Petra was surprised to find Levi down with a cup of milk and some toast and ready to leave the next morning. "Probably more organized than the other guys." Petra quipped.
"I will never know."
"The bus comes in fifteen and I'll show you to the office."
"Thanks."
After a brief breakfast, the two headed outside. It was a short walk from their residential avenue to a slightly more active high street. On the high street, the bus would come to pick them up.
The stop was a regular, public bus stop. There were timetables for all the local routes, a small metal and glass shelter that formed the waiting area and a board for advertisements. Behind this, across some narrow pavement, was a small newsagent's. The store opened at the hour to accommodate the few students who bothered to buy a pack of Smarties or Randoms to fill their days with some more sugar. The one time a student bought a newspaper was to test their new illicit lighter.
Levi did not know as much of this history – in fact any of it, unlike Petra. On that day, they two were the first of the few rowdy students that waiting in front of the newsagent's on one end of the high street.
They stood in silence – a silence both knew they would grow to be comfortable with. Levi knew he would soon know every crack on the few tiles around him. Petra seemed to already be very enlightened on that theme.
After five minutes, the rest and the rowdier of the group came along. They walked from the opposite end of the town, from the apartments they tormented.
"Hey, ginge, who's the midge?" A tall curly-haired brunette said. Levi looked and was dismayed to find that everybody in the new group wore the same uniform as he – the white shirt, brown coat and green and silver tie.
"Ethan, you know she's Petra." A meeker, and shorter, auburn haired accomplice said.
"What? You fancy her?" The auburn haired backed down. "She's ginge, alright?"
"Whoever I am to you, you might as well ask midge himself who he is." Petra cut into the conversation.
"Alright then: midget, what's your name?" Levi looked up. "You deaf?"
"Levi." Levi said.
"What? Like the jean brand?" The third boy – a blonde also with curly hair of the same height as the auburn haired person asked. Levi shrugged.
"You new?" The leader, or the tallest who seemed to take that role, asked. Levi nodded. "And you think you're cool or something?" Levi shrugged. "Am I not worth words, your highness?" The tallest caustically sneered, hoping to elicit a response. Levi nodded, instead, and, unfortunately, not negatively. Everybody but the tallest gulped. "I propose a challenge." The tallest said, in an air of sanctimonious pride. "I fight you and if I win, you talk, if I lose, I call you 'your highness' all the time. Sound fair?" Levi wavered in a brief consideration of all his experience and all he knew about his environment. Cursing his social ineptitude inwardly, he nodded the manly affirmative.
With that, the tallest pounced. Levi threw a punch, surprised by the velocity of the assailant. The flail was entirely useless as the momentum of the heavier and stronger boy sent Levi down. Winded, Levi was not ready for the series of punches and kicks that followed. "That will teach you!" The victorious cried over his swinging fists, unleashing some unjustified anger that his miserable life caused a great accumulation of.
Petra stepped over a few seconds in, sending a kick at Ethan's ribs. Ethan fell over and Petra pinned him down with a foot – more symbolically than to actually keep Ethan down. "When you Neanderthals are quite finished, I'd love for you to leave my brother alone." She said, in a dangerous tone understating all the anger behind it.
Ethan gulped, though he would live to deny that fact. Petra let him go as he mustered the courage to ask: "so, does that mean I win?"
Petra looked at Levi. Gazing back at Ethan, she said: "We'll call it a draw."
Ethan nodded. The trio stepped away as Petra offered Levi a hand. "… She's dangerous…" He could have sworn to have overheard from a murmur from the others.
The bus arrived a few minutes later. Petra and Levi boarded after the trio and the bus swiftly set off. The simplicity was unexpected. It was obvious that the bus was a standard TfT (Transport for Trost) double-decker bus. The exterior was the default green bottom and white top with the paper identifier being only slightly altered to indicate that the bus was for a school. On the sides, adverts also hung. It was just a bus, Levi was dismayed to find.
Meeting his freshly lowered expectations, the bus' interior was blue with yellow railings sprouting at odd locations. The green seats began behind the staircase to the upper deck, which cut above the driver's large cubicle. The seats were in rows of two on either side of a narrow aisle. The aisle rose at the end to fit the form of the bus. The upper deck, which Petra was quick to choose, opened to a similar layout, except where the stairs cut out of the ground. Petra sat in the middle of the bus, taking the window and gazing out.
"Why not take the front?" Levi asked.
"More hooligans will take it up soon." Levi nodded. "You'd best stick with me if you don't want any more bruises."
"I thought you didn't like me."
"I said I had to adjust." Petra turned to look at Levi who had sat in the seat next to her. "And you'll need help at the rate at which you're going."
"Sorry about that."
"Misunderstanding me or the others?"
"Both."
"I can forgive you, but that would be useless. You'll need to learn to handle people." Levi nodded. "Were you like this at the orphanage?"
"Everybody ignored me from a young age." Petra frowned and nodded, understanding and concerned at the same time. After a pause, during which Petra turned back to the window, Levi asked: "I know you don't want to talk about this, but just for my understanding: how do you feel about me?"
"It's weird that you're so concerned."
"I'm sure that you're the best chance I have at a friend in this place."
Petra gave Levi a concerned look that was bewildered in its mock amusement. "I'm your sister."
"But you could end up hating me."
Petra sighed in dismay. "I don't know you, that's all. You see, I'm mercurial right now and at some point, the attitudes will cool down. You and circumstances control what I'll cool down to."
"So I have to mould your attitude towards me?"
"That's generally how it works." Levi opened his mouth and shut it. "At least now, you have a fair shot."
