In front of a heavy, iron gate in the middle of a high, stone wall, stood a boy with black hair that was held up in the air with gel. On both sides of him stood two big, old looking suitcases of brown leather, waiting to be lifted up and be carried inside. The seventeen-year-old boy's green eyes studied the structure of the fence for a couple of seconds before they focused on what was behind it: three giant buildings made of old, faded-brown stone, the biggest one of them facing the boy while the other buildings two faced each other on the sides of the biggest one.
No people were to be found on the square of grey stone that separated the building, probably because everyone was supposed to be in class right now. The rest of the terrain was covered in grass and trees for as far as he could see.
Finally, he pushed the gate open carefully and took the handles of the suitcases in his hands, lifted them up and walked inside. He closed the gate with his foot and walked down the wide path that led to the square in the middle of the three buildings. Coming closer to the buildings, he noticed there were also narrow gravel paths that led to the back and sides of them.
On the top of the heavy, wooden doors on the front side of the biggest building, hang an old sign with letters made of stained iron. Dalton Academy it said. He pushed open the doors and was welcomed by the warmth of the building. Fortunately the school was more alive on the inside, a couple of people hurried down the hall, mostly teachers but he could also spot some students who were probably late for class. Then he noticed a student sitting down on a bench, who stared at him for a couple of seconds before he got up and walked up to him.
"Hey. I'm Thad." The student said when he reached him, after which he stuck out his hand. "You must be Jordan uhm.." He looked a bit uncomfortable while his ears started to turn red of shame. How could he have forgotten the new student's name ?
"Borgaard." Jordan helped him out. "Jordan Borgaard."
Thad raised an eyebrow and repeated Jordan's last name sheepishly, barely able to pronounce it.
Jordan laughed at the pronunciation of his name. "Borgaard." He said as clear as possible. "It's Danish." He explained.
"Ah." Thad looked relieved, he didn't feel so stupid anymore. How could he ever have remembered a Danish name ? "Anyway, welcome to Dalton. As you may have seen, it's pretty big here and you get lost easily. Even students who have been here for years still get lost sometimes. Imagine what happens to newbies sometimes .." Thad stopped talking and remembered what had happened to one of the newbies in the beginning of the school year. Even though the boy had been scared to death and locked himself up in his room for a week afterwards, Thad actually thought it was quite funny and he couldn't help the grin that appeared on his face. "Sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." He said while he straightened his face. "We have a plan of the parts of the buildings you're allowed to go. Be sure you take it with you where ever you go. I'll hand it to you later today. Let's go to your room first. Is that all your luggage ?" Thad pointed at Jordan's cases.
"I think so. I don't have much stuff. Is there anything special I should've taken ?" asked Jordan worriedly. He hoped he hadn't forgotten anything, he wouldn't be able to go home now.
"Not particularly, but most boys take a lot of stuff with them when they're moving in." Thad explained. "Shall I carry one for you ?" he reached out to take one of Jordan's suitcases.
"Here's your room." Thad said after walking to one of the side buildings and taking some stairs. They stopped in front of one of the many doors in the hallway. "Remember, fourth door on your left on the second floor." He pulled open the door and searched a couple of seconds for the light switch. The light flickered at first but finally revealed the room. "So, what do you think ?" Thad asked Jordan, who answered him with an approving humming.
"Bigger than I thought. A bit boring though, but-" Jordan got cut off by Thad who put his hand over his mouth.
"Shhhh." He hissed and looked around to see if he could spot anything suspicious. "Jordan, there are a couple of rules here. Rule one: Never say it's boring here. You'll start a riot or something worse." He explained.
Jordan looked surprised and confused, but got himself together quickly and removed Thad's hand from his mouth. "Okay .." he mumbled, and decided to leave it for what it was and shrug it off, not asking questions about it. "I'll keep that in mind." He said while took the luggage Thad had been carrying and walked over to the bed to placed his luggage there.
Then he took a look around the room. It was bigger than he thought, quite large actually. There wasn't much color in the room though, most furniture was grey or brown and looked kind of cheap, but it was okay. There was a dresser, a desk with a small television, a door (probably to the bathroom), a small couch, a coffee table and two beds.
