Chapter Three – That odd teacher
"Wake up you big idiot!"
Alfred found himself being shaken awake, woken up by an angry little British accent yapping at him. Groaning and rolling over to try and escape from the annoying little nags, Alfred attempted to fall back to sleep, only to be shaken even more violently.
"Get up! You're going to be late for God's sake!" The voice insisted. Suddenly there was a pause in the shakes, and Alfred was dropped carelessly back on the pillow, "Fine! I give up!" Footsteps… And the voice was gone! Alfred smiled to himself, curling up once more… Finally he was just about to go to sleep when…
"Take this, wanker!" The voice had returned! Alfred groaned, about the tell it to go away, when something cold and wet beat him to it. Spluttering to life and trying to escape from the freezing cold water that had been thrown on top of him, Alfred fell pathetically off the bed, crawling on the floor in attempt to escape the cold.
"What the hell was that for!" Alfred jumped up, pointing an accusing finger at Arthur who was very innocently holding a little bucket in his hands.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." The Brit turned his back, pouting. Alfred noticed that the boy was dressed in his full uniform, looking about ready to go out of the door.
"Hey, what time is it?" The American asked, searching frantically for a clock, forgetting completely about the bucket of freezing water Arthur had tipped on his head.
"Quarter to nine. Registration begins at nine o'clock, by the way. The last time someone was late they were chased around the grounds wearing only their underwear by the PE teachers," Arthur warned, a sickly-sweet amused smile painted on his smug face, "Apparently the head is getting a little more… imaginative with his punishments as of late. I'll see you in our form room, its room three in the technology department. See you later." And with that, the annoyingly amused Brit left the room, swinging his back across his shoulder.
Swearing loudly, Alfred jumped into the bathroom. Glancing at the shower he decided it would be too much of a risk to dive in it quickly. So, settling for splashing his face in more water, only warm this time, the American escaped the clean bathroom, pulling out his neatly folded uniform from the depths of one of his suitcases, throwing it on. He quickly ran into the makeshift kitchen and throwing something into his bag that he could hopefully eat in form for some sort of breakfast, noticing at the last minute with a grimace he'd chosen a packet of ginger biscuits out of everything. Without a second to spare, Alfred decided that he'd have to make do with the terribly odd and wrong-tasting biscuits, and with a final glance around the room he hastily pulled his duvet as straight as he could (… was he going crazy? He seemed to remember falling asleep without that last night…) and was out of the door with five minute to find the technology department and the third room in it.
After mindlessly wondering around for a few very precious minutes, running through corridor to corridor, Alfred decided that he was just going to get himself even more lost. He needed to find someone for directions and quickly – but there was no one around! Searching frantically, the American ran around like a headless chicken begging for anyone to show their face.
Finally, finally, finally Alfred came across a kind looking teacher, "Miss! Please could you tell me where the technology department is?"
"First right, and then your next left and you'll be right on track. Are you that new American kid? Alfred Jones?" She asked, grinning from behind a pile of paperwork.
"Alfred F. Jones, Miss!" He corrected pedantically, before turning on his heels and darting down the hallway, "But I gotta run! Thank you!" He waved as he ran, practically skidding around the sharp corners as he came to the turns.
Checking his watch Alfred felt a shudder of fear run through his veins – it was five past nine, and he'd finally reached the technology department. This was not going well.
Alfred waked as quickly as he could and reading the signs as he passed them – class one... class two…
"Finally! Class three!" Alfred cried in triumph, flinging the door open, preparing to be yelled at by their form room teacher. When the yell didn't come, Alfred inched an eye open taking a look around the rather spacious room, to find that only a few of the desks were occupied.
"You're kidding me! I was so late everyone left…?" Alfred frantically panicked, trying to remember what he had lesson one, until he scanned the few people in the tiny classroom and found Kiku, Feliciano, Ludwig and a very, very amused-looking Arthur in the back of the class.
"My, my, Alfred-san! You're very eager, not many students get to form early – most of them are still showering at this point." Kiku smiled, welcoming the American, standing up in welcome.
"W-what? Early? What're you talking about? Reg starts at nine doesn't it? I'm five minutes late! Please, please, please say the PE department isn't going to make me run around naked!" Alfred begged Kiku, tears forming in his sky blue eyes.
