I DO NOT OWN LIZZIE MCGUIRE

I don't have school today…I don't want to study for exams…here's another chapter…thank you for the reviews.

Chapter Four

The next morning, the Monday of the first day of school, Jake was woken up by the sound of his screeching alarm clock. (Okay, maybe it wasn't screeching, but at 6:00 in the morning, any noise can be screeching to anyone, especially a teenager) He shut it off, but it took him another ten minutes before he got up. He was sure he would be nervous by now, but his nerves hadn't gotten the better of him yet. In some ways, he was glad school was finally starting. That way, he'd have something to do with his day other than talking to his old friends and taking his brother places just so he could do something.

It was hard. Packing up and loosing an old life to start a brand new one, not knowing anyone. He had good friends back home and was fairly popular. He'd had a girlfriend the year before, but he broke it off when he found out he was moving over the summer. He missed Austin, but the thing that made him never want to go back was his father. He didn't care if he ever saw his dad again. George West never went to his son's baseball and football games. He never helped them with any difficult decision. He spent six out of seven nights at the family bar, not coming home until two or three in the morning. As Jake was growing up, he thought his father was the coolest guy ever. He barely ever saw him, but he thought his father was something special. He thought the reason his parents were so in love was because they spent every morning and afternoon together and his mother got to see a side of him that he would never see. The older he got, however, the more unpleasant he realized everything was. During his freshman and sophomore year, he noticed a new side of his mom. He caught her crying every so often and when he heard the coldness whenever his parents were together, he figured it out.

George West only showed up at one of Jake's football games. It was the last game of the regular season and after the game, George took him out to dinner, explaining only what he'd been waiting to hear his mother tell him, "We're separating. You're mother and I have decided that we no longer love each other."

The only thing Jake could do was icily stare at his father as he spoke. Who could blame him? Jake could tell his father showed no remorse. Jake knew what was going on. It was when his father went on to say, "I love you and Andrew, I really do, but I'm at a point in my life where I just want to figure some things out. I may not be seeing you a lot for the next few years, but that doesn't mean I don't love you," that Jake decided he never wanted to see his asshole of a father ever again.

In that respect, he was glad they moved.

Once he got up from his bed, Jake maneuvered his way around his room to get dressed and get ready for the day. He had an early meeting with the school counselor to discuss his schedule. Once he was ready, he left his room, went downstairs, where his mom was sitting at the island, reading something, while eating a muffin, "Hey," she said as he passed her and opened the refrigerator to get himself some orange juice, "do you need anything?"

"Besides money for lunch," he said, "I'm good."

Lizzie reached for her purse and gave him some money, "Do you have any questions? Do you remember what building you are supposed to go to?"

Jake nodded as he grabbed a protein bar from the cabinet, "I think I can figure it out. I have to be there at 7:15."

"Okay," Lizzie said and she stood up and smiled at her son, "Call me if you aren't coming home after school. Have a good day!"

"You, too!" he said as he closed the door behind him.

And he was off. Ten minutes later, he arrived at the school, and realized that almost no one else was there. School didn't start for another hour. He saw a few people hanging out in the halls, talking to each other. He went to the offices and signed in. Five minutes later, the counselor appeared and let him into her office.

She asked him a few questions, like what language he took, sciences he had taken, and questions like that, and after that, she explained to him his new schedule and printed him out a copy. Because of the requirements, it looked like he would be taking a few sophomore classes, including health and chemistry. She also went over the rules and policies of the school and explained to him about electives and after school activities. She also went over athletics, after she saw that he played football and baseball on his transcript. He said he wasn't sure about baseball, but he knew he wasn't going to play football this year. After what happened with his dad at that game, he knew he would probably never look at football the same way again.

By the time the meeting was over, it was almost time for class to start. Jake went to his locker and then to class, and it was then that nerves started kicking in.

