Glade High

Chapter Two

Thomas stood outside of the large mahogany door, shifting from foot to foot as he waited. Ms. Paige had left him there after saying, "Just knock and then tell him Ms. Paige asks for him to show you around!".

So now, after at least ten minutes of waiting and multiple times pounding on it, the door finally opened.

In front of him stood a tall, rather muscular, African-American guy a little older looking than Thomas with a pissed look on his face. "What do you want, shuck face - " he began to snap before his eyes landed on Thomas.

Alby (is that what she had said his name was?) smiled in a way that made Thomas want to slap him and turned his face back into the room. "Hey, Newt! We got ourselves the Greenie here!"

Not knowing what that was, Thomas immediately expected the worst and growled, "Excuse me?"

Before he got a response, another tall guy (though he was thinner and lankier than Alby) with shoulder length blonde hair appeared in the door way, eyebrows raised. "Don't scare the guy, Alby," he said to his room-mate, an Irish accent lining his words. His left leg seemed to be held awkwardly, like he had a limp.

"I'm right here you know!" Thomas groaned loudly, trying to direct their attention to him. "If you guys are done ignoring me, Ms. Paige told me that you're supposed to be showing me around."

The two guys looked at him in surprise. Then Alby drawled, "Aww, Ms. Paige! I hate when she does this - I thought that Minho was gonna be showing him around this time."

"Get over it, shuck head," Newt sang, stepping out into the hallway and facing Thomas. "Yeah, we'll show ya around. What's your name, Greenie?"

"Thomas," he replied, shrugging his duffel bag over his shoulder again. "Who are you?"

Alby shoved his way into the conversation with a smirk as he said, "Newton Lawrence!"

Newt punched Alby on the shoulder and glared at his room-mate. "My name is Newt, and if you ever call me Newton, I will sic Griever on you!" He then looked at Thomas and whispered, "At least my name isn't Albert!"

Alby attempted to pull Newt into a head lock, but was avoided by his friend who ducked out-of-the-way.

"Who's Griever?" Thomas asked in confusion, though he was slightly amused about the whole name thing.

"Principle Janson's freaky dog," Alby replied as he batted Newt's arm away from his shoulder. The blonde haired guy was trying to use Alby as an arm rest. "It's demonic and hates all of us."

"Ugly slinthead, too," Newt added with a dramatic shudder. "It's this awful looking boxer dog with huge teeth that helps guard the school at night."

Thomas grimaced at the thought of a psychotic dog on school grounds. Then, he thought of something. "Wait, isn't Ms. Paige the principle?"

Alby rolled his eyes while Newt replied, "Janson's the vice principal and he's a complete and utter pedophile."

"Uh... that's nice?" Thomas offered, not quite sure how to respond to something like that.

"Alby'll show you around now," Newt told him, pushing his friend forward and then trying to drop back into the room. "I'll just be in here - "

"Oh no," Alby growled, grabbing Newt by the edge of his long-sleeved shirt. "You're coming with us. I will not be forced to introduce him to everyone by myself."

Newt yelped and snatched his arm away, pulling it close to him. He then seemed to realize what he'd done and blushed sheepishly. "Uh, whatever then, shuck head. Let's go show this Greenie around."

Thomas watched the whole exchange curiously, wondering just why Newt had that reaction to Alby grabbing his arm. Weird.

"So why are you guys here?" he asked as they walked down the hall. "I mean, everyone here never got adopted but...what's your stories?"

Alby grinned. "I terrorized all of my foster parents. They all adopted me for the state money, so in turn, I caused them hell. No one ever wanted to adopted me so I was sent here two and a half years ago. Thought I was smart enough to keep up with the school."

Thomas laughed. "I just ran away every time they were rude to me. I think I had nine different homes last year between being balanced between them all."

"Nice one!" Alby said with a laugh, giving him a high-five.

"What about you, Newt?"

The guy in questioned looked up as though startled and replied with a vague, "Oh, you know, normal problems. Too old to be adopted, that kinda stuff."

Alby stared at Newt as he said this, making Thomas think that there was more to that story, but he didn't pry. Making a sound of consent as the walked traipsed down the different dorm rooms, he asked, "What are you gonna show me?"

"We'll skip the meet and greet til lunch time, but now we'll just show you around the classrooms and outside and stuff," Alby told him, taking a left down a new wide corridor.

"Down here is the science room," Newt explained, nodding his head to a large room with tables and chairs all over. There was a large white board hung on the wall and a bunch of filing cabinets along the walls.

The math room that they showed him was basically the same.

"Interesting classrooms," Thomas mused. "They're very..."

"Unconventional?" Newt supplied with a shrug. "Agreed. You get used to it though. We have class outside a lot too."

