Disclaimer: I don't own...BAH! You guys know the drill by now...
Chapter Five: High School 102—Classmates
I found the room with no problem. Looking through the window of the door, I saw that the class was working in small groups, and the teacher was sitting at her desk grading papers. Figuring I didn't need to knock, I opened the door and walked in.
The students all turned to see who was coming in, and when they saw me, they all exchanged questioning with each other. I heard someone whisper "Who the heck is that?" to a friend. The teacher, realizing the class had gone silent, looked up from her papers and at me. "Can I help you?" she asked.
"Uh, yeah," I said, going to her desk at the front of the classroom. "I'm Duo Maxwell, the new student." I tried hard to ignore the twenty-three pairs of eyes that were drilling into my back.
"Oh, right, Principal Quigley said you'd be arriving today. I'm Ms. Collins. If you'll wait right here, I'll get your books and things together." She stood up and addressed the class. "Everyone, this is Duo Maxwell, and he'll be joining us for the rest of the year. Duo, why don't you tell the class a little about yourself while I get your things ready?"
I raised my eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know. How about where you're from for starters."
"Okay." I turned to face the rest of the class and took a deep breath. "My name is Duo Maxwell," I said. "I'm from the L2 Space colony."
Immediately the room began to buzz as my fellow classmates exchanged looks and whispers of disbelief and excitement. I smiled smugly. I was used to being the cause of excitement and confusion, but it never got old.
"Duo, why don't you tell us some of your hobbies," Ms. Collins prompted as she opened a cupboard and pulled out a book.
I grinned and rubbed the back of my neck. "I don't really have much in the way of hobbies. I like fixing stuff, like cars and machines and stuff. A friend and I, we owned a junkyard and garage up on the colony. That was more of a job then a hobby, but it was still fun."
"That's interesting. Here you go Duo," Ms. Collins said, handing me a textbook and a thick packet of worksheets. "We're doing some review work. Have you studied the American Revolution before?"
"Yeah," I said. I was lucky— that was something I had learned about when Heero and I had enrolled in a private school as a cover.
"Good." She glanced around the room, and then asked, "Jericho, are you working with anyone?" A girl who was sitting by herself in the back of the room shook her head 'no'. "Duo, why don't you go and work with Jericho, okay? Oh, and Duo?" she called after me as I headed towards the back of the room. "I'm sorry, but I don't allow students to wear hats in my class."
"Oh, okay," I said. I pulled my cap off, and out tumbled my braid. The whole classroom let out a collective gasp. Grinning to myself, I continued to my seat and sat down beside Jericho.
"Hi," I said, smiling at her. She had dark brown hair and big brown eyes.
She gave me a small smile in return. "Hi. I'm on page three already, but we can start at page one and I can help you with that if you want."
"Whatever," I said with a shrug, opening my book.
"So, what, are you studying to be a priest?" she asked.
I looked at her questioningly. "No. Why do you ask?"
She pointed at my neck with her pencil. "You're wearing a priest collar. Why are you wearing it if you're not a priest and you're not studying to be a priest?"
I shrugged. "I have my reasons."
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Right. Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."
I opened my mouth to tell her it was all right, but she had already started working on the packet again. I sighed inwardly and followed along.
The morning passed slowly. One thing that I missed about the junkyard was that when I worked there, I could make my own schedule. I could sleep till noon, get up, work in the junkyard or the garage till Hilde called me to dinner, and then either keep working or go out and do something with Hilde. It bothered me that now I had to get up at 6:15, get to school, and then spend the day following a schedule someone else had made for me. I missed my freedom.
Lunch was a welcome break from classes. The meatloaf was sort of scary looking, so I settled on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of lemonade. The lunchroom was crowded, and I couldn't find a seat anywhere. Kids all around me were pointing at me and whispering. Some were craning their necks to get a good look at me. A group of girls kept looking over at me and giggling. I flashed a smile at them, and was rewarded as they fell into a whole new fit of giggles. Yep, the Maxwell Charm still worked, even here on Earth. But even with the Maxwell Charm, no one asked me to sit with them.
