Chapter three... are you excited? I am... I wrote this today!
Anyway, thanks to all those who reviewed, even if no-one else reads this, I'll keep going coz I know someone is interested.
Enjoy!
Peeve

Chapter Three
The Beauty Of Grey

I, after finally getting rid of the rather annoying older kids, arrived in my form just as the second bell rang.

I shared my form with Pip, Kyle and Clyde. I sat down between Pip and Kyle, dropping my bag on the desk.

I yawned and looked over at Clyde. He was staring at the whiteboard with a blank look on his face. He ran his fingers through his hair, sweeping it all back. Clyde always tended to be like that when he wasn't busy messing around with his friends, thinking. Either that or he was reading the latest copy of Playboy or FHM.

I turned my attention to Kyle, who was reading a book title War and Peace, it looked thick enough to kill someone with, and you wouldn't even have to hit them hard. Kyle looked at me, noticing I was watching him.

"How is that book going for you?" I asked.

"It's... very deep..." he said slowly "And very long."

"I got that by the size. I thought you may have been intending to use it as a weapon of mass murder."

He looked at the book thoughtfully, "Probably could hey. No-one ought to mess with me while I'm reading it."

I almost snorted when he said that, he chuckled at the look on my face.

"So, what is it about anyway?" I asked

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure." He said, I looked at him slightly puzzled.

"Huh?"

"Look, listen to this," he said "'Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!' said the colonel, thumping the table; 'and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible'... he dwelt particularly on the word possible... 'as po-o-ossible,' he ended, again turning to the count. 'Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you judge of it?' he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears intent on the colonel."

When he was done reading the passage he looked up at me again. I widened my eyes and blinked at him a couple of times.

"OK... sounds like a thrilling read... I'll let you get back to it." I said

"What are you reading at the moment?"

"Sun Tzu's The Art of War." I said pulling my copy out of my bag. "It is a lot less...confusing then that book."

"Oh yeah, read a bit." He said

"Ok..." I said flicking it open. "Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted."
Therefore the clever combatant imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him."
By holding out advantages to him, he can cause the enemy to approach of his own accord; or, by inflicting damage, he can make it impossible for the enemy to draw near."

"You're reading a book about how to make war?"

"Well yeah." I said "But it is one of the greatest books ever written."

"So is War and Peace."

"Yeah...nah." I said.

"You two are geeks." Clyde said suddenly. We both turned and looked at him. He was looking at us both with an amused look on his face. I just rolled my eyes by Kyle had to retaliate. He could be a bit of a hot-head.

"Shut up fat-ass." He said. I hit him on the arm.

"Clyde isn't fat." I said. I knew Clyde could be a bit of a wimp sometimes, so I tended to be a bit defensive about him.

"Too right I'm not." Clyde said. At that moment our form teacher decided to show up.

Her name was Ms. Infanti and no-one liked her. She was always late for class and if anyone arrived after her she berated them for being late, it was so hypocritical.

Kyle folded down the corner of the page he was on and slid the book back into his bag. I felt sorry for him having to carry around that bag.

"Settle down!" Ms. Infanti snapped at the class and the noise generally subsided. She glanced down at the form list in her hand before she started calling the roll.

"Kyle Broflovski."

"Yep."

"Clyde Donovan."

"Yeah."

"Tracey Mitchell."

"Present."

"Phillip Pirrup."

"Yes."

Of course she didn't only call our names, there were many names called before, after and in between ours. There were thirty people in our form.

"Alright." She said when she was finished "We have a new student joining us today, she recently just moved to Middle Park so I would like you to all make he welcome. Her name is Clare Cosmopolitan."

She walked in and I immediately had to fight the urge to face-palm. Not only did she have the last name Cosmopolitan, she looked like the very stereotypical prep. Ms. Infanti must have also noticed this because she seated her with Heidi and Kelly, the cheerleaders in our form. I noticed with a smirk that Clyde was checking her out. Then again, Clyde would check out anything walking on two legs that had boobs.

I shook my head and waited for the talking to start up again.

"Come on Pip, let's introduce ourselves." I said standing up and dragging Pip after me. I went over and stood in front of her, smiling pleasantly. She looked up at me.

"Hello." She said

"Hello, my names Tracey, but everyone calls me Trace, and this is my friend Pip... and that's Kyle." I said with a frown when I noticed Kyle had followed us. I shrugged it off and continued, "We just thought we would come over here and introduce ourselves."

