Jason hated new schools. He had had way too many of them in the last little while, and as he looked over this one he tried to look on the bright side. It wasn't as big as the other schools he had been to, and he had heard that it was a pretty relaxed place. Maybe this place would accept him. Sighing Jason hoisted his backpack up on his shoulder and walked up the steps to the big red brick building, where a teacher was waiting for him to show him around.
"Are you, Jason?" The teacher asked smiling at him and held out his hand. "I'm Mr. Blofis" Jason almost flinched when he heard that name. Ouch that was not a good last name but he suppressed that urge, not wanting to hurt Mr. Bofis's feelings and took the extended hand shaking firmly. The justamary jolt of accidental electricity flowed out of Jason's hand and Mr. Blofis let go quickly.
"I'm the school principal, so I thought I'd come greet you." Blofis said trying to subtly wipe his stinging fingers on his shirt. "However I'm too busy to show you around I'm afraid. I'll get a student to do it. In fact..."
Mr. Blofis trailed off and looked around for something. Jason wasn't sure what, there weren't any students out here. At least not that he had seen and they weren't exactly places to hide along the shear exterior of the building and the small shrubs. Then Mr. Blofis looked up.
"Nico Di Angelo, how many times do you have to be told to stay off the roof!" suddenly there was a scuffling on the one story canopy over the door and a teenager wearing all black dropped down from it. Landing with bent knees and no wobbling to speak of like he had had plenty of practice doing that. "Shouldn't you be in class?" Mr. Blofis asked sternly.
"Mrs. Stanly won't let me back in her room after I killed her gold fish last week." The guy, Nico answered scowling and shoving his hands in his pockets.
"You didn't kill the gold fish, Nico." Mr Blofis's answer was patient as if they had already had this conversation. "You were sitting next to it and it died, you never touched it how could you have killed it?" Nico shrugged and didn't answer. Jason didn't know what to think of that interaction. Why would Nico have thought he had killed the goldfish if he had only been sitting next to it. Jason had no idea so he brushed it off.
"Well since you're not in class anyway you can show Jason around the school. He's a new student here starting late." Blofis said with a forced smile. He stood still for a moment then stepped toward Nico and reached out as if to put a hand on Nico's shoulder but he stepped back as Blofis stepped forward and Blofis gave up. "I'll talk to Mrs. Stanly." He said in a soft voice before Smiling at Jason one more time and waving to them both as he walked back into the school.
"Jason what?" Jason started even though he had only been looking away from Nico for a moment he had already almost forgotten he was there.
"Huh?" Jason asked awkwardly.
"Jason what?" Nico asked again sounding impatient. "What's your last name, you heard mine it's, Di Angelo."
"Oh umm, Grace, Jason Grace." Jason felt like an idiot for his pause, gods he could be so awkward sometimes.
"Huh, well Grace." Nico said managing to make Jason's last name sound almost like a taunt. He was looking Jason in the eye and for some reason Jason was having a hard time meeting Nico's dark stare. "Let's get moving." he turned and marched up the steps not looking back to check if Jason was following because, of course, Jason did.
They walked into the lobby, it had three halls branching off from it in a T shape and a staircase going up. Jason was surprised to see, a television in the right hand corner by the door. "This is the lobby obviously." Nico said sounding bored. "The Tv was a class gift from some year before I came to this school. So are the murals underneath the stairs."
Jason hadn't noticed the murals underneath the stairs, and when he did he was quite excited about it. He had heard that this school was pretty artsy, he hoped that students had painted it! Not that he was going to be going into the arts programs here, just he liked art and would like to know more artists. He would have studied the paintings longer but Nico was already moving on.
"Down that hall" he said Pointing to the left. "Are the special help rooms, the office, student services, help for kids with learning disabilities." Jason made a note of that, he would probably need to go talk to them about his ADD and Dyslexia before long. "Down there." Nico said gesturing to the other hall. "Are the academic type things, English classes, Religious studies, history etc." He gave his wrist a unenthusiastic twill before beckoning Jason to follow him down the middle hall.
Jason wished Nico would be more in depth about the tour but he wasn't quite brave enough to ask any questions. There was just something about the guy, maybe his black clothes, maybe the leather jacket, maybe the bulge in his pocket that looked suspiciously like it might be a knife that did not make Jason feel safe. He would just ask a more friendly looking student about it later and follow along for now.
Nico continued to the school, explaining that the middle hall was the math hall which half way down split again into a four way crossroads, the left fork going to the drama hall, and the right to the cafeteria. The middle hall continued after the gym as the shop hall with wood shops, metal shops, car shops and a couple rather out of place visual arts classes. The middle hall ended in a another hall which housed tech classes and photography. The library was tucked in the right side of the right hall, and another staircase up as well as a door outside at the end of the left hall. Nico took Jason up that explaining that the upstairs floor was shaped like an H with the psychology classes taking place in the first line (the one they were in), the second, language classes and music rooms in the horizontal part of the H and the final vertical one being cooking classes.
"Any questions?" Nico asked though it didn't really sound like a question and Jason knew Nico didn't want him to ask any. So Jason didn't, he shook his head feeling completely lost. It must of showed because Jason could see Nico struggling. He obviously didn't want to care that Jason had no idea what was going on but Jason got the impression that he did. Obviously the caring part won because after a minute Nico sighed and rubbed his hands over the bag's under his eyes that Jason hadn't noticed before.
"Do you have your schedule already?" Nico asked without looking up at Jason. "I'll show you where your classes are." Jason felt a surge of relief. Obviously Nico wasn't such a bad guy and as Jason dug his scheduled out of his bag he couldn't help but wonder what made Nico act like he was. Jason handed the paper to Nico.
"You're two grades higher than me." Nico commented dryly. That shocked Jason, maybe it was just how dark Nico was, but Jason had thought they must be that same age but if Nico was two grades lower than his grade 12, Nico, must be max fifteen years old. However Jason couldn't help feel a little grateful they wouldn't have any classes together.
"Okay so first semester you have metal shop, English, French and gym." Nico shook his head, Jason wasn't sure why. "Okay mister academics let's find you your classrooms. French will be up here so we'll get to that one first" Nico said before glancing down at the paper one more time and smirking. "Oh and I think we might share a gym class."
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