As I mentioned in the summary thing, this is set right after the first book of The Gatekeepers, Raven's Gate, but before Evil Star. It's pretty much just about stuff that happens after the Gate thing is finished.

Disclaimer: I do not own this book. Or Matt, or Richard, or the Nexus. But I did invent all the teachers, the secretary, any students I mentioned that I didn't give names to, Ms. Inniquo, Alyssa and her gang, Gregory and his gang, and Ricky. They're all mine. (crazy power-hungry look)

Yeah. So. Review please? Maybe? I hope...

A Fresh Start

A hectic first day

Matt took a deep breath. He faced his new school, York Regional High School, with apprehension, remembering the conversation that had taken place just last night.

-----------------

Matt sat in the TV room, flipping through the channels as he had been for the past half hour. There was nothing relatively good on. Richard was in the kitchen looking for a job. Of course, the Nexus was still providing them with money, but he found he had too much spare time and was bored easily.

Matt turned the TV off and entered the kitchen where Richard was scanning the newspaper for job ads. He looked up as Matt opened the fridge.

"Well?" Richard said. "What do you want?" Matt shut the fridge and sighed.

"About school tomorrow..."

"No. We can't delay this any more. Besides, do you know how agonizing it is to live with a stubborn 14 year old?"

"I know. It's just that... at my last school, I didn't do so well..." Matt looked away out the window of the flat.

"As I've heard. But this time you'll have a fresh start and hopefully won't make any friends like Kelvin was." Richard looked back down to the newspaper. Matt resigned and went up to his room to finish preparing for his first day of school.

-------------------

Matt still stood in front of the high school as others rushed past. Some looked at him as they went by, intrigued by the student who they'd never seen before although it was far from the beginning of the school year. It was November, about a month after Matt had dealt with the Raven's Gate.

After standing in the same spot for another five minutes, Matt finally moved forward and entered the large building. He went to the office to get his class schedule, locker number, textbooks, and other things in that area.

He stopped in front of the desk and a sour-looking blonde secretary looked up at him. "Can I help you?" she said with a high-pitched whiny voice.

"Um. Yes. I'm Matthew Freeman, I'm here to get my stuff..."

The secretary rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a pile of textbooks that she handed to Matt. "This is your schedule," she began, holding out a sheet of orange paper. "We run on an eight-day timetable. Today is day five. Your elective class has been chosen for you; you'll be taking part in visual arts class. You have locker number 464, which is in the west hall of the school. Here's the combination." She gave him another slip of paper with some numbers on it.

Matt groaned inwardly. Visual arts weren't exactly his best asset.

"Have a nice day," the secretary added, though she didn't sound as if she meant it.

Matt found and opened his locker without a problem. He looked at his schedule. The first three classes before break were... math, history and visual arts. Great. Matt took the books he would need and headed off to look for his first class.

After wandering the school for a while, Matt found room 67, grade nine math. He took a seat in the back of the class just as the morning bell went.

The teacher, Mrs. Grant took her place by the whiteboard. "Hello class. Today we have a new student among us. His name is Matthew Freeman. Matthew, could you come up to the front of the class and tell us a bit about yourself?"

All eyes were on Matt as he made his way to the head of the class. He took his time. "Uh... hi. I'd rather be called Matt, not Matthew. I lived in London mostly, then I moved to Lesser Malling for a little while, and I just moved here. And... yeah, that's all."

"Thank you Matt. Now, let's resume our lesson on dividing and multiplying negative decimals..."

Matt did his best to pay attention in class, but after years of just letting his attention wander, it was difficult. Finally, the class ended and Mrs. Grant distributed their homework. Matt left the classroom silently and found his next class - history.

This class went basically the same as his last one had - he introduced himself to the class and history teacher Mr. Allens, even though a few of them had been in his math class, then he tried to pay attention as they discussed the Angles, who had governed England in the Middle Ages. Matt found it even harder to listen this time.

With no history homework, Matt found his last class before lunch, visual arts. He wasn't too worried; if he messed up on a painting, he could say it's abstract. But nonetheless it was intimidating.

The room had a few tables and art supplies all over shelves on the wall. Matt took his seat and waited for yet another teacher to ask him to introduce himself.

