Changing Lives
By Mabel Marsters
Story starts just before summer vacation at the end of their junior year in high school. (Both are normal American kids, yes, I did say both are American kids!!)
Buffy Summers – Whilst not in the Cordelia Chase elite group of popularity, she has a good circle of friends, Willow, Xander, Oz.
William Pratt – Bullied mercilessly, bookish, quiet, straight A student.
Chapter One
Sunnydale High – The last Monday of term.
William Pratt hated school; well to be more accurate, he loved school, he just hated the fact it was full of students. The students fell into roughly two categories according to William - the ones who ignored him and the ones who gave him hell. He tried to make himself invisible to them all, tending to wear drab, dull colours that blended in to the background - beiges, tans, browns. He was about five feet nine inches but held himself a little stooped so he appeared shorter, and was slightly built. His wavy sandy brown hair was unruly, providing ammunition for jibes and taunts, as did the seriously untrendy spectacles framing his blue eyes. The fact that he was the brainiest student in the school sealed his fate as being the most bullied. Even if he didn't study, he always aced any tests. He just had to read something once and he remembered it.
He walked into the cafeteria with trepidation, his blue eyes scanning the room. He let out a sigh of relief; his primary tormentor wasn't there, he might actually get to eat his lunch. He picked up a tray and walked along selecting a club sandwich, an apple and a carton of juice - food that could easily slip into his pockets so he could escape to the relative safety of the school grounds. He was just putting his change into his pocket when he froze.
"No, please no." he thought in horror.
"Oh look guys, look who's here, it's the prat!" sneered Angel, his sidekick Davey sniggering.
Angel was tall - very tall, and strongly built. His hair, so dark as to be almost black, was cut short and kept in place with gel. He was the best football player Sunnydale High had ever had. They were going to win the interschool league for the first time in the school's history. The final match was irrelevant as they were already too far ahead on points to be caught. This gave him an almost invincible air. He didn't seem to do much in the way of schoolwork these days; it's not like he even bothered to get it done by others anymore. The teachers had long since given up nagging him for his work. Principal Snyder basically guaranteed he would pass this year as long as he brought the football trophy back to Sunnydale.
"Er….hi….er….Angel." stuttered William, eyes downcast trying to sidle away.
"Er….hi….er….Angel." mocked Angel, moving to block William's path. "Where do you think you're going?"
Angel was dressed in his trademark black from head to toe, making him seem even more menacing, which was why he wore it.
"Um…. going outside…to eat…er…to eat my lunch." William replied.
"You were going to, you mean." said Angel. He nodded to Davey, who was Angel's best friend and partner in crime. His hair was yellow blond and he was clad in blue denim jeans with a leather biker's jacket.
Davey got hold of William's jacket and started to rifle through his pockets. He pulled out the apple and tossed it to Angel, who caught it and took a bite out of it.
"Cheers, William." said Angel.
Davey relieved William of his sandwich and started to tuck into it. William tried to walk away.
"Oh no you don't." said Angel, grabbing his collar roughly and pulling him back, "What else have you got?" he pulled out the juice. "You thirsty, Davey?"
"Nah, I'm not, are you thirsty, Angel?" grinned Davey, knowing exactly what Angel had planned.
"No, I'm not thirsty either." He stuck the straw into the carton, "I bet William is though."
He squeezed the carton so its contents hit the hapless William in the face. Angel and Davey laughed loudly, soon joined by most of the students in the cafeteria.
William took his glasses off and started to wipe them clean with the hem of his sweater. He started to move away again, but found his exit blocked once more, this time by a petite blonde girl.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, you creep!" she shouted, hands on her hips, staring at Angel furiously.
"Buffy Summers," sneered Angel, "You'll be getting a reputation for sticking up for misfits at this rate." casting a glance over to the friends she'd just left.
"The only misfit around here is you, you Neanderthal." she retorted. She turned to William, "You ok?"
"Er..fine, yes, I'm fine." He sidestepped quickly around her, a faint flush of pink colouring his cheeks as he ducked out of sight.
Once outside, William leant back against the wall, banging his head back against it hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. Could things get any worse? Not only had Angel had a go at him in front of the whole cafeteria but he had a girl stick up for him, a girl! Not just any girl, but Buffy - blonde, beautiful, sassy and the object of his desires for the past two years, ever since she'd arrived at Sunnydale. Not that she knew about it of course. In fact, the sentence he'd managed to croak out at her just now was the longest he'd managed to utter in her presence.
"So she finally notices me when I'm covered in juice and the laughing stock of the school."
He stood there, hands deep in his trouser pockets, leaning against the brick wall at the side of the school, wishing he really were invisible.
When the bell went for afternoon class, even the fact it was English, his favourite subject, didn't cheer him. Nope, it didn't cheer him up at all because Buffy was in his English class, and he didn't think he could bear to see her. He walked slowly along the corridor, dragging the toes of his shoes on the floor as he walked. When he got to the classroom he took his usual seat at the front right desk.
"Hey, William."
He looked up. Willow was smiling at him as she walked to her seat at the back of the room.
"Hey, Willow." he said, managing to return the smile to the pretty red head, dressed as usual in vibrant clashing colours. Solidarity between the class 'brains' even if he always did come out ahead.
He quickly looked down and fiddled with his textbooks as she was followed in by Buffy.
"Please don't let her say anything about lunchtime. Please don't let her say anything about lunchtime." He prayed.
"William?" she said.
He looked up.
"Oh God, she was going to say something about lunchtime, just in case anyone here missed it."
"Is there any chance I could borrow your notes from the last lesson please?" she said, literally dazzling him with her smile.
"Oh thank God." he said.
"What?" she looked puzzled.
"Um, sorry….er…yes you can." He rummaged in his bag and pulled a folder out, all neatly labelled - he didn't have a reputation of being a nerd for nothing.