I finally found a seat near the rear exit of the lunchroom. It was at a table that was completely empty except for one person: the girl who I had worked with in History class. She was holding a half-eaten apple in her left hand and was doing homework with her right.
"Hey," I said, stopping next to her table. "Your name's Jericho, right?"
She slowly lifted her eyes from her homework and looked up at me. "Yeah. And your name's Duo, right?"
"Yeah. Can I sit with you?" I asked
Jericho blinked and then looked around nervously, as though expecting to see someone with me. "Are you alone?" she asked.
I raised my eyebrow at the weird question. "Yep," I told her. "Just me and the voices in my head." I grinned at her.
"Haha," she laughed. "That's fine, as long as they stay in your head. Go ahead; sit. It's not like I own the table."
"Thanks." I sat and began to eat. Jericho went back to her homework. From where I was now, I could see that it was French. "You have French class this afternoon?" I asked, thinking she was rushing to finish her homework.
"No. I had it third period," she replied, not looking up. "This is due tomorrow."
"Then why are you doing it now?"
She shrugged. "To quote you, 'I have my reasons.'"
I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. "Whatever. You Earthlings are weird."
She snorted and closed her French book, apparently done with the assignment. "We're not the ones who name our kids 'Duo' and have them impersonate priests. By the way, I hope you know that impersonating a member of the clergy is a criminal offense in this region," she added.
"Thanks for the heads up. And for your information, no one named me Duo. I named myself."
"Hn." She looked at me for a moment like she wanted to ask me about naming myself, but then turned her attention to her lunch and didn't pursue the subject any further.
After a few minutes, Jericho looked up. At first I thought she was staring at me, but then I realized that she was looking past me out across the cafeteria. "Hmm…Well, I'm gonna go. I need to get to the library before next period," Jericho said as she quickly stood up and began gathering her stuff together. "Sorry to leave you to fend for yourself. But then, you look like you can take care of yourself just nicely."
"Yeah, I can. Thanks for letting me sit with you," I said, smiling at her.
She smiled a small smile back at me. "Sure thing. See ya later." With that, she turned and went through the rear exit.
I sighed and slouched in my chair. Earthlings were harder to make friends with than I thought.
"Hey, you're that new kid right? The one from the colonies?" I turned my head to see two guys my age walking up to the table. They both looked taller than me, and their shoulders were a lot broader. They both had short hair that was sort of spiked in the front. I had been noticing that guys on Earth tended to wear their hair shorter than guys in the colonies. So far, I was the only guy I had seen who had hair longer than ear length.
"Yeah, I'm that kid," I answered.
"My name's Jeff," one of the guys said. He was slightly taller than the others, and his hair was red. "This is Brian" He motioned to the other guy, who had dark brown hair and a pinched-looking face. "Mind if we sit?"
"Sure thing," I said with a smile. Finally, someone was approaching me.
"I dunno if you recognize me," Jeff said as he and Brian sat down. "But we're in the same Math class. I wanted to invite you to come sit with us during lunch today, but I guess I missed you walking past."
"Yeah, well I bet you're the only one in the whole room who did," I replied. They both laughed. Grinning, I finished off my lemonade.
"You're a pretty cool guy, Duo," Brian said. The compliment sounded genuine.
"Thanks. You guys are pretty okay too," I said with a grin. These guys were really friendly. I was starting to like them already.
"I was thinking," Jeff said. "There's a Math test coming up on Friday, and you have a lot to catch up on before then. I'm having a review session on Thursday at my house for anyone who wants to come by and study. You wanna come over? We can help you if you need it."
I was tempted to laugh and explain to him that Algebra two was a piece of cake compared to the math skills needed to recalibrate a Gundam to fight in zero gravity. But I didn't for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was supposed to keep the fact that I was a former Gundam pilot below the radar as much as possible. Secondly, these guys were nice, and I figured the review session would be a great place for me to start meeting people and making friends. "Yeah, sure, that'd be great."
