Thanks to all of the people following this story! It makes a young hetalian very happy :)
Second period passed quickly. In fact, so did third and fourth. It was only by lunch that Emil Steilsson really had time to relax, as break mainly constituted of 'try to find your third period lesson while eating' instead of 'hang out with friends and talk about girls' or something. And even then, food was a priority. Learning really seemed to affect the appetite, and Emil couldn't remember being so hungry in years. He ran to the canteen, Leon in tow (the boys had most of their classes together), and left his bag on a shelf before joining the queue. Lucielle and Cheng followed, as they all had Maths previously. (It helps with gambling, the former had remarked). And after grabbing a pot of tuna salad and paying, he went, with the others, to reclaim their bags.
"Let's sit by the table," Emil suggested.
"You mean the window."
"No, Leon, I think he meant The Table." Lucielle interjected. Cheng looked at her, bewildered. "Luci, are you ok?"
"She's certainly very pretty!"
Sebastian had joined them while they were all chatting, joined by Luca, Lilli, and Michelle. None of them had noticed.
"Oh hello, Sebastian! You're Feli's little brother, right?"
"Yep!"
"Lilli! Lovely to see you. Oh, and Luca."
"That's all well and good," Emil interrupted, "but where do we sit?"
"I have an idea!" Michelle cried out enthusiastically, and started dragging Sebastian out of the room. The rest followed with varying degrees of eagerness. Emil lagged behind with Leon, and had absentmindedly pulled on his earmuffs. In fact, he hadn't even noticed they were there until Leon slipped them off suddenly and blew into the other boy's ear.
"What was that for?!"
"Should we sit outside the staffroom or under the apple tree?"
Emil thought for a moment. On one hand, the apple tree sounded nice. On the same hand, if he sat by the staffroom he'd probably run into Lukas. The decision was simple.
"The apple tree."
"Ok, the staffroom."
Before Emil could protest, Leon dragged him towards the staffroom. Apparently Seb, Cheng, and Luca had chosen otherwise, because they walked towards the apple tree. Lilli, Michelle, and Lucielle followed the two boys, Lilli telling the two others about hiking in the alps. Leon's grip was surprisingly strong.
"Leon! You irritating-"
"Emil!" Lukas' voice echoed through the corridors as he stepped into view. Emil groaned, and Leon let go, startled.
"I thought you would've come to see me by now. Come on, you and your friends can eat in the staffroom with us." He gestured to a spikey-haired figure which Emil recognised with a jolt to be Mathias. He really didn't want to spend a lunchtime with his older brother, but Michelle had already piped up.
"Mr Bondevik! Oh, Emil, do you know him?" Lukas smiled benignly as his younger brother groaned again. "Yes. And I expect you're Michelle Azikiwe, one of Francis' acquaintances?" She let out a sound, somewhere between a squeak and a chirp, before falling silent. Lucielle was also silent, yet she seemed to twitch, as if laughing to herself. Leon snorted.
Another, far less welcome voice broke in. "Lukas, Emil, Emil's friends, let's eat already!" Mathias' words were greeted by an eyeroll from Lukas, who beckoned the five teenagers forwards. Emil tried to ignore the way his older brother clutched the Dane's arm, and kept close to Leon. Unfortunately, Leon was already close to Emil, so they were rubbing shoulders awkwardly for a while before the Icelander let Leon duck under his arm. Lucielle snuck glances at the two, looking amused, whilst Lilli elaborated on how pretty the Swiss mountainside was, and Michelle stared at Lukas' back in wonder and awe. Leon was breathing heavily, although Emil had a sneaking suspicion he was fighting back laughter.
After what seemed like ages, they reached the staffroom. Emil withdrew his arm from Leon's shoulders and entered, the girls following behind. The room was empty of people, except for a snoring figure with dark red-brown hair in an office chair. There was a table in the middle, and Lukas pulled up a few chairs for them to sit on, and sat down on one. Mathias grinned and sat next to Lukas, while Emil perched on the edge of a round-looking chair that seemed suspiciously to be Ikea, Lilli sat on a swivelling office chair, and Luci and Michelle sat on flat schoolchairs. They were one seat short.
