6th grader, Anthony Padilla, stepped out of the bathroom cubicle, still shaking slightly, but the main effects of the panic attacks had subsided. He walked over to the sinks, ran the taps, and looked up at the large mirror that had been vandalised with graffiti, ranging from dicks drawn on with permanent markers to initials scratched in with a compass point. Anthony looked at himself past the graffiti. He had recently cut his hair, but it was far too short for his liking and he vowed that he would never cut his hair this short again, his eyes looked slightly bloodshot and he had dark shadows underneath. He blamed this last detail on his panic attack and also the fact that he looked at least three shades paler than normal. He contemplated eating the remainder of the chocolate bar he had stuffed in his backpack at the start of his previous lesson, but a glance at his watch told him a lot of time had passed during his panic attack and he would be late to his science class. It wasn't much of a loss as the stench of stale urine had began to burn his nose.

He made his way to his science class along three corridors, at varying temperatures, with lockers at body height, some punched in and others unable to close fully. He reached his classroom with four rows of desks attached together with seven brick red, plastic chairs tucked under the entered his class and noticed that half the class was absent, including his teacher, Mr Johnston, so he opened his bag and reached round the bottom of his bag, where the chocolate bar had evidently fallen to, as he walked to the final row of desks where his place was. Having reached the back of the class, he abandoned his hunt for his chocolate bar, partially because he couldn't find it but mostly because he discovered a boy with brown hair, whom he had never seen before, was sitting in his place.

"You're uh...in my seat." Anthony had said awkwardly with a small crack in his voice on the first syllable. The boy looked up at Anthony, he had surprisingly blue eyes that were hidden behind a mop of brown hair, he had a long face and ears that suck out very slightly. He began to blush, out of embarrassment, when he realised his mistake.

"Oh I'm really sorry" he said as he began to get out of his seat. Anthony didn't want to make a bigger scene than what was necessary, and the kid was new so he wasn't to know.

"No. No, it's ok I'll just-" he stopped talking and just pointed to a stack of spare chairs in the corner of the room. He hated that most of his conversations were like this, brief and awkward. Anthony was shy enough as it was, this conversation had made Anthony uncomfortably hot and he felt as though his shade of skin resembled a tomato. Nevertheless he turned to face the boy, who had shuffled his chair to make space for Anthony. With his new chair in place, he took his seat next to the boy without saying a word. They sat there in silence as the class began to walk in, and finally Mr Johnston, who wore an atrocious mismatch of colours in his clothing. He wore his usual light brown shirt and a dark brown tie.

Ian watched the teacher as he said, "All right settle down class" to a completely silent class in a thick Irish accent. "We have a new member of the class joining us, Mr. Ian Hecox would you like to come to the front of the class?" Ian sighed internally, this was what he was dreading, being presented to the class like a showpiece . He got out of his chair, walked to the front of the class and stood several meters away from the teacher. Giving a short wave and a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, he prepared to return to his seat.

"Would you like to say something to the class?" No, I bloody well would not like to say something to the class, Ian thought. Nevertheless he stared at his feet, and mumbled, "Hi my name's Ian, and I like video games and stuff. Yeah." Ian quickly hurried back to his seat before the teacher could get him to say anything else.

When the boy, who Anthony now knew was called Ian, sat back in his seat, Mr. Johnston started saying how it was their responsibility to make Ian feel welcome. Anthony took the position he would be taking for the rest of the class, and every other class, arms crossed on the desk and head resting in his hands, looking alert enough not to be told off. As Mr. Johnston rambled on about the importance of recycling and the danger of landfills, while writing endless notes on the board which Anthony wrote down without taking anything in.

"Ok class. We're going to do something fun now," Anthony snapped back to attention after zoning out for several minutes "We're going to be creating posters on this topic in partners" Shit, Anthony thought. He didn't have any friends in this class, he didn't have any friends in the whole school but that was besides the point. Apparently this was not the case for his classmates who were looking at each other from across the classroom and calling to each other confirming that they woulds be working together. Mr. Johnston broke into this rambling by saying, "You will be working with the person sitting next to you" and a great groan erupted from the class.

General chatter broke out in the classroom as Mr. Johnston walked behind his desk, leaving the class to carry out their work as he labored on some marking.

"So, uh, I guess we're working together" Ian said.

"Yeah, I guess. My name is Anthony by the way" he said as he leaned over the desk and grabbed the blank sheet of A3 that Mr. Johnston had left on their desk earlier.

"My name is Ian" Ian said as he grabbed the paper from Anthony and wrote Ian + Anthony in the corner. Anthony noticed his handwriting was small and scrawled, unlike Anthony's handwriting which was messy and large. They began discussing what they should include on the poster as Ian wrote, "Landfills" in the centre of the page.

Anthony said very little as he copied down information from the sheet which their teacher had given him. When he had finished he looked over at Ian's side who was decorating his side with small drawings of flies.

"Hey you should put a gas mask there too!" as soon as he said this he regretted it, it was a stupid suggestion, but Ian looked at Anthony as though he had just told him the wonders of the universe.

"Yeah, that would be awesome! You should put some on your side too."

"What about stink lines around the title?" Anthony asked excitedly.

"Yeah! Dude we should just cover the page with rotting stuff, like potatoes-"

"- or diapers"

The two boys laughed at the immaturity of the genius that was their plan.

At the end of the lesson their page was covered in rough drawings of landfill related items with a few scrawled paragraphs of information hidden in between. They were still laughing at themselves as they walked out the classroom.

"Hey do you want to hang out at lunch?" Anthony asked as the hilarity of their actions died down.

"Sorry I can't"

"Oh right, thats ok. I just-"

"I was joking man. Come on lets go"

Anthony smiled as he lead the way to the canteen. He felt comfortable in Ian's company, the conversation wasn't forced, and their humor was the same. He wondered what would become of their friendship.