Disclaimer:Everything belongs to Columbia Pictures and to the writers and producers and whoever else I may have forgotten to mention. The only things I claim to own are my own characters and the plot of this story.
Modern high school was nothing like he thought it would be. Or at least, Hoover Central High wasn't. It was obvious that the school served a slightly more rural area, but even so, the place was crowded. The hallways smelled like a strange combination of body odor, overly-strong perfumes, and whatever "meat" the cafeteria had cooked up for lunch. And yet, even though this was a new, unfamiliar place, he still found himself identifying the same groups that he'd seen in his previous brief public high school experience. There were still jocks and cheerleaders, science geeks, and the girls who wore too much makeup. But there were other groups now, ones he couldn't quite identify yet.
Connor thought all this as he tried to put the combo in to open his locker for the third time. He'd managed to make it through all but one class, Agricultural Science. All he had to do now was get through that one class and the bus ride home and his official first day of school would be over. If he could get the locker open, of course.
He growled in frustration as he failed in opening the lock again. He was tempted to use his power to open the durned thing, but Jack had specifically told him that using it would get him grounded for a week. Just before he was about to give up, someone picked the lock out of his hand. "Here, there's a trick to it," Allie said as her fingers quickly put in the combination.
Click! The lock popped open and Allie slid it off while Connor open the door and retrieved his books. "Thanks," he mumbled as she leaned against the locker next to him and twirled the lock around one finger.
"Just takes some practice, is all," she told him smiling. "Now hurry up, we'll be late to-"
BBBBRRRIIINNG!
The tardy bell cut her off.
Connor slammed the door to his locker shut and took the lock from her as she walked out of the lockers. Kids ran by them on their way to class, but Allie walked down the hall, Connor tagging along behind her.
"He won't mind if we're late?" he asked after a moment.
"Nah," she replied. "Besides, I already told him we'd be late. You're not the first kid who's had trouble with their locker on the first day. The only real danger to being late to Ag Science is if Mr. Paliento catches us."
Someone cleared their throat behind the two of them. They both froze. "Crap," Allie muttered under her breath before turning to face the principal. "Mr. Paliento, I was just telling Connor about you," she smiled sweetly.
Connor turned to face the man as well. He was tall with dark hair and even darker eyes, if that was possible. The man was frowning at them. "Trouble on the first day, Mr. Shepard?" he asked after a moment.
Connor nodded nervously. "Yes sir. I, uh, I couldn't get my locker open. Allie was helping me."
"Well fortunately for you, this is your first offense, so I'll let it slide. And perhaps even more fortunate for you, Ms. Lee, since you were helping him with his locker, I'll give you a pass as well." His eyes narrowed a bit. "But this is the last warning for both of you."
Allie nodded quickly. "Yes, sir!" Then she grabbed Connor's arm and practically dragged him down the hallway.
When they were out of earshot of the principal, she let go of him and sighed. "What was that about?" he asked, glancing at her.
He had watched her slowly pale during the entire encounter with the older man. Now that they were away from him, some color had returned to her cheeks, but she was still far too pale for his liking. She didn't reply, instead, stopping in front of a door bearing a plaque reading "Agriculture." She moved to open it, but he caught her hand as it rested on the doorknob. "What was that about?" he asked, concern rising in his voice.
She looked away from him. "I'm President of the school's Ag Society. If I get another detention, I get kicked off exec board. And Paliento has it out for us. We take up funding that could go towards other things, like sports. He would just love to get rid of the Ag Society. He told Mr. Hayes once that if it weren't for the Board of Education requiring us to have an agriculture class, it wouldn't even be offered here. And I'm the most active member of the society, so I guess he thinks if he can get me kicked out, other kids will lose interest. There's so few of us anyways."
She opened the door to reveal a mostly empty classroom. There were maybe only about seven or eight other kids sitting around the room. Allie ushered him into the room and closed the door as she stepped in after him. Every eye in the room turned to look at Connor for a moment, before everyone returned to what they had been doing. A man suddenly appeared from a door to Connor's right. He absentmindedly ran a tanned hand through his dirty blonde hair before noticing the two of them.