"Oh, sorry, I'll get another chair-" Lukas made to conjure up another chair via magic, and Emil quickly pulled Leon onto his lap to avoid his older brother showing off his magic. Emil shuffled to the side to let his friend squeeze in. Lukas glanced at him. "Are you sure-?" Leon nodded furiously, and Lucielle, once again, looked on the edge of laughter. Emil whispered quickly; "Luci, could you cut it out?" which made her actually laugh, although she disguised it as a violent coughing fit. Mathias simply chuckled and lazily swung an arm around Lukas, who wriggled away in mock exasperation. Emil wanted his eyes to burn, but before they could, his brother addressed him.
"So, lillebror," Lukas opened a box, and the smell of mackerel filled the room. Emil opened his pot of tuna salad. "How was your first day at school?" He stared at the tuna for a while before answering; "Ok." Lukas seemed to want to press him further, but before he could even open his mouth Mathias had interjected.
"Bro, that smells awful. Could you do something-?" he had angled his large head towards the mackerel, which, Emil noticed, seemed to be raw. He wasn't the only one to have noticed, either- Luci was wrinkling her nose in distaste, whilst Lilli had covered her face with a sleeve, pretending to be wiping her nose. Lukas started. "Oh, sorry, I didn't have time to cook it, you know, with the broken fridge, I had to catch it just now..." he conjured up a silvery flame which passed quickly over the fish, browning it instantly. Michelle gasped. Emil scowled at his salad, which he had only taken one bite out of. However, Lucielle seemed to be more interested in something else.
"Please, sir, did you say there was a broken fridge?" She asked in her silky voice. Emil felt a strange pang of appreciation for her ability to make her voice a lot softer around the teachers. Leon looked up from his noodles. "Ah, you must be Francis' younger sister, Lucielle, huh? Yes, one of the fridges in the kitchen broke. It shouldn't be too much of a problem, since, of course, there were several, but-" Lukas said the next part with a slight frown "-the kitchen staff have told us that until it is fixed, us teachers can't keep our food in it." "Makes things a whole lot trickier, too," Mathias growled. "Having to prepare meals in between lessons is a pain."
ooo
Nothing more interesting was said for the majority of lunchtime, except the occasional coming and going of staff, (Miss Braginskaya, one of the Kirklands, Miss Hedervary) and eventually Lukas, glancing at the clock, stated that it was time to go. Emil got up with the others, and made to leave with Leon, but Lukas held him back. After they said that they'd wait for him, Emil went with his brother to a Mathias-free corner of the staffroom, where Lukas pushed him gently against the wall and looked at him straight in the eye.
"Emil." said boy gazed up into the other's eyes. There was worry creasing his brow. "It's great that you've made friends, and I'm really happy for you, but-" Lukas broke away and gazed around, checking that nobody was watching. "But what?" Emil asked when his brother hesitated. Lukas inhaled lightly. "I don't want you getting too cuddly with any of them, okay? Especially the boys." Emil felt a small rush of annoyance. Since when had he shown interest in boys? And even then, since when did Lukas disapprove of such trivialities? Wasn't that just hypocritical? "I don't get what you mean." the man's frown deepened. "Emil, I don't care if you like boys, but some people do, and-" "So why are you telling this to me?" Emil pulled away and stared at his older brother. Lukas' voice was level. "I don't want you getting hurt, not at such a young age-" "But why does it matter to me if some people are twits? And besides, since when have I shown interest in boys?" Lukas' frown deepened. "Emil, I saw the way you looked at the boy- Leon, I think his name is- and you had your arm around him, and, I mean, you barely know each other." Emil felt exasperated, but from the last sentence, he wanted to laugh. "Leon? He's just a friend, and like you said, I barely know him. You need to calm down." Before Lukas could reply, he had run out of the staffroom and into the corridor, where the others were waiting.
