I know a lot of you are wondering exactly why Gordon does all these sports and the reason is that he likes being active, I think that if Jeff didn't have such high expectations of his sons, then Gordon definitely would have been more active and done more sports than just swimming. Plus he doesn't have any older siblings who he has to live up to, and he doesn't quite know what he wants to study after he graduates high school. I'm in my final year of high school at the moment, and a few of my classmates don't know what they want to study yet or where they want to go, so, therefore, Gordon doesn't have this kind of stress.
Thank you to all those who have submitted dog names, they were all good and I'm having trouble choosing just one! so, I'm creating a poll at the moment and it will go out once chapter 5 is out, just to give you some time if you have a name you want to submit.
Since Katie and Alan have been homeschooled their whole lives, they are also going to be socially awkward at the start but will grow out of it.
Katie and Alan walked through the office doors and to the desk where a woman in her mid-thirties with red hair was typing on a computer
"excuse me," Katie said politely, getting her attention
"ah! You must be the new students! Welcome!" the lady says, giving them a warm smile "I'm, Ms shapen, the secretary"
"hi," Katie said, giving her a small wave "I'm Katie and this is my brother, Alan"
"very nice," Ms Shapen said, typing away at her computer "Katie, you'll be in the senior wing, and Alan will be in the Middle School wing" both siblings looked nervously at each other, but Ms Shapen didn't seem to notice "classes begin at approximately 8:45, break is at 11:20, lunch is at 1:15 and the day ends at 4:00. The school library is open from 8-5, but the public library is open 24/7. Any questions?"
"no," Kaie said weekly, her mind processing the overload of information
"good. I'll tell the principal you're here" Ms Shapen said and reached for the phone beside her, a few moments later, a male walked into the lobby. He was wearing a suit and had black hair that was leaked back a trimmed beard.
"Hi, I'm Mr Preston. The principal" he said and shook their hands, before leading them away "your teachers will go over the school rules and expectations, I'm assigning you a student each to be your buddy for the week, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. We also have level coordinators if you need any help settling in, is that alright?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Katie said, but in truth, she was nervous as hell. So nervous that she tuned out most of what Mr Preston was saying until he caught her attention
"...in the event of an attack, you should get as far away as you can"
"wait...what attack?"
"oh, you don't know?" they both shook their heads, Mr Preston gave them a sympathetic smile "for the past few months, we've been attacked by aliens, just like in the past. But we have our own team of power rangers to help us." he then stopped at two double doors "I'm afraid this is where you'll have to split up. Alan, the director of middle school will show you around, you can meet up at the end of the day"
Katie and Alan glanced at each other, before Allan pulled Katie in for a hug, before walking through the doors and disappearing.
"don't worry, he'll be fine" Mr Preston assured Katie before leading her down the hall "I would love to show you around, but I'm afraid I have some very important meetings to attend. Here is your timetable" he handed her a piece of paper "it also has your locker no. on it, if you get lost don't be afraid to ask for help and my door is always open," he said before leaving, leaving Katie all alone.
Katie walked through the halls with her feet on autopilot, she had never been this far apart from her brother before.
"Hey Katie!" a cheerful voice said next to her, she looked and saw Gordon standing in front of a locker and holding several books
"hey" she mumbled
"first day jitters?" he asked her and she nodded numbly, it seemed stupid to admit she missed her brother and had never been separated from him before
"I get that" he nodded sympathetically and glanced at her timetable "hey! We're locker neighbours!"
"what?"
"your locker is next to mine! They're assigned alphabetically, but you can change if you want"
"oh" Katie replied and opened her locker and was relieved to find it empty and clean, and there was even a shelf to store her books on. She unzipped her bag and took out the books she wouldn't need for the day and placed them on the shelf, she moved to close her locker when she felt a hand stop her, she looked up to see Gordon grabbing onto the locker door
"you have to leave your bag in your locker, the teachers don't like them in the classroom" Gordon explained, Katie blinked as she just realised that Gordon was no longer wearing his bag and was carrying his books in his arms and had a laptop bag slung over his shoulder
"oh, ok," Katie said and placed her bag into her locker and grabbed the books she would need and the pencil case that was designed by Virgil for her 14th birthday, before digging out the lock that Scott gave her and locking her locker
"so, where's your first class?"
"Calculus, room 31B"
"Awesome! Leo and Sam are in that class. I'll walk you there" Gordon offered and led the way, Katie followed him
"Hey, can I ask a question?"
"you just did" Gordon smirked and Katie glared "just kidding"
"Thanks, so Mr Preston mentioned something about alien attacks, is that true?"
"oh, yeah. Totally true"
"but aliens don't exist" Gordon gave her a deadpan expression
"seriously? Have you been living under a rock for the past 50 years?"
"uh...no. But one of my brothers is an astronaut and he says there's no such thing as aliens."
"well then. He's wrong" Gordon said before gently pushing her into her classroom "here we are"
Katie stumbled through the door and stared around the classroom, most students had arrived and were all sitting at their desks, chatting with each other, the teacher looked up from his desk
"ah, you must be the new student. Kathryn Roman?" he said in a slightly British accent "I'm your teacher Mr Morris"
"Actually it's Katie" he frowned at her before turning to address the room
"students" he called and the class instantly went silent "we have a new student joining us, Kathryn Roman. Please make her feel welcome" the class all waved and she shyly waved back
"you can have a seat next to Samantha" he pointed to a desk next to a girl with pink hair dye at the end of her shoulder-length bluenette hair, a grey jacket with a white shirt that had a paw-print underneath, she wore red sneakers and black trousers. The said girl waved and Katie made her way over
"hey, Katie" Leo whispered to her as she passed his desk, she smiled politely at him before sitting down at her new desk
"hi, I'm Samantha. Samantha Day, but you can call me Sam" Sam said as Katie sat down
"Katie Roman"
"don't bother too much about trying to get Mr Morris to call you that, he calls everyone by their real name. he's also really strict and has zero tolerance for misbehaving. If you forget one homework assignment, it's instant detention"
"wow," Katie said, "Hey, you're on the Academic Decathalon team right?"
"Yeah, we're holding tryouts after a member had to drop out. You interested?"
"yeah! I watched your match from last year, you guys were amazing!"
"thanks. Tryouts are on Thursday, head's up. Mike who's our captain takes practice very seriously"
"hey, do aliens really exist?" Sam frowned at her for a moment before nodding
"Yeah, they started attacking a few months ago. They want to take over the world or something and decided to attack a small town to set up their base of operations" sam said with a roll of her eyes
"But, how did they get here?"
"on a spaceship" Sam answered in a 'duh' voice
"but my brother works in NASA, he hasn't said anything about aliens" John certainly hadn't mentioned anything about a UFO entering their solar system, let alone their atmosphere
"well, then it's one of two things. 1) your brother has sworn to not tell anyone about it or 2) the aliens have cloaking technology" Katie frowned and made a note to ask John later
Before anything else could be said, the bell rang and Mr Morris began the lesson, Sam quickly turned to take notes. Katie sighed quietly before following her example. 'I hope Alan's having a better day than me' she thought
I had a really big internal debate about mixing PR into this story, asked several people on Tumblr and they all thought it was a good idea so I thought: why not?
If you are slightly confused, I grew up knowing the British/Australian school system, not the American one. So some words might confuse you, just a heads up.
The next chapter will be about Alan
