The bell rang, signaling the official start of the school day. The intercom dinging, getting everyone's attention for the morning announcements. Will was only half paying attention, while Jem was all ears. He knew Jem would be listening for any announcements about the band or orchestra.
The announcements were the same as they were at the beginning of every school year. What time were the auditions for the fall play going to be, what sports teams were having try outs and practices, when the band would have an afterschool rehearsal. It was the same thing year after year.
Once the announcements were over, Mrs. Penhallow wasted no time in starting class. She introduced herself for any of the students that didn't have her last year, which was only a handful and immediately dove into the material.
"Hey Jem?" Will whispered.
Jem ignored him, trying to pay attention to the teacher.
"Jem?"
"What?" Jem's eyebrow twitched in irritation. "I'm trying to pay attention, unlike you."
"I know that." Will copied something down into his notebook that Mrs. Penhallow wrote on the board. It was something about the structure of the brain.
"Then what do you want? Can't it wait until after class?"
"I was only going to ask you if you wanted to sit with me at lunch."
Jem rolled his eyes and sighed. "You could have waited until it was lunch time to ask me that. And it's not like I have much of a choice anyways. You would have sat with me even if I did say no."
"That's not true. You could always tell me to go away. I would be hurt, but I would."
Jem chuckled to himself. "You know that's not true."
"Alright. It's not true. I wouldn't go away, but I would be hurt."
"Now that sounds like the Will Herondale that I know and love. Now can I please pay attention to the lesson, or are you going to keep trying to distract me?"
Will smirked and looked up at the board. "You can pay attention."
The rest of the class was spent talking about the structure of the brain, and what each section's primary function was. Will had a hard enough time keeping all of it straight, and to his and his class's dismay, there was going to be a test on it at the end of the week.
When the bell rang, Will was more than grateful to pack his things and leave.
"So where are you headed Jem?"
Jem looked at his schedule to see his next class. "AP Calculus. What about you?"
"Same!" Will exclaimed.
"It' wouldn't surprise me if we had all of the same classes together." Jem finished backing his back and threw it over his shoulder.
"I know there's at least two classes that we wouldn't have together." Will threw his own bag over his shoulder and started heading to the door, glad to get out of that classroom.
"Oh? And what might those be?" Jem asked. He walked beside Will, occasionally slipping behind him with the crowds of the hallway didn't allow them to walk side by side.
"I know you have orchestra. I don't play an instrument, so I don't see me being in that class. And I'm pretty sure that you're not taking creative writing, are you?"
"You would be correct on both accounts. What are the odds that we have those classes at the same time?"
"When do you have orchestra?" Will asked.
"It's during fourth period. When creative writing?"
"AP Creative Writing, thank you very much. And it's during sixth period."
"Sorry. AP Creative Writing." Jem corrected himself with a chuckle.
"The AP makes a big difference."
"Oh trust me. I know."
Will walked into the classroom and picked a desk towards the middle of the room so that Jem wouldn't complain. "I'm going to have an entire free period to myself with no Jem to entertain me. Whatever am I going to do?"
Jem set his bag down and sat down next to Will. "Oh yes, whatever are you going to do?" He pulled out his notebook and his calculator. "It's not like you're not going to have any homework to do or anything."
"Doing homework? During a free period? Jem that's scandalous," Will said.
"What? I do my homework during my free periods. That's less work I have to do at home. And since I'm at school, it's easier to focus on it. Not to mention it's helpful that your teachers are close by should you have any questions."
"Yeah, I guess that's true." Will got his own things out and prepared for his class.
Will and Jem spent the rest of the day going to their classes, finding seats, and listening to the usual first day of class lectures. They found out that they had nearly every class together except for Orchestra and AP Creative Writing.
The met up again after Will's creative writing class by Jem's locker.
"Only one more class left and then we can go home," Will said. He was leaning on the locker next to Jem's. "Can you believe how much homework we have already? It's only the first day of school!"
"They're only giving us this much work to do because they want to prepare us for college. That's the whole point of a college preparatory school, Will." Jem got his books and closed his locker. He gave the dial a twist to make sure it was locked.