"So, Emil, what did he want to talk about?" Lilli asked as the five walked down the corridor to enjoy the last of lunchtime. He glanced quickly at Leon, and felt his heart sink. There was no way he could tell the truth about his conversation with Lukas. "Oh, uh, just about how I'm settling in, talked about some of your siblings, etc. Nothing much really," Emil lied quietly. He could see Lucielle frowning very slightly at him- God, were even her frowns elegant?- but she didn't say anything, for which he was grateful. Leon had, once again, ducked underneath his friend's arm. It wasn't- Emil felt a flash of annoyance- in a romantic way at all, he didn't see his friend like that. Perhaps Lukas would just have to learn. His thoughts were interrupted by Michelle.
"God, Emil, why didn't you tell me you had an older brother?" Lucielle turned her attention to her and chuckled softly. "He did, Mic, you just weren't listening." "But-" Michelle turned and faced Emil, who was halfway through pulling his earmuffs on (a difficult task; Leon kept trying to snatch them), "you didn't tell us that he knew magic! I mean, sure, I'd seen him hanging out with Arthur and chatting about pentagrams and such, but still.. I mean," Michelle beat Leon to snatching Emil's earmuffs, "it's an incredible skill!" Leon ducked out of Emil's arm and grabbed his earmuffs off of Michelle, promptly jamming them onto the Icelander's head, just as the bell rang.
The gaggle of teenagers headed towards their form room, Leon resuming his occupation of squashing himself underneath Emil's arm as they did so. As they reached the room, there was a queue; evidently Miss Braginskaya hadn't arrived yet. Seb waved at them, smiling, Luca and Cheng with them, all three of them looking rather wet.
"Hey guys! How was your lunchtime?" Seb asked as they lined up behind him, panting. Lilli smiled lightly. "Oh, we were invited to eat in the staffroom by Emil's older brother, and we chatted to him and the games teacher." Seb glanced at Emil, tilting his head slightly. "You have a brother? Who?" "Mr Bondevik!" Michelle answered for him. "And he was awesome!" At the boy's grimace, Lucielle gave a half-suppressed laugh. "Oh come on Emil, your brother was pretty cool." "Yeah," Leon agreed. He had removed himself from Emil's armpit at last. "Try having Yao for a dad, I mean, seriously." Cheng gave a nod of assent, and so did a girl standing behind them which Emil had previously not noticed, and assumed to be Xiaomei, Leon's sister. She gave a little wave upon being witnessed, and resumed talking to some girls next to her, which appeared to be Nadia, the girl who had called Mr Kirkland 'Artie', and Mathilda.
"So, Luca," Luci asked. "How did you guys get covered in water?" But before she received an answer, Miss Braginskaya had appeared and shunted all of them into the classroom. Emil took his seat by the window, and Lucielle joined him, throwing her plaited hair over her shoulder. Leon sat in front of him and swivelled around in his chair to face them, and Cheng, sitting down next to him, did the same. Michelle and Luca leaned forwards as Emil placed his bag on the ground. This time, Miss Braginskaya seemed to have several important announcements, however, and promptly told the class to quieten down, which they did, although it took quite a while. She spoke in a crisp, clear voice, or the crispest sound she could make with her thick voice:
"As some of you may already know, clubs will be on from next week, and you have the remainder of this week to sign up for some. A full clubs list has been sent to your dormitories. If you are confused, ask Mr Køhler of the Games department, since he is the head of clubs. It is also noted that if you have any concerns about your social, home, or school life beyond academics, please talk to our 'mentors'; that is, me, Mr Väinämöinen, and Mr Kirkland," she smiled slightly at the class' collective eyeroll at having to remember all of the Kirklands, "Aeron, the one with the silky hair. Another notice is that from next week onward, you will be allowed to go to the nearby town during lunchtimes and after school, although you will have to return by a set time, which, I believe, is seven pm." another eyeroll ensued. "Oh, really, children, I know that you are capable of staying outside past seven, but seriously, without a curfew, we have had students not returning for the next day or running off. You are also not permitted to go beyond that town unless it is with permission from your form tutor. Now," she looked up and down at the class, who had long since fallen silent. "that concludes form for today. Enjoy your next lesson!"
