Disclaimer: Don't own.
"Um..." Tatiana White cranes her head to read the name scribbled on the paper. And, boy, scribbled really is the right word. She can't even make out any of the letters. "I think we're supposed to be partners. For this...thing," she finishes lamely after realizing she doesn't know how to pronounce the name of their class presentation project. She and her friends agreed that Spanish was more widely used in California than French, which was her only other option. She heard Spanish spoken several times and knew the basic-basics. Extremely basic-basics. Like hola and amigo. Oh, look at her, repeating words for emphasis like her four-year-old sister. Her younger cousins think her sister (nicknamed Baby Ana) is annoying but they admire Big Ana plenty. Five of her cousins living in California are girls and there's one boy, Adam. Two pairs of twins and lone Adam again. Adam is thirteen and going through a teen rebellion stage.
"Ten more minutes!" Sra. Ellis calls out loudly, playing with a dry-erase marker and rolling it between her hands. She's a new teacher here and her voice goes alarmingly high when she's excited. Which is always.
"Oh my gosh," Ana says, super-fast, like she does when she's about to panic. "How are we going to do this? How am I going to do this? Oh my gosh, you're not going to help are you? Okay, okay, Ana, take a deep breath and calm down!" She takes in gaspy, shuddering breaths and keeps on going until her hands stop trembling with nervous energy.
The albino sitting next to her calmly scrawls something in his notebook and pops a cookie in his mouth. A whole chocolate chip cookie. Ana watches in horror as he chews four times and then swallows.
"That's going to ruin your teeth, you know. All that chocolate and sugar and it's only eight something in the morning. Didn't you have breakfast? Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and it helps your metabolism. Never skip it. Here, have an apple."
And Tatiana is off on mother-hen mode again. See, this is what babysitting does to you. Once, she bumped her knee on a desk or something and exclaimed in her loud, cheery voice that her boo-boo was fine and didn't need a band-aid. It was just a little scratch that clotted after half a second. Then her brain caught up with what she said and she ran out with the hall pass, excusing herself to go to the restroom to clean it up.
The boy quirks up an eyebrow at the apple but accepts it with what could maybe considered as a very, very, very weak smile. On second thought...no, a long-lasting twitch? His teeth are hardly showing but - oh, is that chocolate?
"You have a chocolate smudge on that tooth." Ana demonstrates by tapping on one of her own pearly whites. She watches his tongue rub at a tooth not even close to it. "Five teeth over to the left - my left, your right...or maybe the other way around...hmm..." Ana makes two 'l' shapes with her hands and clarifies. "The second one. Your left, my right. A little bit lower and...you got it! Okay, dilemma over."
She can't help that sigh of relief but at least it earns her a small but all-teeth smile from him. My, are they beautiful. Perfect squares and white and looking surprisingly well cared for. The gums are a healthy pink too. He must floss daily. His teeth look almost as good as hers.
"Five more minutes!"
"Oh, f-flapjacks!" Ana blushes when she realizes she accidentally censored herself. High school kids cuss. And as a freshman, she is a high school kid. But, oh, the downside to loving little kids. Tatiana busies herself with skimming the directions of the assignment and smiles in relief. "Okay, not too bad. Hola, me llamo Tatiana White. ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Cuál es tu color favorito?"
The boy rips out a sheet of his notebook and sticks it in her hand, uncurling her fingers and folding them over the paper like it's nothing unusual. "Done."
His voice. Deep and not cracking at all like Nick's does. Well, Aster's is pretty deep too but his accent and... Wow, this boy's voice. He's barely taller than her from what she can tell (they're both sitting but she can meet his eyes directly without looking up).
"But that's not fair. You're not supposed to do all the work. It's my grade too and how would you even know my parts or if I'll know how to say them? You probably got all the personal parts of my lines wrong. Do you even know my name? What if this little skit becomes the first F I ever get?" Ana would probably babble on for a lot longer, but the boy is giving her a death glare.