By the time half the day was over and done with, Jake was starting to feel like his life would be the same. Uncomfortable with simply inviting himself to sit with a group of people during lunch, he went to the library. He felt like a loser. He knew he wasn't and figured that this was all temporary, but since he'd known all the friends he had since he could remember, he wasn't used to being alone. He wasn't used to not talking in his classes. Maybe he would have been better off in Austin…

He was thinking about this until it was time for Spanish. Jake had two classes left: Spanish and health. Jake took an accelerated Spanish class with a lot of seniors and a few juniors. One of the first things the teacher did was split them up in three groups of five. She explained to them, in Spanish, of course, "this is your study group for the year. This year, the Spanish department is going to focus on three elements of Spanish: culture, history, and literature. Every year, we host a festival for the entire Hill Ridge community. While we will be working on other things this year, we've decided that once a week, we would like you to get together with your group to plan the festival, which will count as thirty percent of your final grade."

There were four other people in Jake's group, including three seniors and one junior. At first, Jake was hesitant to speak up, but once everyone started talking about his or her summer (in English) Jake lightened up a little, and decided he liked these people. The other junior, Will, started talking to him after the seniors, who were all girls and all seemed to know each other had their own conversation happening.

"You're in my English class, aren't you?" Will asked.

"Yeah," Jake said, diverting his attention to one of the girl's story about what happened when she was in Fiji.

"You're one of the new guys, aren't you?"

"Yeah, I just moved here."

Will looked unimpressed, "Okay, why the hell did your family move here? I mean, of all the places in California, why'd you go to Hill Ridge?"

"Uhh," Jake said, trying to avoid the complete truth. He shrugged, "I don't know. My mom grew up here and she wanted to get out of Austin, which is where I grew up."

Will, still looking unimpressed, shook his head, "you mean, you left a city with millions of people to settle for this pitiful town where there isn't anything to do?"

Jake nodded, "pretty much. It's not too bad, though."

"If you say so…" he said, and then decided to change the subject, "Listen, I know you hardly know me. I'm Will, by the way, but some of us are sticking around after school to play Ultimate Frisbee. Want to come?"

Jake shrugged, "Sure."

"Cool. We're meeting at three in the courtyard," he said, and he would have continued, but it was then that the teacher came to their group and reprimanded them for not speaking in Spanish.

By the time she finished, the class was almost over and it was time for Jake to go to Health, which was possibly the most entertaining class of the day, but only because the teacher was so unusually honest and oh, yeah…out of the ten people that took the class when he did, he was the only guy…and to make him even more special, he was also the only junior.

"Good afternoon, kids, I'm your health teacher, Ms. Roe. Now, for those of you who are completely out of the loop, I'm going to explain to you what this class is all about. About four years ago, after an outbreak of a CERTAIN disease occurred with our students, the administrators decided to make this class a required class to graduate. As you can see, you are mostly sophomores and females, and that's only because the guys have to take PE now. But, as you can see, we have a student with us who either managed to avoid this class last year or is new to this school. It's okay, though, because in the past we've had some people complain that this class should be coed. So consider this guy…Jake is it? … an experiment."

Ms. Roe was about to get into the topics of the class when the door, which closed after the class began, opened, and another girl appeared. Jake, who was slumping in his seat in the back of the classroom, sat up, though, because he knew the girl.

"Sorry I'm late, Ms. Roe," Hailey said, with a look of exhaustion on her face, "I didn't know I had this class."

"It's okay, just don't make a habit of it," Ms. Roe said, sighing as if she had better things to do than teach this class, "take a seat."

Hailey looked around the room and sort of did a double take when she looked at the back and saw Jake there. She smiled politely and sat down a few rows ahead of him.

"Now then," Ms. Roe said, "For those of you who think this is a course on 'sexual education,' you were completely misinformed. Otherwise, Hotshot in the back row wouldn't be here." She was referring to Jake, the only male in the classroom. She continued, "No, no, no. This is NOT sex ed. This is health. 'What is health?' you ask? Well, health is protecting your body. This includes nutrition, circulation, hygiene, exercise, diseases, and includes sex. How can you keep your body healthy?"

Ms. Roe handed them a syllabus and handed out textbooks and went onto explain what was expected of them in class. Their homework for that night was to write a paragraph on what "being healthy" means to them.

As they were leaving the class, Jake thought about catching up with Hailey, as she was the first person around his age that he met, but Hailey seemed to have things to do, as she abruptly left the classroom before he could even see where she was going. It was okay, though, because he also had things to do, like go to the courtyard to play ultimate Frisbee.

