CHAPTER3

Gabi woke up on Monday morning with a sinking feeling. She hated school at the best of times and now having Toby ignoring her and the school against her, made it even worse.

She tried her hardest to be invisible but she still found that she was shunted into walls and had names spat at her as she walked to class.

Mr. Ludlow caught her after her Math class. "Ah Gabriella, have you got a moment?" he asked

She shrugged.

"I'm just waiting for someone else to get here, and then I can tell you about your tutoring arrangement" he explained.

Oh jeez, she'd forgotten about that. She kind of hoped they might too. Obviously not.

She sat at the front of the classroom patiently, twisting her long dark hair around her finger as she found herself bored.

"Ah there you are, Mr. Bolton" Mr. Ludlow said as Troy furtively entered the classroom

"What's she doing here?" he asked rudely.

Gabi stuck her tongue out childishly.

"Gabi is going to be your tutor, Mr Bolton. Seeing as you ignored my request to have extra classes, the only way I can get you to learn is to force you into detention along with Miss Montez here, who bravely challenged the intellect of the Wildcats. Little did she know how right she was" Mr. Ludlow chuckled with the irony and Troy scowled, first at his back, then at Gabi.

She scowled right back which surprised him. How could she not want to spend time with him? Every girl in school wanted to get closer to Troy Bolton and here she was acting like he was the last guy on earth she wanted to be with.

He wasn't sure he liked the feeling.

"But Mr Ludlow, I had basketball practice…I can make it up this week..." Troy offered.

"Too late. Besides, Gabi has punishment to serve too, this way you can serve it together. Preferably without ripping each other's heads off" he added looking at them both. "I'll see you after school at 3.30pm" he finished

"Mr Ludlow, honestly, how can you expect me to teach him Math?" Gabi asked just a second before Troy had stepped out of the door.

"Gabi, you are a Math whiz, it'll be easy" Mr Ludlow assured her

She smiled faintly.

She had publicly insulted the guy in the paper and he thought it was gonna be easy to teach him Math? What was it with adults? They could be so clueless sometimes.

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"Bitch" Fiona, one of the cheerleaders whispered at Gabi as she made her way to detention.

"You are such a dork!" Jamie, another cheerleader joined in, then four of them ganged around her, blocking her way. Gabi was only small; she found it more than a little intimidating. She still bore the bruises from her brothers' violence the other day; she didn't really want to collect anymore.

"Speak then, dork-girl!" Fiona demanded "You weren't so shy writing all that s**t about the Wildcats were you?" she said and pushed Gabi, who fell into another strong girl behind her and bounced back.

"Stupid little girl…"Jamie growled

"Ladies…" Troy grinned as he swaggered down the hallway toward the huddle of girls.

He hadn't realized Gabi was among them until they all parted to face him.

"Oh Troy, just in time, here's that little bitch that slagged off the team, we were just saying it wasn't a very nice thing to do." Fiona practically leeched herself to Troy's side as he took her bony hip in his large hand, he eyed Gabi carefully.

Gabi was wearing the most hideous poncho that covered her entire frame. He was sure she was hiding something under all those baggy clothes, he just wondered what.

He was also at a loss as to what to say. Gabi's huge brown eyes were staring up at him in a challenge and he was now expected to put her down in front of all the cheerleaders. Cheerleaders he might one day want to bed.

"You know what ladies? I would be really disappointed if you wasted any more of your time worrying about a stupid article in the paper. Why don't you go down to Macchio's for a milkshake and I'll be down just as soon as I finish up here" he grinned smoothly, knowing the girls were mesmerized by his grin. Well all of them but one who was staring at him funny.

Gabi was in shock. She didn't know much about Troy Bolton other than he had a Tom-Cruise grin and swanned around in aviators like something out of Top Gun.

She also knew he enjoyed laughing at her falling over. And making fun of her with her brother.

But he'd also told Toby to back off. And now he'd got the cheerleaders to back off too.

"Don't think this means anything" he snarled in her ear as she passed him to get to the Math room.

She stopped briefly, closed her eyes against the wave of fear that erupted in her stomach at his tone, and then walked on, shoulders dropped and head low.