"Alfred-san, I'm not sure what you're talking about… Perhaps you haven't quite woken up from a strange dream…" Kiku stiffened awkwardly, suddenly very weary of the nonsense erupting from the American's mouth.
Arthur couldn't hold in his mischievous giggles any longer, "You idiot! I was winding you up! If the schools methods of punishment were as drastic and barbaric as something like that then I doubt our school would even be open! You really are gullible! And school starts at quarter past nine, stupid. If you'd read your brochure you'd have realised that."
Alfred's jaw dropped as if someone had just unscrewed a hinge holding the bones together, "You're kidding me! No, no, no, no, you can't have been winding me up! You – you…!" the American struggled to find words he was so stunned.
"Think of it as a little test. I was merely seeing how gullible you are, and that also proves that you didn't even open one of the many books Ludwig very kindly gave you last night." Arthur had a smug little grin on his face, obviously very pleased with getting Alfred into trouble from the German.
"You didn't read them? I thought you agreed that the history of the school was very interesting…" Ludwig muttered slightly, obviously trying not to blush at the fact that he'd obviously been boring Alfred to death with his lectures about castle-building.
"Nononono! It's not that at all! It's just last night I was really tired, and I went to sleep the minute I got in!" Alfred struggled – although everything he said was true, he couldn't shake off the guilty feeling that he never did plan on reading the mountain of books.
Nodding, but still blushing slightly, Ludwig smiled, "Okay, but really, don't feel forced to read the stuff… My brother never refrains from telling me that I'm a boring history geek…" He joked as lightly as he could, but knew that he bored most people, even Feliciano.
"Anyway, Alfred-san, here is your map." Kiku broke the awkward silence and handed over a little brochure, with a simple diagram of the large school and class numbers on each of the boxes that represented classrooms. Alfred counted mentally that this was the fifth map he'd been given so far, one off his mother, one off the head, two off some prefects, and now this. It'd probably join the growing pile in his jean pockets that lay on the floor in his new bedroom, but the American appreciated the gesture.
"Thanks Kiku!" Alfred grinned enthusiastically, "Hey, so do we wear uniform like every day here? You never get to wear your own clothes?"
"Nope~" Feliciano joined the conversation, "Only on weekends and holidays~! Of course we're allowed to change into our own clothes once school has ended, but other than that we have to stay in them~ I'm just glad this colour suits me!"
Alfred had to admit all four of the boys gathered in the class did suit their uniforms quite well. The American hadn't really stopped to pause and think what school would be like without his beloved bomber jacket and no uniform rules, and although it was a small thing, it felt pretty big. The uniforms in question were rather… different. The school's board seemed to have decided that they wanted to torture their students further, and therefore the dominant colour for the school uniform was purple. White shirts, navy blue ties, a purple blazer with the school's emblem graffiti-ing the chest pocket of it, and a sweater either beige or purple again could be worn if so desired. Alfred sighed, along with the navy blue trousers; it all seemed a little random and last-minute-designed, and none of the colours really worked together. It suited some people just fine, but people like Alfred? He much preferred his bomber jacket.
"Your uniform suits you too, Alfred!" Feliciano complemented him the best he could, though Alfred knew very well that there was no way his scruffy, half undone shirt, scruffy blazer and undone tie would ever look appealing in the eyes of neat little Feliciano, who had his tie practically strangling him, shirt, blazer and sweat-shirt all neatly ironed and nothing sticking out at an off angle. In fact all of the boys in the class so far – Kiku, Ludwig and Arthur, all had matching, neat and crisp uniforms.
All of them had to be gay…
God damn it, Alfred! The American cursed himself, don't judge others if you don't want to be judged!
But still gay.
Before any more thoughts could be thought or sentences said, the four, had they wished to bring up a conversation topic, they'd have been curtly cut off by the ringing of the school bell, signalling the official beginning of the day. Very slowly, twelve and thirteen-year-old boys made it through the dozen in their friendship groups, everyone in that same, sickly purple, wearing the same, practically cloned uniform. Everyone made it to their seat, a light chatter emerging, and Alfred didn't need to hear the re-occurring mutters of his own name and 'American' to know he was the topic of most conversations.