"That's kinda neat."

"Yep."

Alby snorted in amusement. "You two are so eloquent with your words."

Newt grinned. "Shut up, Alby."

"Oh please, if you stopped hearing my wonderful voice you'd go crazy," Alby teased.

Thomas laughed. "Sure he would."

The next hallways he was led down all had similar rooms with the occasional bathroom or dorm room, but they stayed clear of the student rooms. Unintentionally, they ran into a few different guys, but they just waved and kept walking, wanting to wait until lunch to properly introduce Thomas to the whole school.

When the finished the top floor, which was just as huge as it looked from the outside with massively tall walls and expensive wooden floors, they took the stairs down to the first floor.

The first floor was made up of three separate living rooms, a very modern looking kitchen, two dining rooms with two tables each, three bathrooms, and two studies, plus a library.

"Damn... this place is huge," Thomas muttered to himself as Alby and Newt finished showing him the second dining room. "Don't you guys ever get lost?"

"You new Greenies get lost all the time," Alby assured him with a sarcastic grin. "But you actually get really used to it all. It isn't that hard to find your way around after a few days of living here."

Thomas nodded and peered out one of the windows that showed a beautiful spring day. "How old are you guys, by the way?"

"I'm sixteen," Newt replied off-handedly while limping over to one of the dining room chairs to sit down. "God, I'm tired. I can't believe Coach Jorge worked us that hard yesterday. I'm literally in pain right now."

"Stop your whining," Alby retorted good-naturedly. "And I'm seventeen. What about you?"

"Sixteen," Thomas told them, sitting down next to Newt. "So whataya guys do around here?"

"Play sports, listen to music, read, play in our band, be idiots, prank people, terrorize Janson, sneak into town, stuff like that." Newt ticked off the list on his hand, grinning. "We do a bunch of stuff here. It's not like we're regular boring boarding school kids."

"Oh, and the drama that goes on here is entertainment enough," Alby cackled.

"Really?" Thomas wouldn't have thought that an all guys school would be filled with drama. "Like what?"

"Minho," the two chorused at exactly the same time, in exactly the same tone. They both cracked up as Thomas watched, utterly confused.

"Our roommate," Newt explained.

"Flaming homosexual," Alby added with a laugh.

"Flaming bisexual," Newt corrected sharply, though he was laughing too.

"Drama queen."

"Sass master."

"King of the Pranks. Well, right after me that is."

By this point, the two friends were gasping for breath while they laughed. Thomas was completely lost, though laughing as well as Alby literally fell out of his seat.

"Sounds like... an interesting dude," Thomas concluded through his laughter. "He's your room-mate?"

"Oh yeah, you'll meet the slinthead eventually," Newt laughed, running a hand through his hair as Alby used his chair to try to pull himself up. "We'll introduce you at lunch. Let's go show you where we hold gym class here."

~WICKED~

Teresa Agnes sighed as she collapsed into her bed in her dorm room, completely and utterly drained. God, it was hard pretending to be a boy. Especially at an all guys high school.

As she laid there, she ran her fingers over her hair, which had been cut short. It was spiky and bristly, as opposed to the soft feminine style it had been before. Sure, Teresa had never been a girly girl, but her black hair had been long and wavy before she had managed to get into the school.

She still didn't understand why she had to be insane enough to go through with this. There were plenty of people who deserved it more! Of course, it was either fake being a guy or deal with an abusive foster dad, so her choice hadn't been too difficult.

So now she was Terry Agnes, a seventeen year old boy at Glade Highschool. It was quite the trick pretending to be a boy, since she quite obviously wasn't when she didn't try. There was a constant wrap around her middle which - cough cough - flattened her chest enough so that it wasn't awkward.

And then there was the constant state of baggy hoodies and loose jeans she had come to know. She didn't mind the look, not really, but sometimes it made her sad to look in the mirror or into the eyes of her best friend and know that they would never know the real her.

"Terry?" a young voice called from the other room of their dorm. "Are you here?"

Teresa sighed but sat up from her bed and leveled her voice out to a slightly deeper tenor. "Yeah, Chuck, I'm here."

One of her roommates, a twelve-year-old named Chuck Cooper with curly brownish red hair, walked into the room. He wasn't chubby, per se, but he was obviously still a kid and wasn't as filled out or grown up as a lot of the other guys in the school. He had trusting blue eyes that made Teresa want to hug him constantly.

"Do you know where Brendan is?" he asked while standing in front of Teresa. "I've been looking for him, but I haven't been able to get ahold of him. He has my math notes!"

Smiling sympathetically, she shrugged. "No idea, Chuck. Sorry. I think I saw him out by the track arguing with Minho earlier."