"Allie! I was wondering when you'd get here," he said, then realizing how pale she still was, added, "What happened?! Did you run into Paliento? Did he give you a detention?"
"Yeah, we ran into him, but thankfully Connor here had trouble with his locker and he let us go," she replied.
The man sighed in obvious relief, then turned his attention to Connor. "Ah, so you must be Mr. Shepard. Welcome to Agricultural Science! My name is Caleb Hayes, but you can call me whatever you like. Hope you're ready to jump right in, because today we're going up to work with the cows."
Connor couldn't help but smiling at the man's enthusiasm as he responded. "Nice to meet you. Allie told me we would be working in the mud today, so I guess I have no choice, do I?"
Mr. Hayes laughed at that. Then he turned and addressed the small class. "All righty, y'all. Everyone is here, so let's get up to the barn!"
Allie excused herself briefly to go switch her sneakers for boots, the rejoined Connor as he started out the back door of the classroom.
All he had left was a few more minutes in his last class, Ag Science. And then his first day back in public school would officially be over.
"Hey, Connor, can you hand me that pick over there?" Allie's voice broke through his thoughts. "Hey, you okay?"
He blinked and realized that she was standing right in front of him, waving her hand slowly in front of his face. Quickly, he nodded. "Um, yeah, just thinking."
"Okay. You just zoned out there for a minute," she said as she reached behind him and grabbed a long handled object. To Connor, it looked more like a medieval torture device than something used to clean a barn.
"Hey, you wanna come help me feed the cows real quick?" she asked suddenly.
"Uh, sure," he replied. "After all, how hard could it be to feed a cow?"
Allie giggled slightly when she heard that. "This is gonna be fun. Alright, come on," she said as she turned and lead him through a gate at the back of the barn.
A few minutes later, Connor wondered why he had ever made such a stupid statement. In fact, he even began to think he preferred fighting supervillains over his current task. He struggled to lift a heavy bale of hay over the barbwire fence without poking himself with the sharp metal thorns. He finally managed to throw the hay bale over the fence, then paused to watch Allie throw one over the fence as though it were a lightweight blanket.
"How do you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?" she turned to him. "Oh, that? I've done it so much, I'm just used to it, I guess. I'll get the last one and then we can head back down."
She turned back to grab another bale. He watched her muscles strain under the weight of the hay as she easily lifted it over the fence. She laughed again when she noticed him watching her. "Come on, everybody else has already gone back," she told him.
He followed her back through the barn-pausing only to make sure the gate was secured- and then down the small hill the barn was set on to the school building. Black storm clouds were building to the west, and a stiff breeze kicked up, bringing the sweet scent of rain.
"Is this what we do every day in this class?" Connor asked after several minutes of silence.
"What, work with the cows? No, not every day. Some days we work with pigs or in the greenhouse. When it starts getting really cold, we'll stay inside and work in the shop or do bookwork," Allie replied. "We're a really close class, you know, with like ten people. We just do whatever, as long as the state standards are met."
They had to stop outside the classroom door until someone could come unlock it. "Hey," Connor said suddenly, causing Allie to turn and look at him. "Thanks for helping me find my way around today."
She smiled at him, and for some odd reason, he felt his cheeks begin to grow warm. "You're welcome."
The door suddenly opened just as the bell signaling the end of the school day rang. "Hey, I'll meet you at the bus!" Allie told him as she ran inside. "But you'll have to hurry. I can't hold Mr. Flannigan for long." Then she was gone, leaving Connor to find his way back through the hallways to his locker.
And suddenly, it hit him that his first day of high school was officially over.
Author's Note: Hey, I promised I would get another chapter up soon, and I did! As of right now, I absolutely know where I want this story to go, so hopefully there won't be any more super long delays! This chapter is a little bit short and kinda boring, but it's really just a filler/intro chapter I wanted to get out while I was coming up with ideas. More excitement is coming up, so stay turned!
Please leave a review if you enjoyed the story, and feel free to message me if you have any thoughts/ideas/concerns/etc. I love reading comments and they really give me encouragement to continue writing. Also, thanks again to everyone who has reviewed and followed! See you soon! ~NightRider
