Chapter Eight Part Two - A Series of Surprises

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Chapter Eight Part Two - A Series of Surprises

“Pay attention to the game!” Lawiener barked. They all at least turned their heads in the direction of the ball, but only a handful of the class was actually discussing the game; the rest were too busy discussing what they had just witnessed.

Out of the corner of my eye while looking down, I could see Mr Lespinner giving me disapproving looks. He probably had a whole different expectation of what going to a guy’s place meant. In fact, not many people would assume that I would be going there to tutor.

I could imagine the headlines. Straight A student caught in scandal with school’s badboy. How tragic. I could imagine my reputation swirling down the toilet.

Lawiener blew the whistle twice and the game was over. Several girls cried out with relief and immediately began trudging back to school. I was left carrying the poles and various other bits of equipment back, by myself. I must say my teacher was incredibly considerate. Sure he was behind everyone else too, but I was even further behind. Even though winter was settling in, and I hadn’t done any sport or run around, the beads of sweat had formed on my forehead.

I groaned and dragged the poles against the ground while continuously tugging on the bag of sashes slung over my shoulder to stop it from dropping or sliding down. After the next step, the weight suddenly and abruptly lightened. My studies in physics clearly told me there was no way the mass could have shifted so suddenly, but then again, anyone would even a shred of common sense would be able to work that out.

I turned and sure enough, it wasn’t a sudden change in mass. Ace was holding the other end of the poles.

“All of a sudden, I’m starting to think you rely on me to help you,” he laughed.

“I was fine,” I lied, possibly sulking.

“Okay.” He grinned and dropped the end.

“Argh!” I exclaimed, quickly dropping the whole thing before the impact affected my arms and possibly pulled on my shoulder. “What the hell was that for!?”

“Accident,” he replied nonchalantly. He picked up the end and looked from me to the other end of the poles.

“You can carry it by yourself,” I grinned and waltzed ahead with the bag of sashes in one hand.

Mr Lawiener looked rather surprised as Ace trailed along to the storeroom as well, but didn’t question it. Man, looking into the shed again brought back rather strange memories.

“Isn’t this nostalgic?” Ace said, nudging me in the ribs. I shot backwards with my arms defensively over my ribs. Both Ace and Mr Lawiener were staring at me, and I worked out that it was because I had accidentally yelped. “Don’t tell me…you’re ticklish?” He cracked up and dumped the poles in the corner, walking out of the shed. I followed.

“Okay, I’m going to lunch. Are you coming to Hunter’s at six? We’re doing the tutoring thing again,” I said flatly. The notion of being in a house with Hunter alone wasn’t too appealing.

“Eh, might as well. I guess we can work on the chem assignment too.”

“Oh yeah. Have you done any extra research?”

“Nope.”

“Great,” I answered sarcastically.

“What about you then little miss genius?”

“I like to think that I work better under pressure, hence leaving work until the last minute,” I quickly replied, walking away.

I went back to my locker, grabbed my lunch of a peanut butter sandwich and headed back out. After spotting Ella and Jenny sitting on the grass, I went and sat down next to them.

“How was sport?” Ella laughed, knowing it was the equivalent of torture to me. She picked at the hamburger she’d bought from the school, pulling out the salad, tomato, pickles, carrots and basically everything else apart from the piece of meat. Her choice of food was so bad I wasn’t entirely sure how she still managed to look like a supermodel.

“Oodles of fun.”

“Did you just have sport?” Jenny asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking a bite from my sandwich.

“Mr Lespinner?”

“Yup,” I answered with my mouth full.

“I have him as well, but at a different time obviously. He seems nice.”

As soon as I heard the word ‘nice’ I nearly spat the food everywhere, and while preventing myself from doing so successfully managed to breathe in my food. Yes, I breathed it in. Rather than going down the oesophagus and into my stomach, it entered my trachea, heading towards my lungs. Thus, the natural reflex interfered and immediately, my body tried to send the food back up.

So basically, I was incredibly close to coughing my half chewed food out everywhere.

“Hunter doesn’t have football training this afternoon, so tutoring will start straight after school instead of six,” Ace said as he walked past. I didn’t answer. “Hey, did you hear what I said?”

