James made his way through the mass of people that was the Bradbury Club on a Saturday night. He was beginning to get too hot and needed to cool off. One of the many good points about the Brad was that there were two main sections. The clubber part, this was opened first, the other part was all sorts of music and was occupied by people wanting a night out as opposed to a night of fast beats and heavy sweating. James and his friends had started off there and they had decided when the second section opened that they would go in there.

James was incredibly thirsty, dancing did that to him, as it did to everybody else, the difference was that James danced routines and they weren't for the weak. He finally got to the doors separating the two sections as they opened, he went through with the rush and got to an empty section of the bar and ordered a bottle of Vö lsk. The air in here was cool, the drink was cold and James finally began to cool down.

"HEY! There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" came the voice as a slim and delicate figure made it's way straight for James. "You were great, you'll have to teach me that." James finally put a name to the voice and figure to Ruth as she entered the bar's lighting. James had met Ruth through a friend, someone who he nearly ended up with but it's best that they didn't, hat would have been a big mistake.

The music roared out and James and Ruth continued talking about nothing in particular. Meanwhile over in the clubber section Candice had enticed a new man into her clutches and was well under way with the seduction act. Every other week she'd have a new man, and every time he was the right one. She'd soon find something not so good about them and they soon found themselves at the top of the discard pile in a very long game of relationship poker.

Not too far away from Candice's scene Paul, Mary, Pete and Tommo were sat at one of the few tables laughing at Sophia. She currently was trying to work out what Matt had eaten for his breakfast a week last Tuesday by sticking her tongue down his throat, so far she'd managed to get find last Wednesday's lunch, but no further.

"Oh she's so gonna regret that in the morning" started Mary

"Regret what?" questioned Paul "She's fancied him since like forever!"

"No! Not that" Mary continued "This" she finished taking a photo clearly showing Sophia's knickers, that was embarrassing enough but that fact that they had a hole in made it all the funnier.

"If we put a W on each side then it'd spell WOW" Tommo mused keeping the general air of humour going. Pete just merrily ignored the goings on; he'd seen someone that he had been instantly drawn to. It wasn't too hard to pick her out from the crowd. For a start you could only see a radius of about 15 meters around you, from that you only had to locate a blonde with fairly big boobs and you had who Pete was looking at. Mary realised that Pete was lost to the power of another woman's breasts and pushed him off his seat. He sprawled over the gap and landed clumsily on the floor right in front of the blonde's feet. He looked up at her and blushed "Ahem, excuse me, I fell" he tried to explain.

"Did you fall or were you pushed, the question really should be answered" she filled in playfully.

"Maybe I'd better go and find out," Pete said glancing menacingly at Mary. He went to walk back to his seat too embarrassed to continue the conversation. The girl grabbed his arm "You know, you really should go under cover. How about under mine" she flirted openly and gave him the look of no resistance.

"Sure, I could give that a try" Pete responded with a wry smile on his face "Come on, let's check the dance floor for spies. He took her hand and the walked off, he turned his head round to Mary and mouthed a "Thank-you" to her though the smoke and disappeared on to the dance floor not to be seen again, at least not for a while anyway.

James and Ruth had retreated from the dancers to the balcony of the club. This was like a calmed refuge for those who dressed smartly enough to be allowed into the posh bit. They went up the stairs and the bouncer gave a respectful nod to them as they passed. They made their way to a free sofa and sat down. The décor up here was nice, leather sofas and armchairs, nice carpet, posh tables and a bar. James got them both a drink and they chatted and looked out over onto the dace floor below. They watched everyone dance and have fun. There were the couples who spent their time tasting each other and generally got in everybody's way until they made it over to the side of the room and hit a wall; they never knew where they were going, well until they arrived there anyway.

Mary, Tommo and Paul get fed up of watching and decided to search for James and Ruth who had disappeared. They made their way, all be it slowly, into the other section of the room and gave up the search and danced instead. Ruth was being flirty with James but he was trying to ignore it, he'd met someone that he was drawn to and didn't want to lead Ruth on. He'd told her this at the start of the night but that didn't make her flirt any less, all the more in fact. James noticed his merry band of friends causing a stir on the dance floor and decided to join them, Ruth decided she needed the loo first and said she would join them later. James started dancing with his friends with little energy and with no style or co-ordination. They enjoyed it when he did this; it was amusing and reminded them of someone they knew called Mark.

