Me: Sorry if this is published a little late. I was working on my other story. And I'm lazy. Hey, it's summer! Let lazy people be lazy people. They're going to be lazy anyway! Anyway, here's chapter two. Iggy can see. I've never taken theatre so sorry if it's not accurate. I own nothing but my laptop.

Max: Enjoy! Ha, she thinks she owns her laptop...

Me: What?!

Nudge POV

We were sitting in Max's car gathering up our stuff, when I noticed Ella sitting in her convertible, the top drawn back. She was touching up on her makeup using the rearview mirror to look at herself. Her lip gloss shimmered whenever she tuned her head to inspect all angles of her makeup. I sunk down in my seat so Ella wouldn't see me. Once she was satisfied that enough makeup was on her face, Ella opened her car door and stepped out. She was wearing black boots that buckled up the side over designer skinny jeans. Her shirt matched her car, and cling to her form tightly. What's with my stepfamily and the color red? It was everywhere! Red dishes, and red cars. Don't get me started on the red themed parties that my oh-so-popular stepsister throws almost every weekend. Red is a great color, but a girl can only take so much of it before her head explodes. Max noticed me shrinking into my seat.

"You can't avoid her forever," Max warned. "You need to loosen up."

Snorting in what I'm sure was an attractive way, I said, "Sure, once I move away from the demons I am required to call 'family'."

"Well," she said, patting me on the shoulder. "One more year." We got out of the car and walked up the steps to the doors.

"Do we have any classes together?" I asked.

"Hmm, let's see." Max took my schedule and compared it to hers.

"Well?" I asked impatiently.

"We have language arts, theatre, and athletics together. Sorry Nudge, you're on your own for the other four classes." I groaned. Normally we had all but one or two classes together.

"What's first period?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Ah-ha! We're in luck, theatre is first."

"Luck? I'm not good at acting, or dancing, or standing out, basically, I'm not a theatre person," I complained.

"It is luck, because we have our first class together. Plus, you don't know if you're a good actress or not. You've never taken theatre before."

We walked toward our lockers to put our backpacks away. Finding locker number 1596, I entered in the combination 14-28-8 and pulled up on the latch. It swung open and I dug my binder out from inside my backpack before hanging up the backpack on a little hook at the top of the locker. Max was a few lockers down, doing the same thing as I was. She slammed the door on hers and walked back towards me.

"What did your locker ever do to you?" I asked.

"It wouldn't accept my combination the first time," she said simply. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, let's go to theatre."

We arrived at the stage, and everyone was standing around talking to friends. Then I saw him. He had strawberry blond hair that hung down near his eyes which were shockingly bright blue. He was tall and skinny, but you could tell by the way that he carried himself that he wasn't a wimp, and would have confidence in a fight. He had on a plain white t-shirt and some old jeans. He made it look like he was modeling. Mr. Mysterious was joking around with two other guys of about the same body build. One looked like he was Goth, wearing ebony skinny jeans, with chains and everything, and, you guessed it, a black t-shirt. His black hair was cut to cover one dark brown eye. The other guy had soft blond hair and eyes that were such a light blue that they were almost hazel. He had on a striped blue and white shirt on, and cargo shorts. All in all, an attractive group. The one that drew my attention the most was the strawberry blond one. I noticed Ella at that moment. She was staring at the same group of guys that I was. At the same guy. He noticed me looking in his direction. He smiled and gave a small wave. The others looked in my direction to see what was going on. I blushed and stared at the floor. I did not like the attention. I glanced up through my nose length side bangs. Ella's eyes were shooting daggers into me. I turned towards Max.

"What are those guys doing now? Please tell me they went back to their conversation," I whispered to her.

"I could, but I'd be lying. They're coming this way. Incoming! Oh, Ella is going to be ticked! This is awesome," Max said excitedly.

"Yeah, you don't have to live with her," I replied. "Please get them to go away,"

"No can do, Nudge my friend, they are coming whether we like it or not," Max said cheerily. And then they were in front of us. The strawberry blond one spoke first.

"Hey, my name's James. You can call me Iggy." I was shocked into speaking.

"Iggy?" He smiled.

"Long story," the other blond one cut in. "We should tell you sometime. I'm Gazzy by the way,"

"Gazzy?" this time is was Max who spoke.

"Yeah," Iggy said. "And Mr. Silent over there is Nick, also known as Fang to his friends."

"Hardly silent," Fang said. "I just picky on who I choose to talk to."

"Not to mention the obvious or anything, but you guys have really strange nicknames," I said, getting more comfortable talking with the group of guys. "I mean, where do all of them come from?"

"We might tell you someday, but don't be all mysterious. What about your names?" Gazzy asked.

"I'm Max, sorry, no special nickname," Max told them.

"I'm Monique," I said.

"Call her Nudge, it's what I call her," Max put in.

"And you say that we have weird nicknames!" Iggy joked.

