Chapter Two:

Orientation

Tessa Burdine

Someone was tapping her on the shoulder. She frowned. She had been aware of them for the last five minutes. It was very hard to ignore someone who was screaming in ones ear…and even when wearing her headphones, which were currently blasting gothic rock music that SHOULD have been able to drown anything out…she could still hear the shrill shrieks that were being directed towards her in such an annoying manner.

Finally, she lowered the headphones and gave the short plump girl with the golden curls a very dangerous look.

"Finally! You know, my mom says that if you listen to music too loudly you can blow your ear drums out." The girl said while putting a chubby hand on her bulbous waist.

Tessa regarded her wearily.

"You mom's an idiot." She said quietly in a monotonous tone. Zoe's face froze before turning a rather ugly rouge color.

"I see you haven't changed over the summer."

She said testily. Any ordinary person would have left in a huff at this point, perhaps deciding that it would be in their best interest to sit with other friends. But as her luck would have it, Zoe had no other friends. And therefore, Tessa watched as Zoe pulled up a seat and sat next to her instead.

"So…where's everyone else?" Zoe asked a little coldly. Tessa shrugged as she put her large headphones away and gave the theatre a dismal look. Orientation would be starting in ten to fifteen minutes and so far, her and Zoe were the only ones…in THEIR group of friends to arrive. She seriously hoped that this would change.

Tessa had started school at Demure two years before. Her father, who owned a television station that broadcasted mostly news blocks and bad talk shows had sent her there under her mothers suggestion. Her parents were divorced, but her mother still mostly had the upper hand. She was a psychiatrist, and therefore, was very good at speaking in ways which could easily convince anyone of anything.

Tessa didn't think her father minded too much, though. Between him being the sort of man who considered business a top priority and her mother being the sort of person who considered mental stability and "normalcy" as a main concern, they could both agree on at least one thing. Tessa didn't fit either of their molds…maybe Demure would help with that a bit.

Instead of helping, as they had hoped it would, in the last two years, Tessa had made it her goal to be as different from either of her parents as humanly possible.

She brushed a little of her black hair out of her face, only to get a better look at the faces entering the room. When it became apparent that she could see no one whom was of interest to her, she replaced her black hair so it covered her eyes and shrugged at the smaller girl, before pulling out her headphones again and putting them over her ears. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Zoe give her a dark look.

Zoe Martinagrau

Zoe examined Tessa with distaste. If she had it her way, she would not have friends like Tessa Burdine. The girl's family was brought up well and loaded; yet she still dressed as though some relative had just died.

Zoe turned away from the morbid girl and looked back towards the entrance in time to see Lili and Angus walk in. She felt a little relief. Although she was quite cynical, Lili was not near as bad as Tessa. And Angus…well…

Zoe frowned.

Well…Lili's all right anyways.' Zoe thought dully. Behind her, Tessa had spotted the two as well and was once again removing her headphones.

Zoe criticized Lili mentally as she approached. Pretty though she was, the girl had apparently gone through yet another summer without discovering the meaning of fashion. She was wearing purplish red skirt, which matched her hair and would have looked nice if it had not been for the lime green and black shirt and her traditional fingerless gloves.

Her hair was an improvement anyway, apparently she had finally decided that she was far too old for the long pigtails and had traded them in for a shoulder length cut which flipped slightly (Though not intentionally) at the bottom.

Beside Zoe, Tessa gave Lili a small smile.

"You look about as thrilled as I feel." She said in her emotionless voice. Lili sighed and took a seat next to Tessa. Much to Zoe's annoyance, she paid her no mind.

(No Particular POV)

"I can't believe it's already been three months." Lili was saying. "I swear the summer gets shorter every year."

Tessa nodded.

"Doesn't make much difference to me. It's either here with all of these preppies, or at home with my mom or dad."

Lili nodded vaguely.

Angus, who had been looking for a seat as close to Lili as possible, finally settled for sitting beside Zoe. He nodded to the chubby girl, who purposefully ignored him.

"I know what you guys mean." He said, really just trying to get into the conversation. "My dads been really irritating this summer. He tried to get me to go to like…fifty different young businessmen classes and stuff. I had to go to a couple. But I managed to save up enough of his bribery cash to go to the ZARK fest, so I guess it was worth it."

Tessa gave Angus an odd look.

"That dorky trading card game has a festival dedicated to it? How much did you pay for it?"

"Only three hundred bucks." Angus said brightly. Tessa shook her head.

"Lord, I need new friends."

"I've been praying for the same thing, Tess. Hasn't worked yet." A voice said from behind her. She looked up, brushing a few strands out of the way of her vision to do so. She sighed.

"Apparently another of my prayers wasn't answered, your still here." She said darkly. The boy gave her an impish grin.

