last two years of primary school.

After devouring the fruit, I drew my attention over to the mug filled with yoghurt that stood in front of me. It was one of the sour-tasting ‘healthy’ ones that Mother encouraged me to eat more of. She had put some strawberries in it and I was actually starting to get used to the taste- though it was still sharp in my mouth and I wasn’t really keen on it. I ate it all appreciatively, though, and decided it wasn’t too bad in the end.

I had finished breakfast quickly and was up in two seconds to get ready for a shower. Even though I had had one the night before, I wanted to ensure I was clean on my first day and I thought it would help to wake me up properly. For these reasons I jogged up the stairs (so as not to fall over) and got my towel. I subsequently ran back down, forgetting that our bathrooms had been renovated and our shower was now upstairs.

The water was cold. It attacked me before I knew I had turned it on. It hit me right on my sternum, then innocently trickled down my torso to the floor. It had attacked once, and that was enough. Soon after it warmed up and became my friend again. ‘Water, like Mother Nature, is the enemy, but also our sustenance,’ I remembered from a book I had read. I scrubbed it on my arms, which were still muddy from the garden (I obviously hadn’t noticed them the night before), and set the temperature to the lowest it could be so as to not be shivering when I got out.

I exited the shower along with a plume of steam that created a mystic fog as I wrapped my towel around myself. I was stripped of all uncleanliness.

Once dry, I put my uniform on for the first time since I had bought it at the shop. It still fitted well, however the trousers seemed even more loose than before. I decided to wear a belt with them, as they were non-refundable and Mother would be quite annoyed if she had to spend another 300 ishwis on new school trousers. I did my tie and ensured it was long enough for my liking before fastening a metal pin badge onto it. The badge had an enamel French flag on the front,- for I had bought it in Marseille on holiday the previous summer, so as to show I could speak French when I went to places where speakers of the language might have resided.

I decided to wear my pin badge on the first day, for at least two thousand of Ne’hāllda’s residents spoke French. It was very common to hear it spoken all across the country, despite the language not having evolved for 2,500 years. Nivillia was a remnant of the ancient French colony of Algeria, which became its own state in 1962. It was in 3776 when the southernmost region gained independence and became Nivillia. Due to the country’s history of French colonisation the language was still very popular, and I wanted to make the most of it because I liked practising my speaking skills.

I was soon ready, and I rushed down the stairs with haste. My mother was waiting in the hall and had placed my newly polished black leather school shoes on the bottom step for me. The hall was illumined with sunlight, every corner was flooded with it and the walls radiated it upon us. I was dazed by its positivity, and for a moment could envision nothing but cheerfulness ahead.

It was with such cheerfulness that I posed in front of the front door, having a photo taken for day one of my first senior year. This sort of thing was highly important to both my mother and me: so we had to make sure we were both happy with the photo. Afterwards, she led me out of the door and we got into the car.

I did have a strong preference for walking, however I never had time for it before school, and the bus stop was on the way to Mother’s work- meaning dropping me off was of no inconvenience to her. It took about a minute to get there from our house, on the same road that Mother had to take to get to Elistone City Centre: which was where her work was located. The bus stop consisted of nothing but a sign and a bit of marked-out pavement, and I found it surprising that the school had decided to pick us up there, as there was a sheltered bus stop just a bit further up the road. I thought perhaps that one was owned by a private company, so was prohibited for our use, because otherwise it would have been much more logical to be picked up there, where we were in the shade and protected from the North African heat. There was a row of shops that ran parallel to the road where the bus stop was, and there were some free parking spaces there where I got out of the car.

I was the only one at the bus stop that day, for the first year students always had a day to themselves before everyone else came back to school. This was to get accustomed to secondary school life, mainly for the sake of the vast majority, who were usually very nervous. I never understood this, as I was an incredibly confident person who rarely got anxious. My mother even mentioned it as I left the car for the bus stop, commenting that I ‘looked like a further student.’ (A further student was a type of student at a Nivillian school, who had completed their first qualifications at sixteen and moved on to study at a higher level.)