"Oh, thanks." Clare said then she began looking through her bag again.

"Um..." I said feeling sort of like I was being pushed away.

She sighed and looked up at me, "If you are trying to be, like, friends with me or something like that then I think that you, like, have to stop hanging around with nerds."

The whole room fell silent and I wanted to just turn and walk away but for some reason I couldn't.

"I like that you already have everyone around here already figured out." I said slowly with a rather fake smile plastered across my face "And I like how you judge people you don't even know."

Suddenly I noticed Clyde was on my other side. I wondered for a moment where Ms. Infanti was, then I knew. I heard a faint snore from the front of the class. She always fell asleep in form.

I felt the urge to walk away again but I felt rooted to the ground.

"Well, the people you hang with are, like, nerds, which means that is probably what you are."

I don't get angry very easily, but I do tend to get angsty when people bad-mouth others. It also really annoys me when people use the word 'like' too much. Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, Kyle laughed.

"Clyde? A nerd? Good joke." He laughed. I saw Clyde glare at him out of the corner of his eye and I was tempted to laugh myself, I hoped Kyle was going somewhere with this though, otherwise I was going to have to hit him again.

"Just because one of you isn't a typical nerd doesn't mean a thing." Clare said, apparently unfazed by the laughter.

"You shouldn't mess with Tracey." Clyde said. There was a general murmur of agreement. I suddenly felt on top of the world knowing how many people supported me. It's was like that thing, where if you helped someone they were always behind you. I may not have helped everyone but I did help a lot of close friends, boyfriend and girlfriends.

Clare was looking around as though puzzled by the unanimous support for me. After all, she did seem pretty sure I was a nerd and most nerds do not have that sort of support from the wider community. Boy, did she have a lot to learn around here.

"I just came over here to say hello." I said "Hope you enjoy your first day."

I never judge people on my first experiences with them, they don't know me and I don't know them. I turned and went to walk away when I heard her mutter something incomprehensible behind me. Clyde went to grab at her but Kyle and I managed to restrain him. I ignored whatever it was she had said and we led Clyde back to his seat.

"What the fuck!" Clyde said glaring at her "She doesn't even know you how can she judge you like that... how can she judge us like that."

"Some people are just like that." I said in a steady voice.

"I give it a week or so and she'll change her tune." Kyle said pulling out his book and starting reading again. I frowned at him, not getting it.

"What do you mean?" I asked

Kyle sighed and put the book down on his desk. "For someone as smart as you, you can be a bit slow." Kyle said, I looked at him waiting for the answer to my question. "You should know you have the better part of the student body on your side. Ignoring the fact that you have helped so many people, there are heaps of guys that want to go out with you..."

"I don't date." I said

"I know that, and so do most of the guys, I doesn't stop 'em wanting it." Kyle said, "Anyway...and there are heaps of girls who you are just friends with. Then you have us."

"Yeah I know, The Basketball Captain, The Football Captain, The Star Quarterback, Leader for Human Rights, The Son of the Devil, The Pom, Two Gay Guys, The Man-Whore, The Slut, The Token Black Guy, The Guy Who Flips People Off and The Guy Who's Addicted To Coffee... Hell... I have the better part of the school in my group."

Clyde was counting in his head as he made sure I hadn't missed anyone.

"Did you mention me?" He said.

"Yes, I said 'The Football Captain'." I said.

"Oh yeah...you did forget South Park's Little Helper." He said with a grin. At that moment the bell rang signalling the end of the period.

"We've got English now." Kyle said to me as he picked up his bag

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Room 27b, we're doing our assignment."

"I am actually kind of excited about this assignment, I know heaps of great protest songs from Australia." I said

"Feel like sharing?" Kyle asked. We walked out of the classroom and down the corridor to our next classroom.

"Yeah sure... do you want one about war or one about politics in Australia or one about the environment?"

"Oh the decision." Kyle said pretending to be struggling to make a decision. "I think I'll take one about war."

"Ok... you can have I Was Only 19. It's about the Vietnam war, it's pretty easy to annotate, you'll do fine."

"Cool... thanks." Kyle said. I yawned and so did he.

Our English teacher was a Nazi. She refused to let any of us even ask each other questions. I could kind of understand her mentality, it had to be hard at her age to deal with a bunch of teenagers yelling at each other while she was trying to do her marking.