Some of the people around them were laughing to each other too, James enjoyed this part, one of his favourite songs came on, he knew it and he was going to make sure everyone else knew he knew it too. He saw a gap in the crowd and quickly made his way to the stage that people were occasionally allowed to dance on. The people who worked in the club knew him and nobody stopped him from getting up on stage. The people who had been laughing at his dancing had started to watch, as had a small portion of the room. James put his routine into action when Candice walked into the room towing her new bloke behind her; she saw James and rushed up onto stage as Ruth managed to get up too. They danced in time, in rhythm and style. The three of them finished powerfully and some people clapped (namely his friends), the group of people who had laughed at James were astonished. James smiled and took a small bow and got down. He made his way back to the bar and ordered another bottle of Vö lsk. He drank it half down and caught his breath.

The rest of the night went well, Pete wasn't seen again, Sophia was very drunk and was sorted out by James and Mary, Tommo pulled a new man, Candice changed blokes half way through the night, Ruth, James, Mary and Paul all went home still single and looking for their special person. The night had generally followed the pattern of most other nights; the routine was now so familiar that it could almost be planned for.

Little did everybody know that things were about to change, maybe for the better, maybe for the worst, maybe even for both? It was not planned, it could never be planned for, but the change was coming, and it was coming now, whether the people it involved liked it or not.

James walked in the general direction of the common room after parking his car in the sixth form car park. Half way down the precinct some yelled at him "OI! JAMES! Did you hear about the lass that Pete pulled that wasn't?" the voice was unmistakable. Nobody else could pull off shouting that loudly and still not be at all embarrassed by what they were saying. The voice belonged to Liz, she was new to the school in September but was now a fully fledged part of the sixth form. She'd found a great group of friends and was accepted as she accepted people as they were. When it came to some of the people in the group of friends, that really was for the best. They weren't exactly, how can I put it? Normal.

The group were all the life and soul of the school that weren't the "it" people. They were the ones that accepted everybody and shunned nobody, well almost nobody; there was always the exception that proved the rule!

James turned round and gave a look of alarm as the words sank into his occasionally extremely thick head!

"Yes, Martha was Arthur and Pete didn't find out until Martha arrived at his house and the lights were turned on, as was Arthur!" Liz had not actually planned the sentence but she definitely had a way with words. James still was stood with a furrowed brow and blinked erratically searching for something to say, well actually anything to say. The sentence formed

"Errblurrrghwha?" then it happened "hehehahahahahahahahahahaha" James creased up laughing and tripped over the ankle-high wall and fell in the flowerbed. This made both Liz and James laugh all the more. They were still laughing when Pete joined them.

"What's so funny?" he asked in a confrontational manner.

"Well I just fell in the flowerbed" James forced out trying not to laugh too much more. Liz was trying really hard to keep a straight face, the strain showing.

"Oh, right, bye" Pete made a hasty exit and promptly threw up in the toilet as the hippo of memory stirred in his head.

Liz and James looked at each other and burst out laughing again. Liz held her hand out and gave James a hand, it was at this point that a small herbal shrub popped up from between James legs, they both noticed it and started laughing again. Liz then fell over and landed in the flowerbed next to James. Five minutes later they finally got out of their situation as Mr. Williamson was on his was up the precinct.

James and Liz were still picking off parts of Basil and Thyme when they finally entered the common room. Mary and Paul were sat hugging cups of coffee. This was the essence of the sixth from. Blood samples weren't blood samples, there were caffeine samples. The gossip from the Saturday night was in full flow, the full flow being all about Pete and his, escapade. James and Liz sat on their respective chairs and joined in whole-heartedly.

Pete walked in not long after James and Liz looking quite pale. The room went silent, even the music stopped. The power cuts were beginning to be a problem now.

James thought fast "…and that's how you barbecue a hamster without the owner finding out! Oh, hi Pete! Didn't see you there! How's things? Did you have a nice night?" James was at one of his thicker moments and horror filled his face as he realised what he said and saw Pete's reaction.

