[A/N] And hello to you! I have returned from my er- year long break. I have to admit, I'm a bit wary about doing another chaptered fic after failing with both of my last two, but I'm trying desperately this time to get it right, and to actually finish something for once! I've even written the ending already, but no more about that, or me- we don't want to hear about me. So, here we are. This is my second attempt at a Waterloo Road fic, and my second teacher/pupil fic (not that we want more of them, but it's a little different to what you normally get). Hopefully Alex isn't too Sue-y. We'll see, eh?
Alexandra Ashman.
DOB- 13 May 1995.
She stared down at the sheet of paper on her new head teacher's desk, a list of facts that seemed so far from the truth, and frowned. Next to a flood of information was a portrait of her- a photo taken a few weeks ago. Her blond ringlets hung around her shoulders, framing her small, almost elvish face- with two blue-green eyes staring into the camera. She wouldn't exactly class herself as pretty, more as a sort of average. She wasn't terribly thin either- all in all making her appearance very normal- or very boring, as she liked to think. The only thing that she could say about herself that was particularly unusual was her height. At her last school, she stood taller than most of her classmates, which was almost embarrassing. It was hard to hide from someone when she was the tallest person around. She turned away from the desk, dismissing her thoughts, and instead prodded around the empty office, looking nosily at the randomly strewn pencils and pens, the sticky notes on every available surface, feeling slightly out of place, slightly embarrassed to be alone in the small room- but not as embarrassed as she was when the door opened as she was looking through a book that had been placed on the out of place sofa. She closed it with a large thump, and placed it carefully back where she supposed it belonged.
"Ah, you must be the new girl that Miss Mason was talking about." In entered a young-ish dark haired man, quite average looking. Alex supposed he was kind of handsome, but she dismissed him in a sort of 'not my type' sense. A blush rose to her cheeks.
"Y-yes. I er, I guess so... sir." she said nervously, but he didn't seem to notice that or the fact that she had been snooping around the place. "A-Alex Ashman, sir."
"Alex- ah, that's the one. Nice to meet you. I'm Mr Mead." He smiled, and edged over to the desk, picking up various forms and papers that were probably confidential. She wouldn't mention the fact that she'd been looking at them 5 minutes earlier.
"It looks like I'm your science teacher this year." She already knew, but nodded along as if she was dumbstruck. He looked up from the sheet- her timetable, she guessed- to look at her properly. He gave her another reassuring smile, and put the papers back in their place. "Right," he looked over to the door, expecting Miss Mason to just walk right in, but soon adjusted his gaze to her. "Er, your form tutor is Mr Budgen... Eh, you'll fit right in." Whatever it was about Mr Budgen, he didn't sound so sure that she would 'fit right in' there. She decided not to question him, and find out the hard way. After all, she didn't want to give him a bad impression.
"So, um. Sir." She started, edging a little closer to the door with a forced grin plastered upon her face. "Where do I start?"
When Mr Mead told her that she had Mr Budgen as a form tutor, Alex pictured a grumpy old man in a beaten up suit, hunched over at his desk with a newspaper and a frown on his face: and how right she was. She entered politely, knocking beforehand, and was greeted with a cold stare and an extended hand. She passed him a copy of the sheet that was on Miss Mason's desk, and he took a glance at it, grunted, and nodded to the back of the classroom. She sat reluctantly, looking to her left and right. On her left sat a boy with dark curls, who grinned at her friendlily. Sat next to him was a short, elfish girl with brown hair. She looked around his large torso and waved, her face spread into a large smile. To her right were two girls, both very different in looks- a redhead that was pale as snow and a tanned girl with the craziest tight curls Alex had ever seen. They didn't give her a passing glance, so she pretended to dig in her bag for something that didn't exist, trying to avoid her classmates' attention.
"Hey," someone called to her left. She looked up and saw the two grinning at her.
"So," said the girl, leaning over her friend. "What's your name, then?"
"Alex." She gave her an uneasy smile.
"I'm Ros." She looked up at the boy quite adoringly. "A-a-and this is Philip."
"Nice to meet you." He said awkwardly, drumming his fingers on the table. "What's your first lesson?"
"Er," She tried to remember her timetable by heart. "English, I think. With Miss... Hopewell?"
The girl looked at her sympathetically. "Tough luck. Me and Philip are with Mr Budgen. He's a good teacher and all, but I wish we had Mr Clarkson. He's the best."
"Yeah," piped up Phillip. "Mr Clarkson's the... bomb."
Alex was just about to reply when a bell sounded, and chaos started in the classroom. Everywhere she looked, students were grabbing bags, pushing one another, kissing, hugging, shouting, play fighting, running...
She supposed she should just get used to it. This was her life now. Ros and Phil walked her to her classroom, waving her goodbye, promising her to show her around at break. She smiled uneasily, stepping from the corridor into what looked like the depths of hell. All around her people were shouting, fighting each other, throwing things. Their teacher, who Alex assumed to be Miss Hopewell, was stood at the front of the classroom looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. Alex introduced herself- when Miss Hopewell has shouted loud enough to make the class quieten a little- and she was seated next to a girl with a scowl on her face. She was quite pretty- dark skinned, with big brown eyes and a hard stare.
"So, where'd you come from, then?" Alex peered down at the front of the girl's English book. Michaela White. Miss Hopewell Hopeless. English. She looked up to meet her stare.
"Er, London, actually." She gulped slightly. Michaela White seemed like the enemy to almost everyone. She certainly was to Miss Hopewell.