Jordan turned to Thad who seemed busy with his phone. "Have I got a roommate ?" he asked curiously.
"Huh ?" Thad looked up from his phone. "Oh. No, not yet. Maybe someone gets to move in later this year. Maybe you'd like to move in with someone else you like or something. Who knows." He shrugged. "Anyway, done here ? I'd like to show you around a bit more before lunch break."
When the bell rang, Thad had shown Jordan the cafeteria and the common room, and they knew each other a bit now, there had barely been a moment of silence between the two boys. It turned out they were both giant computer freaks, Jordan a bit worse than Thad, they had no idea what they wanted to do in the future and they hated politics.
"Hmmm. That took more time than I expected. Anyway, would you like to come with me to cafeteria to meet some students ?" Thad suggested.
"Oh, sure. I mean, it's not like I have anywhere else to go." Jordan replied.
They had to walk to the other side of building and only half of the break was left when they finally arrived at the cafeteria. Thad walked straight to a table and dragged Jordan along. Before they arrived at the table, some of the students already greeted Thad.
"Hey guys !" Thad said happily when they reached the table. "This is the new student I had to show around, his name's Jordan and he's pretty cool."
"Hi Jordan !" a tall, blonde boy and a shorter, dark-haired boy chorused, followed by the others at the table greeting him too.
Jordan was surprised by the two boys who talked absolutely in synch. "How do they .. ?" Jordan whispered to Thad. The blonde and dark-haired boy at the table concentrated on the card game some of the boys at the table were playing.
"No one knows. They're not related in the smallest –they're not even from the same country, they don't have much in common, but strangely they get along really well." Thad whispered back.
"There's no need to whisper." The blonde said without taking his eyes of his cards.
"Yeah. We can hear what you say." The dark-haired who didn't take part in the card game said, pointing to his ear. "We've got excellent hearing." He continued.
"And even if we didn't, we would still know what you're saying." The blonde said.
"Exactly." The other one nodded while he stretched out his neck so he could see the cards of the blonde. "That one !" he pointed to one of the cards.
Thad shook his head. "Well, that's Jeff and Nick. They're weird, never mind them-"
"Oi !" the two boys chorused semi-offended, but Thad waved them away and continued talking. "This is David, a really good friend of mine, that's Flint, also one of my best mates, Trent, he's-well, actually they're all really good friends of mine so I'm going to stop saying that. So that was Trent, then there's Joey," he pointed to a short boy with brown, curly hair who waved at him and said hi,
"and Mark," he pointed at an also quite short guy with brown hair,
"then there's Seth," he pointed at a pretty tall, blonde boy who looked very muscular.
"and last but not least, my roommate Wes." He placed a hand on the shoulder of an Asian-looking guy who was caught up in the card game. "Oh, and Matt, Brian and Thomas are still at football practice, but you'll meet them one other time." Thad added quickly before he sat down at the old wooden table.
"Okay. Uhm, hi." Jordan said before he took a seat next to the blonde guy named Seth.
"So, Jordan. Tell me something about yourself." Seth turned to him.
"Okay. Uhm, my last name is Borgaard, I'm sixteen years old and I'm not good at talking about myself." Jordan answered, a little bit uncomfortable.
Seth laughed. "Well, it's nice to meet you Jordan with the unpronounceable last name. I'm Seth Morgan, I'm seventeen years old and I love sports and singing. I'm in an the show-choir of the school, they're called the Warblers. Most the boys here are Warblers too by the way. Maybe you've heard from us ?"
Jordan shook his head.
"Hasn't Thad told you anything about it ?" Seth looked surprised.
"No, not really .."
"Thad, you idiot ! You haven't told him about the Warblers ? You're in the council man, it's your duty !" Seth yelled at Thad, who apologized quickly and made up a silly excuse. Seth turned to Jordan again. "So, do you sing ?" he asked.
"Not really. I mean, not professional. I sing a lot actually, but only when I'm alone or just for fun. I don't really sing, if you know what I mean. I don't even know what I sound like. Maybe I sing pretty good, maybe I'm the worst singer you've ever heard .. I don't really care actually, I just enjoy it."
