Alex sat next to Tom in the cafeteria and ate his sandwich coldly.
"So…is it, like, over?" Tom dared ask.
Alex looked up. "I can only hope." He said through his full mouth.
"You…are aware that there's going to be a prom at the end of this week right?" Tom sounded as if he was reminding him. Alex sighed. It was Monday and he had just returned to school. Tom had already got a date but Alex was barely interested.
"Yea."
"Who you going with?" Tom knew very well Alex had not asked anyone. Alex treated it as a reminder that he had to go find a date.
He shrugged indifferently. "Who'll want to go out with someone who's always calling in sick?" He tried to joke.
Tom laughed. "I'm sure a lot of people would want to." Alex saw a group of girls looking at him and when he looked back at them they giggled frivolously.
"I'm not sure if I want to spend my time with immature girls who giggle all the time." He added lamely.
Tom finished his meal. "Or the mature nerds?" He left his question hanging cruelly over Alex and left for his class as Alex went his own way.

Alex was early for his French lesson so he sat himself at the back of the class at an empty pair of tables and pulled out a book Jack had recommended him. It was 'to help forget and get over'. He stared blankly at the cover. The word 'Eragon' was embezzled on it in a bold color. Whoever read stories of a boy and a dragon? Was Jack hoping he would get himself lost in fantasy storybooks and forget all that had happened to him? Someone sat next to him but he didn't care, not at least until she spoke.
"Nice book choice." Alex tried to detect any hint of disdain in it but no, it was just a simple comment probably indifferent. He looked up. A pretty face looked back at him. She had her light brown hair in a bun with some hair falling over her face and pale green eyes. A perfectly sculptured nose and perfectly curved lips that were light pink. Two diamonds sparkled on her ears and she smiled so prettily. She sounded British. "Eragon is a really nice book." She continued.
"Thanks." Alex was determined to end the conversation.
"Are you new around here? I just joined the start of last week and I didn't see you around."
"No I just recovered. Was sick." Alex was being very vague.
She got the hint. "Hope you're better." She murmured and flipped open a book that got Alex really interested. It was a plain black book on the outside and on the inside was full of drawn diagrams and neat scribbles. He peered closer and she flipped it shut though not acknowledging she had seen him looking.
"If you really want, you could ask." She looked at him with her dazzling eyes. "But I wouldn't let you see it anyway." She sounded amused.
Mrs. Thompson had walked in now and everyone in the class scrambled back to their seats. French was about to begin.
"Nice to have you back, Alex." He nodded uneasily as everyone in the room turned to look at him. "See you have Erika next to you, she can help you as we go by." She continued babbling in French and Alex realized he could still understand. He saw that Erika took kept her black book and took out her math homework and began doing the sums instead of paying attention the way he was trying so hard to. He didn't resist the temptation to glance over at her work and when he saw how tough the sums she was doing, he made sure he didn't look at them again. He could swear the standard of the questions were those most probably done by students at least two years older than them. She mumbled softly to herself until Mrs. Thompson's voice rang through the air. "Erika." She looked up immediately and studied the question on the board and answered it in flawless non-accented French and if she had not spoken to Alex earlier, he would have been convinced she was a French and not a British. The teacher sighed. Alex whispered to Erika, "She asked you to hand out the books." She whispered a 'thanks' to him and stood up and headed towards the stack of books at the back of the class. He saw her slim figure. She had broad shoulders and a shapely figure, her arms could be somewhat muscular and so were her legs. She was tanned and he could infer she either sun bathed a lot or did a sport. He looked back into his textbook as she went round handing out the books. Before he could barely understand the first paragraph, Erika tossed his book onto his table and sat down next to him. She sighed to her self and began writing with her right hand again. Not before long was the lesson over and the students hurried back to their homerooms for their lessons. Tom met Alex just outside the class.
"Hey. How was French?" He nudged Alex.
Alex looked at the shorter boy. "How was German?"
"Oh the usual boring stuff. By the way, you've got a lot of math homework to catch up with." Tom patted him on the back as they streamed back into their class. They sat down in their seats just before Mr Covey entered the room.
"Okay people! Today…" A girl burst into the class. She had a white bag slung over her shoulder and her hair into a bun. She walked right up to Mr Covey and dumped a whole stack of papers unto his table then headed to a seat near Alex and sat down. It was Erika. Mr Covey was still struggling with the papers she had left on his table and he stacked them neatly at the side.
