One Moment (The Little Hollow Series Book 1) by Danielle Dickson Page A

I’ve just...never mind. Let’s start over.” Smiling, showing her perfectly straight white teeth, she held out her hand and I took it, giving it a firm shake.
    “Nice to meet you, I’m Sammy,” she said. I smiled back and finished shaking her hand before turning towards my locker and putting in the combination “So, Connor, where are you from? Definitely not from around here by your accent.”
    I tensed up at having to lie to her when we’d only just met but after my hour long ‘talking to’ last night by my step dad, I didn’t want to rock the boat so I told her my practiced story.
    After putting my things in the locker, I grabbed a pen and a few books I’d need for my first few classes, put them in my bag, threw it over my shoulder and snapped the padlock shut.
    Taking my timetable out my hand, she looked it over. “We’re in home room together and all periods today apart from gym, but I know someone in your class to pair you up with.” Her face made my heart skip a beat and I couldn’t have thought of a better person to be buddied up with.
    As we walked to home room, I realized I’d miss-judged her as one of the mean girls, when in reality she was far from it. She was talking animatedly about the whole town and what there was to do, which wasn’t much but she didn’t seem to mind.
    Choosing a desk beside Sammy as we walked into the room, a blond haired boy sat in front of me and turned towards us. “Hey, Lew, this is Connor. New kid.”
    Looking me up and down he nodded his head at me and I returned it. “Connor this is Lewis, he’s pretty cool.” Lewis squinted his eyes at her and she giggled. “Alright, alright, he’s a lot cool and he’s in your gym class so he’ll look after you for fourth ain’t that right, Lew?”
    I refrained from saying out loud that I didn’t need looking after, I just smiled instead as he smirked at me knowingly and winked.
    “Sure thing. Where you from, Connor?” Again with the lies. I spun the same story I’d told Sammy and he seemed to buy it. All this lying was emotionally draining and the day hadn’t even started yet. By fourth period, I was a little more at ease. “You any good at football?” Lewis had an excited voice as soon as he started to talk about the sport.
    “I’m not bad but running is more my thing,” I shrugged. I could’ve sworn he had a relieved look on his face.
    “You’ll be in for a treat today then, it’s track.” Pushing our way into the locker room, I stopped abruptly. I’d have to change in here. In front of everyone.
    My back. The bruises. I couldn’t do this.
    Turning back around, I started to open up the door. “Hey, man, where you going?” Trying to come up with a good excuse, I mumbled something about not feeling well and ran out into the hall, the only plausible thing was to go to the nurse to try miss as much of fourth as I could.
    Before heading there, I went to the bathroom and stuck my head under the hand dryer hoping she would feel how hot I was and not question me too much.
    The nurse was a lot nicer here than at my last school, she would’ve gave me an aspirin and sent me on my way, this one was also a lot younger. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-four. As soon as she felt my forehead, she had me lying on a bed with a cool wash cloth across it in a matter of seconds. She sure was thorough, I even had to stop her calling my mom at one point, assuring her I just thought I was dehydrated.
    The nurse left me to ‘lie down and rest’ for a little bit and I was until a familiar voice made me open my eyes.
    “Sammy, darlin’, you look exhausted! Have you still got those pamphlets I gave you from the guidance counsellor?”
    Sammy’s voice sounded beat. “Sure, Miss Riley, but everything’s fine I was just up late with Tommy last night, he had nightmares.”
    Miss Riley clucked her tongue and went to say something but must’ve decided against it. “Would you like a bed for the rest of fourth? I’ve