CHAPTER THREE 3: WHAT A COINCIDENCE

Name: Miley Stewart

A.K.A. secretly Hannah Montana

"DADDY! DOES JACKSON HATE ME?!!?!?" I screamed

"Honey its early why must you yell two feet away from me?"

"UGHH! GET UP DADDY DRIVE ME TO SCHOOL"

"What time is it- holy smokes it's quarter to ten! Why didn't you wake me up Miles"

Aggravated I answered in an impatient tone, "Daddy. If it were 9:45am don't you think I would've have woken you up. JACKSON LEFT! WITHOUT WAKING ME. I'M LATE!"

"I'll write you a note sweetie pie. Go get breakfast and I'll drive you."

I stomped downstairs and that's where I finally saw the note at the counter:

DAD! MILES! NO ONE WOKE ME UP! IT'S LIKE 10 AM AND YOU GUYS DIDN'T CARE TO WAKE ME UP?? OFF TO SCHOOL WITHOUT BREAKFAST AND GEE… THANKS GUYS.. WAY TO SHOW YOU CARE.

"Hah. You'd think he'd bother to check our rooms before leaving eh?"

"Okay daddy let's go. I'll apologize er-make him apologize actually."

Name: Oliver Oken

A.K.A. Smokin' Oken, I leave the ladies heartbroken, and everybody knows that I'm not just jokin'

"Have you seen Miley?" Lilly asked.

"Nope. But in Art I saw Jackson running through the doors… most likely they're late?" I said as I closed my locker. We were heading past the gym when we bumped into Jackson and his friends.

"Yo Jackson!" I yelled.

"Hey Ol what's up?"

"Where's Miely?"

"Uh, don't know. Don't care. Little twerp left me home without waking me and I rushed to school late."

"Jackson. Miley's not here." Said Lilly

"…OH MAN. You mean they're still at home? Dang-nabbit. They're probably ready to kill me."

"Oh, so you all slept in?" I asked

"Man you should have been there. We were basically up until 3 this morning. The crowd was crazy. And then we were so tired we missed our first flight, so we waited for another."

"Wow. Okay well that straightens things out." I said

"See ya Jackson"

We left Jackson as he headed the other direction probably going to sneak and make a quick call home.

Back to Miley…

I walked into the office having missed 1st and 2nd period, but at least in time for lunch. Sure I had breakfast but one bowl of cereal doesn't fill this girl. As I approached the front desk of the main office, I saw a guy in front of me who I didn't know. He turned around and we had that awkward moment thing. You know? Where you're going to walk into each other so you both decide unintentionally to step aside and let the other person go, but you both go at the same time? Then there's that hesitation about which side you should go to and in the end you bump into each other? Well for us it was a crash. I basically tripped. The guy was pretty good looking. He had a skateboard sticking out of his backpack, which so reminded me of Lilly. And what does klutzy Miley do? She crashes into him knocking over his books and papers. He must be new here since he was carrying all that. And now he knows what a klutz I am

"Sorry" I said as I rushed to help him.

"No, No. I'm sorry dude. I shoulda watched where I was going." The new kid said.

After getting all his stuff we got up, "Hi I'm Miley."

"I'm Ben, freshman" he replied. We shook hands and then the lady at the front desk asked, "Can I help you?"

I gave her my note and she let me go. "So are you new here?" I asked Ben. I thought he'd have gone already, but I saw him right outside the doorway looking at a map and his schedule.

"Is it that obvious?" he asked.

"Here let me see your schedule." He gave me his schedule and I saw he had a lot of classes with me. We had the same Spanish, science, algebra, study and drama classes. Lilly and I had everything together except for algebra and study. And Oliver only had science, Spanish, and drama with me. So that meant Ben would definitely meet them.

"Well you have most of your classes with me, and you probably have some classes with two of my best friends, Oliver and Lilly… so they can help you there."

"Sweeeet…do you have lunch now?" he asked

"Yeah, c'mon I'm starving."

As we walked to the café he was asking questions. One being, "So I hear Jake Ryan went to Seaview Middle… does he go here now?"

Of course the topic of Jake Ryan came up. You know I never thought about him much since he never really called. Sure I missed him and he called like once, but I don't know if I still like-him-like-him.

"Yeah he should be here. He's supposed to be back from Romania someday soon. Wait here's your locker we should stop and put some of those books away. I promise I'll forget your combo and not try to steal anything.

"Thanks. You know you're really kind to strangers. Hasn't anyone said, 'Never talk to strangers?' I mean what if I were some wanted convicted criminal."

I started to blush, and let out a small laugh, "If you were then you'd be a pretty young wanted convicted criminal who knows how to skates. My friend Lilly skates too…well she practically does everything a guy can do…sports wise"

"So you act this way to everyone? Even criminals?" he said as he closed his locker.

"Well definitely not everyone… but most. Anyways here's a warning: I'm known to be the loser of all losers. BUT! For the record, I'm a loser with a kind heart."

"Well any loser with a kind heart is a friend of mine. Consider yourself my first friend." He laughed. His smile was beautiful and his words flowed like in a dream. But this was real.

Finally we got to the lunch room, got our food and sat with Lilly.

Jokingly Oliver said, "And who is this young fella' "

"Guys this is Ben. He's new."

Everyone said "Hey" but Lilly and Oliver had a nervous look on their faces. We talked about stuff, but the whole time it was as if they knew a secret. Did they know something about Ben that I didn't know? Was their concern even about Ben?

Back to Lilly…

"Miles, Jackson told us it was a mistake. He thought you and your dad left him." I told her.

"Yeah, he left us a note. The only thing is, he should have at least checked to see if we were still there. Stupid concert had to last so long" Miley said. I gave her a look and she looked back realizing what she said. The three of us looked at Ben, but I guess when she said concert, he must have thought of her going to listen to a concert since he just kept on eating his lunch.

"So Ben, where are you from?" I asked

"I'm from Texas." Wow. Texas. Where Miley just was. Weird. Maybe he went to her concert…

"Wow really! Did you see Hannah Montana? I heard she had a concert there." I asked as Miley was giving me a death look.

"Yeah! It was crazy traffic though. My friends invited me and I flew back there since my parents already moved everything in on Sunday and the school said I should start on Tuesday. Then there was traffic of course and I ended up sleeping in til 9:00 today."

Oliver, Miley, and me were laughing on the inside.

"Isn't Hannah great? I just love her." Oliver said while eyeing me and Miley. We both could tell Miley wanted us to cut it out.

"Yeah," Ben said, "She kind of inspires me to write songs and stuff."

"You sing?" Miley asked?

"well I play the guitar and sing…sometimes."

We talked. Laughed. Got to know Ben more. But I think Miley got the message that something was wrong because she started to look worried after she saw our look on our faces. Something was wrong. Jake Ryan was somewhere in this café.