The entire form stood up and made for the door before Miss Braginskaya called out again. "Wait! Sit down, there's another notice!" Everybody sat back down (Emil caught a few groans), and she smiled weakly. "I'm terribly sorry, I'll have you dismissed soon. This message is regarding the fridge." Lucielle had turned her attention fully on the teacher. "Early this morning, the caretaker was surveying the kitchen. He had just been gazing out of the window- poor chap, probably doesn't get much sleep- when he heard a crash behind him, coming from a refrigerator. Upon opening it, there were fumes coming from the thermometer, and it seemed that said fridge had broken down. Although it is more likely that it is simply an unfortunate occurence, he seems convinced that it was an act of sabotage. So-" she glanced around the classroom while saying this- "please tell a member of staff if you knew anything about a sabotage of the fridge, or if you committed it, because frankly, we are all tired of Alistair's complaining, but too scared to say it to his face, and we really want to be able to teach without having to cook waffles at the same time. You are now dismissed."
The form exited silently, but upon entering the corridors they broke out into worried muttering. "Why would anybody sabotage a fridge?" Nadia asked to nobody in particular. "Well, they might be trying to make life difficult for the teachers, since that was the staff fridge," Cheng offered. Leon nodded. "Maybe they thought that if the teachers were too busy thinking about food, they'd forget about homework?" Emil stayed silent, reading his timetable. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. It was Lucielle. "Scary, isn't it?" she whispered, even though there was excitement in her voice. Emil half-nodded. "But Luci, why should a broken fridge affect us?" He put his arm around Leon again as he asked this. Luca interrupted before Lucielle could reply. "Hey, what do you guys have next? I have German." "RE. Emil?" Lucielle tilted her head slightly. "Triple Science." They stared at him. "Wait, Triple Science?" "My brother signed me up for it." Emil shrugged. "I did the equivalent of Triple Science GCSEs, and I decided to continue it." Leon snorted. "I'm doing Mandarin, I don't know about you." Luca pressed on. "What grades did you get?" "A* for all three Sciences. Why?" Lucielle gave a sharp intake of breath. Emil shook his head.
"Look, guys, it's more important that we get to our lessons now, okay?" He marched down the corridor, Lucielle following listlessly, Leon tucked under his arm, Luca still muttering, "Triple Science A*s?" As they walked. Lucielle had to go up some stairs to the RE classroom, and Luca and Leon had to go to the Languages block, leaving Emil quite alone, except for Xiaomei. He didn't say anything, although she did seem to sneak glances at him, and was that a blush? He didn't really have time to think of such things. On the way to the Science block, outside the Food Tech classrooms, there was an unusual mahogany table with a golden plate on it. Xiaomei glanced at it quickly before walking faster. Emil followed her, still silent. What was so strange about that table? There it was, amongst others, beneath the apple tree. However, there was no reason for him to be pondering over a table, nor his friend's sister's unusual actions as he reached the building.
The Science block was made of red brick, like everything else, yet it seemed to be a bit newer than the rest of the school (perhaps that was just Emil's imagination). A golden plate on the plywood door stated that the building had been opened by The Kirkland Fund (there was a fund for the Kirklands?), and there were several moderately large windows set into the wall. He pushed the door open- Xiaomei gave a little squeak and entered- and Emil followed her. The walls were painted in a sterile, blank white, the floor was covered in a strange sort of plastic, and the lights illuminated the corridors, revealing posters about medical institutions, famous scientists, and scientific facts. There was also a great deal of advice on how to learn Science, the opportunities that a GCSE in either Physics, Chemistry, or Biology could offer you, and how to apply for a Chemistry degree in several different universities. Emil's classroom was on the first floor, so he and Xiaomei had to climb up a series of steps, passing several Year 8s on the way, and they entered a hallway almost identical to the one that they had just left. Emil located the classroom, and, with a growing sense of anticipation combined with foreboding, he opened the door, and stepped in.
