Alagaesia High

Chapter 3

"Uhhhhhhh…" Eragon sputtered, at an entire loss of words.

"I just noticed that you didn't like the dissections, and I don't either." Arya explained.

"Yeah." Eragon managed to grunt.

"They just seem like such a waste of life." Arya explained, "Those frogs have a right to live, and then we kill them just so a few kids can study their guts."

Eragon shook his head. That was exactly how he felt about it. He glanced at Saphira, who was eagerly laying the frog's innards out on the table. He winced, and cast his eyes back to Arya. "I'll dissect yours for you." Eragon offered, silently hoping she denied his offer.

"Thanks, but no thanks." Arya replied, flashing Eragon a rare smile. "I figure we can suffer together."

She laughed, and Eragon finished her statement with "Misery loves company." She pulled up a chair next to him, and plopped into it. They both stared at the lifeless carcasses in front of them, and then simultaneously turned to each other to get their minds off the fate of the frog.

"So, what classes do you have?" Eragon queried, hoping, no, praying, that her second hour was math.

"Well, first hour I have science." She stated, and then continued sarcastically "Bet ya didn't know that!"

"I sure didn't!" Eragon responded, equally sarcastically.

"Then, second hour, I have Latin." Eragon sighed in disappointment, eliciting a questioning glace from Arya. "Anyways," she continued, "third hour I have gym. Fourth, English, fifth, World History, sixth, Medieval History, seventh, drum roll please, TRIG!" her melodic voice sounded unnaturally loud in the tranquil science room. Mrs. Angela shot her a death glare, to which she meekly waved.

"I have Trig second hour, Latin third, fourth English, fifth, gym, sixth, Medieval History, and seventh, World History." Eragon whispered.

"Funny," Arya observed, "we have entirely the same classes, just at different times. And I have 3 classes with you."

"S'pose so." Eragon agreed. The bell rang, inciting a stampede of high schoolers, and Eragon was swept away by the crowd.

The next two hours were non-descript, boring hours, being as everyone just did stupid "get-to-know-each-other" activities. Then, fourth hour arrived, with blaring trumpets (or bells).

"All right, welcome to my class." Oromis, his English teacher, announced. "We will be doing a few get-to-know-you activities later, but I've found that 11th grader's get to know each other quite quickly if given 10 minutes to chat. I encourage you to find someone you don't know." He stated, and then plopped into his desk to watch the chaos begin.

A chorus of "OMG! How have you been?" and "How was your summer?" erupted from the students, and Eragon wished he had an Aspirin. He cast his eyes about the room and caught sight of Arya in a pose reminiscent of his, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose, the other rubbing her temples. He rose from his chair and dove into the sea of students, determined to pick his way to Arya. Just as he neared her desk, he stumbled over a wayward foot and landed right on Arya! Arya yelped as his full weight knocked her out of her chair.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Eragon exclaimed, helping Arya up.

"That's not what I'm worried about, where's the dumb*ss that tripped you?" she growled, surprising Eragon with her ferocity.

"No clue." Eragon replied meekly.

"Ah well, that's life, I guess." She sighed, and sat down at her desk. "I suppose you were somehow negotiating the sea of chatty students," she gestured towards the bulk of the class, "to suffer with me?" she assumed.

"Pretty much, yeah." Eragon conceded, sitting in the empty desk next to her.

"Misery does love company." Arya finished, reenacting their conversation in Chemistry.

"How was your summer, just to perpetuate the noise in here?" Eragon asked, holding his fingers in his ears.

"Pretty good. I got to hold a big blue dinosaur egg, which was kinda cool, and I got this butt-kicking tattoo." She pulled down the right shoulder of her shirt, displaying a blue tattoo of a diamond. Eragon gulped as his eyes caught a strip of bare skin.

"How 'bout you?" She followed up, cocking her head in a questioning manner.

"Oh, nothing very exciting, I mostly just worked on my dad's ranch. I did win a war, though." He grinned, referring to NMRRPG."

She raised an eyebrow and commanded "Explain."

Eragon drew a big breath and prepared to give a speech he had given many a time. "Well, I play this sport called NMRRPG, which stands for Non-Magical, Reality Role-Playing Games. In a nutshell, we make PVC weapons for PVP combat."

He was about to continue with his speech when she broke in "No way! I play that too! What realm do you fight for?" she questioned eagerly, seeming to be opening up.

"The Varden." He replied, and then asking "How 'bout you?"

"Oh, just Du Weldenvarden. We're not a very big team. We used to ally with the Varden, but when I got a concussion from a broadsword, my captain withdrew all our troops."

"Ah." Eragon replied, remembering his worry when Roran had got himself concussed.

"May I intrude?" Oromis's voice asked from behind them. Eragon meekly turned around to see his English teacher standing there.

"Sorry." Eragon mumbled and picked his way through the rows of silent students, his ears and cheeks (the ones on his face) turning red. As he plopped into his chair, he glanced about the room. Nobody seemed to be taking undue interest in his predicament. Maybe it wasn't so bad, Eragon thought.

And then Faolin's voice broke the silence with "Bit a Flirt Fest, there, Eragon!" Oromis shot him his patented Death Gaze (do not distribute) and he shut up, but not after shooting Eragon a smirk. Well there was him, of course, Eragon thought. After that they were just assigned some stupid activity, which no one did, but Eragon didn't dare go back to talk to Arya.

Next hour he had gym, in which the Brom assessed everyone's physical fitness. Eragon passed with flying colors, due to his work around the ranch and the strenuous sport of NMRRPG. He managed 50 push-ups in one minute, and eight pull-ups. He groaned when unfit kids only eked out ten or fifteen push-ups. Brom showed no mercy in picking out flaws and pushing kids harder.

After that he had Medieval History. As he strode into the room with a somewhat cocky stride, due to his success in Gym, he felt his knees turn to jelly at the seating arrangements. They were organized into groups of three. He sat in the middle of one. Arya sat to his right. Faolin sat to his left. CRAP.

This will be tricky for our hero, will it not? Tell me if my writing is lacking, but please don't shoot an anonymous hate review at me. I just delete those. If you would just sign your reviews, then I would respect them, but some people don't even fill in the Anonymous Name bar. So I'll just delete them, so you know. Please tell me how you feel about the pace of things, and the Eragon-Faolin similarity between Bartimaeus-Faquarl. Not much to say, so that's Raudhr Blodhgarm, signing off!