Chapter 3: New Classes

Ninten, Claus and I said our temporary farewell to Loid as he walked on ahead to his class. Ninten showed us to the school front office, which was in the foyer of the school. I looked to my side, watching other students walk pass us, talking to each other, staring at their path, and sometimes giving looks, meaning they were curious about Claus and myself. Ninten led us in and we met a secretary at the computer. She had brown, curly hair down to her shoulders, with a bodily figure.

"Oh?" she remarked, just noticing us. She rolled a bit back from her desk and crossed her hands together in her lap. "Good morning Ninten," she said in a friendly voice, "what are you doing here?" Despite her out-of-shape figure, she had a friendly voice, similar to Miss Teresa's, but more light and smooth.

"We got two new students, so I'm showing them around."

"Well that's nice of you." She looked at us. "My name is Mrs. Baez, and I'm the secretary here at E.B. Junior High."

"Nice to meet you," Claus said, lifting a hand. "I'm Claus, and this is my brother Lucas." I weakly lifted my hand with a shy smile.

Mrs. Baez gave us another of her friendly smile. "Well, the principal isn't here right now, so you can't really meet her. But, we can start you getting into your classes. Ninten, can you show them to Mrs. Flynn?"

Ninten responded without reluctance. "Of course!" He began to walk to our left, which was a small hallway leading to other rooms of this office. He walked unusual than before, though. He walked without any smooth motion; he lifted his feet and arms firmly and lightly pressed them on the ground, taking little steps on his path. Claus and I both looked feeling bizarre.

Mrs. Baez chuckled and then told us something. "Ninten is always playful when he's in here. He's like a little kid."

Ninten rushed back up and stuck his head behind the wall that blocked him. "I'm not a kid!" Then he looked at my brother. "Ain't that right, Clausy?"

"I told you it's not Clausy!" he responded. He put his hand on his face in disappointment, making Mrs. Baez and I laugh.

With playtime aside, Mrs. Baez told us good luck in our new environment as we walked away from her. Ninten led us to the end of the hall, which was a gray door in front of us, and then a door to our left which led back to the foyer near the glass doors leading to the main hallways. I saw a label on the wall saying "Counselor's Office", and the same label again to the door on my right. Ninten peeked through the glass in the center of the door, seeing what he expected, and knocked on the door before opening it. The three of us entered, and we entered. Inside, there was a woman with short, blonde hair, who was sitting at her seemingly untouched, maple wood desk now looking at us after hearing Ninten's knocks. She gave Ninten a smile, and then looked at us.

"Well good morning, Ninten," the woman said. "And who are these two?"

"They're new students, starting today," Ninten answered, "I'm showing them around, and we were wondering if you can get them their classes today."

"Well sure. But I need their parents to come, though."

"They can't come," Claus said. "Our dad doesn't get back from work until five, and our mom can't come here because we only have one car."

"Then that's a problem. School ends at 3:25 and most of us leave at around four. Well…you already came though…" she sat there, putting her head on her hands with a thinking face. Then she looked at us again. "…Oh! What are your names?"

"I'm Claus, and my brother here is Lucas." I just stood there, staring at the scene.

"Ah, that's right. You must be those twins of theirs. Your father and mother already registered you ahead of time. " She got back onto her computer to a desk on her right and began typing. "Please, sit," she said. "You can stay too, Ninten."

Ninten sat in one of the two vintage chairs behind the two beside the desk that Claus and I took. We sat there, unaware of each other's feelings. I was a bit scared, meeting new people so suddenly, but of course, it was imminent now that I was in a new school. I was still wondering how Claus looked like he was calm about all this still.

"Let's see. You can start today…" then we heard a beep. A beep from somewhere. Claus and I looked around, wondering where it came from, but we saw Ninten just smirking at us. After about ten seconds, we heard a melody ring through the room.

"That's the bell, by the way," said the counselor. "There's a ten second warning before the actual bell rings. It's pretty neat," she said. She resumed typing and clicking, until another idea popped in her head. "Oh, I forgot! I'm Mrs. Flynn by the way."

I didn't know what to think of her. The way she just brought that up after telling us information about something unrelated to an introductory made her look a bit dense. She was still, however, as I usually judged, a nice woman.

"Okay then. Let's get started," she said. She pulled out two pieces of paper from her desk drawer and gave them to us. We examined it, finding it was a paper informing of the available and required courses here.

"These are the courses required to take during junior high," she said, pointing to one of the charts on my paper, "and this one shows the ones available here."