It seemed that whichever class he'd been placed in was a very full class. There weren't that many boys making their way through the door, but by the time they'd all taken their seats, there was only a single seat left – and I'm sure everyone can guess where that seat was situated.
Of course it was right at the back, next to Arthur.
Luckily it seems fate wanted to put off the inevitable face-off between the two roommates for a little longer as the form tutor waltzed into the room. To Alfred's surprise it was the kind-looking teacher he'd run into before. She was quite young for a teacher, and it must be pretty disgusting to stuck in a boarding school day after day full of high school boys, all of whom were experiencing puberty, without a single other girl to console with.
"Welcome back, everyone, now settle down for god's sake! It's like a bloody zoo in here!" The woman walked over to her desk and threw down a pile of papers, the echoing of the vibration finally shutting the pre-teenage boys up. "Thank you. Now, I hope you all had a enjoyable Easter holiday, and I'm going to pretend I didn't hear half of the rumours I was told from across the bar." She winked at the boys, all of whom looked a little guilty and amused at the same time, obviously replaying certain events in their minds.
While all this was going on, Alfred was standing in the middle of the class like a right douche bag, or that's what he believed. He felt more than a little lost and confused, but was glad he'd been assigned with such a nice teacher.
"Ah! Alfred F. Jones!" The teacher perked up when she finally noticed the American standing in the middle of the room, remembering his introduction to her, "you're in my form group, I see? Good, good! Oh of course, you don't know who I am, do you?" The woman smiled, "I'm Miss Héderváry, but most people call me Miss H, Miss or plain old Lizzy." Her grin resembled that of a teenage boy's. She'd obviously been teaching here too long… "Now come stand up here, I won't bite. We'll do this the old fashioned way!"
Obediently, Alfred ducked his head trying not to blush at the obvious attention. Usually the American would've lapped the attention up like a puppy drinking out of someone's cupped hand, but this time it felt like the wrong kind of attention – like he'd been captured by a native tribe, and they were discussing in whispers what to do with him. He even felt like an outsider to Feliciano, Ludwig and Kiku. Making very sure not to let his eyes move from his trainers, he stood at the front of the class like a seven-year-old, and let Miss Héderváry sling an arm round him and introduced the class to their new member.
"This, everyone, is Alfred F. Jones – and he's just moved here from America! Now, I know a load of you here are foreign, me included, and it's never fun moving to a new country. So if I hear any of you are being bastards to this poor kid then I will personally make sure that you'll be hanging upside-down the doorway of the Head's office, with only your underpants!" She winked at the class, sounding all too happy with her new method of punishment that'd been scribbled in the rulebooks in biro pen, "So Alfred, there's only one place for you to sit, and that's next to Eyebrows at the back there~! Enjoy yourself!" And with a rough pat, which was more like a shove on the back, Alfred was stumbling towards the only spare seat next to an annoyed looking Arthur.
"Guys, guys! Before you go back to your endless chattering, there's some stuff I have to tell you, so listen up, 'kay?" Miss Héderváry smiled empathically as the boys let out a groan in unison, "I know, I know, but I'll be kicked out if I don't tell you, for god's sake!" and then turned to the whiteboard and wrote in very large, marker-pen letters '1. RULE RECAP – No running in the corridors, no talking back to your superiors and for god's sake – remember to shower. 2. No bullying or I'll bully you. Full stop. 3. Form Teachers ≠ enemies (she wrote this sentence larger than the rest, and underlined it boldly) we're here to help you for god's sake!'
"That last point, people," She said, swivelling away from the board once her little list had been completed, "I'm deadly serious. A lot of people think it's stupid to suck up to teachers, but asking a teacher for help doesn't mean you're sucking up to them. You're all without your parents, and there's a reason parents guide you. So, while you're in this school, all your teachers are your parents and your classmates your brothers. Unless you're dating them, 'cause that'd be creepy, right?" The smile plastered on her face was a little too creepy for Alfred's liking, "And remember, it's okay to be gay. Really, really, gay is good! My door is always open. Now go and talk about the shit you guys like to talk about."
And everyone did just that.