"Thank you."
"Also, don't worry yourself about it. I find you odd enough. Once we know each other's interests and have genuine conversations about those, we will know how our interactions are fated to be."
"I like biology." Petra turned to make eye contact.
"Weirdo."
"What?"
"I'm kidding. I like…" Petra mused. "I like history."
"And you think I'm weird."
Petra smirked. "What about bio do you like?"
"The human body – it's so complex and interesting, but so common, yet we don't understand it." Petra nodded, satisfied by that response's detail. "What about history do you like?"
"How people interacted."
"More like sociology?"
"I may try some of that stuff later, because there's nothing on it at school."
"How is school?"
"Fine – not too hard, the people are alright, the teachers are fine, the campus is fun and schools lunches are alright as well."
"Sounds average."
"It's hard to characterize the mundane."
After a brief, decreasingly silent ride, the bus reached the campus.
There was a curve next off the main street – Maria Street – that enclosed all the busses (a total of six, Levi counted) and had an exit to the parking lot. From the curve, behind a hedge, the campus sprawled its small plot. Two two-floored buildings filled the fields. Petra pointed out that the larger one formed the classrooms and the smaller had the offices.
First, they entered the offices, as Petra guided Levi, explaining the basic room numbering scheme.
"Mr Ackerman?" A bald, old, male teacher queried in reply to Petra's statement, explaining Levi's situation.
"Yes." Levi affirmed.
"Here is your agenda. You will need it for everything. Also, your schedule is at the back. Petra, right?"
"Yes, Mr. Plixis." Petra said.
"Lead him, will you? I think your classes align."
"Alright."
"Have a nice day. Tell me if you have any complaints." Plixis told Levi before turning away.
"Vice-principal Plixis thinks he knows every student's name and most of their classes." Petra said as they walked off.
"Damn."
"He wanted to be a cabbie, so he thinks he can do memorization."
"What?"
"The cabbies in Sina have to memorize every back alley and turn in the city centre and know every corner. He did a presentation on it."
"You guys have form period, good." Levi said, glancing over his classes.
"Come on. Can't leave Shadis waiting."
"Shadis?"
"Form teacher. Middle aged drill sergeant who would kill if he had the chance."
A few seconds later, they rushed into the form room. The room was actually a science room, Shadis actually being a science teacher and teaching in the room.
Form itself was boring – the idea was merely to keep a track of every student and awaken them for the long day. Occasionally, some of the staff graced the morning with an assembly. This morning, as Petra warned Levi, would be one of the more common ones.
Petra too was bored – she hard hardly any friends in her form because she had little in common with them and rarely saw most of them. Rico was one of the few girls she ever spoke to, and that was rare.
Rico, that morning, was engaged in a conversation about a group of people Petra knew of, but did not know. In the end, Petra sat down with Levi at the back of the room, happy that Shadis had grudgingly given up on assigning seats.
Levi was dazed, aware only that he had introduced himself as "um… Levi" to the form group before following a quiet orange blob to the next class – math.
The teacher was a nondescript middle-aged woman who seemed only capable of being a teacher. In any other profession, she would have seemed to be a misfit, but in the school's math wing, she was home. She did make Levi happy in one way: he learned that he was in no way behind compared to the others in his class.
In quiet conversations in the corridors, as the class headed to its next destination as a group, Levi learned of Hange – the chemistry whiz who could not stay silent unless she was catching her breath or threatened with detention.
After that, Levi sat through French, piqued by the genuinely French teacher who also revealed, through her thick accent, that his French was passable, if not good.
After that was a break – a short fifteen minute interval during which Levi met Petra's friends. The group was an odd one, with Hange half in and three other boys of Levi's class that he had not met. Erd was a tall blonde with a quick smile and a deep interest in economics. Gunther was a quiet intellectual pursuing math. Auro was a garrulous short boy, who looked much older than his years, and babbled nonsensically about his passion for art. Levi spent time with the group, clumsily introducing himself before Petra balanced it with her own observations – the most astute of anybody's within the school.
Then came the infamous class between break and lunch. It was mired in infamy only because it was between the two periods of distraction that the students were capable of and therefore, it was the hour during which the least attention was paid.
That hour, for Petra and Levi, was English. The class was studying Macbeth, which Levi knew he would have to catch up on. The teacher was raven-like. Her wrinkled face had black outlines and was topped with the fakest of jet black hair, leading to her ominous appearance. She also croaked. It was a painful, ceaseless croaking on subjects few cared about. It was a pain to hear and a pain to endure as the clock ticked towards lunch.
Lunch entailed the group favourite – tag in the forest. Behind the main building, before the football fields, was a small but dense wood. It was here that the foursome would bully Auro into starting as 'it' and proceed to enjoy their time while attempting to eat. Levi fared fairly well, making up for what his fists lacked in adept and agile feet.
After that, Levi found Petra at their next class (which she was smart enough to show him before lunch). There the two endured hearing Hange being excruciatingly enthusiastic about chemistry. The teacher did not help, being an old man of equal elaborate, loquacious learning.
After that, Levi was happy to be in biology. Mr Smith, the teacher, was one of the vice principals, adding an interesting gravity to the discipline in the classroom. Other than that, Levi was happy to know that his biology education – the one he did care about – would improve.
Then, on the bus back, Levi realized that he was in for a good life.
The day improved as Petra declared, sincerely to his eyes: "I think you'd make a fine brother." And so the molten iron of Petra's attitude cooled into a shape Levi came to like.
("It's hard to characterize the mundane." I hate it when characters say stuff that I would like to. Thanks, Petra!
Have fun!)