Lester Quartz was a large boy (not in mass, but in muscle, even at his young age.) with dark hair and eyes that simply glittered with mayhem.

"Come one Tess, you know that if I wasn't here you'd be stuck with only fatty, dorky and Lili. You'd miss me." He yanked a chair out from under a nicely dressed boy in front of them and pulled it up beside Lili who was playing with something around her wrist and was not showing much interest in his arrival or the conversation.

"Yeah right. What's with your hair anyway, it's not shaved off this year. Your dad decided to actually keep you out of military camp this summer?"

"Nah. I went somewhere else instead."

Angus gave him a curious look.

"Like a summer camp…or something?"

Lester grinned.

"Well…maybe not a camp…it had bunk beds anyways." Tessa rolled her eyes.

Lester for some reason seemed satisfied with this reaction and turned to face Lili, who was still ignoring him. He leaned in closer to her until she finally looked up.

"Hey Lili." Lili's eyes narrowed wearily. A few seats away, unseen by either Lili or Lester, Angus was glaring at the larger boy portentously.

"Your looking particularly hot this year, if you don't mind me saying." He grinned sleazily. Lili rolled her eyes.

In the process of leaning in closer just to annoy her, Lester let out a cry and began to furiously stomp the floor. Everyone but Lili looked at him in a startled manner.

"What's wrong with you?" Tessa asked, slightly perplexed.

Lester backed off a little and examined his ankle. Part of his pant leg appeared to be burnt off.

"What the hell?" He frowned.

Tessa raised her brow.

"Hmm…spontaneous combustion maybe…too bad it didn't take the rest of you." She sat back in her seat and gave Lili an odd look, who seemed to be purposefully avoiding her gaze.

"Weird." Lester said. He shook his head and rubbed his ankle, wincing slightly. "Think it gives me good reason to go home?"

Tessa snorted.

"Yeah right, what are you going to say? I almost spontaneously combusted, can I go home? Like anyone would believe that. They'd think you set your own leg on fire."

Lester raised his brow.

"Only a moron would set his own leg on fire." He said dully.

"Exactly." Tessa said. Lester glared at her and continued to rub his leg.

He was trying to think of a snappy retort when the lights on the stage flashed on and the ones in the rest of the theatre dimmed. Orientation began.

Sunset. The rays bounced off of the ocean and reflected on the bridge in a way that made the whole world seem to glow. The reds and oranges intermixed with the deep purples and blues as they embraced at the horizon and glittered in the wafting breeze, which danced by lazily, barely touching the clouds and sending brief patterns through the water.

If anyone would have been walking across the bridge at that time, they probably would have stopped and squinted into the fading sunlight, imagining, that perhaps for a second they had seen a dark figure sitting out on one of the supports, before dismissing it as a figment of their imagination and continuing on.

As it were, a boy about the age of twelve was indeed out there, nearly five hundred feet in the air, dangling his feet over the water, which from that spot seemed very far away.

He brushed a little of his purplish redhair out of his face and leaned against one of the wires with a sigh. To his left, about two miles away, he could see the top of a large circus tent. The lights were being lit. The show would start in a couple hours and if he wasn't there, someone would be very angry with him.

He frowned and stood up reluctantly. Before he started to walk back to the main part of the bridge, he gave the sunset one last look and grabbed at his wrist instinctively. For a moment, a look of comical confusion crossed his countenance as he pulled back his coat sleeve. For some reason the boy's bare wrist upset him. He pulled down his sleeve and began to look around furiously.

Finally, his eyes fell on a tiny green bracelet that had fallen and lodged in a crevice five feet below.

"Oh man…"

At this point, anyone watching would have thought the boy must have been keen on ending it all, for he approached the ledge and stepped over without a second thought. Two seconds later, however, he landed skillfully on a wire, which crudely jutted from underneath the viaduct and walked hurriedly across it towards the tiny ledge which held the bracelet. He leaned over carefully and yanked it gently from the gap, frowning slightly as two of the carefully weaved stitches came unloose.

He set the bracelet on his wrist and tied the two ends together tightly.

"Now don't you come unloose again." He said to himself. He looked up, as though his own voice had startled him and rolled his eyes. "Great…I'm talking to myself again." He shook his head and went about trying to find a way back.

The only way back to the bridge that he could see was to either try to climb back up, which was nearly impossible and very stupid, or to walk the wire all the way back. This did not seem to discourage him at all.

He was about halfway across when he seemed to vanish from the wire entirely. It was perhaps wise, after all to not be seen. For if anyone did, they may think that a twelve year old walking on a wire five hundred feet above a large ocean was a thing to be alarmed about. And he would really like to avoid punishment at least until he got back to the Circus.