"I thought he looked as white as possible when he walked in" said Liz cheerfully in retrospect after Pete had made a dash to the toilet. That wasn't the problem, the fact that Mr. Williamson had been stood just behind him was the problem. Pete just didn't expect someone to be in the way. He did try to keep it in, but he failed and Mr. Williamson was glad that he had a spare suit with him on that particular day. James was feeling guilty; no not anymore, James got bored with guilt and laughed a bit, emotions weren't alien to him, just he preferred some to others, guilt was one he loathed.

The tone went and the time for registration had begun, nobody moved for the next ten minutes. With five minutes to go people moved off in the general direction of their form rooms to be greeted and welcomed by their teachers to another week of hell and all associated bad things, apart from laughter, that was guaranteed especially after Saturday night and Saturday to come.

Saturday was going to be the event that was the focal point of the social calendar of sixth form; the Summer Ball. It was the one time when even the not so posh people did their best and all hired the same style suit out. The only difference was in the colour bow tie they wore and whether they wore a cummerbund or a waistcoat (there was the option of a tie but not many of them thought about this because they didn't follow free thought due to the monotony they all adopted in a chase to be accepted). This was the time to get drunk, pull, do embarrassing things and become the gossip of the school. It was a time of joy, love, hate, blurred vision, dancing, singing, kissing and trying not to be alone (and, of course, there was the helium balloons (always a good laugh)).

James made his way to his maths lesson; granted it wasn't the best start to the week but the sooner it was started, the sooner it would be over. He sat down in front of Candice and chatted with her until their teacher arrived, he had a habit of turning up late, teaching quickly and veering off his point. The lesson passed and James now had four free periods in which to do the work that he hadn't done during the weekend. He went to the haunt he usually kept, the commerce department. He was always welcome here; he'd done all the exams and generally helped out. He sat and started to work, after a short while Liz walked in. Actually she snuck in and with over exaggeration the crept up on James. When she got right behind him she grabbed his sides and yelled, "BOO!"

"OHMYGOD!" James half screamed in fear "Why the arse did you do that! You almost gave me a failure!" James breathed and relaxed a bit.

"Hehe, you're so easy to scare! How are you?" Liz was still cheery. James wondered what was wrong, he could tell that something was upsetting her.

"I'm fine but what's wrong with you?" James sounded concerned.

"Oh, nothing" Liz replied with every intention of letting the subject slip discretely out of the room and under the nearest grand piano. James shot her a look to show he didn't believe her and she continued "Well, nothing that I really want to talk about right now"

"Well, you know where I am if you need me" James said in his comforting voice throwing a sympathetic smile in for good measure.

"Shall we go to the common room? I fancy a coffee, do you want one too?" Liz moved swiftly on.

"Sure, why not!" James packed his things and joined Liz and everyone else in the common room.

Pete decided that he'd had enough of everyone talking about him; he was going to get this thing cleared up once and for all. During break he was in the common room and the music was back to its more familiar volume. When the next power cut arrived he stood up on the table and took advantage of the shift in concentration.

"RIGHT" he shouted, "I know you've all been laughing about me and the "incident" and I just want to get things cleared up. Nothing happened! I made a mistake, we got home, I noticed, she" he stumbled with his words "he was a he" he corrected with exaggeration "and he then left and went home WITH NO SEX. WE DID NOT HAVE SEX" it was at this point that Pete fell off the table. Well he didn't fall, the table was pushed, by Mary. She had some weird fetish all to do with watching people fly through the air uncontrollably. They were uncontrollable in the manner that they had no control; Mary did! Pete landed on Tommo who just smiled politely and helped him back to his feet. Mary was laughing loudly and stopped when she saw the look on Pete's face. It was quite a concise look. It said something along the lines of "If you so much as ever come near me in the next twenty years of your life then I will beat you to a sticky pulp, re-constitute you, hang you up by your toenails and feed you to a budgie. Of course it'll hurt you baboon" as I said, it was a concise look.

The day continued as normal, they had lessons, they had fun, they had McDonalds at lunchtime (each of them (apart from Paul) had a "Happy Meal"™ and Michelle was hoarding the toys), they went home. James stopped at Safeway on the way to get some shopping, he was feeling low and needed comfort food.

