So I got half way through writing my story, when I had to do some other work. This was the time that I discovered that I could not, in fact, 'continue editing', as I hadn't yet reached 5000 words. I'll post it so far here (it's not reached the interesting part, so don't bother reading it yet ), so I can paste it in later. Hope you don't mind.

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A river, flowing past. Dogs and Zebras were drinking at the water. The girl walked down and drank too. She swam, diving deep to the bottom. Fish and animals swam around- sharks, otters, cows... The girl stared in wonder at a coral reef. She swam around, marvelling at the beautiful colours, the amazing animals, when suddenly- ringing, all around. Right into her head. Ringing! Ringing...

Cara woke to the sound of ringing. She sat up in her pale cream bed, and rubbed her eyes. Matron was standing at the door, off to her right, ringing a small (but very loud) brass bell.
"Right, girls, I want you all up and dressed in five minutes, breakfast will be served at eight." She shouted, far too loud for the small room. A tired moan rose from the girl on Matron's left, who replied by shoving the girl liberally in the side.
"Now hurry up! There will be lines for all who are late." She left the room, shutting the brown wooden door behind her.
Cara quickly clambered out of bed and reached under her bed for her uniform she had left the previous evening. She began to take her pyjamas off, hurriedly.

"Morning, Cara." said a voice behind her.
"Hi Kate. Sleep well?" replied the tired girl, quickly pulling her pants up her legs (not without glancing at the bottom of the girl at the bed in front, before reprimanding herself, as she knew this was 'not the action of a mature young lady' as Matron would preach).
"Not badly, but it could have been better. What do you have first?" the girl identified as Kate replied.
"English... Had a really neat dream last night, about the sea..."
Cara pulled her jumper over her uncomfortable school shirt, and tied her tie neatly to avoid a tongue-lashing from Mr. Clark, the lunch room attendant.
"Nice. Remember the time our class went to the seaside?" was the reply, as Kate stooped to tie her shoes.
"Yeah. It was more like that Biology book- you know the one with the Coral reef?" Cara stooped to pick up her bag.
"It was nice- very colourful. You loved it!" she laughed, as they walked out the door.
The two girls chattered, about dreams, trips, and life as they trudged down the stairs and corridors to the breakfast room.

"Porridge again?!?" whined a voice.
"Ye'll eat whit yer given, Gretel, or you'll eat nothin'!" Snapped the wiry man behind the counter. His gruff voice exaggerated his already prominent accent, which all of the girls had all but beaten out of them by the many elocution teachers over the years. Their natural Scottish voices only rose again in dorms and out of earshot of the slapping hands of Matron. Kate and Cara exchanged knowing glances at the reprimanding of Gretel, or 'old-winger' as she was called by her peers upon one of her frequent criticisms of nigh-on anything in the school, from the Books of English to the Xylophones of Music. The girls slid their trays along in unison, ceasing their chatter as they neared the ominous window of the manky old kitchens. One by one, ladles of grey sludge were piled into their small porcelain bowls.

>to be completed<

 

