Thyla Read Online Free PDF

Bloom hasn’t quite got a handle on the new PA system yet. Her morning bells are always thunderous, or so quiet you can’t hear them and so you turn up twenty minutes late. You can’t use that as an excuse this time, though, Laurel and Erin. Come on, chop, chop!’
    She raised an eyebrow at Laurel and Erin, who scampered quickly back up the stairs and into the hall.
    From inside the hall, I could hear the thunder of many feet on a hard floor, and, before the door slammed shut again, I caught a glimpse of my new schoolmates.
    So many of them! All shapes and sizes! And they were all dressed exactly as I was, in the charcoal grey uniform of Cascade Falls.
    They all look so different from one another , I thought. And yet the same. Perhaps I really can fit in here.
    ‘Well, Tessa, this is it,’ said Ms Hindmarsh, squeezing my shoulder. ‘Time to start your life as a student of Cascade Falls!’

Words I did not know before my first day at Cascade Falls:
netball (a team sport where balls are thrown from person to person and then into a hoop with a net on it)
basketball (from what I can understand, exactly the same as netball, only you bang the ball against the ground sometimes and you can jump up when you throw the ball towards the net, which does seem a bit like cheating to me!)
ball (for a little while, and then I remembered)
bogan (it is a person of low morals and character – I think)
Pepsi (a fizzy black drink that tastes a little bit like shoe polish)
biro (a writing implement with ink inside it)
LOL (this does not mean to lie about lazily. It means something is funny. It stands for ‘laugh out loud’. I am not sure why people say it instead of actually laughing out loud)
dude
    The meaning of the last word I was still unsure of at the end of my first day at Cascade Falls. It was Laurel who said it to me, when she noticed me looking befuddled in our trigonometry class. She leaned over and whispered, ‘It’s okay, dude,’ she said. ‘Nobody gets this stuff.’
    Later, as we left the classroom, I asked her what a ‘dude’ was. She just shrugged and said, ‘It’s, well, a dude. A dude’s a dude. You know? Some things just are what they are. Like you. You’re a Tessa. It would be pretty hard to explain what a Tessa is in one sentence, wouldn’t it? You just are what you are and –’
    She didn’t get a chance to finish, before Charlotte Lord appeared at my side and said, ‘It’s okay, Laura.’
    ‘Laurel.’
    ‘Laurel. Sorry. I should remember that from the number of times I’ve seen your name on the detention list. Anyway, Laurel , you can go now. I’m Tessa’s mentor. I can take it from here.’
    ‘But … we were just talking, Charlotte,’ Laurel protested.
    Charlotte shook her head quickly and said, ‘No thank you, Laurel. I have promised Ms Hindmarsh and my father that I will look after Tessa, and I believe a large component of this position will consist of preventing her forming acquaintances with undesirable persons …’
    ‘Can you say that in English, please?’ asked Laurel, which I thought was strange as it seemed that Charlotte was speaking very good English. At least I understood all the words she was saying – unlike ‘dude’ – even if they didn’t seem to be very nice words.
    Why did Charlotte dislike Laurel so much? She seemed nice – a bit naughty, but nice. And she was right. We were only talking.
    ‘It means she reckons we’re not good enough for her new toy,’ said a voice from behind me.
    I whirled around to see Laurel’s friend, Erin, standing behind us.
    ‘Come on, L,’ she said flatly. ‘Tessa probably just wants to hang out with her cool new friends, not us. Catch ya later, hey? If Princess Charlotte allows it.’
    The two girls walked away.
    I turned back to Charlotte to see her nostrils were flaring, ever so slightly, and her eyes were narrowed.
    When she saw me looking, she opened her eyes up very wide and smiled.
    ‘Don’t mind those two,’ she said.