James sat at home on his own, curled up on his sofa feeling lonely. His parents were two hundred and thirty miles away visiting relatives and his sister was still at university; he'd not seen her in six months and was missing her like crazy. James watched mindless television and drifted off into a land far, far away.

Paul was on the phone to Sara. She was someone who'd been in the same year as the others for a while now. Though she didn't manage to get to go out on Saturday she was enjoying Paul's version of events. The conversation moved on

"So why weren't you at school today?" Paul asked with concern in his voice.

"I went to the doctors today and I've got a virus. I've got antibiotics, I'll be in tomorrow" Sara hated being ill and it was clear from her tone.

"Oh right. It's a shame you weren't at school, the table thing was hysterical"

"It sounds it. Anyway I'm going now, I'm exhausted, see you tomorrow yeah?"

"Of course" Paul assured her.

"Speak to you tomorrow"

"Ciao!" Paul finished with. It was something he had picked up recently; it was quite disturbing at times. They both hung up and returned to their lives. Paul jumped onto the sofa (not Sophia) and continued to watch a film he had hired out. Sara went back to her bedroom and studied, homework was the major time eater in everyone's lives. There was just too much of the stuff, and it stuffed things up terribly.

Sara, after about five seconds, decided that she really couldn't be fucked to do her work and decided to throw her entire folder out of the window. This was all fine and liberating for Sara but for Lucifer the pigeon it was fatal. One minute he was minding his own business, pecking away, the next he was being quickly flattened by the technical aspects of the position of a driver and the internal design of a car. It was a cruel world.

Somewhere in the depths of very deep, outer space something stirred. I would be more specific but it's hard to make things out at this distance. I think it looks like a, no it can't be, I'll ask someone else for a look and get back to you readers later.

Sophia sobbed openly at the sight of Lucifer; it was never nice having to be the one who did the final thing to a poor defenceless creature. Well how was she to know that he had a criminal record for harassing young birds, he'd spent two days of a three week sentence in the dove loft but had escaped and was fleeing the S.T.A.R.L.I.N.G's. Yes they were starlings as in the birds but they had a well kept secret, the S.T.A.R.L.I.N.G's (Special Trained Air-Rebel Locators with Ingenious Navigation Guides) were sent out to locate rebel air users. Lucifer was one of these rebels and had been doing a good job at hiding, but alas he should have been paying more attention at what was going on. Sophia got out her nail clippers and freed the bird into the place of the never-ending seed supply, bird heaven. Here there was seed wherever you wanted it, water wherever you wanted it, cars to poo on, and no end of old ladies to improve you aim. Sophia normally enjoyed her job, you'd sometimes meet interesting people, their views changed once they died. The things that made working nights bad was the occasional dead animal. Sophia was a vegetarian, dead humans were fine, they didn't tend to be eaten (but they taste of chicken) animals were eaten. Death is not the job of a vegetarian, Sophia had been warned, but she wanted to do it and had been working every other night since. The job was good, you got paid well, got to ride horses, got to do the voice, got to spy on people and listen to what they were saying without them ever noticing and of course there was the walking through walls. It wasn't entirely necessary, but it sometimes was the thing to do just to finish someone off who is dearly trying to hold on to their life, "STUBBORN GITS" Sophia muttered under her breath as she thought out loud.

The night sailed by practically unnoticed. The fact that everybody was sleeping aided this no end. The sun got bored of hiding and decided to cause havoc by rising early, it thought it was being cunning but had set it's watch wrong and thus rose on time "Damn these watches, I knew I shouldn't have bought it off that moon geezer. I'll not see him for years now! DAMN HIM!" the sun continued to burn with fury and Earth woke up in the general area of England. All of the group of friends (James, Paul, Sara, Liz, Pete, Michelle, Mary and Roxanne) were in their respective houses and were going through their autonomous routine of getting up and making their way to school. They all headed for their busses except for James who had the strenuous task of walking to his car that was neatly parked on the drive.

