2117.02.2008
Prologue
Even the smallest pebble dropped in a silent pond moves the entire pond.
"Will you please throw the ball back?" One of the basketball players interrupted my thoughts, as the ball rolled to a stop right in front of my feet. Being the nice person I was, I promptly threw it back. For another moment, I watched them play, before I proceeded to enter the school building.
"Angie, over here," my best friends, Felix and Cassie, called me over. With fervor I joined them in the hall, an overly exuberant smile, I believe, pasted on my face. After all, it was the last day of school.
"Someone looks happy." Cassie directed a sly smile at me. Honestly? She was teasing me. But nothing was able to take my spirit down today. "How did your date go? Is dear little Zach all they say he is and more?"
"I wouldn't know." For the first time that day, I grimaced. "He behaved like a total hormone driven idiot." At their inquiring looks, I continued. "He was tipsy when he came to pick me up. Then, when we met his jock friends later on, he got completely wasted. But that wasn't all of it. In the end, he tried to feel me up."
"He didn't!" Both Cassie and Felix cried out, disbelieving. At their exclamation, by passers gave them strange looks. Seeing that, Felix continued on much quieter, anger visible. "Honey, if you want to, we'll go beat him up. I'm sure your brother would help."
"Don't you dare tell him anything. You know how riled he gets over that kind of crap." I gave them my best glare, to ensure that they understood me. Once they, albeit reluctantly, agreed, I continued on. "You didn't hear the best of it yet. He tried to feel me up on our porch. Right in front of the entrance."
"I thought he was smarter than that. Everybody knows how Jamie is, acting out the older protective brother, when people try to grope you," Cassie supplied helpfully. "How much you can misjudge a person."
"Yeah. At least, he won't be doing such a stupid thing again that soon. I kneed him." The last part was accepted with visible amusement. Once they stopped laughing, I told them the best part. "And, as a little parting gift, I gave him a neat shiner. Should be nicely visible by today."
"You didn't! What did he do? Didn't he try to return you the favor?"
"Truth be told, yes. But he had bad timing. Just then, Jamie opened the door. You can imagine the rest." I breathed out slowly, letting the memories wash over me. "What a loser," I muttered under my breath. I was sure that both of my friends heard me, but neither commented. Another thought finally came into my mind, forcing me to smile widely again. God, I was probably sporting the cheesiest smile ever at that moment. "Can you believe it? Next year we're seniors, and then it's finally adios Oakgrove High!"
"Yeah…" Cassie began, smiling dreamily. She was about to say something else, but Felix cut in.
"Wait, if Jamie was there and he saw what happened, why shouldn't we tell him?" Sometimes I really regretted having such a bossy know-it-all as a friend. Nothing went past her, and she couldn't take a hint if it came hitting her on the head. My change of topic had clearly meant bug off, I don't want to talk about it anymore.
"He doesn't know everything. In fact, he thinks that Zach just got drunk and then became aggressive."
Felix was probably about to say something else, but the warning bell cut her off. Seeing as I had to trek all the way to the other end of this accursed building, I sped off, escaping for a short time. By the time lunch came, Felix would squeeze the information out of me, we both knew that. But for now, I had my peace.
I made it barely on time to my first class that day, advanced Language Arts. It suited me well, though, as all were already seated and nobody dared move from their respective places. Settling down, I was about to focus my attention at the blackboard, that was littered with writing, when a familiar voice caused me to turn around.
"… all around. You should have seen it, they were attacking me left, right, center, but I managed to beat them all up. One of them got lucky, though, and slugged me." Sure enough, when I turned around, I saw the infamous Zachary Thatcher. He was avidly gesticulating with his hands, while telling his sycophants a glorious tale of –
"Bullshit." As I shouted this, I immediately got the expected response. Zach and the throng of brain deprived teenagers around him all directed their glares at me.
"What do you mean, bullshit?" My adversary extraordinaire was sending me lethal scowls, which I blatantly ignored. "What do you think how I got this nice little souvenir?" A challenge, just what I wanted. He was deliberately urging me to tell the truth.
"Oh my, your temper is quite threatening. No wonder you won. Who could possibly beat the great Zachary?" Keeping my voice coquettishly low, I smiled at him sardonically. "But then again, remind me who won that fight last month? You or, God beware, Kyle?" Both of us knew who had won. On that occasion, next to getting suspended, Zach had also received a broken nose, while Kyle had escaped with only the suspension. "So, I guess, those guys you battled with must have been as weak as… girls."