He passed it to her, meeting her eyes briefly before blushing and looking away.
"Thanks, William, you're a life saver." she said, giving another dazzling smile that he totally missed. She then went to sit next to Willow.
Oooooo
Willow passed Buffy a note as the teacher, an older woman nearing retirement age, droned on and on about something; Buffy couldn't remember what- Mrs. Walker had a tendency to ramble. William Pratt normally kept her on track by interrupting her and asking the correct questions to get her to return to the subject in hand, but he'd been silent for the whole of the lesson so far.
Buffy opened the note.
(So, why did you ask William for his notes? You could have borrowed mine. What's wrong with your notes anyway?")
Buffy scribbled her reply.
(Nothing wrong with my notes. Just wanted to talk to William.)
Willow read it and passed it back.
(Why?)
Buffy looked at her and raised her eyebrows at her best friend.
"Oh!" exclaimed Willow.
"Something to share with the rest of the class Miss Rosenberg?" asked Mrs Walker.
"No, no, sorry." said Willow.
Luckily the bell for the end of class chose to ring at that moment. Usually the last to leave the room, this time William was up and out of the door almost before the bell stopped ringing. Buffy and Willow made their way out of the classroom and along the corridor.
"So?" said Willow.
"So." replied Buffy innocently. "Ow!" she added as Willow punched her on the arm.
"Come on. Spill." insisted Willow.
"Nothing to spill really, I just sort of like him." said Buffy.
"Sort of like him? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well I don't know him really, but he is kind of cute, when he's not getting beat down by that goon Angel." said Buffy, "Feel a bit sorry for him too, I guess. I don't think he's really got any friends."
"Yeah, he is a sweet guy, I suppose." said Willow. "So what's your plan, Buffy?"
"What do you mean, what's my plan?" It was Buffy's turn to punch Willow in the arm. "I just thought I might see if he'll study with me one night, that's all. Just be his friend, get to know him a bit more." She grinned at her friend.
"And you decide this when there's only four more days before school's out for the summer. Timing much?" said Willow.
"I know, but it was just when Angel had a go at him at lunch, it was just so mean and no one stood up for him. They just kept watching. I'm not going anywhere this summer and neither are you or Xander, so I thought if he was around we might get him to join in with us a bit. It might make his senior year a bit more fun when we go back."
Oooooo
William hurried home, glad to be out of the way of the likes of Angel, but as he neared home his pace slowed. When he was at school he longed to get home, away from everybody, but when he was at home he equally longed to escape to school.
He walked along the streets heading towards his home. It was in a shabby neighbourhood and his house was one of the shabbiest - the paint peeling from the woodwork, a few shingles loose on the roof, the picket fence at the front, more broken down than erect. He walked up the steps into the porch and unlocked the door.
"William? Is that you?"
"Yeah Mom, it's me." he replied, "Who else could it be?"
He couldn't remember the last time anyone had called round. The house was a mess and William had long ago given up trying to keep the place neat. His mother was as much of a mess as the house she lived in.
William walked straight into the only tidy room of the whole house, his bedroom. He threw his bag on the bed and hung his jacket over the back of the chair near his desk. Unlike the rooms of most boys his age, he had neither a computer nor cd player. They couldn't afford them, but one wall was lined with shelves of books, mostly paperbacks, all of them tattered but lovingly stored alphabetically by the surname of the authors. They varied dramatically in type, from Shakespeare and Dickens to Dean Koontz and Jim Butcher. They were bought at second hand bookstores, apart from the odd pristine hardback, sent for birthdays or Christmas by his Aunt Julia from England, his Mom's twin sister.
His father had disappeared when he was eight years old. He hadn't been sorry; he'd been beaten by him too many times to regret it. He'd beaten his Mom, too. He disappeared after the night William had found him in a drunken rage, viciously hitting his mother. He'd tried to stop him, putting himself between his Mom and Dad - he'd tried to protect her. Instead he'd ended up in hospital for a week, like his mother, and had never seen his Dad again.
He'd thought he'd just gone and left them until Angel told him one day that his Dad was in jail, the attack on his wife and son so severe that Steven Pratt was sentenced to eight years. He served two before another inmate stabbed him to death in the showers.
William had thought his Mom would be glad to be free of the man who hurt her so badly and so often, but she just fell apart, refusing her sister's pleas to return to her native England. Her self esteem so shattered by her ten years of marriage that she simply couldn't cope without him. She drank, and because of that she couldn't hold a job. They'd only managed to keep the house because of an insurance policy on his father.
"William, Come here baby, I've got something to show you." called his Mom from the kitchen.
William went through to see her.
"Hey, Mom." he said.
He didn't go over to kiss her or hug her, as she didn't like being touched.
"What is it?"
She looked less drunk than usual. She had a faint glimmer in her blue eyes that were so like his own. She handed him an envelope.
"Look at that." she said.
He took it from her and looked at it, he recognised the handwriting right away – his Aunt Julia. He looked at his Mom quizzically.
"Go on, open it." she urged.
He lifted the flap of the envelope and pulled out its contents – two plane tickets to London dated this Saturday with the return date the weekend before the start of the new school year.
His face split into a rare wide smile. He looked at his Mom in disbelief, but she was nodding her head, tears in her eyes.
"Yes, William, we're going to England for the summer. Your Aunt Julia's having us stay.
"Wow." breathed William, "Wow."
He'd wanted to visit England ever since he'd read his first classic novel, and now he was going. He was actually going to get to see London.
"She's sent some money so we can get new clothes for the trip. Think you could miss school tomorrow so we can go shopping?" asked his Mom.
William had never ditched school before, but remembered lunchtime and nodded his head quickly.
"That'd be great, Mom."
To be continued…….