Week 10 - UDC 9 - In which Nick needs to switch lockers...
46. Party
Right after third period let out, Nick was turning the combination lock on his locker, having already had to redo the combination twice because his mind kept drifting, when he finally got it open and heaved a sigh.
"Was class that bad?"
He blinked and moved the locker door to look at the blonde standing there looking at him funny. "Thinking about things. Karen right?"
She smiled. "New kid. Let me see your schedule?"
Rolling his eyes, he gave it to her and then put the books in the locker that he didn't need for afternoon classes. "Don't know why you want to look at it, but okay." Nick looked at her again to find she was comparing his to another one, worn and folded a lot.
"So that's how you met him. Forth period lunch." She frowned. "You know, if you switch history and PE, you'd have another."
He plucked the worn schedule out of her hand and found it was Pete's. "Why do you have this?"
Karen sighed and leaned against the locker next to his. "Because we've been trying to help keep him un-bruised up since September with only marginal success."
"We?"
She nodded across the hallway to a guy in a purple t-shirt and cargo pants, and then down a few lockers to several more students. "Our Geometry class in general." Karen looked at him again, saw that he was holding two lunch sacks. "Two?"
"One is for Pete."
"Oh." She snagged the second one and tossed it to the guy in the purple shirt, who caught it in confusion. "Jaime, go sit with the tiny terror and give him that." At Nick's incredulous expression, she shrugged. "You're coming with me to the office so we can get you different locker, Nick. Maybe even rearrange your schedule slightly."
47. Firework
A lunch sack landed into the middle of his textbook and Pete rolled his eyes. Was this going to keep happening? "I'm just trying to understand this... wait. You're not Nick. Jaime, what-"
Jaime Huntington smiled as he sat down and opened his own lunch sack. "Karen commandeered the new kid, told me to bring that to you. Something about a locker change?"
Pete stared at him. "What?"
"She'll probably explain later. It'll probably even make sense when she does." Jaime shrugged. "Don't ask me, I'm just her sister's boyfriend."
48. Gift
Twenty minutes later, Nick found him seated with a group that included Purple Shirt, an Asian guy in a white shirt, the dark-haired Jenn from the day before. "Are all of you in his Geometry class?"
Jenn laughed. "Well, I'm not! Jaime, Charlie, and Addi are. Do I call you New Kid or...?"
Nick ignored her and focused on Pete who was rolling his eyes at her antics. That was good, then. "How's your Mother? Karen had me so distracted, I forgot to ask her."
The humor left Jenn's features. "She'd be better if my oldest brother hadn't been drafted into the Marines. It wasn't just the sleep deprivation yesterday." She reached into her backpack and pulled out a small paper sack, handed it to Pete, who looked at her funny. "Dad made cookies for you."
"For me? Why?"
"It's his way," Jenn said with a shrug. "We can't do anything about the over there stuff, but here? This we can do."
49. Fond
A touch on his shoulder as they left the table and Nick glanced up to find Jaime frowning but not looking down at him. "What?"
Jaime nodded to a table nearby. "He didn't say anything, but those guys over there? The ones in the JROTC with you two? Kids of Naval Aviators. Navy Brats."
Which sounded weird, that he'd be warning him like that in a way that should mean something. "Pete IS a Navy Brat."
Jaime shook his head. "Not to them, Bradshaw. In fact, I've seen him so hyper vigilant on Uniform Day that even those guys over there think twice before talking to him. Normally? They're the ones I'd suspect for beating him up, because they know he won't rat them out."
Actually, he'd seen that too, the first time he'd seen him, Nick mused and then turned to look in that direction. "Noted."
"Which was probably the other reason that Karen went to the trouble of getting you to switch lockers. We're fond of this kid."
50. Farewell
"Locker switching?"
The curious tone in Pete's voice made Nick smile just enough to turn back around as the members of his Geometry class departed and left them to it. Nick shrugged. "Karen seemed to think I needed a better locker. Did you know that she thinks you're a tiny terror?"
"Of course," Pete said as he put the white sack in his book bag. It didn't surprise Nick that he was hoarding those, if the amount of times he'd been hungry the day before were any indication. "It's not for no reason that she threatens me with complex math problems."
"She'd do it, too," Jenn, who was the last to leave, told him. "Show me if she does?"
Pete grinned. "If she doesn't, I'm asking him to. And yes, Jennifer, I'll show you."
Nick watched her go, then looked at Pete again, marveling at the difference between the Uniform Day hyper vigilance, the excitement of the day before during the reunion, and now, the hints of what probably earned him such a nick name as Tiny Terror.