Just then, the teacher walked in. She was plump and cheery. She wasn't very tall, I was taller than and her cinnamon colored hair was tied up in a bun. I looked at my schedule and saw that her name was Ms. Jones. She was smiling brightly as she introduced herself. Her brightly colored floral print dress suited her personality, or at least how I'd interpreted her personality. Ms. Jones gave me a good feeling. I guess her joyous mood was contagious. I caught sight of Ella out of the corner of my eyes, with a slight frown on her face. I guess the happiness wasn't contagious to everyone.

"...and welcome to theatre arts!" she was saying. "You'll learn what goes into making a production; the set, the technology, and of course, the acting. At the end of the year, we'll be putting on a play. We'll vote on what play it will be in a few weeks, then have auditions."

Well, I was for sure not going to audition for that. Even if it did seem fun...

"Now, since it's the first day," Ms. Jones went on. "I'll let you people go around and introduce yourselves to one another. No need to get down into the actual schoolwork so early in the year." Everyone else

"Does that mean we have to introduce ourselves again?" Max asked me.

"Sure," I replied. I stuck my right hand out. "Hello, my name's Nudge. nice to meet you." Max took my hand with hers and shook it.

"Hi Nudge, I'm Max," she said as we shook hands. Iggy and Gazzy burst out laughing, and Fang was chuckling too. Soon we were all reintroducing ourselves to each other. I was face to face with Iggy, laughing too much to talk. Finally, I was calming down. He was still chuckling when all of a sudden, all I could see was long, dark hair. Namely: the back of Ella's head. All humor from the situation left me at that moment.

"Hey," she said, trying to sound seductive. "I'm Ella Batchelder. You can call me Ella." I hate it when she uses Dad's last name. As far as I was concerned, she was, and always will be, a Walker. Not a Batchelder. I kept those thoughts to myself though.

"I'm James. You can call me Iggy," he replied, oblivious to her advances. Ella seemed frustrated for a moment, but she got over it before anyone else could notice. Moving closer to him, she placed a perfectly manicured hand on his chest.

"I'd like to get to know you, James," she whispered in his ear. There she goes again. I rolled my eyes and backed away. Seeing Gazzy talking to another group of guys, I went over to Max, who was in a deep conversation with Fang about kickboxing.

"I seriously think that a tornado kick is one of the most impressive knock outs you can do," Max was saying.

"Not really," Fang replied. "Some people make it too obvious. There are easier ways to knock a person unconscious," Fang protested.

"That's what makes it so impressive when it actually does work!" Max exclaimed. I didn't want to interrupt them, so I turned to go somewhere else just as the bell rang. I backed off so that I wasn't trampled by the herd of students stampeding to their next class. Glancing at my schedule, I saw that I had math next. Max wasn't going to be there. That was going to make this a lot worse. Oh, well. According to my schedule, we'd see each other again in fourth period athletics. Taking a deep breath, I entered the madness of the hallway. Room 209, room 211, room 213...ah. Room 215. Entering the classroom, I saw Iggy sitting on a desk chatting with some random guy. I think I'd seen him sometime during first period.

Noticing me, Iggy smiled and said, "So we meet again."

"I guess we do," I replied.

"Our conversation ended abruptly earlier," he commented.

"Yeah, that's Ella for you," I muttered.

"You know her?" he asked.

"Well, she's kind of my step-" I was interrupted by the door opening as the teacher walked in.

"Hello class," she said in a nasally voice. "My name is Ms. Wrathburn." Just then, Ella walked in.

"Sorry I'm late Ms. Wrathburn, I got lost," Ella said. Total crap, if you ask me. How can you go to a school for three years, and still get lost? She was either up to something, or I'm getting too suspicious for my own good. Or both.

"Yes, yes. Well, sit down," Ms. Wrathburn said. Ella sat down in the empty seat in front of Iggy, glancing at him and smirking before sitting down.

"Like I was saying," the teacher went on. "my name is Ms. Wrathburn. I believe in starting the year the way the rest of the year is going to go. With work." Many students groaned at this, earning a disapproving stare in return. She handed out a review worksheet for algebra. I loved that subject. I was great at it. I stared at the paper in triumph as Ms. Wrathburn went back to her desk. My eye kept straying in Iggy's direction. He seemed normal, but his shoulders were slightly tensed and he was fidgeting, showing his discomfort at doing math. I suppose math isn't his strong subject. I struggled from boredom through the duration of class before the bell finally rang, releasing me from the silent prison.

Science was next. Now this one was not my favorite subject. I was all right at it. Good enough to pass, but imagine the surprise on my face when Iggy walked into the classroom about fifteen seconds after I did, and Ella came in about five seconds after him. This was starting to get slightly creepy.

Mr. Martin walked in.

"Hey, class. We're going to play a game," our new science teacher said. The way the game worked was that the first person said their name. The next person would repeat the first person's name, then add their own. It would go down the rows, the list of names to repeat growing longer with each person who added to it.

It started with Ella saying her name. I had unwisely picked the desk back corner to sit in, so I was the last person to play. When it was my turn, I racked my memory and started listing off the names. I actually did it. My stomach growled loudly, but was thankfully masked by the bell ringing even louder. Lunch time.

Yeah. So, what play do you think they should perform? Review your answers, please. Your review can change the course of my storyline. I like to know my readers' thoughts.

Fly on,

Fighter