“Yep,” I mumbled and he left.

“You do tutoring?” Jenny asked, seeming somewhat surprised.

“Tutoring?” Ella laughed. “She doesn’t need one. She’s the tutor.”

“Oh, so you tutor them?” Jenny asked again.

“Yeah,” I replied, taking a bite from the sandwich.

“What subjects?”

“We do whatever really…But chemistry mainly.”

“Ah…” She sat there pondering something for a moment and after a moment, uncomfortably asked, “Is it okay if I come as well? I need some help with chemistry.”

“Sure. In fact, it’ll probably be better to have another girl with me.” I grinned.

“You’re there alone?” She sounded shocked. Then again, most people would have reacted like that if I told them I spent an hour and a half alone with a bunch of teenage boys alone inside a house.

“Yeah. They don’t do anything weird,” I quickly reassured her, hoping she wouldn’t suddenly change her mind about coming. She didn’t. “Just meet me at the gate after school. We’ll wait for the guys and head to Hunter’s house.” She nodded and we finished off our lunches.

The bell rang and I endured the next two classes.

I waited by the gate after school and watched as Jenny made her way frantically towards me as though she were trying to catch a bus about to leave. It was quite amusing. The guys arrived not long after.

“Okay, I’ve done a head count,” Hunter announced proudly. “There’s an extra person.”

“Well you don’t say.” I rolled my eyes. Dean laughed and ushered us all along the path. A sleek black sedan with dark tinted glasses slowed and came to a stop by the path further down by the administration office and a man in a suit stepped out, opening the back door. It reminded me of something.

“Who goes to school like that?” Jenny gasped. Hunter looked back to see the sedan as well.

“Who cares?” Hunter stepped behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, pushing me along. “Come on, let’s go!”

“So…you guys seem close,” Jenny began. Everyone turned their heads towards her, with my eyes boggling in particular. “Have you been friends for a long time?”

“Friends?” Dylan laughed and walked up beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned down. She pulled back a little. “You see, we recently became acquainted – you could say – with Cathy.”

“Basically they enjoy bullying me and making my life difficult,” I scowled, looking particularly at Hunter and Ace.

Hunter laughed and Ace gave me the 'who me?' look.

Jenny was going through the same awe that I did when I first saw Hunter's house. After all, you'd expect that a punk would live in a shabby little place, not a perfect average neighbourhood picket-fence house.

"I live near here," Jenny informed us.
"You never tell them where you live, or they never leave you alone," I warned, doing my best ominous voice.
"Well, Cathy is extremely paranoid," Dylan said.
"Friends you know? Friends," Dean elaborated.


"Okay gossiping ladies, you can come inside now," Hunter said, holding the door wide open after unlocking it. We all filed inside and found a space on the carpet of the lounge room floor.

This floor brought back rather awful memories. So did that stupid wardrobe-closet thing that stood proudly in the corner of the room.

"Good memories," Hunter teased, noticing my troubled expression.
"Good memories? Hah, no," I scoffed.
"What are you guys talking about?" Jenny asked, wide-eyed and ready for a detailed story with a protagonist, antagonist and all the bells and whistles.
"Nothing important," I quickly answered.
"A very significant event," Hunter said, almost at the same time.
"Uh, okay," she said slowly, looking at us both as though we had gone bat crazy when in fact, only Hunter was.

We all sat cross legged looking around in an awkward silence. "So, what do you guys usually do?" Jenny asked, looking around.
"Someone is usually stuck on something..." I mumbled.
"Okay, if there are no objections, we'll do chemistry," Ace announced, throwing his textbook at me. I threw my arms up, hands open and managed to catch it before it squashed my face.

"How's your assignment?" Hunter looked at us as we flipped though our textbook vigorously. Ace and I exchanged glances before chuckling awkwardly. "You haven't started, have you?" Hunter seemed quite surprised, but laughed.
"What?" I retorted, slightly offended at his reaction."Have you?"
"No. But when do I ever do my work properly?"

Well, that was true.

