Weep not for an Angel.
Chapter one
"Come on Natasja! We need to get to English!" a short dark haired girl dragged her friend through the crowd of students. Her friend sighed and carried on reading. "Natasja, Mrs Brooks is going to take your book away if you carry on reading. And just out of interest, what are you reading?" she ducked down and took a peek at the front cover. "Marked? Are you seriously reading that again?"
Natasja shrugged and protested, "But these series are really good, you should read them!"
Lynn rolled her eyes and stepped into her English classroom, just in time to hear the teacher calling out her name in the register.
"Lynn?"
"Present," replied Lynn, dumping her bag onto the table and pulling out her books. Natasja did the same next to her and they both settled into their places quietly.
"Now girls, as you know, after half term, you'll be sitting your first controlled assessment." Mrs Brooks stood up and took a whiteboard pen into her hand. "Today, we're going to start planning it by building up a quotation bank on the two main women in the play. Please open your copies to page one hundred and nineteen." The girls in the class obliged, and soon the sound of flicking pages filled the room. Natasja and Lynn opened their copies of Much Ado about Nothing and kept turning the pages until they got to the one they wanted.
"I wander what this assessment is going to be about?" Natasja whispered.
"As long as it's easy, then I'll be fine." Lynn snickered.
"Right girls, I need a Beatrice." Mrs Brooks announced to the class. Instantly all the hands in the class shot up. But Lynn was the fastest. "Lynn, your Beatrice. Now I'll need a Benedick?" This time, no one put up their hand except for Natasja. She got that part. "Right girls, take it away."
"Kill Claudio." Lynn said with a flourish. She and Natasja were trying to make the dialogue as interesting as possible by making it dramatic. That kept the class listening, and the teacher was smirking to herself. They had read quite a lot. Nothing really happened in their scene, but when they got to the part when proclaiming love, a knock sounded at the door. A man walked in, followed by a boy and another man.
"Hello girls, how is English?" Mr Madden asked the class. Nobody answered, so Mrs Brooks took over.
"Well, we're just reading a bit of much ado. Lynn and Natasja are doing us the honour of being Beatrice and Benedick." She looked at the two girls for some help.
"Oh yes, we're having a great time," announced Natasja, crossing her fingers behind her chair.
Lynn decided to elaborate, sarcastically saying, "I absolutely love reading Shakespearean plays, and I am so lucky to be Beatrice!"
Mrs Brooks and Mr Madden smiled, the boy raised his eyebrows, and the other man remained expressionless. "Mrs Brooks, may I have a word with you outside please?" Mr Madden queried.
"Why of course," she replied.
Natasja and Lynn looked at each other, and then took this opportunity to mouth a conversation with their other friends across the room.
"Who do you think those two are?" Phoebe articulated silently while beckoning at the strange pair standing at the door. Eleanor beside her shrugged and went back to doodling on her book. Natasja looked thoughtfully at Lynn.
"I don't know, but there's something familiar about them." Natasja mouthed to Phoebe. Then she whirled around to Lynn and whispered, "Artemis Fowl." Lynn nodded.
Mrs Brooks re-entered the room. She ushered the man and his boy companion in and said to the class, "This is Mr Bashkir and his nephew, and they are here to observe a year nine class for a couple of weeks. They are going to need some guides. Anyone?" Mrs Brooks scanned the class for any raised hands. Nobody wanted to be with these two, they seemed dangerous in a way. The boy looked very dominating, and the man with him was very big. They were a very odd couple.
"I'll, we'll do it," Lynn raised her hand slowly, staring at Natasja the whole time, "I'm sure we can give Mr Bashkir and his nephew a fine time at our school."
"Thank you Lynn, Master Bashkir, would you please take a seat in between Natasja and Lynn? Yes, you'll have to move up girls."
Natasja shuffled to the seat next to her and swept her belongings to the side she was sitting at. Lynn tucked herself in forward while the boy squeezed past and sat where Natasja was previously sitting.
"Would you like a copy of much ado, Master Bashkir?" Mrs Brooks kindly asked the boy.
"No thank you madam, I fortunately know the play word for word, I will not have trouble following you." He stated. Mrs Brooks fell back silent; a little shocked as she had not expected the boy to answer in such an adult way.
"Well, then, why don't you join Natasja and Lynn in finding quotes which suggest that Beatrice and Hero are those things on the board."
"Very well, but I already have a considerably large amount of quotations for each category."
He shut his notebook and turned his attention to the girls sitting either side of him.
"I know your names are Lynn and Natasja. May I see where you have gotten up to?"
Natasja and Lynn had been talking enthusiastically until that point. When he spoke to them, they shushed and looked at him intensely. Upon hearing his request, Lynn passed her book to him and said, "We're not very far, but I expect you have plenty." She smirked at Natasja.
"Actually, you have everything I thought of, which is a pleasant surprise."
Natasja raised her eyebrows and said, "Why would it be a surprise?"
The boy looked startled. He wasn't expecting these girls to understand that he was insulting them, let alone come back at him. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant…I meant that it was nice to see someone as clever as myself."
Natasja and Lynn stared at him, then shrugged and got on with their work. The boy gave a sigh of relief. He had gotten himself out of that one in the nick of time. "At least they're not stupid." He thought.