A stern-looking woman finally entered the room. She had dead-strait chestnut hair to her shoulders, and piercing grey eyes looked out behind small wire-rimmed glasses.

"We will be continuing with our collages. Ricky, you may show Matt where the art supplies are and inform him about our current project," she instructed with a strange, rather heavy but understandable accent.

Matt stood up and stayed where he was until he saw who he assumed was Ricky approaching him. He had brown hair a little longer than Matt's, and green eyes.

"Hi. I'm Ricky. Well, I guess I'll just fill you in. We're doing a project right now about expressing ourselves. We have to choose an important event that happened in our lives and represent it with a collage. There's poster-board and glue in the back on the bottom shelf, and we have magazines and books and stuff you can take pictures from over there by the door."

Matt muttered his thanks and was about to turn toward the shelf to get some poster-board when Ricky spoke again.

"I was in your math class you know... boring, huh? I never liked decimals. Just out of curiosity, how'd you get that scar on your cheek? It looks pretty new." Ricky examined the mark on the side of Matt's face with interest.

Matt touched the scar gingerly, the terrifying night at the museum flooding back in excruciating detail. The sharp pain as bone had cut into his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed out slowly.

"I'd rather not talk about it right now."

"Okay then. Good luck with your collage." Ricky returned to his seat and immediately began gluing loose bits of paper to his collage. Matt resumed getting his paper, glue and books to cut pictures from and sat back down.

An important event. No question about it - that would be what happened in Lesser Malling just weeks earlier. But of course he couldn't use that. As well as the fact that it was totally unbelievable, the Nexus had made Matt promise not to reveal to the public what had happened.

Matt thought about what he could use for his collage until he finally settled on the time he had won the junior public speaking competition in grade two.

Just as he was about to start looking for any picture that could possibly represent public speaking, the teacher came over to his desk.

"Hello Matt. I am the visual arts teacher, Ms. Inniquo. Welcome to my class. I would like to have a word with you after the lesson. Please stay after class." With that, she walked away and starting circulating the room, observing the students' work.

Matt looked down at his blank poster-board with a bewildered expression. What could he have done already to get himself into trouble? He picked up his scissors and started cutting out a picture of a microphone.

The class dragged by slowly, Matt worrying the whole time. He knew he shouldn't be too concerned, but he just didn't know what he had done. What if he was being expelled? What if he slipped and started shoplifting again? He didn't want to end up back in the care of someone like Mrs. Deverill again.

The class ended after what seemed like forever. Matt took his time putting away his project. After the classroom had emptied, Matt walked cautiously toward Ms. Inniquo's desk.

"Do not be intimidated, Matt. You are not in trouble." Matt was relieved at that, but even more confused. If he wasn't in trouble, why did the teacher want to speak with him?

Ms. Inniquo closed the door and shut the blinds. She flipped a switch behind a painting on the wall and turned to sit at her desk. "Matt, I am Ingrid Inniquo, a member of the Nexus."

Matt just gaped. Another member of the Nexus. Now he had met four of the 12 members.

"You were enrolled in this school, in this very class in fact, so the Nexus could watch over you. Although we had found a new gate being tampered with in Peru, we have already found another one quite nearby. As well, we have found traces of another of the Five. We would like you to help. Tonight, you must come to this address at 7:30 and you will meet the rest of the Nexus. You may bring no one. Have a good day." Ms. Inniquo finished by handing Matt a sealed envelope he thought must be directions to the rendez-vous.

Matt left the room wordlessly and went directly to the cafeteria. He bought his lunch and sat down at an empty table.

After a few minutes, a group of four incredibly blonde girls strutted over to where he was sitting. The one in the front seemed to be the leader. She had long, perfectly groomed curly barbie-blonde hair, perky blue eyes, and wore a rather exposing white tank-top and a pink skirt so short it made Matt wonder whether it really was a skirt, or just a belt.

"Hi," she said, sitting down next to Matt. "I'm Alyssa, but you can call me Lyssie." She fluttered her eyelashes. "My friends and I were just admiring you from afar, and we liked what we saw, so we decided to come admire you from not-so-afar."

"Um. Okay. Hi..." Matt said warily. Girls had never payed this much attention to him at his school in London.