Well, everyone apart from Alfred and Arthur.
Poor old Alfred was trying to recover from what'd just happened. He'd had weird teachers in America, but he was pretty sure this wasn't your typical British teacher either. What type of teacher threatens her students like she's 'one of the gang', as someone her age might phrase it? Who swore at their pupils and hinted heavily that they should all be gay? Evidently Miss Héderváry did…
"She is a little odd, isn't she?" Arthur answered Alfred's thoughts with a bored gaze.
"Understatement. And why does she call you eyebrows?" Alfred narrowed his eyes confused, but as soon as Arthur raised a rather bushy eyebrow, the American understood instantly, "and you're okay with her calling you that?"
"Hell no. I've told her multiple times that my name is 'Arthur'. She seems to be partially deaf though…" The Brit said almost to himself, reaching into his bag for some papers.
"Hm…" Alfred hummed in reply, watching the odd teacher from behind his glasses lens intently. She seemed to be flicking through some sort of book, a cute little smile on his face, "She's quite pretty, though."
Arthur sighed in relief, "Oh thank god you think so too! It's been ages since any boy in this place has passed by an attractive woman, and we're beginning to wonder if every female we see instantly becomes attractive just because they don't have male reproductive organs."
"Dude, it's called a dick." Alfred cocked an eyebrow, grinning when Arthur made a face of disgust at the word.
"Stupid American…" Arthur muttered, narrowing his emerald eyes. There was an awkward silence between the two, before Arthur took a deep breath, "I'm sorry for this morning. I probably shouldn't have done such a childish joke, or poured water on your head to wake you up. And yesterday… in the music room, I'm sorry for being so… melodramatic. You probably don't have the best image of me as a roommate at the minute. I just want you to know I'm not childish."
Alfred could sense Arthur was starting to babble slightly and grinned. By what he'd seen of the Brit so far, his pride was more important than his whole existence and that apology must've spent a hell of a lot of pride. "'S'fine, Eyebrows!" Alfred winked, lightening the conversation with the use of this new-found nickname.
"Shut it! My name is Arthur, not eyebrows!" The Brit fumed just as Alfred had planned, "And don't go thinking now we're friends or some shit like that! Just because we're not enemies does not make us friends! We're acquaintances – roommates, and it's staying like that!" The rambling continued, and Alfred just grinned and nodded, wondering how long Arthur would be able to keep up his cold-shoulder act. Alfred knew very well just how likable he was, and couldn't think of a single person that could hate him for more than a week. Yeah he was obnoxious and narcissistic twat, but a likable obnoxious and narcissistic twat.
The second bell for the day rudely interrupted Arthur's childish ramblings, and Alfred sent a prayer of thanks up to any God that was listening. The class rose in unison, everyone flooding out of the door to wherever their first lessons were situated.
"Alfred! Over here~!" Feliciano called, beckoning the American over to his side enthusiastically. Giving Arthur a smile of departure with the Brit quite pointedly ignored, Alfred made his way over to the juvenile little Italian who was waving like there was no tomorrow.
"Where are we headed now, guys?" Alfred grinned, absent-mindedly hi-fiving the budding Italian.
"It appears we all have English." Kiku informed. Alfred wasn't going to begin on asking how Kiku knew all of their timetables.
"This is a perfect time to explain the schooling system to you, Alfred." Ludwig coughed, beginning his explanation, "You see, unlike most large schools, seeing as this school is very small, the teachers have chosen to, rather than teach each year separately, group them all into two groups. There are two form groups in every year – class A and class B. We are in 8A, yeah? So the teachers group all the A-class year seven, eights and nines together, and then all the B-class seven, eights and nines, and the same with the year tens and elevens. So in total there are four classes, the numbers equalling around thirty to forty pupils per class. Make sense?"
Alfred processed the speech in his head before confirming he understood. What he thought Ludwig meant was they'd basically be in the same class as the 'year sevens' and 'year nines' – Alfred still thought of them as 6th and 8th Graders. "Yeah, I think I get it!"
"Though I do have to warn you – we have Mr. Alden teaching us…" Ludwig grumbled, obviously not too pleased, at Alfred's very blank, question-mark look, Ludwig slapped his own face in a facepalm of frustration, "The head teacher, Alfred."
