Marly POV
I walked alongside Phil as we made our way upstairs to Mr. Grayson's room. "Tell me about yourself," I said to him. I found his British accent adorable, and I wanted to hear more of it. Of course, I couldn't voice this opinion out loud. I was already worried that I had been too snarky, too sarcastic, and had already pushed him away from the possibility of friendship.
"Well," he started, "I like lions. And socks. And Muse, the band."
He liked Muse?! This was amazing. I marked him down as a possible new best friend. "So you're from Britain?," I asked.
"Yeah, it's a lot different from here. For one thing, your Fanta is, like, this radioactive orange. I honestly don't think it's safe." I laughed at his reply. We turned the corner and walked into Mr. Grayson's class. I sat down at my usual seat, in the very back corner. Unfortunately, Phil followed me, but then again, where else was he going to sit? I was counting on being alone so I could shamelessly scroll through pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch and David Tennant on Tumblr while Mr. Grayson was lecturing. Oh, the Tennant.
I heard a set of heels clicking toward our table and saw Holly and Alexxis, two of the "popular" girls, standing in front of Phil. I wasn't really a fan of Holly, but she was nicer to me than any of the other popular girls were. She wasn't as shallow and actually did well in school. Also, she never threw fries at me every time I passed her lunch table, which was a plus. So I didn't hate her like I hated her friends. I just sort of wondered why she was friends with them. Alexxis, of course, was a totally different story.
"Are you Phil?!" Alexxis squealed.
"Er, yeah," Phil said.
"OMG, I love your videos!" she exclaimed. Did she really just say "OMG" in a non-Facebook chat or texting situation?
"Um, thank you. Here, you can have…INFINITE WAFFLES." I sat there, watching Phil and Alexxis's exchange. What did Alexxis mean by Phil's videos? I felt a strange surge of jealousy. How the hell did Alexxis already know Phil? She giggled and lightly touched Phil's arm. This was not okay.
"Where's Dan?" Holly chimed in. Who the hell was Dan?
"Well, he's back in England. My dad moved us here for his work, so, yeah…"
"So, I was wondering if you'd like to come over this Saturday? Maybe I could show you around the city?" Holly asked. She did a little hair flip thing that really annoyed the hell out of me. Phil looked at me, a slightly terrified expression on his face.
Okay, first, let me get this straight. I did not have a crush on Phil, because, well, I already had a sort-of boyfriend, but I did get annoyed at Alexxis. Seriously, how did she already know Phil. Was he some sort of celebrity? I was bored, and considered taking out my laptop and scrolling through Tumblr, to look at the Cumberbatch, but I decided against it. For some reason, it seemed kind of rude to leave Phil on his own to these girls, especially since he was looking so uncomfortable.
"Um, no, sorry," Phil said, "I still have to settle into the new house." He smiled briefly at her and looked away. It was then that the tardy bell rang and Alexxis and Holly quickly clicked their heels away and sat back down at their tables across the room. Mr. Grayson was late, as usual, so Phil and I still had a bit of time to talk before he came in.
"What did she mean by your videos?" I asked Phil.
"Oh, I sort of do this YouTube thing where I make videos for the internet," he said, blushing slightly. I raised an eyebrow. "Not those kinds of videos!" he added quickly. It was obvious that he was embarrassed about it. I immediately pulled out my school laptop (and yes, the school felt the need to give every student their own laptop, which, to me was an incredible waste of money. Also, the school didn't feel the need to block websites. Not that I was complaining.) and went to YouTube. "Hey!" Phil said.
"Mkay, so I'm just going to need the name of your channel," I said. Phil shook his head. "Embarrassed?" I asked, smirking.
"I just don't need another fangirl," muttered Phil. Nevertheless, I typed "phil" into the search bar, and scrolled through a long list of channels until I found his face. Apparently, his channel was "AmazingPhil." Huh. How modest. "You've already found it, haven't you," said Phil, a little grumpily.
