A/N: I updated quickly, so I guess I'll keep writing even though
I've gotten ZERO reviews. You guys better cough up because, even though
I have chapters written, if no one reads them, what's the point?
Maddy
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Warrick stepped into the immaculately clean Chem lab. The floors
were steel, Warrick knew, because if someone spilled a chemical it
couldn't get through the cracks in the linoleum that the rest of the
school was caked in. The desk in the front lefthand corner of the room
was covered in an odd array of jars and tubes. A frog floating in
formaldahyde-"How classic," Warrick thought-was sitting on the desk
alongside a vacuum-sealed jar that seemed to contain pure sodium.
Further along the desk there was a large stack of papers, scribbled
over in red ballpoint.
Taking his seat at the back of the class, Warrick immersed himself in
the secondhand textbook he had just barely managed to afford. He and
his grandmother lived in the slums, and they could just barely live on
what his grandmother made and what Warrick could pull in. He worked at
a fast-food joint down the street from his house, and all though it
didn't pay well, he told his grandmother it did. His second job, a
runner for one of the many big-name gamblers in Vegas, was his second
life. He could never tell his grams about it. They needed the money,
and Warrick had vowed to take care of his grandmother, just like she
had done for him after his parents died.
Lost in his own thoughts, Warrick didn't notice a pinched looking boy
sit down next to him. "I'm Conrad Ecklie," the boy said stiffly,
sticking out his hand and simultaniously jerking Warrick out of his
dreamworld. "Warrick Brown," he said quickly, shaking Ecklie's hand in
a hasty manner before turning his eyes back to the book.
The Chemistry teacher, Mr. Schick, entered the room and cleared his
throat loudly, commanding attention. He ran through the attendance
list, his eyes fixing on each student in turn. Then, while
absentmindedly rubbing the bald spot on the back of his head, he said,
"Please turn to chapter one as we review the Periodic Table." His voice
had a nasal quality, and Warrick sighed as he realized not only would
he be stuck hearing lectures from this detestable man and sitting next
to an obviously stuck up Sophomore, but the class would be learning
simple things. "Just a year of this and then I can take something
else..." Warrick sighed as the thought these words in a melancholy tone.
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He
was busily working on a graphing equation when the bell rand to signal
the end of second period. He was the epitome of concentration, with his
tongue between his teeth and both eyes focused on the paper before him,
the words being jotted quickly as the rest of the class stood up to
leave. Upon finding the answer, Nick shoved the paper mercilessly into
his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder and walking swiftly
to the door and out into the hall.He was soon in the boys locker room,
putting on the black shorts and grey t-shirts that all the kids wore to
gym. When he entered the gym, Nick saw some kids already lined up on
the opposite wall. He walked over and stood in an empty space next to a
girl he recognized from his homeroom as Sara Sidle."Hi,
I'm Nick," he said, watching as she drew with her right forefinger on
the back of her left hand. "I'm in your homeroom." Nick was waiting for
a reply when a sharp-looking man entered the gym and blew the whistle
around his neck. Sara rolled her eyes at Nick, both of them thinking
the same thing. "How cliche." While the mean old coach, Mr. Lambert,
explained what they would be covering in Phys. Ed. this year, Sara and
Nick exchanged glances of pure agony.
After about an hour (really only two or three minutes) the coach had
finished his speech and was barking out the order to run laps around
the gym. "So do you ever talk?" Nick asked Sara in a joking way. She
looked at him sarcastically, turning her eyes back to the ground where
her feet were moving in a steady, fascinating rhythm. "Have you made
any friends yet?" Nick pressed. He was detirmined to get at least one
friend by the end of the day, and Sara Sidle was his first target.
"It's always a plus to know a pretty girl," Nick thought, immediately
stopping himself and remembering that she still hadn't said anything to
him.
"Not really," Sara said finally said. "Have you?"
Nick answered. "Negative," he said, "but hey, if you're free for lunch, let's eat together. Who knows, maybe we'll be friends"
Sara finished the rest of gym class knowing that maybe, just maybe, school wouldn't be as bad as she anticipated.
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Catherine
was dishing out the ice. All around her kids were whispering and
pointing. That is, until she gave them a cold look to shut them up. The
poetry class she had chosen was going exactly as she had feared. She
was seated next to the boy she'd plowed over that morning on her way to
homeroom, and had just decided to shock the onlookers more by
introducing herself to him when he beat her to the punch. "I'm Gil. Gil
Grissom," he said, extending his hand and shaking hers politely.