No, he was the arrogant, rude, egotistical bully she had assumed him to be. The way he leered at the cheerleaders and handled them made her shiver with disgust.

Or was it desire?

Gabi smacked herself in the head. Where did that come from? She did not find that pathetic Bolton boy attractive.

"Brain on the blink is it geek girl?" Troy asked from behind her as he caught her hitting herself in the head.

"Well if it is, you're in trouble aren't you?" she quipped and Troy felt a real smile plaster his lips at her humour.

"Let's just get this over with" he said gruffly.

"FINE" Gabi said.

For the next hour she patiently and slowly taught him some basic equations. Once he'd given up his manly posturing and actually listened to her, he made good progress. The light that hit his eyes as he grinned boyishly as he understood a match problem under her guidance, was addictive. Almost as addictive as his faint smell of soap and the soft bulge of muscles in his arms as he leaned on the desk, the tip of his tongue poking out as he concentrated. She suddenly had images of that tongue poking into her mouth. She blushed and tore her gaze away, afraid he would be able to read her thoughts.

As they finished up Troy watched Gabi packing up her bag. If only she wouldn't hide her face under that hair, he thought. "Do you want a ride home?" he asked

Gabi stared at him, for the second time that day. "You don't mean that" she accused.

"Sure I do" he shrugged, a little offended that she thought that little of him

"You're going to Macchio's, remember?" she hinted

"Nah, don't think so" he shrugged awkwardly.

"But you said…" she argued

"I say a lot of things to get rid of those pesky cheerleaders" he smiled at his own ingeniousness.

"Really" she said flatly. But she knew he'd helped her out. "Well I guess I owe you a thank you then, for getting rid of them I mean" she said awkwardly.

He looked at her small nose, pointed chin, her plump cupids bow lips. He moved toward her where she stood at the edge of her desk.

"What are you doing?" she asked fiercely

"I just…" he went to say as he stood before her, poised to step closer to kiss her

"Well don't 'just' anything" she said abruptly, pushing past him to get down the hallway.

"Wait! I was going to give you a lift!" he called after her as she hurried off.

He didn't get it. Every single girl at East High would give their right arm to be kissed by Troy Bolton. Why was it that Gabi had looked positively repulsed at the thought of kissing him?

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Gabi walked home alone, wondering when her life might get better. Since she had been taken off the paper, she had hardly seen anything of Joe.

And her best friend Taylor wasn't in school at the moment as she was at home with a broken leg after a skiing accident. She texted her instead.

Gabi: Hi Tay how are you? Wish you were at school; things are tough at the mo :-(

Taylor: Come to mine, we can talk.

Gabi: Ok on my way :-)

"So what's going on?" Taylor asked as she opened the door, crutches in hands.

"Oh Tay it's horrible. Everyone hates me. Toby won't even speak to me. I printed a story about the basketball team and it wasn't exactly complimentary and Troy Bolton is making my life a misery…" Gabi trailed off sadly

"Since when did you and Troy Bolton cross paths?" Taylor asked with concern. She knew as well as anyone what a brash idiot Troy was.

"Since I wrote that stupid article and my punishment is to tutor him" Gabi rolled her eyes.

Taylor looked at her beautiful best friend as they sat on her bed and wondered why she looked so down beaten. Here was a gorgeous, intelligent girl and she didn't even know it.

"Ok, you are staying over tonight and I am doing your make up for tomorrow." Taylor said resolutely. "You are going to go to school knowing you look amazing and you won't care about that bunch of idiots" she reasoned.

Gabi shrugged shyly "I guess so"

"Don't guess so, know so" Taylor corrected. "Honestly Gabi, I know you like to hide under all that hair and baggy clothing, but I know you better than that" Taylor chided gently. "You used to wear little dresses and skirts ALL the time. What happened?" Taylor asked

Gabi shrugged, hugging herself despite this being her best friend and having grown up with her, she fond it hard to express her emotions.

"Life happened."

"You're too young to be saying something like that" Taylor said

"It's just easier like this" she said honestly.

"It's not supposed to be easy" Taylor smiled.