A/n: Hope you like it so far, I'm having fun writing it. Please review when you're finished, it's not going to kill you to try doing that for poor, little me. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and to my amazing new Beta reader. Ok random story time. So some of the kids in my grade are in this whole Alex is either a druggie or an alcoholic stage, and one kid got stoned and passed out. Later I was talking to my friend and this kid runs up and is like, "Alex, were you his supplier?" And me being me had to say "Yeah, that was me." And the kid was like "I knew…" and then he fell down a flight of stairs.
Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider obviously, because if I did not all of my stories would be just lying around my room, they would be out getting published.
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Chapter Three
When the car stopped outside the decrepit, stone building an extremely large man waddled out of the door huffing like it was the most exercise he had in years. After making his way to the car he stopped to pant and then looked at Mr. Dick disapprovingly "I thought you said you'd be back earlier."
"I had some car problems and I had to get 'em fixed," Replied Mr. Dick shifting his weight, beady eyes glancing at the door and then back at the car.
"Imagine having car problems with that," Alex said, wrinkling his nose at the smell of overheating brakes. "It was such a nice car way, way back in the day."
"Is this the boy?" questioned the obese man scrutinizing Alex. "Why does the government have to dump him on us? We've got plenty of other snotty nosed kids to take care of."
Suddenly a small boy with tangled black hair came bursting out the door "Mr. Hirvan! Mr. Hirvan, the cook told me to tell you the stove is on fire again." He then broke down in chuckles.
"Again? That's the second time this bloody month. Tell her to find the fire extinguisher; those Kartly boys might have it. Also tell her if they do they don't get breakfast tomorrow morning" Mr. Hirvan said glaring at a second story window. The boy vanished back inside and a women's voice could be heard screeching about "killing whoever had the fire extinguisher." Mr. Hirvan then turned back to face the adolescent in front of him.
"I'm Mr. Hirvan. I'm own this place, but Larry Dick here, runs most of it. He can take you to your room and explain the rules. Also you should know that you should behave well, Larry can be awful about punishments. I'd better make sure every thing is all right with Susan." He than vanished down a dark hallway to a room where smoke was rolling out under from under the doorway.
"This way," Mr. Dick walked the doorway and started up a flight of steps that creaked every time he moved. Alex sighed, picked up his suitcase, and followed him slowly up the stairs. "Here we are." Mr. Dick opened a banged up door with a rusted door knob. Six boys sat up in their beds, instantly stopping their whispering wondering why the dreaded Mr. Dick had come to their room.
"What is it, sir?" asked a boy, bright red hair falling in his eyes and green eyes full of confused curiosity.
"Whatever it was, it wasn't us. Blame someone else" said two identical boys at the same time wearing indistinguishable, unbelievably innocent expressions.
"This is the new boy, Alex Rider" he said glaring at the other occupants of the room, to quiet them down. "These boys are all fourteen or fifteen and you'll be with them till you're gone. If you don't get along with them, you'll just have to figure that out on you own. Light's go out at nine thirty, wake up at six thirty, breakfast at seven, classes from seven thirty to eleven, lunch at eleven fifteen, free time from eleven forty five till one, house care and yard work from one till five thirty, dinner at five forty five, study time from six thirty till eight forty five, free time till lights out. This schedule doesn't change at all; I don't care if it's your birthday or a holiday, the clock doesn't stop running and that clock will be running your life. Don't try running away, because you don't like it here. Someone will catch you and you'll be punished severely. If you have any questions ask them, I'm not in the mood to answer them" Mr. Dick finished and stomped back down the hall yelling at the door of another room for the people inside to shut up.
"Is he ever in the mood to answer questions?" asked Alex dropping his suitcase on the only unused bed.
"Nope," said one of the twins and then started giggling. "You know what? When he hurts him self and sucks on it guess what he's doing."
"Gross! You little nasty freak" said the boy farthest from the door throwing a pillow at him.
"Sorry for that" said the red head, approaching Alex and shaking his hand. "I'm Danny, the one furthest away is Nick, the twins are Brandon and Jacob, that's Conrad next to Nick, and Kevin, is across from him." A chorus of hellos greeted Alex as his new room mates took the time to look him over. "Just a warning one the older boys is Henry Willison, he tries to make everyone who is younger than him life hell. He'll pick on you for awhile since you new and I would try steering clear of him for awhile."
"Yeah, just because he couldn't tell Jacob and I apart look what he did" said Brandon showing a livid black eye and deep red scratch marks down his cheek.
"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." Alex said smothering a yawn produced from the long, stressful day.
"Uh, uh, uh. No sleeping until you tell us your story," said Nick brushing a piece of mahogany hair away from his azure eyes. The twins nodded freckled noses scrunching up as they giggled over a whispered joke, dirty blond hair mixing together as the leaned in and mumbled in each others ear.
"What do you mean? What story?" Alex said sitting down on the bed, covering another yawn as the bed springs groaned loudly.
"You know, why you're here" stated Danny sauntering over and picking up the picture frame Alex had placed on the foot, "Is this your mum and dad?" He asked looking at the photograph.
"No, that's my uncle and housekeeper."
"Ooh, a housekeeper, that's pretty posh" said Jacob walking over and grabbing the picture from Danny, "Who would have imagined that we would be blessed with someone who had a housekeeper? Just joking mate, Nick apparently had a nanny, even though I don't believe it."
"Do you have a picture of your mum and dad too; I would like to see them."
"Yeah, it's somewhere in there," Alex said gesturing at his suitcase. "It's pretty old and not very good. They got it on one of their first dates."
"So how did they d…um pass away?" Kevin said looking over he twins' shoulders to get a look at the picture.
"They were going on vacation and their plane wrecked."
"A plane wrecked, and at least as far as I remember, it didn't even mention it in the newspaper recently."
"It wouldn't have, it happened when I was a baby." Alex said taking the picture back and placed it on the end of the bed. "My uncle took care of me since then."
"Well what happened to him?" Conrad piped up.
"He was always gone on business trips, that's why I had a housekeeper. Last one he went on he…" Alex paused trying to decide if he should tell how Ian had actually died or the story he had been told. "He got shot."
"Whoa, he got shot? Why?" Jacob and Brandon said at the same time. In reply Alex shrugged, he knew that it was because of Ian's work, but he didn't know the specifics.
"Well what happened to your housekeeper?" said Kevin only to get smacked by Nick.
"Don't be an idiot, Kevin, she couldn't have been expected to keep taking care of him and not getting paid, because her employer was dead."
Alex grinned at that, "Actually she really wanted to do just that."
"Then why didn't she?"
"Her visa was expired and she got sent back to America."
"What was your uncle like?" Danny questioned.
"Well first of all he was never there, so I don't know if how he acted when he was at home was the same as everywhere else. He believed that hard work is the only way to get anywhere in life, so instead of getting allowance I just had a job at a restaurant washing dishes. He also was really stern a lot of the time, but he still took me on tons of different trips. He was really good at a lot of stuff and taught me about some, like kayaking, or skiing, and scuba diving. I always wondered why someone who worked at a bank would know all of that." A rap on the door startled all of the boys, causing them to jump slightly.
"Are you boys still awake? Because I was certain that you were supposed to be silent half an hour ago" said the squeaky voice of Mr. Dick. The teenagers all looked at each other before separating to their own beds. Alex dropped his suitcase on the floor and not bothering to change he slid under the rough blankets, quickly falling asleep to the sound of the other boys' rhythmic breathing.
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A/n: So how did you like that chapter? Please, please, please tell me. Thanks again for reading this far. I'll seriously try writing soon.
Until then,
Alex