"Um...Catherine Willows," Cathy said, a little taken aback. The boy,
Gil, had already gone back to his copy of Edgar Alan Poe's compiled
works.
"Sorry for knocking you over this morning," Catherine said, surprised
at how out-of-character she was acting. Gil merely waved a hand, as if
this matter had been settled long ago. He never looked up from his
book. The class went by smoothly, despite the occasional whispered quip
directed towards Catherine about how she "really was a big softy."
Cathy vowed to pummel them later, making a mental note of each face as
it taunted at her.
Once in a while she would glance over at Gil, sensing someone watching
her, but every time she looked he was absorbed in some poem or piece of
classwork. When the bell rang, Cathy looked at Gil. "So, I'll see you
around..." she mumbled. Gil shrugged. He gave her the distinct
impression that no one had ever offered to "see him around" or even
spoken so many words to him. He seemed to think it very unlikely that
she would ever see him out of the English class they shared. "No,"
Cathy reminded herself, "he's in my homeroom, too." Either way, it was
a little unnerving how detached Gil seemed to be. Almost inhuman.
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Sara
walked into herAncient Cultures class, having just said goodbye to
Nick. She felt relieved at having made at least one friend, and she was
slightly more confident as she entered. She chose a seat next to a boy
she recognized as Greg Sanders, from homeroom. Greg was too busy making
a paper football to notice that someone had sat down at an adjoining
desk, so Sara decided to start a conversation. "Hi, I'm Sara Sidle, I'm
a Freshman and you're in my homeroom, you're Greg Sanders, aren't you?"
Sara said this all in one breath. She realized only after she said it
that she sounded slightly foolish. Looking down at her feet, she
listened for his reply."Yeah,
I'm Greg," he confirmed. He looked up at the worn out face of the girl
next to him, noting how her eyes seemed to be too big for the rest of
her. Her ears stuck out a little, but Greg thought it was kind of cute.
"Have you heard anything about this teacher?" Sara shook her head, but
any inquiries they may have had about Mr. De la Cruz were soon
answered.The teacher entered the room, quickly introduced himself and
told the students to take notes. Then he launched into a speech that
both Greg and Sara found very interesting, involving the Aztek concept
of a single magic number that could tell when, exactly, the world would
end. The teens were all copying down the date, December twenty-second,
two-thousand-eleven, when the bell rang for lunch.
"Hey, Greg?" Sara inquired. "My friend Nick and I are having lunch together, do you wanna come?"
"Sure," Greg replied. He hadn't made any other plans, in fact, he didn't have any new friends to make other plans with.
After putting their books away in their respective lockers, Sara and
Greg met Nick in the cafeteria and they all sat down at a table near
the door that led outside. Nick and Greg became instant friends, and
they, along with Sara, began a long discussion on school, teachers, and
family among other things. Nick and Greg both noticed that Sara seemed
unwilling to talk about her family, so that subject was somewhat
shortlived.
Their table was right next to the table where Jim Brass and Gil were
sitting in a deep conversation. A few tables away from them was
Warrick, sitting all alone in a back corner, and at a table next to
his, a very angry Catherine was glaring at anyone who made a move to
sit down with her.
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The rest of the day
passed in a blur. Right after lunch Greg met a scrawny Asian boy named
Archie. They had band together with Mrs. Wells, and while Greg lazily
drummed and Archie played violin, the two of them became fast friends.
They spent the better part of their concentration coming up with
nicknames for Mrs. Wells, who was conducting with such enthusiasm that
her glasses often came close to falling off her nose.
Catherine had Social Studies as the last class of the day, the period
after the period after lunch. She was paired with Warrick to do a
surprise presentation of a scene in the book the class had just
started, which focused on culture in the middle east. The teacher had
explained that the better part of the year would be spent studying such
places as Iran and Afghanistan. Catherine cringed at the prospect, but
she and Warrick had become fast friends and enjoyed helping eachother
with the classwork.
After school, Nick and Warrick had both signed up for the Mathletes
team. They picked eachother as partners to test their geometry skills,
and soon they were talking and laughing like old friends. As Jim, Gil,
Cathy, Warrick, Nick, Greg, Sara, and Archie thought back on the day
when they were all safely at home, the same thought was running
throught each mind."Today wasn't so bad after all."
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A:N/ The Ancient Cultures class is based off of one I had in seventh grade, my teacher's name was Mr. De la Cruz, and he told us the world was going to end on December 22, 2011. I couldn't think of any other classes, and I was stumped for names. Sorry! I even got the Chem teacher, Mr. Schick's name off my razor when I was shaving my legs. Hugs and kisses for all my reviewers, Maddy