"Yeah but still. When am I supposed to have time to do this all? I do have a life you know."
"Really? You could have fooled me with that one."
"You wound me Jem."
Jem rolled his eyes playfully. "Come on Herondale or we'll be late to our last class. Where are you going anyways?"
Will looked at his schedule. This was the only class that he didn't have memorized yet. "Oh you've got to be kidding me!"
"What's wrong?" Jem asked.
"I've got AP Chemistry with Branwell! He's the worst teacher in the entire school. The only reason he still works here is because he's married to the principal."
"Oh Will, he can't be that bad. Let's go find out together shall we?" Jem asked.
"You have him too?"
"Yes I do." Jem started walking towards the chemistry rooms.
"Thank god they didn't put me in hell alone."
Jem just shook his head and walked into the classroom. He took a seat near the front.
"Oh thanks Jem. Now I can't fall asleep during lectures." Will put his stuff down and sat down next to Jem.
"You know you ought to pay attention. Colleges really do look at your AP exam scores. And it never hurts to do well so that you don't have to take the class again in college." Jem pulled out his textbook and his notebook. "And considering how heavy this textbook is, I wouldn't mind not having to carry it around for another year."
"Far enough. I swear this thing weighs a ton." Will got out his own book and set it down on the table.
The bell rang for class to start, but there was no sign of the teacher.
"What did I tell you Jem?"
"Maybe he had to use the bathroom and didn't hear the bell go off. Or maybe there was an emergency. Things do happen Will."
It was another five minutes later before Henry Branwell rushed into the room. He was carrying a stack of large textbooks that he dropped on the front desk with a loud thud. A few of the students jumped at the noise.
"Sorry I'm late class. I got held up in the teacher's lounge," Henry said. He started going through the stack of books on the table and pulled out a folder. "Ah good, I didn't leave them," He muttered to himself. He pulled a small stack of paper out of the folder and started passing them out. "This is your course syllabus and on the back is the schedule for all of our classes. So if you're absent, you can look at the schedule to see what you missed and what homework will be due."
Will picked up his copy once it was placed on his desk. "At least we'll get field trips. That ought to be exciting."
"Hands on learning is always preferable to sitting in a classroom all day." Jem looked his over. "It looks as though we're going to be learning a lot of things this semester."
Henry finished passing out the syllabi and went to stand in the front of the classroom. "Now, we're going to start ever class with attendance, but since this is the first day, I'm going to tell you the class procedures first and then take role just in case any of you happened to get lost."
"We've been here or three years already, how does he expect us to get lost?" Will whispered to Jem.
Jem made a shushing noise back at him.
"I know this is an AP level course and I have to cover certain materials, but I prefer a more hands on approach to learning, and chemistry is the perfect subject for that. Of course there's going to be lectures, but there will be an experiment almost every other class so you can really learn the material for yourself and apply what you've learned in the lectures almost immediately," Henry said.
"I wonder how long it will take for him to blow something up," Will whispered.
Jem hit him in the leg.
"Ow!"
"Will you be quiet? Give the poor man a chance," Jem said.
"And if you've looked at the schedules," Henry continued," you can see that I've scheduled a few field trips."
A student that was sitting behind Will raised their hand.
"Ah yes, Miss…"
"Gray. Tessa Gray."
Will turned around to see who was speaking. It was a girl with fair skin, long brown hair that was tied back in a ponytail, and light gray eyes.
"I noticed that we're going on a field trip to an aquarium. Would you mind explaining what that has to do with chemistry?" Tessa asked.
"Oh yes… That trip is during our study of water chemistry and we're going to see how water chemistry can affect life. And what better place is there to do that than an aquarium?"
The class started muttering to each other.
"Settle down class. It might not make much sense now, but I promise it will when we start that chapter."
The class quieted down fractionally, but you could still hear a slight murmur.
The rest of the class period was spent by Henry going over the syllabus and taking attendance. Then they dove straight into the first chapter.