Claus and I studied it carefully. Everyone was required to take all three years, from sixth to eighth grade, of the basic four core subjects: English, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Of course, that was just basic knowledge. Other than that, everyone needed at least a fine arts credit and two elective credits. We saw the available elective classes were Art, Spanish 1, Technology Systems, Choir, Band, Theatre, Health, and Speech. The only classes that appealed to me were Art and Health, while I knew Claus liked the sound of Technology Systems. I loved to draw, and I even have a sketchbook of drawings that I have with me right now. I was curious to learn about daily health, so it was also a choice. As for Claus, he was of course, an avid video gamer, but he also liked to learn anything related to computers, since it eventually led him to playing a video game on the computer.

"P.E. is mandatory, so it isn't a choice here. But you can pick two more classes here. There is also, Office Assistant, which is to help the secretary and the others in the office. Ninten is one, so he can tell you what it's like."

"That's right," he said. I was wondering how it felt like Ninten knew Mrs. Baez and Mrs. Flynn already. "An office assistant is just doing basic jobs for the secretary. I deliver early dismissal passes to a student in a class, sort the teachers' mail, deliver packages, do some filing, all that stuff."

An easy 'class', I thought. "Could I take Art and Office Assistant then?" I asked.

Mrs. Flynn didn't bother to hesitate. "Sure. Let me see if I can put you with Ninten, too. What about you, Claus?"

Claus took one last look at the list. "I want Tech. Systems and Choir."

I perked up at Claus' answer. Choir? I thought he would have picked a simpler class like Health or Speech, and maybe even Theatre, since he could act well when playing sick in bed, or telling a tall tale to mom and dad. I guess Claus wanted to try something new.

"Okay then. Do you boys want Pre-AP classes?" We both nodded. Both of us were smart, and we took pre-AP classes back at Tazmilly as well. They didn't even felt pre-advanced anyways, so we hoped it was nearly the same or more fun here in E.B. Junior High.

Mrs. Flynn returned to her computer and began clicking and typing again. Claus and I waited there in silence, sometimes giving each other nervous glances. I was a bit glad, though. I already met a good friend, Ninten, and two nice adults.

And then the image of that one boy appeared into my head. I remembered his name was Ness. I still couldn't figure out why I felt so weird when I was near him. And having the thought was almost the same feeling…just what is going on with me? Could it be that…

My thoughts were cut off when Mrs. Flynn exclaimed "Okay!" She rolled away and put her legs back under her work desk. "Ninten, can you go get their schedules from the printer?"

"Sure!" Ninten got up and walked out the door.

"So," Mrs. Flynn said. "We have three scheduled lunches, A, B, and C lunches. You both have B lunch, which is right after 5th period."

"Okay then. Is there anything else?" asked Claus.

"Nothing really. If you have questions or want to change classes, then come back to me."

At that moment, Ninten returned with two green sheets of paper and gave them to us. "Clausy! Lucas! You both have B lunch just like me!"

I saw Claus let a subtle sigh fly by before he reached for his paper. I think he was going to hear more 'Clausy" from Ninten now.

Ninten gave me my paper and I looked at it. First period was P.E., and Claus had the same. We had the next class, which was English, together as well. Then we split up: I had, in order, Social Studies, Math, Art, then lunch, then Office Assistant, and then Science. Claus had Tech. Systems, Choir, Science, then lunch, then Math, and finally Social Studies. We only had two classes together instead of five like before.

"Well, it's a bit into first period, so you could still get to P.E.," Mrs. Flynn said. "Though I don't know if you have any gym clothes right now. I'm sure the coaches will let you off for a couple of days until you get some since you both are new." Mrs. Flynn grabbed three yellow small slips and wrote our names on it. They were hall passes. She gave them to the three of us. "Ninten, you can show them around during lunch if you want to. Oh, and show them where the cafeteria and their classes are."

"Okie-dokie!" Ninten began walking out the door in his firm, penguin like motion. Before Claus and I left as well, we both said thank you, and Mrs. Flynn also told us good luck on our first day. We said good-bye to Mrs. Baez on the way out, even though I know I'll be seeing her again.

Ninten first led us to the cafeteria. It was actually in a different building. We had to walk outside the side doors of the school, and then walk on the concrete path to the cafeteria doors ahead of us where there was a small stone platform where people could sit. The area wasn't so secluded, as light was still shining from the open sky above and from our right, where we could see the parking lot of cars. Inside the cafeteria, there was no one but a custodian and some lunch ladies, checking on the tables and wandering around the lunch line area. There wasn't anything else interesting, other than the stage with dark green curtains. We left the cafeteria and back into the main school halls.

