I DO NOT OWN ALEX RIDER OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS
"Alex!" Yelled a voice from across the busy hall, the boy in question looked up quickly spotting his best mate Tom weaving through the crowd to get to him. The young spy grinned and walked over to meet up with him,
"Hey Tom, how've you been?" He asked the young man who looked about ready to burst from excitement.
"I've been great, well aside from the fact that I almost murdered Chris and Jaylin for calling you all sorts of names," Tom made a face at the last part. Chris Marsh and Jaylin Pierce were the schools resident bullies, they had started a rumor about Alex that he was a member of a gang and did drugs on a daily. Normally this would not bother Alex but the two bullies had managed to get almost the entire school, teachers included, to believe this was true and because of it he had lost all of his peers respect and friendships. Well all but one, that was Tom, Alex had told him everything about MI6 so he knew where Alex would really disappear off to.
Then Alex felt it again, the feeling that he had very quickly learned to trust had returned and Alex knew something was off, for a brief moment he considered messaging Mrs. Jones and letting her know, after all he had never been wrong in situations like this but-
"ALEX! Hey earth to Alex!" Toms voice cut through this thoughts.
"Hmm, sorry what did you say?" Alex frowned shaking himself from his trance.
Tom shook his head and pointed to the clock just above the pair,
"I was just saying that if we wanted to get to class early so we can sneak in the back, we should probably go," he shook his head in humorous disbelief as Alex looked up at the clock.
"Yea your right, we should go," Alex said quickly pulling his bag off of his injured arm.
"You know I wonder sometimes," Tom said in a serious voice as they set off the hall at a brisk pace "how the hell where you allowed your special position if you can't even tell time properly," Alex chuckled, punching Tom good naturally in the arm.
When ever him and Tom where in public or around other people they referred to his job as "special position" and Tom was very keen on remembering this. Both boys made it to there home room before most of the class arrived, Alex opened his mouth to retort back but noticed a group of people sitting together to the left of them, not wanting to draw attention to himself he merely shot Tom a look of whatever. The two friends took there seats at the back of the room easily avoiding there classmates, he could hear the group talking and listened in on there conversation.
"Have you guys heard, druggie Rider has been to prison at least ten times in the past two years?" Chris said matter of factly. Alex rolled his eyes almost laughing at there ridiculous assumptions about him.
"No way!" Exclaimed a kid named Dane,
"Yea I heard about that, I also caught him shooting a drug into his arm a few months back," Alex did not recognize this person's voice so he leaned back glancing around Jaylin and spotting a young red haired girl sprawled on top of Chris who looked like he was absolutely loving his life at the moment. She reminded Alex of a starfish in a way,
"OMG that's so disgusting," whined a tiny mousy looking girl named Maria
The new girl nodded sadly putting on the fakest "I am so innocent I am scared for life " face Alex had ever seen.
"Why can't he just take a hint and kill himself," Maria shrilled in her high pitched voice. (in this story this sentence is meant to make the kids at Alex's school even worse, if this is really happening to you, you need to tell someone about what is going on so that things can get better, and they do)
"I got so sacred, I did not know what to to. Now I can't sleep because of it," starfish girl gasped out screwing up her face in an attempt to make tears come. Alex actually snorted with laughter at this, nobody heard him as he was in the back of the room. Chris nodded wrapping her in his arms,
"Well it's ok Demi, that freak is gone for now and I hope he never comes back," He said with way too much confidence as Alex smirked at the fault in his words. Suddenly the bell rang and students scrambled to get to a seat before their home room teacher Mr. Casey came into the class. He was a good teacher but had a low tolerance for jackass students who thought that they where so much better than him.
Seconds later the man walked into the class room, he was shorter that you would expect and had shaggy brown hair that was always pulled back into a ponytail, today was no exception.
"Hello class, good to see you back after the weekend. I am going to take roll call now, but by know you should know the drill, Alright, Terry?"
"Here," said a soft voice from the front row
"Val?"
"Present!" Yelled the obnoxious voice of the one and only Val Barnes. Alex sat quietly thoughts wandering back to the feeling he still had, he glanced around the class room his trained eyes picking out anything and everything different. There where two new posters on the front board, a jar of pencils had been refilled and Mr. Casey had turned his desk so that it was facing the class now.
Alex turned his vision outside, however there was nothing. Alex sighed and shook his head whatever it was it was gnawing at him but for now He could only ignore it and try to trust in the 24/7 MI6 surveillance.
"Alex, Aurbrielle-?" Mr. Casey said not even waiting to see if Alex was there
"Here," Alex called from the back of the room. This caused Mr. Casey to pause mid name and look up in surprise along with the entire class, they all looked back to Alex some looks where confused others where filled with hate.
"Well, umm, it's good to have you back Mr. Rider. I trust you have a legitimate reason for missing two and a half weeks of school? Yes?" Mr. Casey looked outright shocked that Alex was even at school.
"A old family friend died and I had babysat their kids when I was younger so I flew out there to see them and see if they where ok," Alex said lies flowing easily from his lips.
"Oh I'm very sorry about that, if you talk to there family again please tell them that I'm very sorry for there loss." the teacher said kindly, Alex nodded
"They are doing alright for the time. They just miss him a lot," he responded.
This was going to be the end of the conversation but Jaylin seemed to have gotten over his shock and a sneer filled his face,
"Yea! Maybe you should take some lessons on how to deal with a death like a man rather that turning to drugs and getting high every night!" He yelled at Alex, who only gave him an annoyed look and ignored him. Mr. Casey acted like he did not hear Jaylin and continued roll call before moving into weekly announcements. Alex could see that Tom was tense with rage beside him after Jaylins comments.
It took a while but after two MI6 stories later and many waisted sheets of notebook paper covered in the spy and his friends code, Tom had calmed down. Once the bell rang Alex quickly jumped up and was about to head out when Mr. Casey called over to the teen,
"Alex, I need you to stay a moment after class," Alex internally threw a fit, but his face remained impassive as students ran from the room. Tom gave him a questioning look wondering if he should go or wait for Alex,
"I'll meet up with you in class, don't bother waiting up for me," Alex said softly to Tom before he nodded and left.
"Sir?" Alex questioned walking over to his teachers desk holding his bag away from the gun strapped to his ribs despite the fact that the safety on the gun was on,
"I just wanted to ask, are you alright? You will disappear for weeks at a time and come back injured and exhausted, your class mates all seem to think you are a drug addict and are regularly in prison but I don't know," for a moment Alex considered humoring the teacher but shook his head, that was not an option seeing as it would only make the rumors worse.
"Thank you for your concern sir, really thank you," Alex spoke choosing his words carefully "but I'm ok really, Tom is helping through everything, he's a really good friend like a brother to me," Alex said smiling kindly although the joy never reached his eyes. Mr. Casey nodded seeming to understand
"Alright, just know that if you ever need anything you just need to ask," he said with a smile as he turned back to his papers. Alex headed out but paused in the door way and looked over his shoulder,
"Don't go digging too deep Mr. Casey, you will not like what you find," and with that he was gone.