"Just. Read. It," he growls, yanking the blue hood lower over his face.
She nods meekly and makes a show of reading it. But... "Your handwriting. Sorry, I can't read it. I got as far as the date...which is all in numbers...and, um?"
He groans and drags a pale hand over his face before hurriedly explaining the roles and Tatiana finds herself nodding appreciatively. This guy is smart. She probably won't remember much of the words and her pronunciation is absolutely horrendous (on her defense, this is the first day of Spanish 1 and he doesn't sound much better) but their presentation will be about a blue chair, a gray office swivel chair, and eight yellow pencils. Also, he is going to sing the ABCs at random intervals and that chick song (the one with the chicks an the chicken getting cold or something; he doesn't even know the meaning of it, just the first two verses) and then they will bow. See, the thing with a very limited vocabulary is that there can be no plot and at least their presentation won't be the 'hello, my name is' and 'let's be friends' that basically the whole class is stealing from the textbook.
Jack (that's his name; the teacher just called them up to present) starts by counting the pencils and Tatiana exclaims the color. They end by Jack offering her the blue chair of amigos which she accepts with a corny smile and Jack spins once on the swivel chair and they both stand to bow.
Sra. Ellis gives them a standing ovation and praises their creativity (though it's not like she really had a choice; they stole the poor woman's chair). The class is doing the best they can to disguise their laughter. One girl is having such a dramatic coughing fit that the teacher said she could postpone her skit for the next day.
Ana shares a smile with Jack who also looks like he's valiantly trying to suppress giggles.
What a lovely way to start her first day of high school, Tatiana thinks to herself after Jack snorts embarrassingly loudly. She does burst into giggles then too and when an image of Jack singing the chick song and flapping his arms pops in her head, she shrieks with laughter.
Sra. Ellis is trying to keep a straight face, but the happy crinkles at her eyes give her away.
"We are brilliant," Ana says to Jack with the familiarity of an old friend. She throws an arm around his neck and is pleasantly surprised when he doesn't flinch away. "Come on." Tatiana takes his cold hand (it's a hundred something degrees out and he's wearing a hoodie but the school AC is questionable) and they sashay back to their seats. Or, rather, she sashays and he looks at her oddly but mimics her walk when she stares back at him for maybe a bit too long.
The rest of the presentations are dull but the teacher is still captivated by her first-ever students so it's easy for Ana to sneak a note on Jack's desk.
'Just to make sure, are we friends?' It reads. 'CIRCLE yes or no'
Jack considers this.
Tatiana drums her fingers on her binder.
He bites his lip.
She mentally swoons over his fabulous teeth.
He rummages around his backpack for a pen.
She holds her breath.
And the bell rings.
Jack gives up in his search for a writing utensil, looks up at her and gives a terse little nod.
Ana claps her hands excitedly before realizing her new friend is already out the door. She grabs her stuff, squeezes past the mass of people, and spots his white head immediately. "Jack!" She shouts, loudly enough for the people next to her to give her dirty looks and scoot away.
He turns and looks directly at her, tapping a nonexistent watch on his hand before walking off again, a tad quicker than before.
Tatiana curses under her breath and follows his white hair easily with her eyes. His locker is by the three hundreds, close to where Sandy's is. They share a class in two more periods so she can talk to him before lunch. Maybe... No. It's not worth it to lose her phone literally at the start of the school year.
Ana sighs and heads off to the gym. Oh, joy. Phys Ed. Her least favorite subject, if it's even considered that. With her luck in all things athletic-y, she'd get the meanest teacher with the weekly miles... And Aster wonders why she hates P.E. so much. It wasn't even like he ever had to take it, seeing how he was doing sports. Jumping jacks in second grade are very different from timed miles.
A/N: Hey. This is for CottonCandy1234's RotG Epic Battle of the Fanfictions. Prompt is high school AU; winner will be decided by amount of reviews at the end, so please review. This story is pretty slow moving and gets interesting in a few more chapters, meaning that's when the ghosts will pop up.