Zach began opening his mouth and closing it, awfully resembling a fish on the dry. As fate had it, I was not destined to hear his retaliation, for right then, Mr. Morris walked in. With a last glare in my direction, everybody settled in. Then, Mr. Morris began taking attendance.
"Anderson?"
"Here," followed the prompt response from somewhere behind me. As soon as Mr. Morris said the third name on his list, I zoned out, thinking about what Zach had said. All the analyzing I was doing made my head slowly start pounding. Nevertheless, I continued, as analyzing the events that occurred around me was an old habit of mine.
"Black?"
I really couldn't understand why Zach was being such a jerk. In the beginning, he had acted so sweet, always attending to my needs. My friends had called it sickeningly cute, while imitating that they had to hurl. Leave it to them. But, unbeknownst to them, they had been right. Zach was one sick fuck. At that thought, I began to furiously scribble on my notebook.
"Black?"
How could he do that? He was supposed to be nice, a perfect gentleman. In the end, though, I was the only stupid one. All he had wanted was to get into my pants. The scribbling became more furious, a black blotch tainting the front of my notebook.
"Black!"
The situation wasn't that bad, altogether. I would get my revenge, sooner or later. The idiot was going to suffer. It wasn't so much the fact that he had tried to grope me and had ruined a perfectly beautiful evening, but more the fact that he had lied to me. From the beginning, too. If there was one thing that I hated, then it was lying, two faced, fucking jerks. In one word – people like Zach.
"Ms. Black!" An irritated voice suddenly caused me to jump in surprise. As I looked up, I came face to face with a half irritated, half amused Mr. Morris. "I'm glad you finally chose to grace us with your presence." In the back, I heard a couple of people snicker. They were going to get it, later. "As far as I know, vacation hasn't started yet, although everyone is fevering towards the end of school. Still, despite the fact that you are one of my better students, I would appreciate it if you would turn your attention towards the class."
"Yes, sir," I mumbled under my breath, embarrassed. Language arts was actually one of the classes that I enjoyed. Mr. Morris was a good guy and that made me feel especially guilty. Damn me for having such a good for nothing conscience!
"Apology accepted. But next time, Ms. Black, I am going to give you so much homework over the summer, you won't know where your head is." Moving back to the front of the class, he continued. "That counts for all of you." Then, he resumed taking attendance.
Looking down at my notebook, I assessed the damage I had done. There was a gaping hole in the cover, surrounded by the dark blue ink of my trusty pen. It looked like a black hole, void of light. A sad sight, really. The rest of the period I spend trying to concentrate on what Mr. Morris was saying, while fending off all kinds of unnecessary thoughts. Although, I wasn't the only one whose thoughts strayed. My fellow students were starting to become nervous, quietly buzzing, like a sleeping bee hive.
The anticipation that lay in the air was progressively building into a palpable, sticky tension. Everyone was waiting with poorly subdued eagerness for the break to commence. By the time that I arrived into the cafeteria, all the different cliques had put themselves together, shrilly discussing about their plans for the summer. Most were planning to go abroad. Oakgrove High wasn't exactly a school for the rich, but there were definitely no poor students attending the school. Riverside, the poetically named town in which the school was located, was more of a wealthy people community. Most of the inhabitants of this small town ranged from moderately, to extremely rich. My family was somewhere in the golden middle of this mess.
"Over here!" Felix was waving towards me from one of the tables, signaling for me to come over. Gladly obliging, I slunk into the seat across from her, setting my lunch tray carefully down. Shoving a piece of the taco my lunch consisted of into my mouth, I surveyed my surroundings.
"Merms Massie," I must admit, it came out rather weird, probably due to the food in my mouth. What can I say, I was still growing, and needed all the proteins I could get. Besides, they were practically starving us here. My dear friend, on the other hand, didn't see it like that.
"You know you shouldn't talk with food in your mouth." A frown had settled onto her otherwise impeccable features. "It's rude and disgusting, and I can't understand a word you're saying."
Clearing my mouth, I answered her. "Sorry, mom." She simply rolled her eyes in response. By now, she knew me well enough. And my reasons had been valid, as my grumbling stomach ascertained. "Anyway, where's Cassie? She's usually the first here."
