Xarilyn said: "The Mr Porter sounds very weird to me. Is he really head of M16 now?"
In reply, I say: "Good question. The situation's complicated. Keep reading!"
Master-Wolfie said: "Is Alex's mom a spy, maybe?"
In reply, I say: "Conspiracy theorists think so lol. The question you need to ask now is whether or not I'm a conspiracy theorist. And if I am, why would Alex's mom matter? . . . or he could have a cousin. Or he could have both. Keep reading!"
Thanks to:
Ignotus-Veritas
MaStEr-WoLfIe
kiwi girl
Miss Lyss
Dartboy
Herod Sayle
Xarilyn
Chibisuke
Grey waters
. . . for reviewing )
Chapter Four
Animosity
Alex took a deep breath. He let it out and it produced a small cloud in front of him. It was a cold day in February when he entered the schoolyard. It hadn't changed. His fellow students were still talking in their little circles, milling about the courtyard. Mr. Bray was still walking around, getting to know his students as they waited for the morning to begin. Bernie was relining the trash bins. Everything was as it should be.
He looked around and spotted a group of his friends standing in line at the Snack Bar, getting a little morning sustenance. Alex smiled. They never did eat breakfast at home, and they hadn't started to while he had been gone.
Slinking around the edge of the courtyard so he didn't cause a commotion (he had other friends milling about the courtyard but he wanted to surprise this one group first), Alex made his way to the Snack Bar. He silently got in line behind Tom and David. Chris was already done ordering and was waiting for Mrs. Santian to get his donut. Tom was the athlete, David was the scientist, and Chris was the writer. His friends were such polar opposites that Alex had become the natural mediator. Since Alex was good at sports, math and science, and writing, he was the glue that held their group together. Otherwise, each one wouldn't have someone to talk to about his own subject. Wondering how they had gotten along without him, Alex listened to their conversation.
"I can't believe they still won't let us in to see him," Tom was saying. "We're his closest friends, he's in a coma, and we aren't even allowed to visit him."
"It's been over three months since we last saw him," David answered, handing a five-pound note to Mrs. Santian. Mrs. Santian saw Alex and smiled. Alex put a finger to his lips and winked. David continued. "First he's away because he's sick,"
"And then he gets into an accident on his bike on the way to school," Chris said. "That's some really bad luck."
"It's been three months?" Tom asked.
"Yeah," David snickered. "Can you not count? Or did we just celebrate his birthday for absolutely no reason at all?"
Tom ignored him, looking pale. "What if he never wakes up? I don't want to think about it, but that's one scary prospect."
Alex chimed in. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about it. It was only a bike accident. He could wake up and walk out of the hospital any minute now."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right, Alex," Tom said, "but still – "
"Alex?" Chris and David looked at him.
Tom blinked and turned around. "Alex!"
Alex didn't answer. He was too busy being doubled over laughing.
Alex spent the rest of the day being tackled by the rest of his friends, who almost immediately got reprimanded by teachers ("Calm down boys! Alex just got out of the hospital – you don't want to put him back into a coma, do you?")
Lunch came around and Alex went to the vending machines, eager for some junk food to counteract the healthy stuff that Dr. Stevens force-fed him.
He approached the machines as someone else ahead of him was having trouble with one.
"Stop being mean!" the girl said to the machine in a reprehensive voice. "Be nice! Just one of these days, could you just be nice?" She had an American accent. Must have been a foreign exchange student. "Come on you piece of sh . . . " Alex was about to laugh when the girl quickly corrected herself, ". . . not-so-nice-piece-of-waste-material." The machine didn't appear to care. "You know what? You asked for it." And with that she gave the machine a spin kick and a candy bar fell out. "That should teach you to give me a Mars Bar instead of a Cadbury." She turned and saw Alex.
"What?" she asked brusquely. "You don't get mad when the waitergives you regularinstead of diet?" She smiled a brief apology for being so short.
Alex blinked at her. "I suppose I would. But I wouldn't bust out the karate moves."
"You look familiar," she said, cocking her head to one side, her smile disappearing.
Alex shrugged. "I don't see why I should – I've been gone for three months, and I don't recognize you." He hastily added, "I mean, you must be new because I haven't seen you around before."
She shrugged, throwing her long wavy auburn hair over her shoulder haughtily. "I am new. I just mistook you for that jackass who almost ran me over with his bike this morning."
He frowned at her. Alex realized that he had almost run a girl over on his bike earlier, but he had just shrugged it off thinking he was out of practice. Attempting to make peace, he said, "Was that you? I'm terribly sorry . . . ?" He waited for her name.
The girl gave him a green eyed glare that caused him to shrink just a little. "Well, if that's all, I'm just going to go and enjoy my lunch." She turned on her expensive Italian boot heels and began walking away when David appeared at the end of the hall behind Alex.
"Hey Alex!" he called.
The girl looked over her shoulder, which was a mistake because David saw her too and made to introduce her to Alex.
David trotted up to the two of them. "Hey Mandy, I see you've met Alex."
The girl, Mandy, joined them reluctantly. "I don't think we got around to the formal introductions."
"I can help you with that," David said, smiling. "Alex, this isAmanda Wright. She's a year younger than us, but she's in our maths lesson. She's a smart one. Mandy, this is Alex Rider; a boy who seems to love the hospital so much that he enjoys getting sick at several times during the year and performing dangerous and injury inducing feats that land him in a hospital bed. With luck, you'll actually see him around this year."