>Update<

The girls sat down at a table and ate in an awkward silence under the unnerving gaze of the Lunch room supervisor. Soon they had finished the mulch, and they quietly put their trays away, and almost fell into the hall.
"Ugh, I hate that room. Breakfast's horrible here." Kate burst out, unable to keep quiet. "In the summer hols when we go home, I'm gonna love every second of my breakfasts. I'll have bacon, talk with my mouth full, sit about reading... paradise!"
"Yeah..." Sighed Cara, wistfully. "What class do you have next?"
"We have English, then Physics. Ugh, it's going to be a long and dull morning. At least we're in the same English class. Mind you, Mr. Inglis is such a dick, he won't even let us open our mouths."
"Physics is better because it's actually interesting. English is just dull, dull, dull."
"Yeah. Hey, after break, we'll have PE, right?"
"Mmmhmm, why? Oh wait, we finished-"
Kate interrupted;
"We've finished basketball, and we're going on to swimming! I've never been swimming..."
"I have. It was brilliant! So warm and comforting, like a big hug. So fun, too! Wait- do you have a swimming costume?"
"No! What about you?"
"No, we weren't told to bring one... Do you think that means that they'll give us them?"
"Probably. What do you think they'll be like? Do you thing they'll be..." The young girl giggled.
"What?" Asked Cara, curious as to what Kate found so funny.
"Do you think they'll give us bikinis?" She burst out laughing. Cara stared back, nonplussed.
"Probably not. Here, it's not that funny!"
"Sorry, it just seems funny. Well, the school don't give us bras as part of the uniform, and we couldn't bring our own, so..."
"Yeah, nobody's really old enough. Well, there a few with a wee bit of a..." Cara demonstrated a bump over her chest by sweeping her hands wildly, provoking another little giggle from Kate. "You know? I mean, the years above might, but I've never seen what underwear they get. They don't talk much."
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Hey, look there! Pretend to talk to me."
"What? What are you talking about? Kate, are you feeling-"
"I'm fine. Did you see those seniors that went past?"
"Yeah, why?"
"The one on the right... You could see her nipples poking out of her shirt."
"What?" Cara blushed bright red. She felt a little twitch in her groin, excitement at such private thoughts.
"If you can see them, she couldn't be wearing a bra! The other one's weren't really protruding, but you could just make them out." Kate beamed at her compatriot, proud of her deductions.
"So they won't give us bikinis? Well that was obvious! They'll doubtless give us some hideous full-body thing."
"Yeah... Hey, I'm off to brush my teeth. See you later!"
"Bye, Kate."

* * *

The morning dragged. Though the English teachers endless monotonous droning Cara felt her mind turn to mush. How could anybody make a love story so dull? She thought. I bet Romeo and Juliet's actually quite interesting. Ugh... She and Kate shared the occasional glance when Mercutio made one of his endless innuendos, and suppressed giggles at his immature taunts of the Nurse. Eventually, the period dragged to a close, and the two were united to talk and chatter as they wandered up the stairs. Soon they parted, and Cara was once again sitting alone with the drones of the teacher. She let her mind drift into a physics world, where everything was just electrons, protons, forces, simplicity. It'd be good to be a Neutron, she thought. No classes, no pressures- just sit there and support Protons. She smiled at her own nerdy-ness. Free...

The bell shook itself into life, rattling and screeching at Cara. It was break time. She grabbed together her staff and shoved it in her bag. Wandering slowly, Cara observed the school as she walked down the endless corridors. It was a dump, this place. It had been designed for a much bigger school community, but the numbers of parents and children who'd happily go off to boarding school was plummeting like the clichéd lead balloon. Lack of funds had lead to many parts of the building being left to rot. Several corridors had been completely boarded off due to structural unsoundness.

Cara found herself passing the reception, and an array of garish pamphlets on a table. Curious, she picked one up, and browsed the contents. One chapter stood out. "Our facilities". She flicked over until she reached the page on the pool. It turned out the actual pool was one of the few bits of the school they tried to keep alive. They had even had the whole thing completely renovated, though it seemed the architect had 'not designed the shower system to suit the needs and ideals of the school'- Cara could only wonder what the hell that meant. She threw the pamphlet in her satchel to read when bored, and went off to the toilets.