"She won't be able to come down for lunch. Something came up, so she had to go join the Students' council in an oh so important meeting." Felix had made her dislike of the council apparent from the beginning. According to her, the students who attended it were just a group of stuck up little snobs, who arranged those meetings only in order to evade tests and the like. The fact that most of her friends were on said council didn't faze her.
I replied nothing to her statement, instead opting to eat my taco in peace. School food was maybe not the best, but on some occasions it was quite satisfactory. One of those occasions was this one. Also, it gave me a great reason to be able to avoid talking to Felix about a certain topic. Not that I was scared, but Felix wouldn't leave me alone for the next couple of years if I once began on it. I could already imagine it, Felix and me at the age of eighty, alone at an old people's home, arguing about a long dead Zachary Thatcher, while half of our teeth were missing. What joy, what sweet future I was passing up on. But, sadly, it had to be done.
"So…." Something about the way she said that didn't fare too well on me. As I reluctantly met her gaze, I realized why. Damn it, she had unveiled my strategy to take over the world. "How was our Zachy this morning?" Okay, so maybe she hadn't discovered my plans. It was far worse – once again she was bugging me with that good for nothing little… idiot!
"God, Felix!" I moaned, pushing my half eaten taco away, my appetite having mysteriously left me. "Do we have to talk about him? I mean, life goes on, it's not like as if I lost anything. We tried dating and it just didn't go, end of the story."
"Fine, have it your way." The finality in my voice must have caused her sudden bout of compassion. Or it might have been the frustrated note in it. Whatever it was, I was thankful. "But, sooner or later you're going to talk! Got it?"
"Yeah, whatever," I mumbled under my breath. Since I wasn't able to eat anymore, due to my considerate friend, I chose to leave the cafeteria. I quickly apologized to Felix and left, ignoring the confused looks that some of our friends who had just now arrived gave me. Since I still had a lot of time left until lunch ended, I decided to stroll a bit around the school premises. It wasn't as if any of the school staff could do something to me, since it was actually a break. Lunch break, yes. Still, a break.
I quickly constituted that the halls were eerily desolate during the famed lunch breaks. Not a single living soul was walking around, may it be student or teacher. Not even the cleaning staff was sauntering around, bugging us poor little students. You may picture my shock, then, as a loud, shrill and, strangely, masculine voice started resounding through the corridors.
"Hurry up, man." Hmmm… where had I heard that voice before… isn't that… oh…fuck! I tried to turn around and run away, before that stupid dreaded bastard had a chance to see me. "Hey, isn't that… Angie!" I'll let you judge whether I succeeded.
Slowly coming to a halt, I faced my brother and his three best friends. "What do you want?"
"Why so rude, babe?" Lance, the most annoying prick of all, and, incidentally, the one who had been shouting so effeminately moments before, asked me, all the while smiling lewdly. Now, guess which one was the aforementioned bastard. Yep, you've got it.
"Drop it, Lance," Adrian quipped from beside him, "you wouldn't want Jamie here beating your ass for making moves on his sister, would you now?" Winking in my direction, he gave Lance a manly slap on the back. That made me smile, since I knew how much those hurt.
"Yeah… or even worse," I knew it, Tyler just had to throw some retarded comment of his own in, "you could get beat up by Angie. Trust me, she has one strong right hook."
Then, the morons had the audacity to laugh at me. Not being one to put up with their idiocy, despite our long friendship, I made a move to push past them. I had almost made it, when Adrian decided to foil my plans. Snaking his arms around my waist, he simply picked me up! How I hated them at that moment, for they always did that.
"Let me down, right this instance!" I knew that they weren't going to listen to me, so I wasn't surprised that he not only didn't put me down, but lifted me higher instead. Damn him for being so tall! Adrian was taller than my brother, and Jamie was already a whooping six foot himself.
"Stop being so cranky, sugar. Didn't get enough sweets today? I could help you with those," Adrian flirtatiously drawled into my ear. Before I had the chance to retort, he let me go. Confused as to what could have made him do that, I turned around to see Adrian bend over, while Lance and Tyler were going hysteric with laughter. The only one that was remaining cool was Jamie.
"I told you not to sweet talk my sister in front of me." Leave it to him to be a total loser. Who talked like that anymore?
"Sweet talk?" Strange how Tyler was able to say anything at all, since his lungs were ready to burst from all the laughter. "Dude, where do you live? In the 19th century? Nobody talks like that anymore." My sentiment, exactly.