"I was in your history class this morning, remember? Oh, of course you remember. You were probably staring at me the whole time!" Alyssa smiled, showing teeth so white they must have been bleached. Her friends giggled to show their support.

"So, I guess I'll see you around." Alyssa stood up and winked at Matt before she and her followers took their leave.

"Oooookaayy..." Matt muttered to himself. He looked to his right to see Ricky coming over.

"Hey, Matt!" he said, sitting down where Alyssa had been just moments before. "I see the popular chicks have taken an interest in you. They're chasing after a new guy every week. But they are pretty hot."

Matt did have to admit that Alyssa wasn't bad looking, but he just couldn't stand her. Her pushy, I-always-get-what-I-want attitude was too much.

"So, what was that about with the art teacher? Did you get in trouble or something?" Ricky asked him.

"Oh, that. I don't really know. I didn't really listen."

"Nice. What do you have next?"

Matt dug his timetable out of his backpack. "I have gym and french."

"French. Ouch. The french teacher is obsessed with grammar, so watch out for that. She's been on past-tense lately."

"Alright then. I'll make a run for it if I hear the word 'passé' then."

Their conversation was cut short as a group of rough-looking boys came over to their table.

"Matt, this is your first and only warning. Alyssa will be my girl, and you will not get in my way," said the boy in command. He had brown-blond hair and stormy grey eyes, with an athletic build.

"Uh, who are you?" said Matt.

"I'm Gregory, that's all you need to know. Just stay away from Alyssa, got it?" he said.

"Whatever, I don't like her anyway," Matt said coolly.

The bell which gave five minutes warning before classes resume went, and Gregory and his followers left.

"Well then. I guess I'll see you later," said Ricky.

"Yeah," said Matt. "See ya..."

Matt found his locker but the secretary had not given him a gym uniform in the morning, so he just made his way to the gym. He was supplied with his gym clothes there.

After changing, running a few laps for a warm-up and being briefly informed on the way gym classes worked, the work started. A man who looked about in his late thirties stood in front of the crowd of students.

"Today we're gonna start on our track teams. Today is a practice day, so you can get the feel of what you want to do, if anything, and I can assess your capabilities and cut you from the team in advance if you're too horrible!" He laughed heartily at his own 'joke'. No one else joined in.

"Now, go!"

Everyone went in their own direction, heading for a different designated area of physical activities. Matt headed to what he supposed was the running area.

Just as he was stretching to run the 50 meter track, he saw Alyssa coming over to where he was.

"Hi, Matt!" she said, smiling brightly. "You're gonna be a runner? I think that's hot."

"Thanks... I guess," Matt replied, finishing his stretching and taking a place at the beginning of the track. Alyssa squealed and took a place next to him.

"You can race me! I'm sure you'll win, though. You look really strong!" She imitated the way Matt crouched at the starting line and said, "Ready, set, go!"

Matt, desperate to get away from Alyssa, ran at full speed and was done before she was even halfway. He kept running, over to the long jump area. Unfortunately, Alyssa caught up.

"Silly, the race ended way back there! You still won, though," she said, and tapped him on the nose. Matt did all he could not to yell at her to go away.

The whole gym class went pretty much the same way - Matt trying to get away from Alyssa, but her following anyway. The class finally ended, and Matt showered and got to his french class, where the french teacher was grammar-obsessed as Ricky had warned.

At the end of the day, Matt caught the bus home, on second run (thankfully both Alyssa and Gregory were on first run) and got home around 3:30.

Matt entered the flat. Richard came in from the living room and saw him slumped at the kitchen table.

"So, how was your first day?"

----------------------

To clear up any questions forming in your mind, here are a few things non-readers may be wondering about:

-- Richard is not Matt's dad. He is sort of his adoptive parent. Make a lot of sense if you read the book.

-- What am I talking about - the Nexus, the Gatekeepers, Lesser Malling? If you really don't know, should you even be reading this story? I suggest you go read the book - Raven's Gate: Book One of The Gatekeepers by Anthony Horowitz.

So, yeah. That about sums it up. Don't expect me to update very frequently, as I have a bunch of other stories on the go. Happy reading! Review please...