Chapter 11 – Making a Move

Once again, Chantelle found herself in the company of Christy and Ricky, the very public couple who didn't mind snogging each other in front of Chantelle herself. They had not even spoken for the past ten minutes and instead were staring all googly-eyed at one another, occasionally giggling like little school children. After a further five minutes of this, Chantelle decided enough was enough and prised Christy away from Ricky's almost vice-like grip.

"Christy, for God sake will you tear yourself away from him for five minutes and listen to what I'm trying to tell you!?" Chantelle whispered angrily, dragging her roughly away from Ricky who was still staring trance-like with a puppy-dog like stare. Chantelle averted her gaze from the lovesick puppy and turned her attention back on her best friend, who was still gawping at her boyfriend. With an impatient sigh, Chantelle turned her best friend away from him and glared at her with ferocity. Eventually, Christy blinked and got back to her senses.

"I'm telling you, that Gary Smith is up to something I haven't got a clue what it is but I know it's going to include Jimmy," Chantelle said several minutes later once Chantelle and Christy had finally said goodbye to Ricky (it took a further ten minutes for Christy and Ricky to say bye…By snogging their faces off) They were now sat on the bleachers watching the Jocks train. Luckily for Christy, Cheerleading practise had been cancelled because Mandy had a pimple.

"You're just being really paranoid about this whole Gary Smith thing. You've been talking about him for the last three days, ever since Sunday." Christy muttered in return, leaning casually back and watching as Damon automatically tackled a red-haired Jock who had the ball. "He's a sociopath. He doesn't know how to get up to something," Christy tried to continue but Chantelle instantly interfered, waving her arms to shut her friend up.

"He doesn't? Then how come he managed to orchestrate a huge fight between Russell, who happens to be a clique leader rarely seen within these grounds, and Jimmy himself…With the whole school watching!?" She said in outrage, her eyes burning with fury that her best friend wouldn't take her seriously. Chantelle let out a sigh of frustration that Christy mirrored.

Christy looked momentarily stumped by this revelation, but she quickly recovered and shook her flaming red hair. "Look, Chantelle…I don't know why you're so interested in Smith. He's just another dumb kid who has stupid dreams to rule the school. It'll probably never work since Bullworth is already divided up into…" She trailed off for the second time running, but not because Chantelle was flapping her arms around to silence her.

A Nerd had walked on to the pitch and whilst Damon had been distracted, threw a fire cracker in to the fray of Jocks who were scrambling around on the floor to get the football. An explosion had filled the whole field causing sparks of multicoloured light to filter off in opposite directions. The scene that followed involved several Jocks rolling around on the floor, holding various limbs in agony, the following Jocks that had not been hurt, to go chasing after the Nerd who was trying his very best to flee the scene. However, the Nerd had been correctly equipped and was now throwing marbles and even more firecrackers over his shoulder to avoid getting the worst beating of his life.

"Divided up into cliques…" Christy continued, turning back round to face Chantelle with an extremely dull expression on her face. Chantelle, meanwhile, thought it was absolutely hilarious, nearly as funny as the scene that occurred at Halloween. However, now that it came down to it, Christy had probably seen things like this happen on numerous occasions and had probably rubbed off on her now.

After her laughter had ceased, Chantelle went back to thinking about the whole ordeal between herself, Gary Smith and Jimmy Hopkins. She still hadn't told Jimmy about Gary using him as a toy, and she didn't know why. It was like a secret that should never be told…But why should she keep a secret for him? He had nearly attacked her at one point, pushed her around as though she was simply a toy herself and yet here she was hiding one important fact that could save Jimmy from potentially embarrassing himself in front of every clique available within Bullworth.

However, one change she had seen over the course of the last three days was that the Bullies no longer tried to beat Jimmy up; they no longer tried to trip him up in corridors or steal his books whenever he was carrying them. They were actually being nice. Probably not to the remainder of the school, but they were to her, Christy and Jimmy and had even helped Jimmy out in a fight between one of those stuck-up Preps. It didn't necessarily surprise her too much, but it was just the fact that they could actually be nice and not complete ass-holes.

At some point, Trent had even asked for some help on his English homework (God knows why he was even bothering to do it, none of the other bullies cared much about school.) She had gratefully obliged and after their initial incident they were genuine friends. Perhaps not the Jimmy/Chantelle sort of material but it was a friendship.

"Look Christy, I know that you don't want to believe that Gary Smith could actually have the power to sway a whole school, but he is really manipulative. He could probably do it if he had people on his side…For example the Clique leaders? Has that even crossed your mind?" Chantelle asked after a long period of silence that was spent staring at the injured Jocks or reminiscing for Chantelle.

"What? That Gary Smith could be best friends with all the clique leaders?" Christy replied with a small laugh.

"Well yeah…Why what's wrong in being theoretical? I just don't believe that for one second a simple thing such as a little fight between the newest kid in school and the biggest bully in school could draw such a crowd, which involved every single clique leader." Chantelle leaned back and ran a hand through her already messy blonde hair. She was feeling extremely agitated now and wanted to get to the bottom of this…But once again she had not seen Gary Smith since Sunday and she doubted that she would find him. It was as though he had some secret hide-away that he could use whenever he wanted to just…Disappear.