In English I sat next to Wendy and Kyle and Token sat behind us. Wendy took everything so seriously, so I think even if the teacher did let us talk, I would be talking to Kyle and Token. I was sitting, quietly annotating my protest song when a note landed neatly on my desk. I picked it up and unfolded it and after reading it wrote my reply.

The conversation on the piece of paper went something along the lines of:

Hey Trace, got a copy of that protest song. I'm all out of things to do back here

Sorry Kyle, I'll print you a copy tonight

Not much help right now is it?

Complain, complain, complain

Well... I'm bored

Mum, Dad and Denny were some amongst many who came to watch the passing out parade at Puckapunyal

Huh?

First lines of I Was Only Nineteen

What the hell is Puckapunyal?

Town is Australia... know what's for lunch?

We're only half way through first period

Really? I never would have guessed.

Alright... let's distract ourselves from this extremely boring class

Ok... I'll write a name and you have to write the first thing that comes into your head about that person. Then I'll do it too. We can talk about anyone.

And destroy the evidence?

Yep

Cool

Easy one... Stan

Denver

White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut cookies. They are his favourite. Your pick.

Kenny

Bebe

When I received the note back at this point Kyle had drawn a diagram of something I would rather not describe. I face-palmed and glanced over at Wendy. She seemed to be pretty engrossed in what she was doing so I vigorously scribbled out the picture.

Kyle!

Can't help myself. In any case, your turn.

Clyde

Playboy

FHM... need we say more?

Ha, ha... Token

You... you are sitting next to him

I heard him half laugh at this point, causing the teacher to look up and glare at the class. Seeing as everyone was still quite she returned to her work. She appeared to be marking texts which was the real reason I didn't want to be a teacher. The note came back.

Base Guitar... she can really give evils can't she.

She sure can. Wendy.

I think of you... sound familiar

Yeah... Humanity

Craig

Maths

I had to wait a long time for the return message, and I couldn't figure out why. It hadn't been that difficult to write one thing.

Sorry about that... I got a text from Stan and I was replying... I'll have to say... flipping people off

Cool... can I see your phone?

Why??

Just because... I swear I won't read your messages or anything like that.

Instead of getting the note back I got the loud 'thunk' of Kyle's pencil case on my desk. The teacher didn't look up surprisingly. I threw back my own pencil case so it wouldn't look suspicious; after all, not many people have two large pencil-cases. I unzipped the pencil case and very carefully removed the phone. It was a nice phone, a silver Nokia slide phone. I mentally cursed Kyle's parents for being Jewish.

I quietly slid it open, under the desk, and then went searching for the address book. When I had finally found it I scrolled down looking for my name. Instead of Tracey or Trace it said 'Trace the Ace' for a second I was baffled as to why my name had been put in as that, then I noticed Stan's was 'Stan my Man' and Kenny's was 'Ken in the Den'. I scrolled through and read the various one's, and nearly cracked up when I read the one he had written his mum in as. A glare from the teacher was all it took to shut me up though.

I spent most of the lesson this way when suddenly I heard Kyle snigger quietly behind me. It occurred to me I probably should have taken my own mobile out of my pencil case before handing it back to him... or at least told him not to read my messages. Not that there was anything particularly worth worrying about but it was the whole privacy thing. I just shrugged to myself and kept reading.

Finally, after what felt like eternity, the bell rang and I shoved Kyle's phone back in his pencil case and my books into my bag. We exchanged pencil cases as we left class. I turned go to Film when suddenly, out of nowhere, Kenny appeared and grabbed my waist.

He spun me and dipped me so it was difficult to stand up straight.

"Hey Trace." He said

"Hi Kenny." I said slowly. This wasn't something that happened to me everyday after all. There was a moments silence.

"Want to screw?" he asked.

"No Kenny." I said managing to stand up straight.

"Is this about you being on your V plates or something?" Kenny asked

"Nope... because I'm not."

"Yes you are." Kenny said "If someone here had done it with you they would have boasted about it."

"No they wouldn't... cause I told them not to. And anyway, this isn't the only school I have been too."

"Well then why don't you want to sleep with me?"

"Because Kenny, I don't date." I said walking away.

"It wouldn't technically be dating!" He yelled after me "We'd just be fuck-buddies!"

"No Kenny!" I yelled back "See you in Biology!"

Kenny in Biology... eek!
Sorry if it was bit boring in some bits, I hit a patch there
You know the drill
Review and no flames

Peeve