Cara wandered into the smelly old vandalised room, stepped into a stall, and locked herself in. Sitting down heavily, Cara sighed. School was so tiring. She pulled down the school-provided knee length dull brown skirt and grey stained underwear. At first she had felt disgusted at wearing other people's underwear, but over the months had come to ignore it. As she let nature take its flowing course through her bowels, she thought back to what Kate had said.she pulled up her yellowing school shirt to look at her chest. Barely a lump. She knew she had hit puberty- the signs were obvious. Other than the awkward meeting with the school nurse when she discovered she had bled, everything else had been rather OK. She enjoyed the stirring feeling in her crotch she got when people talked about privates, and the occasional times when she had rubbed her vagina in the toilets at lunch. She remembered Kate calling it a 'cunny' and a 'pussy', but she was too timid to use words like that, and stuck with simple, old 'privates', mostly. She thought back to that time that Kate had whispered in her ear about masturbation, but that was murderously embarrassing just to remember, never mind thinking about it. She gave her bum a quick wipe, pulled her pants and trousers up, and walked off to the games hall in search of Kate, and the terrifying prospect of the swimming costumes.

* * *

 

The bell rang noisily as Cara stood outside the rotting games hall doors. Kate would be here soon enough, Cara thought. Sure enough, speak of the devil, Kate came running up the stairs that very moment.
"Where did you get to?" She asked. "I waited all break for you!"
"Sorry, I went for a wander." Cara replied. "Look what I found!"
She rummaged in her bag for a moment, before emerging with the battered pamphlet.
"Ew, what's that?" Kate asked.
"Look, look here." Cara flipped to the pool page. She pointed to the ominous quote she had spotted earlier "What do you think that could mean?"
"Don't know," Kate replied, a quizzical expression on her brow "Doesn't sound good!"
"Tell me about it."
The two girls chattered away as the glass grew in a line behind them, waiting for someone to appear. Eventually, Ms. McDonald appeared. Ms. McDonald was one of the better teachers, having started at the beginning of that very term, and still full of emotion from her childhood.
"Right, everyone in!" She announced cheerfully. The class filed into the drab sports hall one by one. The sports hall itself was only two classrooms merged into one by use of a sledgehammer and paint. As a result of this, the ceiling was far too low, and there was a large support beam to hold it up in the centre.

 

>update<

"All right everyone, here's the deal. You know we're finished with basketball, and are now moving on to swimming. Now, though some of you may enjoy swimming, I'm afraid our facilities are rather... limited. The school has provided swimming costumes for you, but has not provided a great range of sizes." The annoyance and frustration was clear on Ms. McDonald's face. "I'm going to ask you know to line up with the tallest of you on my right here, all the way down to the shortest on the left. Right. My left, your right." The girls giggled. There was a moment of silence, before the sixteen girls realised what they had to do, and set about hastily chattering and standing back to back. Clara was sure to check herself against Kate first, and they smiled as they realised they were right next to each other. Five minutes later, and they were done.
"Good, thank you girls." Ms. McDonald stood by a large wheeled basket. She began taking out, one by one, smallish green towels and a heap of black fabric, and dumping it at the girls feet. "These are your swimming costumes. You are to keep them the whole of this block, and make sure they are not damaged. They are to be hand washed in the showers and not in main laundry. They are your responsibility. Clear?"
"Yes, Ms. McDonald." Chorused the girls.
"Good. Now, due to the schools... lacklustre facilities, there are some rules to put down. The school has instructed me to give you extra-strict timings, and anyone who is slow or late will have to be strictly punished. We have two periods today to give us some more time in the pool, to get used to things, and to get these safety briefs and so on out of the way.

