1 1. Helen and ordinary life.

A normal classroom, full of normal students. Watching them start to chat amongst themselves, the teacher sighed and scowled – how would these kids get anywhere in life with this attitude? He scanned the room and identified the main culprits immediately. The football team ace was busy telling everyone about his match-winning goal for the 8th time today. The cheerleading team were all huddled around a table, all six of the top performers in this one class together – the teacher was far from their eyes as they talked gossip, boys and makeup while he tried to teach them maths. A few of the rich kids sat with their legs up as they bragged loudly about new cars and mansions - he daren't look at them for too long, any small master there could lose him his job in a moment. His eyes finally reached the corner, where Helen sat. A girl too small for her age, Helen was quiet and unpopular. She was also the biggest rule-breaker in the class. How many times had she failed to bring her homework this week? The answer was every time - not just this week either, but for every term she had spent at the school. Every bit of paper that she'd ever been given to take home had seemingly disapperead - and her parents had never come in despite numerous phone calls. All of this from a girl who wouldn't look out of place in a library with her shoulder-length black hair and glasses. She'd had numerous talks with the principal and seemingly had reached an understanding, but that made her even more disagreeable in the eyes of the teacher - what kind of student manages to cheat their way out of homework? Of course, the teacher didn't know the truth about Helen. She hadn't told anyone the truth about how she lived.

Every day was a struggle for Helen – she was 15 and living alone, which was already frowned upon. Each morning she'd have to skip her breakfast to do chores, then after school she'd go to the shops and force herself to spend the pennies the local aunties gave her from their otherwise tightly gripped purses on a cheap meal. Then she'd struggle for hours for the tiny funds she made from her part time job so that she could make the rent. She lived alone because she was an orphan. Or at least, she was pretty sure she was. Her parents had long since abandoned her at the doors to an orphanage and all attempts at finding them since had been wasted breath. So, she had started work, desperate to escape the orphanage and the work they had forced the orphans to do – if she was working, she'd at least be paid for it. With that hope, she had worked in convenience stores and in fast-food restaurants while lying about her age – until she could make the deposit on a tiny studio apartment in one of the poorer parts of town. It was a dangerous place to live, but at least it was hers. She'd escape one day. She'd buy everything she ever wanted, she swore to herself every time she lay down to sleep. That was, until this morning.