James played his music loudly getting lost in it; he wasn't very good at directions. His mother called him directionally dyslexic. He wailed along to the song as his car's radio churned it out. He was stuck in a queue of traffic, as he was everyday; the cars just got stuck in the same places all the time, it was guaranteed. James finally got to the front of the line of cars and the traffic lights stopped him. A mob of younger school kids crossed in front of him, then some sixth formers passed. In this group were Michelle and Liz, they both pulled faces at James as they passed. In retaliation he revved his engine at them, well he revved the car's engine. They saw the light change and moved out of the way, James drove away and approached the school, the place that was his hell.

He parked in the sixth form mud flat, sorry, car park (wink) and made his way, as cleanly as possible, to the sixth form block. As he entered, Roxanne was coming down the stairs from the English block.

"Hiya" she spouted cheerfully.

"Hey Rox. How are you?" James replied as cheerful as the question.

"Oh I'm fine. You got your suit for the ball yet?" there was excitement where there once wasn't. Roxanne was one of the committee that organised the summer ball; she'd put lots of hours into it.

"Not yet, I'm going to get it on Friday" James knew that this would set alarm bells off.

"You mean you're picking it up, yeah?" Roxanne lost the excitement almost as quickly as she had gained it,

"No, I mean I'm going to go and find one and buy it" James re assured her that things would be fine and they entered the common room.

Liz pointed at James and shouted quite loudly "Ner ner n-ner neeerrr I beat you! Haha!" she then blushed realising how loudly she had said it. James merely smiled, a retort was not necessary, she'd managed to do that for him. The group that had congregated all chatted about nothing in particular until it was time to start lessons. Paul ran into physics five minutes late. He wasn't the most organised of people and sat straight down and got to work.

"What went wrong this morning then?" James whispered, leaning over slightly.

"Jamu ga ketsuetei beta beta desu!" Paul responded quickly almost under his breath.

"No Paul, we're in physics not Japanese!" James hissed sarcastically.

"Oh, sorry. Err I was on my way when I realised that if I drove fast enough I'd gain mass and slow down due to relativistic effects. As I forgot to choose to ignore them they slowed me down until I said "Hang on I'm ignoring relativistic effects here" and then I broke the speed of light and over shot the school by a few million light years!" Paul gasped at the end of the speech.

"You know you really should get a new excuse Paul!" James taunted.

"Do you know how long it took to get that one right! I'm keeping it for al least another two thousand years!"

"Would you two shut up!" came an angry voice "If you spent as much time learning as you did talking you'd be getting B's and A's!" Mr. Wainwright realised what he said as soon as he'd said it.

Paul couldn't resist "But we do get A's and B's sir!" the tone was that of a small child, scared of talking in case it was devoured by the angry big person telling the off.

"And then, at this point the light waves cancel and you get no light" Mr. Wainwright continued, neatly glossing over his mistake. The gloss was good; he could make a good decorator one-day.

James and Paul left at the end of the lesson feeling learned and fulfilled. Actually they were both in need of a coffee. They were both exhausted, James had just been working at home and Paul had been waiting on people al night. James should have been but had got one of the other employees to cover his shift. They both worked in a restaurant that was either incredibly busy or incredibly quite. Last night it had been incredibly busy, it was because of the weather. When it start snowing apple strudel, you know people are going to want to eat out!

They drank their coffee and made a stab at the homework they had been set during the physics lesson. Their conversation went something like this…

James: "Did you have a nice night?"

Paul: "No I sodding didn't!"

They continued their homework for another few minutes, decided that it was too boring and went to torment Sara.

Mary and Roxanne were sat in their biology lesson painting leaves with clear nail varnish. Well Pete was, Mary and Roxanne had grasped this opportunity to paint their own nails, Roxanne had gone for gold and Mary had gone for purple. This was, of course, in practice for the ball that was approaching at the alarming rate of a half-dead snail. Pete finished the leaf with scary precision and presented it to the varnisheers for inspection. They congratulated him and Roxanne started to wonder, just for a moment, how he'd managed it so well. As her nails had dried, Mary continued the experiment. She peeled the varnish off, placed it carefully on a slide and observed it under the microscope, Roxanne joined her. They pretended to be really impressed at the pretty pattern that lay before them, they weren't, all it did was show them something that they had seen during their GCSE's. Holes, for breathing. That's all there was. Holes, and not that many of them. Roxanne turned to Pete who was hunched over his bench concentrating hard. She decided that calling him would be too easy so she walked over to him and peered over his shoulder. He was turning a bottle of the varnish over in his hands, reading the label intently. Roxanne coughed and he jumped and almost lost the bottle completely. He grabbed at it furiously in a flurry of terror; he regained his grip on it and held it tightly so that it wouldn't slip.

