A/N: Hi there! I'm Hannah and I'll be your author. I'm just going to pop in at the beginning of each chapter to give the disclaimer and maybe say a few things you need to know about the chapter. Like right now, you may want to realize that this is an AU in which the ages are bumped up about two years and the characters are placed in modern times, there are also two girls. If you don't like that sort of thing, turning back may be a good idea. Feel free to review and leave feedback. (I would appreciate it if you kept it civil.) Okay, now that that's out there, I do not own LOTF or any characters I use other than my own.
"Hey." He slid into the chair next to her, and Aubrey rolled her eyes, searching the room for somebody, anybody else. He leaned closer, and she scooted away slightly, until she was almost out of her chair. She didn't make a sound. People didn't just randomly talk to Aubrey, and when people did, it made her uncomfortable. "I said hi"
"Hi" She whispered. Phillip, who looked somewhat dissatisfied by this short response, got even closer.
"Guess what?"
"What?"
"You're stuck with it!" He cackled, and Aubrey rolled her eyes. How immature could people get? She examined the classroom once more, the prim, straight desks, all the same shade of beige, the whiteboard, and a lonely, unused television in the corner of the room. All she wanted to do was get out of that boring, plain school, but since it was her first class of the day, that might take a while. While she loved Algebra, she wished it wasn't her first class. She could barely speak first thing in the morning, let alone absorb the explained concepts. Probably why she was failing. Although, everywhere else, she had A's...
"Dammit!" A girl exclaimed, obviously frustrated by the worksheet, earning a sharp glare from their teacher, Mrs. Clement. Mrs. Clement was a short Scottish woman whose first love seemed to be the emotional torture of innocent freshmen. She was partly feared and partly respected, even seniors snapped into line when she passed in the corridors; for some inexplicable reason though, she was Aubrey's favorite teacher. Maybe it was her sharp discipline, or maybe that Aubrey knew that behind said strictness, she loved her students as children and would risk her life for them. Regardless of Aubrey's appreciation for her though, it still stood that most others didn't hold much fondness for her. The girl who cried out shrank back.
Hours seemed to pass, although the clock showed it to have been twenty minutes. Mrs. Clement tossed her book onto her desk, pacing over to the whiteboard. Her heels made a soft clicking sound on the linoleum. She pointed at the whiteboard, writing out an equation. X+16y-2= 4x. Aubrey threw herself into it, pencil scribbling madly. She attempted the equation, blazing along until she hit the -2. What the hell was she supposed to do with that? One boy in the back threw his hand up. He was gangly and awkward, with a long nose and thin lips. Bill was his name. He murmured something, and Mrs. Clement opened her mouth to speak, cut off by the bell.
"We'll pick this up tomorrow." She half-grunted half-sighed, scribbling the equation on a post-it and erasing the board. Aubrey struggled with her papers as people pushed past her, dropping at least four. She crouched, ready to pick the papers up, when a loud blaring was head. Mrs. Clement froze, but Aubrey leaped to her feet, rushing out the classroom door.
Once out, she immediately ran into a blond boy, a freshman like her, coming out of the French room. He glanced at her, lips slightly parted as if to frantically give an apology, but was swept away by the horde of students stampeding the hallways. People chattered in fear, and several were wild-eyed. Aubrey crossed her arms, hugging herself. She spotted her twin, a mirror image of herself other than the fact that Aubrey had a long scar across her cheek, had one arm draped around her girlfriend, whispering. Her mousey brown hair fell over her shoulders ands her dark green eyes glimmered.
"Phoebe!" She called, and the girl looked around, not noticing Aubrey."Pho-ow!" A girl stepped on her foot. Getting to the parking lot had never felt better, the cool April air rushed over Aubrey, even though her knee socks and skirt didn't allow for much of the breeze to touch her skin. It was a huge change from the hot corridors of the school building. Aubrey hated the heat with a burning passion, so being outside was practically heaven to her.
Like a whirlwind, the students were loaded onto buses. Aubrey sat net to her sister, head rested on the window. The evacuation plan had been: If we are bombed, we fly. That was it, that was the school's plan. She figured they were flying to America, but how could anyone be sure? Phoebe buzzed, rambling on and on about foreign politics and England's relationship with other countries. It was funny, while Aubrey always had a song from a musical floating about her head, Phoebe always had something to say about politics, she knew more about the subject than their father. But none of her knowledge would matter now, they were attacked, not like they could stop it. Aubrey closed her eyes as the bus drove on.