Hey guys!

Sorry it's such a short chapter, but I've been trying to write more for some of my other fics and I just came up with an awesome idea for a new Alex Rider fic, so watch out for it!

x.x.x

It was an ordinary day at school, which was about to turn extraordinary.

Anya took her usual seat next to Alex in their roll call class, giving him a smile.

'Morning Alex,' she said. 'Morning Tom.'

'Morning Anya,' Alex replied.

'Hey Anya, what's up?' asked Tom.

'Not much. I heard we're getting a new teacher today,' she said casually.

'Yeah, I heard that too,' said Tom. 'Mr Perry's retiring, apparently.'

'Really?' asked Alex. He wasn't really with it much – most of the time he had his mind on other things, and considering all the school he missed, he wasn't really up to date with school affairs.

'Do you know who it is?' Anya asked. Tom shook his head.

'I suppose we'll find out. Hope they aren't like Mr Bray,' said Tom. Anya laughed. 'Shht! Shhhht! SHHHHT, CHILDREN!' he said in a loud voice, imitating Mr Bray. 'You know when my mum went to the Parent Teacher interviews, he talked about his yoga classes?'

Anya and Alex laughed. Alex hadn't had any lessons with Mr Bray, but he'd heard about him and he sounded really weird. Tom, however, had a tendency to exaggerate things.

'Tom!' said Anya, hitting him on the arm. The teacher had just walked in on his Mr Bray impersonation, and was giving Tom a stern look.

'Tom Harris?' she said. 'What were you doing?' she asked, looking down at him through her reading glasses. Mrs Jenkins wasn't the nicest of teachers, and frowned upon basically everything that wasn't outdated 20 years ago. She knew that Tom was impersonating Mr Bray – everyone knew his infamous 'shhhht!' line.

'I was just telling the class to be quiet. I am the SRC, you know,' he said cheekily. Mrs Jenkins glared at him, and shook her head, returning to her desk, unable to think of a reason to punish Tom.

Tom grinned; Alex and Anya had to cover their mouths to stop themselves from laughing. It was school as usual… but not for long.

x.x.x

'You know, if there's an earthquake coming, I don't think knowing how fast they're going or whether they're a P or an S wave is your biggest problem,' Tom said to Alex, as they were walking out of the classroom.

Alex laughed. He realised in these past few months how much he enjoyed school, how much he enjoyed being normal, being like the other kids. Sure, he did sort of miss MI6, and the feeling that he was achieving something, but he could do everything he wanted to that he wasn't able to do before, and it made him really good. Being with Tom and Anya, he had real friends and felt like he really belonged. He found that even though he was changed after his spy experiences, he could live a normal life, like any other kid. Most of us want to be extraordinary - to become famous, to become rich, to do something important, but all Alex wanted was to be normal.

He wished it would stay this way forever; he'd give almost anything to have a normal life, but it wasn't to be.

Alex opened the door to the classroom, and gasped. He stopped in his tracks, and Tom bumped into him.

'What's wrong?' he asked, but Alex didn't answer.

He had heard they were getting a new teacher today, but he didn't expect anything like this! This was crazy! This was absolute insanity!

So much for having a normal life.