"The first thing we will do after this, is all walk up to the pool together. We will wait until quarter to twelve, and then enter the changing rooms. You will have five minutes to change. Everyone is to keep their clothes in a locker. The lockers, I'm afraid, no longer lock properly, girls, but they keep your things dry and out of the way. After five minutes is up, I will unlock the shower room, and usher you out of the changing rooms. If you haven't finished changing, I'm afraid that's too bad, as the cleaners will come in straight away to mop up. There will be eight shower cubicles before you. Now, it doesn't take a genius to realise that that's half as many showers as there are of you. This means you will have to go two to a shower."
The girls broke into fits of giggles, and Cara gave Kate a wide-eyed stare.
"Now you'll have to be mature and adult about this. School rules don't allow me to let any of you sit outside the cubicles, or miss showers. The person next to you will be your partner. You are expected to wash yourself lightly before entering the pool, to get excess sweat and muck off and out of the pool. Fortunately for you guys, you can get help from the other person in the shower to get those tricky places- I'm sure you all know that irritating bit in your back that you just can't reach. You will only have five minutes for this, too. We will then go into the pool, and you will all have to go. The cleaners will again follow behind, so hurry ourselves. Today we'll get about forty-five minutes in the pool, in which you'll get a general introduction to pool safety and procedure. Nobody is to enter the water without my say-so! After this lesson, you will then re-enter the showers. You then have fifteen minutes to wash yourself thoroughly. This should mean that you won't need a very big shower this evening. If you find yourself finished, and fifteen minutes isn't up, wash again- apparently you've not washed thoroughly enough. I'd play a game like I-spy, but imagining your in the pool, or chatting, because it doesn't really take that long, but we all get in trouble if we don't keep good time. I'll give you a two minute warning so that you can wash soap suds etc off, before letting you back through to the changing rooms. The heated water will then be shut off to make sure you go through. You get ten minutes to dry and change, before finally getting to go for lunch five minutes late. Any questions?"
The girls stood in a sort of stunned silence.
"Good! Come on then, follow behind me, and keep in your pares!"

The girls wandered behind as they walked through the dirty old building to the rarely-walked swimming block, talking excitedly about the upcoming swimming. Around them, they noticed newer layers of paint, and pleasant colours of blue cropping up more and more. They soon arrived at the newly varnished light wood door or the changing rooms.
"Right, you've got five minutes to talk, then we're in." Ms. McDonald sighed.
"So that's what the bit in the booklet meant!" Kate exclaimed to Cara, "I was wondering what that could be."
"That's weird!" Cara replied. "Two to a shower? Sounds a bit creepy..."
"Nah, in public baths, the showers are usually exposed to everyone!"
"Oh! Guess it's not that bad, then."
"What do you think we'll be doing?"
"Probably just like how to swim and so on."
"Yeah, strokes and stuff."
"You what?! Stroking? Why would be do that!"
"You know, strokes like styles of swimming, stuff like that. Breaststroke, Butterfly, Sculling..."
"Oooooh... That makes sense. I thought there was just swimming on your front and swimming on your back?"
"No, it's actually quite complicated. See, sometimes one type-" Kate was cut off.
"Right girls, in you go! Five minutes, no longer!" Ms. McDonald held the door open for them.

Cara sat down and looked about. The room had a high ceiling and light blue tiled walls. There was a small rubber bench encircling the pool, other than the two doors at either side, and one wall covered in dull grey lockers with keys hanging from them. Cara remembered the strict timetable and hurriedly started getting undressed. She pulled off the frustrating shoes and enormous skirt, before removing her plain shirt and tie and her mangy old pants. Picking up the swimming costume, she tuned it over and tried to find the right way up. Eventually she had it- a small, scratchy black piece of fabric with a faded 'speedo' logo on the chest, though someone had evidently attempted to scratch the 's' off. She put her thin legs through the leg-holes, and pulled it up as high as it would go, just managing to loop her arms through the straps. It pulled down at her posture, the small size straining at her shoulders. She looked around to see that all but the largest of the girls had similar issues, they themselves being subject to extremely loose-fitting baggy costumes that they had to almost hold on. Cara sat and turned to Kate, who had just finished squeezing into her own.
"Oof!" she complained. "I can see why Ms. McDonald was so annoyed!"
They were interrupted by the sound of a whistle and the entrance of the teacher herself.
"All right, shower time!" She called, locking the door behind her before moving on to open the door for them, to be met by all sorts of desperate calls from young girls in mortal agony or embarrassment from their miserably sized swimsuits.
"I know, I know- there's nothing I can do about it girls! Now on you go." She gestured them through, and through they went.