Thanks to Jo-Jo287 and Sailorraven34 for reviewing!
A/N Sorry for the long wait for this update. Life's being a bit horrible at the moment, and I've caught a bit of writers block, as well as a cold. Oh and the conversation between Yana and Max is sort of based on the first one I had with the French girl that joined my school and is the only other person in my year to get the bus I get. That was also the day I did the twelve minute run in PE.
"So you're Tony Stark and you want your adopted daughter to start at our school?" This has been going on way longer than it should have done, I'm positive about that. Though I've never exactly been to school. "You're sure you want her to start here?" Does this guy not comprehend English? To be honest I'm surprised Tony hasn't completely flipped his lid yet. I guess that over the last couple of months, he's grown up a lot.
"I'm sure sir. Although, I do not wish for her to have any connection with me, so it would be best if she were called Yana Romanova." The principal sighs and brings out a load of papers for Tony to sign. He scans through them and signs on the lines. I give him a half smile and turn back to the principal.
"The language electives left are Russian, Ger-"
"I'll do Russian." He gives me an incredulous look and I smile sweetly while we sort out the rest of my timetable.
Tony leaves soon, before I'm ready. Although he hugs me and says that everything will be fine I'm not sure I believe it. I'm nervous, but excited. I wanted this, didn't I? I'm going to have to interact with people my age, lots of people my age. They're going to think I'm weird. I'm an outsider, starting slap bang on the middle of a term.
Next I'm assigned a buddy. A buddy. Seriously? She's called Hayley, she's quite pretty, her hair is blonde as her eyes are blue, she's tan and her teeth are white. She seems, on the outside, like the kind of person I would hate, but as soon as she's opens her mouth, she's my friend. She doesn't try to talk down to me, make me feel an outsider or anything. She leads me to this homeroom thing, asking me questions all the way.
I'm the odd person in this class. Everyone else is neatly in pairs at their desks, and I'm just sat in a row by myself, a long line of empty double desks next to me. Hayley keeps glancing back at me, and it looks like she'd rather be sitting next to me than whoever she is. When the bell rings, she takes me down a couple of corridors to whatever I have. Maths. Great. The teacher makes me introduce myself to the class, so I say, "I'm Yana and..." trailing off awkwardly and sitting down red in the face. I've done this kind off maths hundreds of times, but I pretend to struggle, finishing slightly after everyone else. No one really pays attention to me, except for Hayley. We finish up and she takes me to Russian. She has German next door. Conjugating verbs how fantastic. I'm Russian I can't even pretend that I'm no good at this. I end up doing a speaking exercise with the person next to me, Laura, who's grammar and pronunciation are both terrible, but she seems to get the gist of it. It's finished too soon, and I wait for Hayley outside her German class.
After physics and chemistry Hayley takes me outside to eat lunch. It's still Autumn so we can sit out by a tree. I expect her to have a load of friends so I'm surprised when there's only one guy waiting. "Hayley," he says, "Who's this?" He's not rude, just curious.
"Oh, Max, this is Yana, Yana this is Max, he's like my brother." Hayley introduces us.
"Hi. How are you?" I smile. He smiles back as I pull out my lunch.
"Fine... So Yana, why have you come here?" He asks.
"Oh umm, I lived in Russia until about four months ago with my sisters, Irina, Olga and Klara. Umm, our uncle who was looking after us was killed, so his err daughter, Natasha, took me and Klara in but Irina and Olga stayed in Russia. Natasha lives around here mostly. And since Klara's 21, she's in this government super secret spy agency training thing, with Natasha's sister Eva, and 'cause Natasha travels a lot for work, her friend adopted me and here I am." Well that was a shit load of lies. Hayley buys it, Max doesn't. I wouldn't buy it.
"Oh. So do you like New York?" Hayley asks while Max looks at me curiously.
"It's warmer. Nice though, less snow." I smile.
"How do you speak such good English?" Max asks.
"That is a story for another day," because if my English wasn't perfect I'd be killed. "But what about you guys?" Turn the conversation around before I bury myself too deep in lies.
Hayley answers first, "I moved here from Iowa about five years ago, when I was eight. My dad had to move for work. And that's about it really."
"I didn't mean your story, what about you? You as a person?"
"Well, I like green, cats, books, umm, I'm not that interesting?" I smile and nod, looking at Max.
"I'm not interesting either. I've lived here all my life. I like blue, dogs, movies, basically the opposite of this one." He ruffles Hayley's hair.
"Max." She gives him a look. It's not scary, well only a little, but he stops anyway. I smile. I like these people.
Next we have gym, which is kinda good because I can make my stand in this place, especially because we're doing fitness. Hayley seems like she's kind of fit, and she has said that she likes PE. She takes me to coach Capp and introduces me, and Capp says, "If you feel like you need to stop, just tell me." I'm on the verge of saying I won't need to but I stop myself, knowing it'll seem rude. That's when I learn we're doing a twelve minute run. Capp asks us to get in to partners and I choose Hayley, because I know no one else. She does her run first and I count thirteen laps, which is quite good, I don't know the distance but it's one of the fastest out of the girls. Then I go, and I know I lap a couple of people but I'm not sure how many laps I've done until coach blows the whistle and everyone stares at me. Twenty Six. Double what Hayley got. I guess the other place was useful for something after all.
"Wow." Hayley tells me as we're getting changed. "How the hell are you so good?"
"I... you don't want to know. But I'll tell you someday." And I make myself a promise that I will. Whether it's next week or in ten years time, I will tell her.
Next I have Geography while Hayley and Max have history, then we all have English. And then I'm allowed to go home. I walk two blocks and find a red car waiting. My dad's inside it, which I'm surprised about.
"Hey." He smiles and I climb in the front next to him." Have a good day?"
"Yeah." I smile. "It was great."