"Quick question, but what is your chem average at the moment?" I asked Ace.
"Well mine's forty five percent," Hunter chimed.
"I wasn't asking you." Hearing my reply, his face quickly deflated and it was honestly quite amusing.
"Fifty two percent," Ace finally answered.

I could feel the incoming doom ahead. Unless I wanted to my average to go from ninety six percent to sixty percent, it would be a better idea to just do all the work by myself. I would suffer and possibly curse Ace every time I did the work, but at least I'd get a wonderful mark.

"Uh, so what should I do?" Jenny questioned awkwardly.
"Oh great. Hunter should be able to keep your company. He's an absolute professional at annoying a person to death." I smiled sarcastically at Hunter and he returned the sarcastic smile.

Ace and I eagerly scrawled down notes - some relevant, some not so relevant. I glanced over to see Jenny and Hunter laughing, pointing at some things in their human biology textbooks. Immature.

"They're pointing and laughing aren't they?" Ace asked, not looking up as he continued writing.
"Yup."
"Haha. What are they, nine?"
"You don't laugh at it...do you?"
"I don't. But that's only because I don't take the subject." He looked up at me as he spoke, and it was only then that I noticed how dark the brown in his eyes was. His almost-black hair swept to a side and - ...I quickly looked away awkwardly. I cleared my throat and started writing. He laughed.

Ace's phone buzzed and he pulled it out, looked concerned for a moment and then put it back into his pocket.
"What was it?" I asked, still flipping through the textbook.
"My parents want me home again," he answered. Then in a quieter voice, he mumbled, "I wonder what this is about now." He got up, grabbed his books and swung his bag over his shoulder.
"You're leaving?" I was a tad surprised that he listened to his parents. Then again, they /were/ the ones feeding him.
"It could be bad."
"What could be bad?" He ignored me and quickly farewelled Hunter before exiting.

"You do know our assignment is due the day after tomorrow right!?" I exclaimed.
"Yeah!" he yelled back. "We'll work it out later." From the window, I could see him jogging down the path and away.
"I should probably leave," I said aloud, realising there was no longer a reason for me to stay.
"Not going to tutor?" Hunter replied.
"You guys are doing fine. Is there actually anything you need help with?" He paused and I figured he was taking his time coming up with a good lie. "Okay, I'm off."
"See you tomorrow!" Jenny exclaimed, waving frantically. I waved back and left.

After dinner and three hours of tediously working on the chemistry assignment, I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling in the dark. Despite everything, the only thing I could think about was the car that had pulled up today. It couldn't be, could it?

It was the usual morning routine and I was on my way to school. It was freezing cold and it became more evident that winter was creeping in. Soon we would be seeing the first flakes of snow.

My footsteps made little crinkling sounds as I occasionally stepped on leaves. All of a sudden, I could hear some form of an echo. Was that even possible? I slowed my steps and I got that weird feeling that someone was behind me. My heartbeat quickened and I continued walking.

I turned around and nearly shouted when I saw him. Ace doubled over laughing and it was in that moment, it was absolutely undeniable. He was kinda cute, good looking ish. Whatever.

"Merry Christmas," he managed to say in between his laughter, holding a neatly stapled document out towards me. I took it from him and flicked through; he had completed his part of the assignment.

"You finished?" I asked, honestly surprised.
"Yeah. Many hours' work, just to let you know," he grinned.
"It's not plagiarised...is it?"
"Nope."

We reached the gate and just as we were about to enter, Ella came flying past. "Morning guys!" she exclaimed, overly cheerful for a school morning.
"What's up?" I greeted.
"Hey there," Hunter said as he too, came by.

A car pulled up by the path; it was the same black car from yesterday. A man in a suit opened the door and a guy stepped out. Approximately 6 foot tall, dark hair, dark eyes, in perfect school uniform, birthday on the seventh of July. My jaw dropped.

"Who is that? You know him?" Hunter asked me. Too late, I wasn't in the frame of mind to answer such a question.
"Let's just say," Ella paused, thinking for a word. "He's...I guess what you would call her first love."

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Woot! Chapter nine coming up! (: Please vote and comment if you liked!

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