"Of course," Chuck sighed. "Thanks anyways. So did you meet our new room-mate yet? I heard he got here today!"

"I haven't seen him!" Teresa exclaimed, fake disappointment in her voice. Sure, she wanted to meet the guy, but she really didn't need another room-mate to hide her identity from. Two was bad enough. "Maybe we'll see him at lunch?"

"Oh yeah!" Chuck smiled. "Speaking of which, should we start heading down? Doesn't it start soon?"

Throwing a look at the clock next to her bed, Teresa concluded that it was indeed ten to twelve. "Might as well head down. See if we can find Terry on the way."

Afer a nod of agreement from Chuck, they were out the door.

~WICKED~

Thomas was standing outside next to a row of silver bleaches that stood to a height just above his head. He, Alby, and Newt were outside in the track field, watching an argument go down between two guys on the track.

"God, that's Minho isn't it?" Newt sighed, shaking his head. "He's an idiot. Why would he get into a fight with Brendan?"

"Because he's an almighty shuck head," Alby explained with a laugh. "C'mon, guys, let's go watch the show."

Amused, Thomas followed as his two new friends walked up to the argument. The other guy was tan and kind of petite looking with short brown hair and a rather feminine face. His hands were waving as he shouted in a high voice, "You idiot, you think I want to talk to you now?"

"Why not?" the other guy, who Thomas couldn't see, yelled. "It wasn't my choice to break it off! I see no reason I can't still talk to you and be friends!"

"You never tell an ex you want to be friends, slint head!" yelled the shorter guy. "It's like your kidnapper telling you to keep in touch!"

"Ouch," Alby whispered with a grin on his face. "Newt, should we help them before Minho loses his head?"

"I suppose so," Newt sighed, though he was grinning. "Guess you'll be meeting Brendan and Minho now then, Thomas!"

Thomas nodded and laughed. "Do these two argue a lot?"

"All the time!" Alby assured him.

"It's kind of amusing," Newt said. "Now let's go save Minho."

"OI!" Newt shouted. "MINHO!"

The guy turned and Thomas felt his mouth drop open into a 'o' of surprise.

Okay... so this guy was kind of gorgeous. Not that it mattered. At all. Because Thomas was straight. Probably. Most likely. At least, most of the time.

Minho - with sharp brown eyes, dark brown hair that just shined, and a smirk on his face - looked at Newt and asked, "Whataya want, guys?"

Alby walked up to him and threw an arm around Minho, smiled back at Brendan, and replied, "We want to save your sorry ass before you do something you regret. Like, say something offensive and have Brendan slice your head off with his karate chop."

Brendan scoffed. "Damn straight; I could take at least three-fourths of you shuck heads and Janson no problem."

Minho glared at Brendan but turned his smirky smile at Newt and Thomas. When he laid eyes on Thomas, he seemed to light up, slipping out of Alby's arm.

"So you're the Greenie?" he mused out loud as he prowled around Thomas.

Thomas glared at him and turned with him so that he was always in front of Minho. "Yeah, I am."

"Is that...attitude?" Minho laughed. "Oh please, Greenie, don't give me attitude."

"Yeah!" Newt piped up. "Because Minho is the only one here allowed to have an attitude, obviously"

"Got that right!" Brendan snarled. "And his ego is so big it's hard to move when you stand in the same room as him."

"Rude," Minho coughed, turning his gaze back on Terry. "Why don't you go play with Terry, Brendan?"

Rolling his eyes, Brendan stalked back across the field, all while flipping Minho off.

"Ruder!" Alby yelled to him, laughing.

"What's with him?" Thomas questioned, feeling his cheeks heat up as Minho stepped closer.

The Asian boy whispered in his ear, "He's just sour about our break-up." Thomas felt the hairs on the back of his neck prick up and he tried to fight off the blush on his face.

"Minho!" snapped Newt suddenly. "Stop flirting with the Greenie!"

"Yeah, shuck head," Alby sighed. "You have to stop freaking them out before they've even settled in."

"Sorry!" Minho sang, sounding not sorry at all.

There was a sudden tolling of a bell from across the school grounds. Startled, Thomas's head snapped up.

"LUNCH TIME!" the three students yelled at the same time, before taking off running across the field.

"Don't wait up, Greenie!" Newt shouted as they ran. "Or all the good food will be gone!"

Grinning, Thomas ran after them.

And this is the second chapter! :D Please review; it fuels my authoress inspiration juices. XD All of the lovely ones I got were simply fabulous! I wanted to hug each and every one of you. :3 14 REVIEWS ARE YOU KIDDING ME GUYS!? FOURTEEN. REVIEWS. ON THE FIRST CHAPTER. *explodes*

~Dani ;)