six

The second bell rang as the two girls turned around the corner, officially signalling the start of the lesson.

"Great, now we're definitely screwed," Olivia began to panic. "It's my first day at a new school and I'm already late for class," she muttered under her breath.

"Hey," Emma nudged her softly. "I told you, it'll be fine. Ms. Lee will understand,"

"I sure hope she does," the green-eyed girl sighed.

•••

"Why are the two of you late?" Ms. Lee, their music teacher, asked when Olivia knocked on the front door of the music room.

"Uh well, I just-" Emma tried coming up with a lie to get them out of possible detention, surprising even herself when she couldn't come up with one.

"I was wandering around the halls, trying to find my way here. I'm new, so I got lost. Ms. Jensen was on her way to class and ran into me along the way," a surprised Emma looked at Olivia when the girl began to speak.

"We spent a few minutes going through the different hallways, as she explained which hallway led where before we came to class. I'm sorry if that seemed like an inappropriate timing to have a tour, I promise we won't be late again,"

Olivia referred to the brunette beside her by her last name since she felt it was the only right thing to do at the moment, considering she had to be formal.

Also, she still didn't know the other girl's name.

Ms. Lee eyed the two of them a minute longer before slumping her shoulders and giving in.

"Okay then," she said sternly. "I'll let you two off with a warning this time. The next time you're late, it's a week's worth of detention for the both of you, got it?"

The two girls nodded their heads and were told to sit at the back of the class. This surprised them as they expected Ms. Lee to keep a tighter leash on the two of them now.

"Hey," Emma called out quietly to the girl beside her. "How the hell did you come up with a lie so quickly? What was that?"

Olivia shrugged. "I honestly don't know," she breathed out. "I guess I was just making an effort to get you out of trouble. Don't want your reputation to go down with me,"

"Why?" Emma pressed curiously.

Another shrug.

"You really don't want to know," Olivia replied quietly. "It has something to do with my previous school and I'd really hate to talk about that now,"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Emma apologised quickly, disheartened to see how a single topic could bring the girl's mood down so fast.

Olivia shook her head. "It's fine, really. Let's just say I seem to be more worried about your reputation than you are and keep it as that,"

Emma looked at her, a look of clear confusion spread across her face. "What do you mean?"

"It's nothing, as I've already said. It's just that...well, this morning you were a little tough on me,"

"And your point is...?" Emma trailed off.

Olivia scoffed. "You're kidding, right? One moment you're nice, the next you're mean. What game are we playing here?"

Emma opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't find any of the right words. She simply lowered her head and stared at the carpeted floor.

"Ms. Jauregui and Ms. Jensen! I'd appreciate it if you two would stop talking and pay attention to my lesson here," Ms. Lee crossed her arms and told them sternly.

The two girls mumbled a quick 'sorry' before going back to their previous conversation, subtly this time.

Or at least, Emma tried to. Her attempts to go back to the previous conversation she had been sharing with the raven haired girl were futile.

Olivia's attention was now focused on what seemed to be a songbook in front of her.

"Ms. Jensen, if I could just pull your attention away from the notes Ms. Jauregui has in her notebook and request that you do the same, that would be very pleasing," the teacher scolded again.

"But first," she tied her hair in a high ponytail. "Please, do the honours of answering my previous question,"

Ms. Lee wasn't very old, twenty-six at the most. Which had its perks, because she was one hell of a woman. Her age also came with its downsides. She was extremely sarcastic and strict.

She could also very easily tell what teenagers were thinking through their behaviour, having been a teenager herself just a couple of years ago.

This basically gave her the advantage to catch students who weren't paying attention in class and torture them the same way her teachers probably did to her when she was their age.

"Yes, Ms. Lee?" Emma asked politely, waiting for the teacher's question to hit her like a ton of bricks.

Don't get her wrong. Emma thought the music lessons her teacher conducted were fantastic.

There were just times where she'd somehow end up being caught off guard and thus, the centre of attention.

"Okay, my question is," she paused for slight dramatic effect. "What were we just talking about?"

Emma's eyes widened at the question she had received. Ms. Lee had caught her. She had the girl well wrapped around her finger because they both knew Emma hadn't been paying attention.

Well, shoot. Emma had hoped for a question she'd at least be able to pry and answer from a previous lesson.

However nervous she was, she closed her eyes for a bit and tried not to let the question faze her. Numerous possibilities and different musical theories ran through her mind.

Suddenly, she felt a soft tap on her left foot.

Olivia, who had been sitting on her left, had nudged her foot to get her attention. She subtly slid her notebook across the table.

Emma quickly scanned trough the notes briefly and looked back at Ms. Lee, who probably witnessed the girls' exchange but nonetheless, said nothing about it. She had her arms crossed and was waiting patiently for Emma to answer.

"We were talking about how to bring out our voices more, ma'am," Emma replied confidently.

"And how do we do that?"

Ah, you see? This one she knew the answer to.

"With our diaphragms,"

Ms. Lee nodded her head and told Emma that she could take her seat.

"Glad to know you're paying attention. Okay, let's get back to the lesson. I will be assigning all of you with a project for you to complete over this long break." the young teacher began writing more notes on the board.

"You will be working in pairs to compose a song accompanied by strong melodies. You will need to perform the song when the break is over. Don't cry over this now, but I will be pairing you up instead of letting you choose your partner like I used to."

She began striking names off the name list until she got to the final pair.

"Well, Ms. Jauregui could certainly be a good influence on you, Ms. Jensen. Okay, partners you are," Ms. Lee nodded her head and walked back to the front of the classroom.

Gosh, how many projects were the two girls gonna get paired up for?

"Well, looks like we've got three projects to complete over the semester break now," Emma laughed nervously.

Olivia only nodded her head in response.

As if to save them both from embarrassment, the final bell sounded, signalling the end of the school day for the rest of the semester.

"Well, better get started then," Emma began packing her bag, Olivia doing the same.