Van groaned and rolled over trying to ignore the annoying screech of the alarm clock at the side of his bed. He eventually couldn't take it anymore and slammed his fist down on the clock. He though he heard something crack but paid no mind to it and roll back over closing his eyes with a blissful smile on his face.
"Van! Wake up!" His father yelled pounding on the door. Even before this miraculous change, Van was always a lazy kid, just wishing that he could continue to sleep the day away. "Wake up Van! You need to get ready for school!" he continued to yell before walking away.
Van groaned rolling out of bed and ended up falling to the floor. "Damn it!" he yelled like he normally did in the morning. He stood up rubbing his head. "Ok, ok, I'm up," Van said although he knew that his father had already long since left.
'It all comes down to today. Everything that I have worked on for the last few weeks. I am going to make sure that I make this a year to remember for me. Especially with all the humiliation that Irvine has put me through,' Van thought while yawning and walking towards his closet.
Irvine said that he was surprised with how much Van had improved. He said that when he started, he didn't expect Van to do as good as he had done in just two months. Van was now a match in strength for even Irvine. Moonbay said he already had more charm than Irvine could ever have, even before the torture Van went through.
Van was curious as to how everyone was going to react to this sudden change in him. He couldn't really care though, all he wanted to know was what Fiona's reaction to it would be. She was the only one that he wanted to be noticed by.
Van grabbed the close that he set out the night before and walked into the bathroom to take a quick shower. He came out a few minutes later and quickly got dressed since he was running a bit late. He probably wouldn't even have time for breakfast.
He came running down the stairs and was glad when he saw his mother waiting with some pop tarts. This was sometimes how his morning went, although he was much slower before because he had no wish to go to school. He was eager today so that he could see how things turned out.
Tina just smiled as she watched Van rush by grab the food, give her a quick kiss on the cheek, and run out of the door as fast as he could. "Behave Van and you better have a girlfriend soon!" his mother yelled as he ran out of the door.
He missed a step and nearly fell off the steps that he was running down when his mother said this. "Mom!" Van yelled out in embarrassment while his face lit up a bright shade of red. "Give it a rest will you?" Van asked as kindly as he could. Even with his training, he didn't think it will be too easy.
"I am just looking out for what is best for you Van. You need a girlfriend, that is all that I have to say," she said causing Van to become even redder. Before she could say another word, he ran full speed away from the house. 'Great! Now I will never get grandchildren,' she thought before she walked back to her room.
Van ran and ran so that he wouldn't be embarrassed anymore by his mother. He ran at least a block before he stopped. He had managed to get his face back to its normal color but he could not understand his mother at times.
"Van!" Irvine and Moonbay yelled running up to Van as he came to a stop turning around to look at the two of them. They were both flushed as if they had been running for a long time.
"It is about time that we caught up with you. We had been running after you since you ran out of your house and even longer before then. You were fats even before we buffed you up. You still look skinny though," Moonbay said. She thought she noticed something and got right in Van's face.
Van backed up a foot or two slightly nervous at Moonbay's sudden inspection of him. "What is it Moonbay? Why exactly are you looking at me like that?" Van asked putting his hands in front of him to stop her from getting closer.
"I have been meaning to ask you something Van. Why is it that you don't wear your contacts? Don't you have trouble seeing without them?" she asked since she couldn't see the small outline of them in his eyes and she kept finding them at Van's place over the summer as they were leaving.
Van looked at Moonbay for a second before stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Never really had any need for them. My eyesight has always been perfectly fine," Van said with a shrug of his shoulder as they all turned and started to walk towards the school.
"You mean that for these past few years, you have been wearing those horrible looking glasses on you for absolutely no reason at all?" Irvine yelled in shock. He saw Van just shrug his shoulders. "Then why the hell did you wear them in the first place?" he continued to yell in astonishment.
Once again, Van just shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know why I did. If anything, it was just because I felt like it. At one time, I just didn't care what people thought of how I looked," Van said with a smiled.