"Ah. Well, maybe the Warblers is something for you. You should audition ! Or just sing in front of a person here you trust and ask their opinion, maybe you really are a good singer. But since it's all new to you, I understand if you don't want to. There's no pressure." Seth paused for a moment. "Anyway, we almost won Regionals last year .. We had two great lead singers. But we let them sing a duet, they're boyfriends you see, and apparently the judge wasn't fond of gays .. Really lame, those judges. And the competition was really good, we had to compete against the old show choir of one of the lead singers, Kurt. He transferred to Dalton because he was bullied at his own school, but he transferred back to his own school right after Regionals. And now Blaine, the other lead and his boyfriend, has left us too."
"Ugh. Don't talk about that again, Seth. I don't want to hear a word about Blaine anymore." Flint complained.
"Don't be so hateful Flint, you would do the same for your beloved." David said while he lay a card on the table.
"No I wouldn't ! He and Kurt were just fine, I would never leave my friends for my love." Flint shot back.
A couple of snorts and giggles from the other boys followed.
"What's so funny ?" Flint asked angrily.
The bright blonde boy named Jeff snorted again. "Well, you have a history of girlfriends .."
"Quite a long history to be honest." Nick completed Jeff.
Flint banged on the table, causing the drinks on it to jump, and stood up. "At least I have had girlfriends." He shot back at the two boys who didn't really seem to care about that remark, and with one movement of his arm, Flint wiped all the playing cards from the table after which he grabbed his bag and walked away angrily.
"Hey, I was about to win ! Not fair !" Jeff shouted after him.
"As if you weren't cheating already !" Flint shouted back at him before he left the room.
Jeff put on an offended face. "Tsk. Me, cheating ? I would never."
Nick grinned, David gave Jeff an annoyed look before he ran after Flint, and the others simply sighed and continued with what they were doing, some of them did an attempt to continue their homework, and the students that had been playing cards started talking with each other.
Jordan was quite overwhelmed by this whole happening, and he found it even more surprising that it didn't even seem to bother the others.
The shorter boy with brown curls of which Jordan couldn't remember the name, crept over the floor to pick up the cards Flint had thrown on the floor. Since no one helped him, Jordan decided to. He bent down next to him, started picking up cards as well and handed them over to the other boy.
The boy looked up and took them from him. "Oh, thanks." He said.
"You're welcome." Jordan gave him a friendly smile. "Uhm, what was your name again ?"
The curly boy grinned. "I'm Joey. Joey Webb." He stuck out his hand.
"Nice to meet you Joey Webb." Jordan shook his hand. "Now tell me, why is no one bothered by all this anymore ? No one seems to care."
Joey sighed. "I know. It happens quite often, it's just Flint." He shrugged. "But on the other hand he's quite right."
"Right about what ?"
"Being angry with Blaine. He did leave unexpected. I'm quite pissed off about it as well, we all are. We don't hate him or anything, he is amazing ! He was a really good leader and singer, and he's one of the coolest guys I've ever met, it's just.. We thought we were closer than that you know ?" Joey started to wrap a rubber band around the cards.
"What exactly happened ?" Jordan asked while he folded his legs underneath him, making himself comfortable on the floor.
"Well, last year Kurt transferred to Dalton because he was being bullied on his old school because he's gay and we have anti-bullying-zero-tolerance .. stuff on this school. He met Blaine and joined the Warblers. Kurt and Blaine finally became boyfriends and we let them sing a duet at Regionals. We lost, Kurt's old school won. Kurt transferred back to his old school where he joined his old Glee-club, the club that won Regionals, and he really wanted Blaine to be in the same school as him in his senior year. So Blaine transferred to the same school as Kurt because he wants to be with him more often. It really hit us hard, we're all really good friends you see, and suddenly he tells us he's going to transfer which means both our leads have left and we have to compete against them this year .."
"That sucks." Jordan exclaimed.
Joey nodded. "Jup. We could really use some new members, but not many people have auditioned yet. Maybe they thihnk they're not good enough because we're quite a popular club in the school .."
Then the bell rang.
"Oh. Have to go to class. I don't want to be late, my teacher French is awful. I'll see you around, enjoy the rest of the tour in the school !"