I couldn't refrain from joining the conversation. After all, how often do you get the chance to make fun of your beloved twin? "He's got a point there. Only old people still use the term 'sweet talk' to describe what Adrian here," at this point, I nodded towards the person in question, "has tried unproductively to accomplish." Behind me, I heard Adrian mutter something under his breath.
"Okay, you, of all people, don't have the right to tell me off, as I am the one who just got this lecherous bastard off your back." I opened my mouth to protest, but Jamie simply ignored me. "Also, remind me, who has to always help you stash your candy when grams comes to visit? It certainly isn-"
At precisely that moment, Adrian had tackled my brother, cutting off any further stupidity to be issued from his diarrheic mouth. Would it have been under any other circumstances, I would have helped my brother. But, seeing as I had witnessed the mischievous glint in Adrian's eyes before he'd attacked my other half, I remained impassive.
"You stupid – gerr of me!" It must have been pretty hard for Jamie to say even that much, for Adrian had caught him in a headlock. The other two morons weren't of any help as they stood there, leaning against the wall for support, all the while guffawing like hyenas. Just as I came to the conclusion that it was time to step in, something fluttered from my brother's pocket. Since he was too busy himself, I picked up the piece of paper, only to nearly drop it again. The first line read as follows: Request to enter Student Exchange program.
"Student… what the fuck?" My passionate outburst caused all four of the idiots around me to cease their actions and stare at me. I ignored all of them, except for my treacherous sibling, piercing his eyes with a death glare. "What the hell is this about?" Waving the paper at him, I kept observing his every move.
At first he had a confused expression on his face, but it quickly shifted to realization, then to frustration, and at last to fear. "It's nothing." Freeing himself from Lance, who had been holding onto him the entire time, he made a move to snatch the paper from me, but I quickly evaded him, used to his antics. "Come on, Angie, it's really not that important."
"You tell me what this is about and then I'll judge if it's important or not." We continued with our staring match a bit longer. Then, finally, my brother gave up, lowering his gaze.
"All right. You remember the program, how it works and all?" Impatiently, I nodded. "Well, I asked mom and dad, and they agreed to have a foreign student come live at our place. It's nothing big, he'll be staying for a year, going to our school with us."
"A – a year?" I almost choked on that. How could they do something so stupid? "You said he – how do you know it's going to be a he?"
My brother let out a long sigh, as if he was suffering. "Because I'm a guy. They send students of the same gender. Wouldn't it be a bit awkward if they send a girl to live at a guy's place?"
Turning a deaf ear on his sarcasm, I asked the last, crucial question. "Did you already turn the request in?"
"Yeah, it's at the secretary's." Receiving the answer, I pushed the now crumpled request from my hand into the idiot's and began my sprint towards the secretary's office. I still had about five minutes left, so I sprinted as fast as I could down the corridors, disregarding of all the angry people that I was pushing out of my way. Lunch break had ended and everybody was filing into the hallways.
Arriving at the secretary's, I stopped in front of the door, huffing heavily from the running. Not even waiting to calm down sufficiently, I burst into the office. The old lady must have gotten a shock, as I hadn't opened it quite noiselessly. It was more like a bomb crashing in.
"Oh, dear God!" Somehow I had guessed that she would say that. "Honey, you gave me quite a scare there." Clutching her sixty-year-old heart, she put on one of her cheesiest smiles, addressing me as though I was a child. "Can I help you?" Flatterer.
"Yes. Miss, did the requests for the exchange program already get sent?" Ok, maybe I was faking, but a little civility can never hurt.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, darling." I bet you are, old hag. "They were sent just ten minutes ago."
"They were…"
Standing up, a worried look etching over her wrinkled face, she reached out towards me. "Are you alright dear? You've gone quite pale. Would you like for me to take you to the infirmary?"
Carefully avoiding her outstretched hand, I inched away. "No, I'm fine, it's nothing. Thank you." Flashing her a weak smile, I hurriedly evicted myself from the cramped office, giving the old secretary no time for second thoughts. As soon as I'd entered the corridor, I leaned against a nearby locker. What had that stupid idiot done? Out of all the things… I really didn't need this.
AN: Well, it's a new story, I guess. This is actually the pilot chapter. I hope I didn't disappoint, since this idea has been in my head for quite some time. Tell me what you think? Is it worth continuing? Thanks beforehand. Cheers!