They walked in silence for the few blocks until they reached the school. Irvine and Moonbay were too shocked to speak but they just shrugged it off and decided to just forget about it because they knew they would never really understand Van's reasoning for some of the things that he did. His entire family had been like that ever since the three of them had known each other.
Van walked ahead of his two friends and was surprised when he didn't hear and snickering about him. He had become so used to it that it became strange not to hear it. Yet at the same time, it was also very welcoming. No one seemed to recognize him as of yet.
Van walked into the school and the only stares he received are those from people that were wondering who he was since they didn't recognize him. Van felt like laughing out loud at them. He knew that this would be the time that he could start anew in school.
Van leaned against as wall as Irvine and Moonbay came walking in shortly after him. The two were too busy chatting with one another to even bother to talk to him. They appeared to be in a rather heated debate about something that Van could not make out what they were saying over the crowd of students that were forming all around.
Van looked around at all the students who had made his life miserable for so long. They took no notice of him. He was just like them now, a normal high school student, despite what had been in his past. Van then spotted one target that he was going to have fun toying with.
Thomas came walking up to Irvine and Moonbay with a smug smirk on his face. It was obvious that he was looking for Van to pick on him. "Where is that loser that you call a friend?" he asked taking a look over at Van but it was obvious that he did not recognize Van.
Irvine turned away from his conversation with Moonbay and looked at Thomas with a scowl. He took a quick glance over at Van only to notice that he was on the verge of laughing. "He is around here somewhere. Why don't you see if you can find him for us?" Irvine asked knowing that Thomas would be on a search for hours before realizing that something was up.
Thomas was about to retort when a kid came barging into him knocking him to the side a bit. "Hey watch where you are going you idiot! You nearly knock me over!" Thomas said glaring at the spiky haired student that he had never seen before. There was something familiar about him though.
'Rats, I didn't knock him over?' Van thought a little amused. Ok, so his personality had changed drastically as well over the summer. He was just that he had more confidence in himself, but not too much to be considered overconfidence.
Van just went on knowing that Thomas would find out who he was in homeroom but he would wait until then. He walked through the halls to the homeroom that he had had since his freshman year. Dr. D was his homeroom teacher.
Dr. D was a man that always treated Van with the most respect than any of the students or the teachers in the school. He saw potential in Van and tried his hardest to bring that hidden potential out of him.
Van took a seat while the rest of the students came in at the last second looking for some open seat so that they could sit next to their friend. Irvine and Moonbay came in and took the seats next to Van; one was in front of the other.
Thomas came in and took a seat on the complete opposite side of the room. He looked around and didn't find what he was looking for. To anyone that happened to know him, it was probably Fiona since she was in the same homeroom as Van, Irvine, Moonbay, and himself.
Fiona came walking into the room with a peaceful smile on her face. Thomas beckoned her over to a seat right by him but she opted for a seat that was in the front and in the middle of the classroom.
Dr. D came into the room a few moments after that and immediately took his seat. "Alright, I am going to take attendance so just say here when I call off your name. Fiona Lynette?" Dr. D questioned.
"Here," Fiona said in her musical sounding voice. She raised her hand into the air as the male population of the class looked at her with lustful eyes. This made her feel uncomfortable and she set her hand down upon the desk.
Dr. D continued to name off names until he came to, "Van Flyheight/" he asked looking around since he too didn't seem to be able to find Van in the entire classroom. This confused him because he knew Van always came to school despite how much he hated it.
"Here," a voice in the classroom said making heads turn trying to find the source of it but they were all confused because they didn't see the long haired, big glasses geek that they had known ever since they started school.
'Where is he?' Thomas asked himself as he looked around wildly but found no sign of his geeky rival. He faintly heard Dr. D call out his name. "Oh, here," Thomas said before going back to his search. His eyes landed on Fiona and all thoughts left him as he stared at the blond haired beauty.
The bell rang shortly after Dr. D finished calling attendance. Thomas, Fiona, and Van stayed put because they had this class for their first period. Van and Fiona did get up after a while because they had to go and put some things in their lockers.