"Or with even more luck, not at all," she muttered, smiling sardonically at Alex, who could only respond with a puzzled blink. David didn't seem to hear what she said. Alex frowned at her, wondering what he had done to offend her. Maybe she was just that mad at him for almost hitting her with his bike.
"Well Alex," David said, "the guys want you back at our table. They're dying to know what your life and death experience was like . . . was that a pun? Anyway,I personally would just like to know whether you'll be needing your bike anymore. I mean, I wouldn't be really surprised if you were sick of it.See you later, Mandy!"
She gave David a small smile and a wave, and acknowledged Alex with a side-glance before turning away again.
Once she was out of earshot Alex asked, "What's her problem?"
David blinked. "What do you mean 'what's her problem?' She's got a problem?"
"She indirectly called me a jackass within the first five seconds of our first face-to-face encounter."
"Did she really?" David asked. "Are you sure that was her?"
"No, I was only standing two feet away and there was no one else anywhere around," Alex said, rolling his eyes.
David frowned. "Well, I don't know. Maybe it was just one of those days."
Alex shrugged, thinking he might just begin hating maths if Mandy was really in his class.
As lunch progressed, Alex was able to observe almost all his friends acknowledge Mandy in a pleasant way. Tom waved to her, explaining to Alex that she had physical education with him and was quite good at cricket . . . for a girl, anyway. Dianne and Gail, girls from Alex's science class, talked animatedly to her as did many of Alex's lower classmen friends. Chris had a rather long conversation with her about the story he was writing and the poem she wrote. If all of his friends liked her, she couldn't be all that bad. Maybe she just made a bad first impression.
During the next lesson, they played a game a cricket. Alex was on Tom's team and Mandy was on the opposing force. She bowled Alex out three times.
By the lockers, Tom was a little surprised.
"Oh come on," Alex said. "So I was having an off day. I did just come out of the hospital."
Tom shook his head. "No, it wasn't you. She was just too good. I've never seen her play with such . . . I don't know . . . what's the word?"
"Maliciousness?"
"No," Tom said, holding the door open for Alex, shaking his head.
"Spite? Malignity?"
"No," Tom responded, frowning, as they walked down the hall.
"Malevolence? Animosity? Enmity?"
"What? No!" Tom said, surprised and raising his eyebrows.
"Vindictiveness? Umbrage? Bitterness? Resen-"
"Mate, NO. Conviction. There. What's wrong with you?"
"Me?"
And then they went opposite directions to make it to different classrooms on time.
In maths, the situation was pretty much the same. It felt to Alex as if he were a contestant in a game show and could only keep up with Mandy, not beat her.
Afterwards, David was stunned too, in the same way that Tom had been. "I've never seen her answer questions with such . . . "
"Contempt?"
"Uh . . .no," David said hesitantly.
"Viciousness? Defiance?"
"Er . . . maybe, but I don't think that's quite what . . . "
"Audacity? Insolence? Riv-"
"No. Satisfaction. That's a better way of putting it. What's with all the hate?"
"Hey, it's not me!" Alex said.
"You were the one talking," David said.
"Yeah, but only in response to what she -" Alex began but then David had to go because his ride arrived.
Alex made his way to where he bike was locked up. There was Chris, talking to Mandy. Alex groaned. He'd had about enough of this girl.
They laughed at something Chris said.
Gag me, Alex thought.
She seemed perfectly friendly. He wished someone could get on his side about her, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be Chris.
The congenial smile on Mandy's face turned into a smirk as Alex approached. Chris looked at the expression with a genuine appearance of puzzlement on his face.
"You be careful on that bike, now," she said in a subtle mocking tone. "You might want to switch to something else. It's quite possible that you are a danger to yourself and others on that thing."
"Don't worry, Mandy," Chris said, giving a confused smile to the both of them, "He's learned his lesson. He'll be more careful. If he doesn't, I'll personally put him back in the hospital. Or get Tom to do it."
Alex grinned at Chris before rewarding Mandy's smirk with a sneer. This further puzzled Chris. "You might want to be careful with your radicals. Who doesn't know the cubed root of 216?"
Chris blinked. "I don't," he said.
"And I'd be careful with your logarithms, Alex," Mandy replied. "Especially with those exponents. Well, it takes some people longer to learn than others. Trigonometry isn't for everybody, you know. See you boys around." She turned and left.
Alex could feel his cheeks getting hot, but he let it go.
"That was . . . strange," Chris said. For a guy with such incredible eloquence, he seemed to run out of words quite quickly.
Alex shrugged.
"Well," Chris said, unchaining his bike, "at least it's mutual animosity."
"Hey, I couldn't take all that lying down, now could I?"
"Yes," Chris said, "You could. It's quite physically possible."
"Yeah, but after two hours in a row of that I got tired, so sue me."
It was Chris's turn to shrug. "Well, see you tomorrow Alex. Don't overdo it, okay? We want you around for a while more."
Alex smiled. "I'll try."
Author's Note: It is a little retarded, but I didn't know how else to get the message across that she hates him.
Questions you should be asking:
Why doesMandy hate Alex?
Why does Mandy even matter?