"Cool. Here's my phone number," Jeff said as he pulled a piece of paper out of his three-ring binder and scribbled down his name and number on it. "If you have any questions about it, just gimme a call, okay?"
"Okay." I took the paper from him and tucked it in my pocket.
The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.
"Well, gotta run. Catch ya later Duo," Brian said as he and Jeff stood up.
"Yeah, see ya."
The rest of the day seemed to pass more quickly now that I had made some friends. Jeff and Brian were in my Biology class, as was Jericho. I was about to sit down at the same table as Jericho when Brian and Jeff called me over to their table. I sat with them, and we chatted during the class period. They wanted to know what it was like living on the space colonies and things like that. I told them about it, and in return they explained told me about the ins and outs of high school
"The thing is Duo," Jeff whispered to me. "Up in the colonies, it sounds like people are pretty lax about how you dress and who you hang with, but down here on earth, that stuff really matters. It's all in who you know and how well you look the part. Take me for example. When I came here, I tried to play soccer. I was good at it, but can you see me, a big guy like me playing soccer? No! No one wanted to be near me cause I didn't fit the part of a soccer player. Then I went out for football. I wasn't as good at football as I was at soccer, but I was good enough to make it on the team. I looked like a football player, so the football players accepted me. And when they accepted me, the rest of the school followed suit. See? It's all in how you fit the part and who you know. Understand?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding. What they were saying made sense: to meet people, you had to know people. And to know people, you had to fit with them
"Now, Duo, we gotta set something straight for you before you wind up the way Jeff did with the soccer players," Brian said. "You don't wanna have to totally revamp your personality part way through the school year. You wanna start off on the right foot. See that girl over there?" He pointed across the room to where Jericho sat diligently taking notes as the teacher droned on about ecosystems. "Her name's Jericho. You were sitting at her table during lunch today, right?"
I nodded. "Yeah. What about her?"
Jeff winced. "Duo, Jericho's not the kind of person you want to hang out with. She's got kind of a bad past, and she hasn't really done too much to make people like her. You're a good guy Duo, and it might sound horrible, but if you wanna keep a good reputation, I suggest you stay away from her."
I frowned. Jericho had seemed nice when I had met her, if a little distant. But then, I knew looks could be deceiving. I mean, when I first met Heero, I had thought he was a raving lunatic with no feelings. Now that I knew him, I knew he was a raving lunatic who did have feelings--he just hid them. And a first glance at Quatre made him seem cute and gentle like a puppy. But I knew that Quatre could fight like a rabid hyena if he had to. So it was possible that while Jericho seemed nice, she could actually be a bad cookie.
"Okay, I'll do my best to stay away from her," I said. "Now, what kinds of things do you guys do for fun around here? Like parties or games or--"
The teacher's voice cut my sentence short. "Duo, since you're so eager to talk, why don't you tell us who's at the top of the food chain?"
"Uh, well, since I have been known to eat just about anything that has ever been put in front of me, I guess I am," I said, leaning back in my chair and grinning at her.
She rolled her eyes. "I don't think so, Duo."
"Well then, you've obviously never seen me eat."
That won laughs from the rest of the class. The teacher sighed. "Jericho, do you know who's at the top of the food chain?"
Jericho's head snapped up, her eyes bright. "Carnivores. The specific species change from habitat to habitat, but the basic pattern of plants, herbivores, carnivores is the same throughout the biosphere."
"Thank you, Jericho. That is exactly correct." The teacher nodded in approval.
"You see what I mean?" Brian whispered to me as the lecture continued. "She's a walking encyclopedia, and she uses that skill to become every teacher's pet. If she's in your class, you can kiss your chance at becoming a teacher's favorite goodbye."
"I have World History with her too," I told them.
"Wow, man," Jeff said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."
When the last bell rang at 2:15, I jumped out of my seat and dashed home, eager to be away from the school. I had come to the conclusion that school was going to be a drag and the only thing that would save me from death by boredom would be my friends. But I already had two guys who were quickly becoming my friends, so I figured I wouldn't be too bad off.