Ninten then showed us to our classes. From where we entered from the cafeteria path, a door to our left was the technology systems class, which was Claus' 3rd period. There was a showcase next to the door, full of model airplanes and a constructed mini-car. Claus commented that there's more than he expected. Across from the technology class were two doors distanced from each other. They both led to the choir room, and then Ninten commented he had choir as well, so Claus had to expect meeting him later.

Our core subject classes were in the 8th grade hallway, because we both were of course, in 8th grade. Then we found out Ninten was in 7th grade, so he was in the next grade hall. Next to the 7th grade hall were two doors, and peeking through the glass windows, we found a large basketball court, meaning it was the gym. But no one was inside. Ninten then predicted that they were outside for P.E. today. We entered the room and headed across the basketball court to the doors leading to outside, where the path led to the grass, and then to two fields: a baseball field, where there were already baseball players, and the rest of the P.E. class in the track field, walking the black rocky ground or playing soccer in the grass. Ninten led us to the two adults at the entrance of the track field.

"Oh, Ninten," said the welcoming-toned woman. "Why're you late?"

"We got new students today, so I was showing these two around, and this is their first period."

"Let me see their schedules," said the other adult, who was a man. His voice was not so deep or friendly ether, so I expected he was more of the "cool" coach. Claus and I gave him our schedules. He looked at them, and passed it to the woman.

"They're yours," he said. The woman looked at the schedules, and then gave them back to us.

"All right then, I'm Coach Fletcher," she said.

Then the man spoke. "I'm Coach Dine." He gave out his hand, and shook it with Claus who seemed excited about it, while I felt a bit nervous feeling that my handshake was firm.

Coach Fletcher spoke to us. "Listen, you need to bring some gym clothes by next week. It's required that you dress up every day. Just change clothes in the locker room and you get your grade as a hundred for the day. Each day you don't dress up, you lose five points. But anyways, we don't require like, hard physical exercise. You can do whatever you want. If you want to walk the track like these guys," she waved her arm at the track, "when we choose to go outside, then go ahead, or if you want to sit in the bleachers on dodgeball day, you can do that too. You just gotta do something at least three times a week."

Claus and I left our worries knowing that we didn't have to do much for P.E. Claus probably didn't care, but I did. I was never the athletic type, nor did I have interest in any kind of physical work. I preferred leisure or easy exercise.

"Well, you can just sit by the cage for now, since you're new. Or you can walk the track, whatever you want."

Claus and I sat beside the cage away from the black track ground. Then, Ninten sat beside Claus.

"Why're you still here?" asked Claus.

"Because I have P.E. with you guys too, Clausy."

"Ugh," groaned Claus. I guess the school year is going to be tortuous for him from now on.

I put down my backpack and pulled out my sketchbook. I opened it, seeing that the first picture was just an amateur drawing of my brother. He still liked it, though, and said I had talent. The motivation led me to the second page, where I drew simple patterns of sunflowers. Then it kept on for many more pages until a bit before the half mark. I pulled the pencil out of the spiral of the book, and set my pencil lightly, hoping the magic touch would give me an idea. I had no thought, so I just stared at the grass, then the school, and then the baseball field of players. The players were all wearing not too light green uniforms with white and thin red striped sleeves. It looked like they were dressing up for Christmas, but they all wore different colored hats. One was wearing the team's hat, green bill with the rest white and thinly red, and another was wearing a yellow one with a green bill. What made me drop my pencil in the grass was one person wearing a red hat with a blue bill. I tried to make out the figure. It was him.

"Lucas, what're you staring at?" asked Claus. I pointed at the baseball players, then Ninten found what I was looking at.

"Oh, him," he said. "Yeah, Ness is a baseball player. He's the best in the school, to be honest. In fact, he's captain of the team."

"Huh…" was all I said. I tried to be less obvious by turning my head to the track, and then once the other two began talking, I put my focus back on Ness. He looked so cool in his hitting stance with his wooden baseball bat, awaiting the pitcher to throw the ball. I could see a grin, like he was enjoying the current game. Having to see him like this… appealed to me again. My heart was skipping some beats once more.

But then it hit me. I knew what to draw next. Sadly, I only finished the background clouds of the drawing by the time the baseball coach over at the other field called the team in to get ready to leave. Then, a few minutes later, our coaches called us to go inside. It was almost time for second period, which was English class for my brother and myself.