The walls were painted in a white which, on closer inspection, appeared to be pale blue. The posters on the wall were made by children, some of which seemed to be several years old- on one of them, talking about compounds and elements, was the name 'Arthur Kirkland'. There were a few more, one of which, Emil realised with a start, was labelled 'Lukas Bondevik, Year 9'. It spoke, in complex detail, about protons and neutrons. Another one about the Solar System was labelled 'Berwald Oxenstierna', although it was noticeably less detailed and precise than Lukas'. Before he could examine the posters, however, Lukas coughed lightly, and Emil was reminded wordlessly that he had to take up a seat. As much as the boy preferred to sit at the back, he was gestured to sit nearer Lukas, although it was, at least, by one of the few windows, however obscured it was with bottles of sulphuric acid.
Xiaomei pulled up the seat next to him. She had soft brown hair, just like Leon, although perhaps more elegant. She had the same, slightly angled eyes, with thinner eyebrows, however, in fact, Leon had quite thick eyebrows in comparison to Cheng's, as well. Xiaomei blushed intensely, and didn't speak, while Emil concentrated with extreme strength on the window. Behind him, a boy with a strange curl sat down and began talking with extreme ferocity to his partner, a misty-eyed boy who didn't sem to be listening. Finally, what seemed like all of the class was settled, (and that was not much- few chose to do Triple Science for A Levels), and Lukas began to speak.
"Welcome, class. As some of you may know," (Emil was beginning to tire of teachers saying that), "I am Mr Bondevik of the Science department. I assume that you are all here for Triple Science, one of the most difficult A Levels you can do. That is-" He glanced around the almost empty classroom whilst saying this- "If you manage to complete all the coursework for two years." The room was silent as he said this; a rugged-looking girl in the third row was tapping her pen against the desk, it was quite irritating. Xiaomei, on the other hand, had lost her blush, making way for an expression of rapture in her face. It seemed that Lukas' soft voice, monotonous to Emil, was modulated to others. He continued speaking.
"Today I will give you your exercise books and your textbooks, and I will go through my expectations of this class in brief. Then, I will tell you the order of the subjects we will cover, and ask you to feedback on any information you find might be useful in future. Any questions?" The misty-eyed boy raised his hand. "Sir, what degree did you do?" Lukas broke into a very faint smile. "I don't have time to answer that, I'm afraid- ask Emil, he's roughly in front of you." Emil wanted to scream, but he didn't say anything, simply exhaled a little with his nose. The boy nodded, unaware of the Icelander's inner turmoil, then returned to staring at his pencil case. Emil was only half-aware of Lukas placing a textbook and a yellow exercise book on his desk, even less so of the way his brother's lips turned upwards upon passing him, practically ignorant of Xiaomei's little, sneaked looks at him. In fact, the rest of the lesson he concentrated on the tasks set, listened with interest but little curiosity at what Lukas had to say, and made notes on the information offered by the rest of the class. Nothing interesting happened for quite a while.
That is, until there was a knock on the door. Emil had just glanced up at the clock- ten past three, a quarter of an hour left- when a rap of knuckle against wood drew the entire class' attention. Lukas' voice sounded. "Come in." As if the lesson couldn't get any worse for social interaction, Mathias entered the room. However, he wasn't in his usual, optimistic state. Sweat trailed down his forehead. He was frowning. He kept running a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more, and his dialogue was broken:
"Bro, you've got to come down." Lukas looked at him with a frustrated expression, mingled with concern. "Mat, you know I'm teaching right now-" "It's urgent!" There was desperation in his voice as he ran through his hair again. "No seriously, it's madness downstairs. Nobody knows what happened, everybody's begging for you, or Arthur, or Vladimir, it looks as if you'll be catching mackerel in the pond for another week-" but Lukas had already grabbed him. "Wait, bro, what's happening? Tell me, exactly." Mathias answered, trying to keep the panic out of his voice."The fridge, Luke. It's gone."
Hey guys! Sorry for how late this chapter is, I was going to make it longer but I figured that it would force me to write the same amount of words for each chapter, (not that there's anything wrong with that, I was really lazy the past two ones lol), but anyway, motivation does wonders. I'll post another one shortly, see you! ~ Jay
Please plan some conspiracies in the reviews!