"Because you're theories are absolutely ridiculous. Look there is no way that the all the leaders would want to be friends with a crazy, psychotic sociopath who suffers ADD. He'll just be a liability to them and who want's that?" Christy was staring at her friend with a concerned expression on her face, she opened her mouth to continue speaking but found that she was unable to speak what her thoughts were. "Chantelle, please can we just drop this? I hate the guy and I can't bear talking about him, I have enough to deal with just by simply looking at him." She muttered before turning away and staring blankly down at the field where Damon was now punishing some helpless Jock, whom he blamed for the incident since the Nerd had obviously got away safely.

"I'm just worried that's all…You know about Jimmy, I mean, he doesn't deserve to be in a position that may get him excluded. He's already been through a lot." Chantelle said quietly, not meeting Christy's eyes. She too was looking out on to the field but with a very glazed over expression. This made Christy glance back at her friend and she gently shook her head.

"Well don't worry about him, he has the ability to think for himself and keep out of trouble, if he doesn't then he's probably more to blame then anyone else. I guess the fight on Sunday was probably an accident. I highly doubt anyone would willingly allow themselves to fight Russell. He had to be tricked into it so…"

"See! See even you've just admitted yourself that someone must've tricked him, must've led him there, and what other person to do it then Gary Smith whom he believed was supposed to be a friend of his!" Chantelle interjected hysterically, glaring straight back at Christy who rolled her eyes although she tried incredibly hard to refrain from doing so.

"Jeez, Chantelle you're taking this far too deep. So what if Gary led him there? It just shows how much of a back-stabbing jerk he is. It's almost as though he's showing his true colours, showing that he most certainly cannot be trusted, and now, as serious and as formal as I can possibly make it…I advise you not to go chasing after the sociopath." Christy said, lifting her bag from the side of her seat and hoisting it over her shoulder. "You coming to the Girl's Dorm? I'm freezing sat out here and it appears that all the fun of the firecrackers is over." She said, watching as the mist from her words slowly drifted away in the cold breeze.

"No…No I'll just stop out here for ten minutes or so just to clear my head. You are right you know, I do need to stop thinking about him, he's no use to me really he's just another pain in my back-side." She said laughing half-heartedly. Christy however, grinned genuinely at her friend before leaving.

Running her hand roughly through her hair again, Chantelle closed her eyes against the chilly weather and tried to think things through once again, but everywhere she turned there were dead ends or things that didn't make sense. Why would Gary Smith just turn on Jimmy like that? Why would he use a newcomer as his stepping stone to ruling the school? How did he get everyone to watch the fight, or for Russell to actually begin the fight?

"Chantelle?"

Lifting her head hastily from her hands she opened her eyes, blinked stupidly and saw Jimmy Hopkins standing just in front of her, one eyebrow raised, armed with a slingshot. He gave her a small smile before taking the seat beside her which had been previously occupied by Christy. She returned the smile and turned to face him.

"It's a good job Christy was walking by or I would have still been running around looking for you," He said grinning weakly and carefully putting his slingshot back into the pocket of his coat. "Erm…Never mind that," He said as he followed Chantelle's accusatory gaze. Chantelle bit her lip to refrain her from making any comments and looked back up at him.

"What's this about Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked nervously at the Jocks who were now walking back to the changing rooms to wash up, before facing Chantelle again. He was looking increasingly pale and was twiddling his thumbs as though trying to keep himself occupied.

"Well…The thing is Chantelle, you've been a really good friend to me over these past couple of months and you've probably made this school seem a hell of a lot better than what it really is…I really want to say thanks…But that's not the only thing." He added hastily, seeing as though Chantelle appeared to be on the verge of interrupting. Jimmy scratched the back of his head and looked nervously around once again as though seeing if someone was around. If anyone was, Chantelle doubted that he would even bother trying to say anything like this. She knew that he had some sort of reputation to uphold.

"Wait…You've…You've got a little something just right there," Jimmy said suddenly, taking a completely different tone and trying to point out whatever he was talking about. Chantelle frowned slightly and began to try and wipe off whatever he was explaining.
"No…No you missed it, oh just…Lemme do it." He said leaning forward casually, but instead of trying to wipe off the non-existent mark on her face, her gently gave her a single kiss on the lips that only lasted a few seconds.

However, this was enough to completely stun Chantelle, as she sat there reasonably still like a statue. She was aware that her cheeks were burning and flushing a deep scarlet red, and that Jimmy was equally as red and embarrassed, but what really set it off was the fact that nothing was said within the short space of time after the kiss.

"Erm…Well, sorry." Jimmy mumbled, jumping to his feet as though he had just been electrocuted by an invisible force. "Catch you later, got some…Business to attend to…See ya." He added quickly before shooting down the bleachers without a backwards glance.

Chantelle opened her mouth, but didn't attempt to call him back. Truth be told, she didn't exactly share the same feelings as he did, not just yet anyway. She did care about him, but just like a friend; A very close friend at that, but still not enough to mirror his feelings.

Realising just how truly cold it was turning, Chantelle stood up herself and took her leave, unaware that Gary Smith had been watching the whole thing from the roof of the Gymnasium. Watching…Staring…Thinking.


Authors Notes: Ok so it's been awhile but my exams are OVER PEOPLE! I hope that brings good news. I've managed to put this together, I just wanted a basic filler before I launch right into the story again. The last bit was quite stupid, more like comic relief...But yeah. I just wanted to get back into the flow of things so I hope you won't be too disappointed with this one after such a long wait. Read & hopefully review please. Don't kill me if it's not brilliant XD