"Oh! That guy! The one that treats Feliciano like a 'special' five-year old?" Alfred said not-so-subtly.
"Yes. Him." Ludwig grumbled. No one seemed to be too fond of the head.
As the four made their way down the corridors, pupils of all years were also making their ways around the corridors rushing to get to their lessons. All of them gazed curiously at Alfred, and some even stopped to introduce themselves to the American. But, before long the boys had made it over to the English department, and were safely sitting in a row right at the back, Feliciano promising Alfred to reserve a seat for him this time so he wouldn't be stuck with Arthur who was giving him the cold-shoulder approach.
As the boys took their seats in the large room, boys of all ages entered with them - both young, puny pre-teen structures of year sevens, and the tall, bean-pole and pubic-hair mess of year nines entered, along with your bog-standard year eights, a combination of year seven and nine alike – taller than the teeny sevens, but not as hair and sweaty as the year nine.
Well, saying that it seemed that these year nine boys were hardly hairy and sweaty, to be fair to them. Alfred recognised quite a few from passing them in the hallway – after all it was quite a small school. A few stood out as very individual and different, while others just faded away into the mess of people, just being an average person.
Once the entire class had settled down, sitting next to Alfred was a kid who he'd never seen before. He looked like one of the fading-away types, and nothing stood out about him other than his wide, violet eyes. Alfred only realised that the kid had been sat next to him for a while, and the American had only noticed him when ducking into his back to grab a pen, almost head butting the boy's shins in the process. Upon looking up to see who he'd almost bashed and apologies, Alfred met those very violet eyes, and instantly found himself smiling.
"Hey! Sorry about that, I'm freakin' clumsy, right? Sorry I didn't notice you when you sat down!" The American suddenly felt very guilty, but the boy smiled.
"Its okay – it happens to a lot of people, so don't sweat"! He smiled, "I'm Matthew Williams, nice to meet you." He held out a hand in formal greeting.
"Alfred F. Jones," Alfred winked, "You're from Canada?"
"You must recognise my accent… No one here can tell the difference between American and Canadian accents…" The Canadian boy mused, trailing off into thought, "I'm in your form class; I didn't introduce myself this morning - I saw you were having a conversation with Arthur." The Canadian glanced over at said Brit who was having a heated discussion with a brown haired boy that looked suspiciously like Feliciano…
Before the American had chance to reply to the quiet boy, a final body entered the class – this one thin and tall – taller than anyone else who'd walked through the door. Upon his arrival, the entire class fell silent – even Arthur and his annoyed little rants. The Head had entered, of course, and was glaring at the now guilty looking boys cowering in their seats. He did not look happy, and even Alfred could tell that this probably wouldn't bring the best outcome ever.
"Quiet – no talking what-so-ever. If I hear even a whisper, I'll personally make sure to go to the government and request that we bring back caning as a punishment, and if they decline I may just listen the 'rebel' inside of me and take it upon myself to bend the rules a little." The man almost growled, "Open your Macbeth copies to page seventy two – Act four scene three. I need two people to read out the parts…" The man's eyes searched the room, a glint of mischief in them, "Shane you can be Malcolm, and Colin as Macduff. Off we go then."
And thus started Alfred's first English lesson in this new, scary school.
A/N
Hello again :D Thank you for reading first of all, I really appreciate it :) Also, thank you if you've favourated/reviewed/followed – I bloody love you! XD
Okay so some notes~ :D
First, form is basically the British version of homeroom, a form tutor being the equivalent of a homeroom teacher. I don't want to sound patronising when I say stuff like this X'D it's just to avoid confusion :)
Second~ The head is an OC XD he's not some random fanmade character X'D
And also, I plan on including as many characters as I can, but some characters I really have no idea about (especially fanmade ones like Mexico, Peru etc.) so if you have a favourite minor character, there's not a guarantee they'll appear XDD maybe if I was asked specifically to include one, I might do a bit of research and stuff XD
Also – I don't usually update this quickly XD It's been a boring weekend, and I've had nothing better to do than write XD sorry ^^"
Don't forget to review!
Thank you very much :D