Fiona stopped by her locker and put her bag within it but a notebook dropped from her hands and slid onto the floor. She saw a hand bend down and pick it up before handing it to her. "Thank you," she said closing her locker door. She tried to walk away but the person grabbed her arm.
Van smiled at Fiona when she looked up into his dark eyes. "Um… Fiona, I was wondering if maybe I can talk to you about something?" Van asked. He was confident on the outside of talking to her but he was shaking on the inside. He was still the same old him with a small amount of confidence.
Fiona looked up and was shocked to see the most handsome face she had seen yet looking at her. She shook it off and spoke what she thought would be what he wanted to ask her. "No, I am not going to go out with you if that is what you are going to ask," Fiona said pulling her arm and was surprised when it easily came loose. It was almost as if whenever a male talked to her, it always ended up with that person asking her upon a date. She had no wish to date right then.
Van looked at her for a second before he chuckled. 'I should have known that she would get all of these types of dating requests. "Actually that isn't what I wanted to talk to you about. What I really wanted to say was that I am sorry," he said smoothly with a small smile. He couldn't help it; he was talking to the woman that he had a crush on for the longest time.
Fiona looked up at Van with a look of confusion on her face. "Sorry? What can you possibly be sorry for? I don't think that I have met you before. What have you done to apologize to me?" she asked looking into his dark eyes. It sent this strange tingle through her.
"I have. I just wanted to say sorry for how I acted towards you at the end of the year last year. I was in a bad mood and I had no right to take it out on you. That is why I wanted to say that I was sorry," Van said looking sincerely apologetic.
Fiona thought it over trying to remember what had happened at the end of last year. Then it hit her. 'I don't want any help, I don't need any help!' she remembered him saying after hitting away her hand when she tried to help him. 'That can't be right; those two don't look anything alike. If it was than that would mean that…' Fiona thought turning around only to find that the man had disappeared.
Class had started and everyone had hurried in and taken there seats as Dr. D started to go over what they were planning to do this year and of his expectation for everyone in the class.
"While you are in my class, I will show you the wonderful world of history. There is a saying that those that don't learn from the past, will end up repeating it. I can teach you all the great things and also the worst things so that your time won't repeat the failures of those in the past," Dr. D pacing back and forth in his room looking around at all the students while trying to put names with faces.
Dr. D clapped his hands together when he finished his explanation and turned towards the class. "Now, why don't we play a small game? I am going to need two volunteers," he said as only a hand immediately went into the air. "Ah yes, Miss Fiona, please come up and give me a hand," he said with a smile. "Now I need one more," Dr. D said but ignored Thomas's raised hand because he always did this whenever Fiona was helping out. He would tend to make things worse.
Dr. D looked around the room and smiled when he saw Van. His new look fooled the rest of the school but it didn't fool him in the least. "Van Flyheight, why don't you come and help me like you usually do?" Dr. D asked and saw Van shrug.
'So he is in the class, now I will be able to get at him,' Thomas thought looking around but didn't see Van. He then saw a guy stand up and walk down the aisle. His, as well as everyone else's, mouth dropped at the sight of Van. 'That isn't Van!' Thomas thought trying to make some comparison but they two just seemed so different.
"Hey," Van said giving a small wave as he approached Dr. D. He looked behind him at the rest of the class, all of whose jaws were dropped. 'Just the reaction I was looking for,' he thought with a smile as he turned towards Dr. D.
'So I was right. He looks so different from the scrawny kid that always got beat up last year. I wonder what happened to him,' she thought as she stared at Van. Although they had never really talked, Fiona admired his strength for being able to put up with all that everyone did to him over the years.
Van looked over and saw that Fiona was staring at him intently just like everyone else; he blushed a bit and turned to face Dr. D. 'I wonder what she thinks of this. I mainly did this for her, even if she doesn't know that,' Van thought as he paid attention to Dr. D's explanation of the game.