"Next time try to be punctual." He muttered. "And where's the one on Viete's Formulae?" He flipped through the papers. Everyone in the room turned to look at her as she fumbled through her bag. Alex noticed some of the boys eyeing her. He had to admit, her beauty could not go unnoticed. Erika leaned forward and passed a rather thick stack of papers to the boy in front of her and Alex noted how he almost flushed and how she didn't care. They passed it forward to Mr Covey, each taking a chance to glance at it.
"What's Viete's Formulae?" Alex asked Tom. Tom only shrugged.
"She's doing stuff way advanced and practically falls asleep during class but Mr Covey can't do anything 'cause she's not breaking any rules. Besides, she's learnt everything there is to be learnt in our year." Tom explained. "And of course she's the teacher's pet for doing so well. In fact, she's every teacher's pet though I wouldn't know anything for her other language."
"French." Alex said. "I saw her during my lesson. She wasn't paying attention too but could answer the question immediately and she spoke it very well." He observed.
"Rider! Pay attention." Mr Covey had caught them talking. "Answer the question."
Alex studied the board and found he couldn't work it out. He looked to Tom for help but his friend shook his head sorrowfully.
"People, can anyone answer this question?" Mr Covey sounded exasperated.
Erika raised her black pen and Mr Covey's face relaxed only slightly.
"Well basically if anyone has common sense they would know that the square root of two would be approximately 1.414. With that, you would be able to estimate the rough value of the equation. Manipulate the numbers to your advantage and the topic inequality is not so difficult after all." She crossed her arms.
"Perhaps an example?" A girl challenged her from across the room. Erika shook her head sadly and got up. She took the marker from Mr Covey and started working the sum out quickly with big numbers written clearly on the board. She didn't stop to think at all, she just wrote everything so quickly, faster than Alex could copy at least.
"And there you have it. Inequalities had never looked so simple." She grumbled sarcastically and got back into her seat. Alex made a mental note on her attitude. It was unexplainable. Sarcastic perhaps, bold? Quiet? Withdrawn? Outspoken? He didn't exactly understand. There was only one thing he knew too well, that girl was intelligent and he meant intelligent, most probably the world's brainiest kid or something.
"For this year's project work I want all of you to work in groups of threes to finish a task on polynomial numbers. You have yet to learn it yet so I expect you to go a do all the work necessary yourself. Come up with a power point to explain everything." That was how the lesson had ended. Mr Covey personally chose the group himself so that there was an 'equal spread of intelligence'.
"Rider! You're with Miss Louvre and… err ah! Tom!" Mr Covey had grown exhausted of grouping them so he conveniently chucked Tom with Alex.
As history began, Alex casually glanced over to where Erika was seated – or at least was supposed to be seated. She was not there. At the end of the day, she was still not there. He assumed she left for home or had something important so he brushed the thought aside and retired back to his somewhat home where he had no relatives waiting for him.

"Morning." Tom met up with Alex outside the school gate.
"Got any idea where the hell Erika was? We have to get started on our project work. I'm not failing math again." He cursed.
Alex looked at his friend as he continued walking. "Nope. Think she left halfway during lesson. And anyway I don't think she'll want to fail any of her…"
A girl fell to the ground painfully. "Watch where you're going!" It was Erika. Alex stared at her incredulous, she had fresh scratches on her legs, which he hadn't seen yesterday. A long gash ran up her arm and some scratches near her neck soon caught his attention instead. She tried to get up and he saw her face twist in pain.
"I'm sorry." He extended his arm.
She forced herself up without accepting his help. "Apologies are just words." She muttered. "You hurt me badly." Alex saw she was using the opportunity to blame him for the bruises she had obviously not got from falling.
"Hey that's not fair! You can't blame him just because you're clumsy on you're…" Tom cut in fiercely.
She brushed her hair away from her face. "The world's never fair you ignorant child." The two boys watched her sort of limp, but yet try not to, away into the school building. There was something odd about her - no, it was something obviously odd. The cuts and bruises. The way she spoke, like she had seen too much of evil and the bad side of the world that it had completely twisted her.
"You know what?" Tom poked Alex in the shoulder, in a daze. "She sounded just like you."