"Don't forget to finish reading chapter one in your text books and to answer all of the question at the end," Henry called out once the bell rang.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me… I don't think I've ever had this much homework on the first day of school before," Will complain as he packed his things.
"Most of your homework is reading and to sign the syllabus. That's not that bad, is it?" Jem asked.
"No I guess not. Though it's still a lot more than I would like to have. Whatever happened to gently getting you back into the swing of things?"
"Will, the last time that happened was Freshman year."
"I knew that…"
Jem chuckled and patted Will on the shoulder. "Don't worry. It won't be that bad. Besides, if you ever need any help, you can always ask me. You pretty much live at my house anyways."
"Do you think I could come over today?" Will asked.
"I don't see why not. My mom likes you, so she doesn't mind when you stop by."
"Alright. I'll just text my mom and let her know where I'm going so she doesn't wait for me in the parking lot."
Will pulled out his phone and waited for it to turn on.
"Do you need to go to your locker?" Jem asked.
"Yeah. I've got to grab a few other books for homework tonight. What about you."
"Same. Do you mind if we share your chemistry book. If we're both going to be using it, then there's no point in having two of them, is there?"
"You just don't want to have to carry yours around."
Jem smirked as he headed for the door. "You're not wrong."
The boys went to their lockers to put their things away and grab whatever books they needed to do their homework. Will finished first and met Jem by his locker.
"If you don't mind following me, I need to pick up my violin from the instrument storage room."
"Alright. Lead the way Jem."
Jem closed his locker when he was done and headed to grab his violin.
"Wouldn't it make more sense to keep your violin in your locker?" Will asked as they walked. He followed Jem into storage room.
"Not really. My locker out there isn't big enough to fit it comfortably and it's out of the way between Orchestra and Geography. I wouldn't want to be late. Not with our teacher."
Will rolled his eyes. "God, don't remind me. Can you believe he won't let us use the bathroom without taking points off?"
"That and we're going to miss his class because of Mr. Branwell's fieldtrips, so that's going to take points off too." Jem grabbed his violin and closed his locker.
"It's ridiculous. I can't believe he actually gets away with it too. How does the school even endorse that?"
Jem shrugged. "I couldn't tell you." He frowned and tightened his grip on his violin.
"He even takes off points when you're out sick. As if you can control that," Will said.
"That's enough Will." Jem started walking to his car.
Will hurried after him so he wouldn't get left behind. "Oh Jem, I'm sorry. I didn't think about that. Maybe you can get a note from your doctor explain what was going on?" Will asked.
"I'm not going to worry about it until I have to. Let's just go."
Will followed Jem in silence to his car. It was a small car, but it got Jem where he needed to go, and that's all that mattered.
Jem put his violin in the back seat and strapped it in with the seatbelt to make sure that it wouldn't' go anywhere before climbing into the driver's seat.
Will put his book bag in the back and climbed into the passenger's seat.
Jem turned on the car and pulled out of the school parking lot.
"Still listening to classical music?" Will asked as he picked up on the music that was gently playing from the radio.
"Yes. It's good for you. Though if you'd like, I can change it to the Chinese station."
"No thanks. I can't understand a word they're saying." Will shook his head.
"Don't feel bad, I speak the language and I still don't understand them sometimes. It's harder to pick up on the tones when they're sung."
"I can only imagine."
It was a short drive from their school to Jem's house.
"Well. Here we are." Jem pulled into his driveway and turned off the car.
"I guess I ought to bring in my book bag since we're doing homework."
"Unless you really want to put your shoes back on and run out here to get it. I'm not bringing it in for you." Jem got out of the car to grab his own book bag and his violin.
"I guess I'll bring it in now." Will grabbed his own and threw it over his shoulder.
Jem made sure they had grabbed all of their things and locked his car before going up to the front door to unlock it.
"And my mom is still trying to get used to having the house by herself again, so she might keep you down here a while to talk to you. I feel bad leaving her alone all day but I do have to go to school," Jem said.
"Thanks for the warning."
Jem unlocked the door and the boys stepped inside.