"Yep," I said, "And I intend to watch them the moment I get home." Just then, Mr. Grayson walked into the classroom. The entire room quickly hushed and turned toward the front, and I quickly closed the laptop, and stowed it away in my messenger bag.
"Good morning, class," Mr. Grayson announced in a pretentious, psuedo-British accent. He was one of those teachers who were fresh out of college and felt the need to prove themselves, even when it wasn't necessary. It was kind of funny actually, how often he was completely wrong about the subject material.
"Today, I will be assigning partners for your project, but first, we have a new student. Philip? Would you like to introduce yourself?" he continued, looking directly into our corner of the classroom.
"Er, y-yeah," Phil stuttered. He awkwardly walked to the front of the classroom. "Um, I'm Phil, and I just moved here from Manchester, England for my dad's work. So…" he trailed off. He looked at Mr. Grayson, who nodded at Phil, dismissing him from the front. Phil, who looked relieved, made his way back to our table and sat down. I heard half the girls in the class, giggling and whispering among themselves about his accent.
"Well that was a nightmare," Phil said to me, "Is Mr. Grayson some sort of posh person?"
"Nah, he's just faking it," I replied. Mr. Grayson was talking again, so I turned back to the front of the room.
"Now, for your group projects. I will be pairing you with one other person, with whom you shall complete the assignment. First, I'll assign the groups, and then, I shall go over what you students are to do." He rattled off a list of names, which I didn't really pay attention to. I just listened for my name and looked around the room for people who wouldn't be too bad to partner up with. Phil, of course, came first to my mind, but I had a feeling it would be too good to actually happen. My mind wandered over to my sort-of boyfriend, Connor (who wasn't actually in the class, I just started thinking about him), who I had a feeling Phil would get along with. If he did, Phil would be fully integrated in our friendship group, or, as Jenna, Connor, and I called it, our Little Group of Losers.
My reverie was interrupted by Mr. Grayson saying "Marly, since you already seem to be friends with Philip, you two can be in a group so you can show him our, ah, American customs." I internally cheered. I looked over at Phil and grinned. The teacher continued droning, listing off names of people I didn't care about. Were there really this many people in the class? Mr. Grayson reclaimed my attention by stopping and finally beginning to tell us what this huge project was actually about. He'd been casually mentioning it for the past few weeks, enigmatically inserting it into almost every lesson, generally being a huge douchebag about it. It was a little disappointing to see what it actually was, a simple book report, two pages double-spaced, on the book of our choice, except he had to approve it before we started.
"Well that was anticlimactic," I said to Phil, "He's been going on and on about it all semester, saying how amazing it was, but then it turns out to be just a book report?"
"I'm just glad I wasn't paired up with one of them," he said, gesturing toward Holly and Alexxis. They were complaining loudly that they hadn't been put together for the book report, which I found to be extremely hilarious.
"Yeah, that would have been pretty horrible. I'm sure if you were Alexxis's partner, though, she would be pretty happy," I said.
"Don't even mention it," Phil groaned, "But I'm glad we're going to be doing it together."
"Well, I look forward to getting to know you," I glanced at the clock. We were leaving in about five minutes. "What's your next class?" I asked him.
"Um, math with…Mrs. Byrd," he said, looking down at his yellow schedule. Dammit, I was hoping to get to know him better.
"Good luck with her," I said, "There are rumors that last year, she made a girl cry because the girl's sweater wasn't the right shade of navy blue." The rumor was actually true, but I didn't want to scare Phil too much, the poor guy. I'd had Mrs. Byrd last year, and while she didn't have too much against me, it was still a horrible experience. "So I'll see you at lunch then?" I continued.
"Yeah," Phil said, nodding and smiling.
"Meet me and Jenna in the library, where we were this morning," I said. We always eat there, because the cafeteria is usually a nightmare. Also, you might want to bring lunch from now on. You'll see."
We got up from our seats as the bell rang and walked away to our next class, Phil to math, and I to French, which happened to be the one of the two classes I shared with Jenna.