"So you're one of those posh, stuck up folk, then." She leaned back in her seat, peering at her. Not even showing any kind of threat, just... staring. But it was one of the scariest moments of Alex's life. She hated that, feeling like she was being judged. It was terrifying for her. It was so daunting, and worry seemed to swallow her alive.
"I don't know what you mean." She looked back to her desk anxiously. Michaela laughed, but not at her. With her.
"Oh, calm down, will you! I mean one of those." She nodded towards one of the girls near the front, who had different uniforms on than everyone else in the room. Instead of the usual red and yellow ties, they sported ties of green and black.
"Good god, it's like the great battle of Hogwarts...' Alex mumbled to herself.
"What?"
"What?" She echoed, looking back to her. "Oh, nothing." She paused, looking over to Miss Hopewell. "So, what's the matter with her, then?"
Michaela crossed her arms over her chest, frowning slightly. "It's not our fault she's a crap teacher. She lets us walk all over her. So that's what we do. It's a right doss, English."
"I see..." Alex raised her eyebrows, watching Miss Hopewell potter around the classroom, trying to catch the attention of the class. "You should give her the benefit of the doubt, you know. She must be new. It's got to be hard doing this job, surely."
Michaela looked at her curiously, wondering if she was joking or not. "Are you serious?"
"What? I'm only saying."
Alex wondered if Miss Hopewell had ever had control over a class in her whole life- she doubted that it was even possible. Michaela snorted, shaking her head in pity. "Well if you want to live I'd suggest you stop 'just saying', yeah?" Alex nodded slowly, writing her name half-heartedly on the front of her exercise book that had just been placed on her desk.
In fact, Michaela wasn't that bad, once you started talking to her. She was almost normal- well, as normal as you could get for Waterloo Road, Alex thought, drawing faces in the back of her book. She had realized pretty soon that this particular English class wasn't to be bothered with. She felt rather insulted- she wasn't a bad student, she wasn't very bad at English, and thought that rather a lot of her class were still reading books for children- if they read at all, that was. Perhaps she should have said something; but she didn't want to make a fuss. She made a mental note to talk to Miss Mason or Mr Mead when the bell went, to catch up on how she was doing.
Break time came eventually, and even the rush of people and teachers through the corridor was slightly more peaceful than the class that she had just been in. She said goodbye to Michaela and traced her steps back to Miss Mason's office, where she knocked on the door, and was startled when an unfamiliar male voice called her in.
"So you're the new girl, mm?" Immediately Alex didn't like the way that he was peering at her. He looked down on her as if she were scum- as if she was as bad behaved as one of her English class. He looked her up and down, inspecting her, judging her. Alex forced a smile and nodded, looking down at her hands nervously.
"Alexandra Ashman, sir." She looked back up at him as he sat down behind a desk much like Miss Mason's, and gestured for her to have a seat.
"I'm Mr Tyler, Alexandra- I'm surprised that Miss Mason didn't tell me that you were here already." He seemed to grit his teeth as he forced out the sentence, narrowing his eyes slightly. "I'm the assistant head teacher, along with Miss Mason."
Alex found herself gulping, biting her lip awkwardly from loss of words. "Well… It's only my first day here; I've only had English so far. Actually, I-"
"Ah, yes, English." He pulled out her timetable, looking for the name of her teacher. "With Miss Hopewell…" He sounded surprised. "How did it go, eh?"
Alex shrugged, wanting to say something about the horrific lesson she'd just sat through without sounding disrespectful. "It was all right, I suppose. I don't think that Miss Hopewell would agree, though."
Well, at least that got a small chuckle from him. "No, I expect not. She's a good teacher, is Miss Hopewell. Very skilled- she just needs time to warm up, that's all." That's definitely not all, Alex thought, but kept her mouth shut and hummed, pretending to sound interested. "She's only just started here, you know. I'm sure you'll both fit in here. We've got some… lovely… pupils here. You'll find a group of friends soon enough, won't you?"
"Oh, oh yes, Sir. I've already made a few this morning, actually." Alex perked up a little then, chattering about Ros and Phil, and even Michaela. Mr Tyler seemed to stiffen, something not quite right with him. "…Sir? Are you all right?"
He forced another lopsided grin. "Yes, of course- I just think that a girl like you… You've got a lot of potential, and it'd be a shame to see you waste it on a girl like Michaela Whi-"
"Max, I was just about to- Oh, sorry, I didn't know we had guests." Miss Mason burst into the room, looking almost hurt. Alex turned- oblivious to what was going on- and smiled at her, saying hello. Mr Tyler, however, did not. He rose out of his seat so quickly that if Alex had blinked she'd have missed it, and crossed over the room to Miss Mason.
"Rachel," he muttered quietly, but not too quietly for Alex to hear him. "Why didn't you tell me that we had a new pupil today?"
"Well, I left it up to Chris, actually. I was at a meeting, as you know I was."
"You could have let me handle it. You should have. I don't want to have to keep reminding you to alert me of these things. It's not professional- you shouldn't have left Chris to talk to her."
Miss Mason breathed exhaled slowly, and turned to face Alex, her voice rising back to normal volume to address her. Although she had now taken on a friendly attitude, Alex thought that she could see the steam practically rising from her ears.
"I think that we shouldn't waste any more of Alex's break time, don't you, Mr Tyler?" She smiled at her, and Mr Tyler grunted angrily. Alex made short small talk with Miss Mason and left in a hurry. She was glad to be out of there.