Welcome to Exton Novel – My dad’s Tesla turns smoothly off the motorway and our surroundings soon become more and more rural, as we drive past field after field. Trees and hedges become a pleasant green blur outside my window on the faster roads; they are so narrow in comparison to the roads I was used to. Another turn reveals an expanse of rolling green hills and acres of trees under the sunny September sky. This was definitely the most green I’d seen in years and I was very excited by it. Before I go any further, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Eliana Reva, but I much prefer to be called Ella because that sounds less like a character from a Lord of the Rings book. As Ella I tend to fit in more and as a classic textbook definition of an introvert that’s all I’ve ever really wanted when I’ve been at school. For years I have attended boarding school in London where I currently reside with my parents.
My parents work in the city but often have to travel all around the world to various cities, for an international law firm as human rights lawyers. When I was much younger, we used to live in a small village in the county of Hampshire along the south coast of England, before my parents relocated us to London because of their jobs. London had been an incredible place to live and I was very fond of it. I was never bored in London as there was always an abundance of things to do, but as I got older, it felt more and more like something was missing. I felt a little off balance, like…I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. During the last year I had grown very tired of the hustle and bustle of the city, the noise, the endless pavements and the daily chaos of the London underground. I wanted to be somewhere more rural. Scratch that, I needed to be somewhere more rural; I felt like I was being called back to where I was born. I began to feel suffocated in the city and I made the decision to return to my home county in the countryside.
I just kept dreaming of green fields, lush grass, huge willow trees and all sorts of wildlife and colourful exotic flowers. It was time to say goodbye to London, during term time, at least. My parents were more than happy for me to do my sixth form years at another boarding school since they were out of the country so often. They just wanted me to be happy. I had looked at numerous boarding schools, but a school called Exton College kept snagging my attention. I kept coming back to it’s website; featuring an assortment of various beautiful people on it’s front page just like the other schools did. But the people on the front page of theirs looked so alive, so happy and I wanted to be one of those happy people. Their marketing sure got me good. It had an excellent reputation for science among others and that was incredibly attractive to me as my goal was to apply to study medicine and become a doctor.
I valued life and I wanted to make a difference to others with mine. I worked hard and had great grades, even though this was very counterproductive to my vague attempts at a social life. I had maybe one actual friend at my old school and we hadn’t even kept in t***h during the summer. All in all, I was quite happy to start fresh somewhere else. A clean slate; not that clean was anything I needed. I had led a fairly boring life at my last school. But… This isn’t a boring story, not by a long shot. If anything the next two weeks, the next six months even…well…there was no way I could’ve predicted anything that lay ahead for me as I innocently sat in the car on our way to my new school. “Two minutes away sweetheart,” Dad says quietly, checking the sat nav on the dashboard. I take a deep breath in and sit up a little more in my seat, a nervous anticipation was definitely setting in as my dad turns the car through an imposing set of wrought iron gates that leads down a long road lined with lush poplar trees. Even the driveway here looked posh. I vaguely remembered the photos of the school from their website and brochure but it looked more impressive in person.
The school looked pretty well maintained, to say the least. We pass a large navy coloured sign which reads ‘Welcome to Exton College’; its ivy and wolf’s head emblem shining in gold. ‘Headmaster: Orion Landry’ it says in a smaller font underneath. I remember the brief about the school that the headmaster had written for the school’s website and I recall the photo of him. He had given me serious Dumbledore vibes, but I couldn’t decide if it was the foot long white beard he had or his kind green eyes full of wisdom that leapt out from the photo. I had never before seen eyes that green. He definitely looked too old to be running a school, but I couldn’t argue that he looked exactly like what I’d expect from the Headmaster of a very distinguished school. Presently, dad pulls the car into an unmarked parking spot in a large gravelled car park. “Well…this is it,” he says, letting out a long whistle as he cranes his n**k to look through the windscreen, up at the vast building in front of us. “This looks very different to my last school, that’s for sure,” I comment quietly. My last school could only have been described as a grey, concrete box, the only source of life being a solitary yew tree in the main courtyard. I get out of the car, more than keen to stretch my legs after the long journey. I hold my hand up to shield my eyes as I take in the imposing sight before me. A grand, red and beige bricked building stands before us. It has four main turrets around the front section and the tall windows make it look very distinguished.
There are a large set of thick oak doors which sit proudly in the middle of the main building, flanked by pure white marble pillars. Ivy has snaked its way up the walls all around the building and around the large arched windows in particular which added to the grand mystique of the place. Back in London my schools were in a variety of different buildings, but nothing living snaked its way up the walls…or anywhere nearby for that matter. Dad opens the trunk of the car and pulls out my suitcases while I fumble around in my satchel for the bundle of paperwork I had been sent a few weeks ago. An SUV and another Tesla arrive in the car park to drop other students off just as we ascend the steps and enter the school through the large oak doors, finding ourselves in a grand atrium. I gasp. It is huge and the decor is rather decadent. It reminds me of the typical entrances they have in the posh hotels back in London.
I immediately can’t help but notice the grand staircase at the back. A beautiful and thick, rich, navy coloured carpet snakes all the way up the stairs to the first floor. The flooring of the atrium is a highly polished light hard wood that leads to baroque style walls. The biggest feature was a huge, gilded painting of a bizarrely pure golden wolf which adorned the wall at the back of the staircase. The painting was at least ten by twelve feet wide. The wolf had familiar piercing green eyes and was stood proudly on a hill top overlooking a forest and a vast meadow. It was beautiful, and I wondered where wolves fit into the history of the school considering they were also part of the school’s logo. Above the bottom of the staircase was a beautiful and rather sizable chandelier with hundreds of glittering lights. The ceiling itself was ornate too.