"You seem interested in that" Roxanne provoked him.

"I was reading the ingredients, just wondering what you lot put on your nails" he responded confidently.

"D'you want to come and see how a leaf breathes then?"

"Yeah go on" he got up and walked to Mary. She moved and let him sit down, as he peered into the microscope Mary and Roxanne had a silent conversation about Pete. He looked up and grinned his "I'm so sexy" grin at them both. He was full of himself a lot of the time. His confidence overflowed and sometimes drove people mad. He wasn't a bad person, just a little too confident sometimes.

All of them had sports that afternoon, there was so much they could do they always ended up in small groups causing havoc. James, Sophia and Roxanne were playing softball, a game that was clearly named by some sarcastic sod of a French teacher. The ball was more like a small comet and was anything but soft. It was like rounder meet baseball with a little influence of basketball thrown in, just for the fun of it. Having a big ball and a big bat should have made things much easier but James; not being the most athletic of people still had trouble with getting them to collide. When not batting you either stood and talked or sat and talked. Currently James and Roxanne were sat down and were talking. They were in the batting team and didn't have much moving to do for a while.

"What's your dress like for the ball then?" (I feel that having to tell you who was asking this question may be a bit condescending so I shan't!)

"Big, pink and with extra fluffy bits" James answered (ha ha fooled you)

"Oh no, you've got the same one as me" Roxanne freaked with fake shock. They both started laughing.

"I've seen this great two-tone suit, it's dark-blue and black" James tried to make the conversation a bit more serious.

"Cool. I'm going to wear this sort of semi-tight gold dress that has a high neck"

"Sounds nice, ooh excuse me" James stood up and got a grip on the bat. He wiggled his bum in a sort of "I know what I'm doing, honest" manner and swung for the ball. He actually hit it the first time it was bowled to him. Not only that but he hit it quite far. He managed to get all the way round but was exhausted and couldn't be bothered to go any further. Roxanne stood up and took hold of the bat; she had a look on her face that meant war! Sophia decided that she wanted to have a go at bowling; there was a deep routed feeling of "DIE" between Roxanne and Sophia and they were always after a way to get one up over each other. Sophia managed to get some amazing speed on the first throw and it sailed cleanly under Roxanne’s arm. The second ball did the same and James started to look worried. Roxanne concentrated hard as the third projectile made it’s way relentlessly toward her. She swung with a pinch of added "DIE" and surely enough smacked the ball. It double backed on itself almost forgetting for a moment that it was allowed to collide with the bat. It went straight for Sophia who was now in need of some movement. She didn’t get any. The ball vaporised into, well, vapour as it met with her skull; all Sophia did was look stunned and fell over backwards. Roxanne grinned evilly and gracefully strolled round the markers of the bases as everyone rushed to Sophia’s aid, everyone but Roxanne who was walking and James who was laughing.

Ten laps of the pitch later and Roxanne decided that was enough, 21 points for your own team in one hit is something to be proud of, stunning Sophia was the real victory. The moral of this part of the story is "Never use you powers to try and bowl someone out at soft(yeah right!)ball" especially if their name is Roxanne!

James was talking to Paul as Sophia made her way past them looking rather more than embarrassed. Roxanne joined them.

"Bravo! Good Shot! Damn shame I wasn’t there to see it!" Paul gaffed. Roxanne just smiled as Sophia tripped on a bag strap, cartwheeled into a drainpipe, rolled over a short (but significant) gap and fell down a manhole, sorry, personhole cover. There was a melodramatic "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" followed by a distant sploosh, chased out of the hole by an echoy "oh shit-t-t-t-t"; Roxanne completed this chapter with an apt "Precisely" pointing her finger in a triumphant manner.