Lily Hiscox*

[Wash*]

Name: Lily Hiscox
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior (12th)
School: Bayview Secondary School
Hobbies and Interests: Dance (principally ballet, jazz, street and tap), Drawing, Live Music

Appearance: Lily stands at a diminuitive 5'2, her build slight but her muscles toned thanks to years of dancing. She looks young for her age and is frequently mistaken for a fifteen or sixteen-year-old, her facial features only just blossoming into maturity. Her hair, currently dyed a dark copper red, is about medium length and is very well cared for. Her eyes, a pale shade of blue, are generally framed with a particularly thick eyeliner and a heavy layer of foundation masks a few spots and a slightly washed-out complexion. With regard to clothing, Lily is generally found in her favourite black jeans and a bright, loose-fitting t-shirt, preferably adorned with something distinctive or unusual. Her wrists are heavily weighed down with bracelets, bangles and wristbands. She has a marked distaste for heels and prefers to be seen in trainers. Lately, she has taken to wearing various ties with her t-shirts and often sports a black trilby. She owns next to no items of expensive designer clothing, acquiring most of her apparel through second-hand stores, eBay and clearance sales.

Biography: Adopted a few weeks after her first birthday, Lily Hiscox never met her real parents. The drunken mistake of a high-school prom queen, Lily was quietly spirited away to an orphanage by her furious grandfather and, after a year, was adopted by one Rachel Hiscox, an 40-year-old software engineer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Rachel's long battle with rejection and loneliness had culminated with this decision to bring a child into her life and, as she nurtured Lily into a healthy, cheerful five-year-old, she began to overcome her own insecurities. A mutual dependence developed between the two of them and they grew to be extremely close. As such, Lily arrived at St. Paul Grade School a healthy, good-natured child, with what most of her teachers would term 'a delightfully sunny disposition'.

When Lily was six, her adoptive mother quite unexpectedly met the love of her life; Karen, the resident stage manager at St. Paul's local theatre. A personable and charismatic woman, Karen had a significant impact on Lily's life, introducing her to the world of performing arts. Night after night Lily would sit backstage at an amateur production of King Lear or Death of a Salesman, enraptured, tightly clutching the single prop she had been entrusted to hand an actor during the interval. However, it was not until a touring jazz dance troupe stopped off in St. Paul that Lily felt truly stirred by a means of artistic expression. She sat captivated for the full hour, absorbed by their grace, finesse and passion. For months afterwards, all she talked of was dance and it wasn't long before her mother packed her off to afterschool classes just for some peace and quiet. Given that it was the only course in their area available to girls of Lily's age, on the 12th of November of her sixth year Lily entered her first ballet lesson.

Lily took to ballet with the gusto and enthusiasm that came so naturally to her and soon it became apparent that she excelled (albeit more through dedication and hard work than natural talent). Dance became her world, every night she would practice with good cheer and determination. Her education, already a struggle thanks to her dyslexia (diagnosed late at age seven), began to suffer, her grades began slipping. Lily didn't care. Her sights were firmly set and her goals were clear. Whispers began to abound amongst her dancing peers and teachers, rumours as to whether she could try out for one of the prestigious ballet schools. Despite their worries about the staggering cost of such an institution, Rachel and Karen resolved that they had to at least give Lily a chance to realise her dreams and, shortly after her 10th birthday, Lily found herself sitting on a long-haul bus towards Lincoln Center in New York City, where an audition for the School of American Ballet awaited her.

Lily gave it her all, danced elegantly and gracefully, but to no avail. The panel sat through her audition with a palpable air of indifference and a politely-worded letter arrived two weeks later to the day, informing her that she was not of the standard required at the School of American Ballet. Her mother raged, talked of New York nepotism and reeled off lists of other ballet schools they could try, but Lily was silent. She had been informed, in no uncertain terms, that she simply wasn't good enough. She wouldn't be a famous ballet dancer. She 'was not of the standard required'. Therefore, Lily found herself, quite unexpectedly, turning her back on the world of ballet and arriving promptly for her first day at Bayview Secondary School.

Lily now looks back on her rejection from SAB as the best thing that could have happened to her. Though she had loved ballet, the freedom from a life devoted to it was a wonderfully liberating experience. Her first few years at Bayview were the backdrop of her true formative experiences; she made friends, had her first crush and discovered the thrills of being a teenager. Lily acquired her first boyfriend at age 14, a tall hockey player named Alex Jenkins who was two years her senior. The relationship endured until Alex's high school graduation, when he informed Lily in no uncertain terms that he didn't want to be burdened with a long-distance relationship while he was at college. Naturally Lily was upset, yet she was not utterly distraught, and the fact that she didn't feel this way about Alex's departure gave her some comfort, reassurance that she was not losing a soulmate.

Still Lily would dance, but only for the love of it, veering away from ballet into the uncharted waters of jazz, tap and street. Lily's interests began to expand as she discovered the world outside dance, in particular she developed a love of sketching and henceforth carried a notebook filled with pencil drawings of anything and everything that caught her eye. Other interests fell by the wayside; the severity of her dyslexia accelerated the destruction of her relationship with reading. However, when Lily was 15 she was taken to see her first live band and she immediately fell in love. Her love was not for the band specifically, who were little more than a group of local teenagers with fringes and eyeliner, however the atmosphere of a live music event entranced and beguiled Lily, so much so that soon she was dragging her friends to every gig she could afford.

Karen and Rachel had always been able to support the household but their wage packets were generally stretched fairly thin and Lily quickly discovered that her allowance could not support her current lifestyle. Unable to find a job at such a young age, she began making cutbacks where she could, most notably eschewing expensive clothing in favour of the wares of second-hand shops and their ilk. This decision was single-handedly responsible for creating Lily's signature style; her taste for old-fashioned ties, trilbys and cheap t-shirts of bands from the 80s (her favourite is one of Toto).

Throughout her years at Bayview, Lily has retained the sunny disposition her first teachers were so quick to comment on. She has developed into an optimistic, trusting young woman, always ready to see the best in people. One of her most distinguishing characteristics is her fondness for the quirky, the irreverent and the nostalgic. A Nintendo 64 sits in the corner of her bedroom, as does a vinyl record player and a large amount of Lego. Her floor is littered with pencil sketches and the occasional painting. She enjoys and embraces bursts of creativity; her friends have learned to expect hand-drawn birthday cards or, if things are especially tight, presents. Always ready with a beaming smile, Lily takes delight in cheering people up when they need it and has a reputation for always being ready with a sympathetic ear or a reassuring hug.

Advantages: Dancing has kept Lily in very good shape; she is both fast and well co-ordinated. Also, her easygoing, friendly nature lessens the likelihood that she has made any deathly enemies amongst the Bayview student body.

Disadvantages: Lily's trusting nature and faith in her peers means that she could easily fail to spot someone intending to do her harm. Furthermore, she has no fighting experience and it is severely questionable whether she could even bring herself to deliberately harm anyone.