After he packed up his stuff and put it in the back of his Jeep, he called his mom to let him know what he was doing, and then went to the courtyard.

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After health, Hailey ran to see if she could find Matt and Kelly. That morning on the bus made her want to scream. Some random freshman ended up sitting next to her, and his body odor alone made her almost gag. When she finally saw Kelly, who was hanging onto Matt's shoulder in the hall, she ran to them. "Matt!" she said, rather loudly, and excitedly, "You have got to take me home! You're going home right now, aren't you?"

Kelly almost burst out laughing, "Wow, Hailey! You said the bus was bad this morning. Was it really THAT bad?"

"Um, yeah, Kel," Hailey said, then she turned her attention back to Matt, "Listen, I'd rather walk home that go back on that bus, but I'd rather not walk all the way home. Please, just for this week? That'll give me enough time to get over this phobia or find someone to give me rides."

"I'd love to help you out, Hails," Matt said, "but some of the guys have this game of UF planned in the courtyard. It could be another hour or so before we leave."

"You want to watch it with me?" Kelly offered, "I mean, you could keep me company and then he could take you home."

Hailey sighed. That offer seemed better than nothing, "Okay," she said.

"Great!" Kelly exclaimed, "Let's go!"

Kelly, Hailey, and Matt headed for the courtyard, and when they got there, there was already a slight crowd focusing on the dozen men in the center of the courtyard. It looked as if they were trying to figure out who was on which team. All of the people out there were juniors and seniors. In was an annual tradition, Hailey knew, that on the first day of school, seniors and juniors would compete in a game of ultimate Frisbee. Hailey didn't seem to recognize any of them, other than Matt, who was a junior. Because of seniority, the seniors made the juniors play without their shirts, so when the groups separated and the six junior guys were taking off their shirts, Hailey realized that Jake, the guy from the coffee place and from her health class, was playing as well.

When she first saw Jake at the coffee house, she noticed he had an attractive face, but didn't really think about it too much. Now, she noticed he also had the body of an athlete. As she watched him run around for the next hour, she couldn't help but wonder what else was so special about this Jake West person.

Getting her mind out of the gutter long enough to answer her cell phone, which was ringing, she moved away from the field a little so she could hear who was calling. It was her friend, Melanie, wanting to talk about their plans for the weekend. What Hailey didn't know was that the game had ended, so when Hailey was walking back to meet up with Kelly as she put her cell phone back in her purse, "Oof!" the next thing she knew, she'd run into someone, and lost balance, and therefore fell on her back.

"I'm so sorry…Hailey?" Jake asked, as he helped her to her feet.

Hailey looked at who was helping her up and realized what happened. Jake, who had yet to put his shirt on, waited for her to say something. "It's okay," she insisted, rather embarrassed. In general, she was not a clumsy person, but lately she was beginning to question her balance.

Jake grinned, "We've got to stop bumping into each other like this. Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," she said, "I guess I wasn't really paying attention to where I was going."

"Is there anything I can do to help you? Take you to the nurse or something?"

"Nope," she said, as she put her purse on her shoulder, "who won?"

Jake shrugged, "I don't think anyone was keeping score."

"Ah, well," she smiled at him, "it was fun to watch."

It was then that she spotted, from the corner of her eye, Kelly and Matt, who were walking towards her. "Hails, we're ready whenever you are," Kelly said.

"Oh, do you need a ride?" Jake asked, before he put his shirt on.

Kelly raised her eyebrow at Jake, "Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked.

Jake shrugged, "I doubt it. But Listen," he said, turning his attention back to Hailey, "your house is actually on my way home. If you want, I could give you a ride."

"Oh, no, that's…"

"A great idea!" Kelly said, "Matt and I were going to go to the Digital Bean now, anyway to work on some homework. You two are welcome to come, but I'm not sure it will be that much fun."

"I've got to get home," Jake said, "are you coming?"

Hailey sighed. Maybe this was the answer to her prayers, "Sure, I'd love to."

"Great," he said.

So he took her home.

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Coming in the next chapters---What happens in the car ride? Will he be her new chaperone? What happens in health? Is someone developing a crush on someone? That and more to come soon. Now, I must work on something else. Review if you have time.