Round One - Bhalli

Alima Bhalli and her twin children Jace and Petal have just moved in to a little house in Serenity Hills. Will they manage to make friends, and will the drastic change effect Jace and Petal's chances of getting good grades and scholarships to Serenity State University?

"I don't know, it's not all that impressive," said Jace sceptically as Petal investigated the front yard.

"I know, it's just a starter home. As soon as I get a job we can start making improvements. Now get to school, you don't want to be late on your first day!"

"You don't need to tell us twice!" said Petal, and they ran for the bus. Alima sighed. She'd never been all that academic and neither had the twins' father - where did all this passion for school come from? Not that she was complaining. It was great that they wanted to get ahead in life.


The twins were strange in some ways. Partying and slacking off with the other kids at school held no interest for them; they were perfectly content to spend their afternoons doing their homework.


They also had a shared interest in tinkering and wasted no time in buying an old junk car to restore together. It was their way of bonding, each working silently on different bits of the engine or the bodywork.


Alima discovered she hadn't lost her gift for making friends easily; she was soon chatting away happily to one of the other newcomers, Adele Darwin, bonding over trying to parent teenagers. Personally Alima thought Adele's son Tom sounded like a bad lot - much too like her ex-boyfriend. Hopefully Petal would be bright enough to stay away from him.


Alima had also met the King family and discovered very quickly that she had a kindred spirit in Duncan King. They got on swimmingly, and soon chatting and joking turned to flirting. She worried he was more into her than she was into him - he was perma-single, childless and a free spirit, whereas she had to take the kids into consideration. What would their reaction be to a new dad? But she couldn't deny that there was chemistry between them.


They ended up taking a trip to the next town to hang out at a club; Alima had expected that they'd strut their stuff on the dancefloor then he'd get distracted by some other girl, but much to her happy surprise nothing of the kind occurred. He was completely enraptured and they spent most of the night talking to each other. Maybe this COULD work out.


Still, it was a bit of a surprise when he dropped by unnanounced while the twins were at school. Alima still hadn't managed to find a steady job and was lazing around the house when he rang the doorbell. One thing lead to another... and she found out first hand that Duncan was a really amazing kisser.