Finally, after a horrid, droning lecture about school uniform and the lunch time chess club, the bell rang and the form burst eagerly out of the classroom.
The hallway was no better. A sea of bustling students flooded the corridor, making what would ideally be a simple walk through the corridor a right pain. Literally.
Red pushed ahead, clearing the way for the rest of the group.
"What is it now?" Link called to Vio, who was following close behind his brother.
"Maths!" He shouted back, gaining a torrent of groans from the others.
"Great!" Saria huffed, shrinking past a burly year eleven, "What a brilliant way to get us engaged for the rest of this BRILLIANT day!"
"Yeah." Link automatically caught the green girl's bag's shoulder strap as she was dragged back by another wave of students and pulled her along.
Soon, they had reached the door along from their form room and dived into it, sighing in relief as they stopped to catch their breath.
"I highly recommend that you sit down before I keep you four back at break; You are already late."
The four of them looked up at their maths teacher, a tall woman with short, bright white, almost blue hair who always wore purple and blue.
"Yes, Miss Fi." Vio said and they walked to their seats.
The bad thing about maths was that they had a seating plan and Miss Fi was a dead boring teacher. The only good thing was that Link had Vio to sit next to and to copy work off of.
So the lesson began,
"As you can see there is a 56% chance of this door being open." The teacher pointed at a cheesy illustration of a door on the board, "Therefore, there is a 44% chance of it being shut."
"Ugh." Link groaned, assuming the usual position and leaning his forehead on his hands, "We learnt this last lesson!" He muttered so that only Vio could hear.
"Now." Miss Fi carried on, "Try this: Please work out the percentage of people who visit the theme park in one week and how many people stay in the hotel. Also display your workings and not only the percentage, but the fraction and decimal, too."
"What?" Was the resounding reaction from much of the class as they looked at the new slide. A novel of numbers and symbols was up, making most students almost loose their jaws.
About a quarter of the way through the lesson, Link had given up and stared out the window, twiddling his pen between his fingers and his eyelids drooping every now and then. Finally, they shut fully and he found himself in the main hall.
It was quiet. Too quiet. The stage stood like a gaping mouth, the inside shadowed eerily. A man cackled lightly and Link turned to see a tall man with red hair, his eyes the same colour, and a long nose.
He rose his hand and a light shone from behind. Upon turning back, Link saw a golden triangle with an upside down one hollowing out the middle. The light got too much and it started to blind him. He rose up his arms to shield himself from it-
He woke with a gasp as a hand closed over his shoulder. Link looked to his left to see Vio, who was frowning at him.
"Come on, the bell's just gone." His friend said, still with a furrowed brow.
"Right." Link blinked multiple times and stood up, snatching up his bag and games kit and closing his exercise book.
It was games next, which was a relief for him.
Link had a knack for cricket. Apparently his hand-eye coordination was pretty good and he was good with a bat.
They had a female teacher who was extremely tall, strong and scary. She always had markings on her face which her students could never work out if they were made of make-up or were tattoos. Her white hair was scraped back in two short pig-tails and she always stood up straight, looking down her nose with her hands on her hips. Mrs. Impa.
"COME ON!" She bellowed to the boys as they ambled out of the changing rooms, "GET A BAT AND LET'S GO!"
This normally sped things up a bit. Link, Vio and Red all ran for the bat bucket, grabbing their normal equipment. They each had a preferred bat. Vio and Red both had the same make, a sleek one with a purple handle on Vio's and a red for Red's.
Link, however, preferred the old worn one, which was literally carved out of tarnished, hardened wood. He had used that cricket bat ever since his first cricket lesson and it had served him well.
"RIGHT!" Mrs. Impa yelled as soon as they had got onto the astro-turf, the whole class falling silent, "TODAY I'D LIKE TO SEE SOME PRACTISING IN THREES! DO THE ROTATION GAME! REMEMBER IT? RIGHT, LET'S GO!"
Link, Red and Vio all teamed up and started to bowl to each other and bat on turns.
A few minutes in to this activity, the girls started to walk onto the field for athletics. Link gave them a fleeting look and readied his bat, but then he took a double take. It was her.
A girl with long blonde hair which fell to her waist was chatting animatedly with her friend, a girl from another class called Ruto. She looked around for a fleeting, wonderful and terrible moment. She was beautiful, rosy cheeked and always smiling, not to mention intelligent. Yes,yes, very intelligent. But then, for the first time, their blue eyes met. Zelda.
"Oi, dreamer boy!"
Link yelled in shock as a cricket ball as hard as a rock hurtled into his forehead. He staggered sideways stupidly and fell over. He looked up, blushing uncontrollably as he saw Zelda giggling. He grinned awkwardly, laughing nervously to cover up his own embarrassment and scratching the back of his head with a hand.
"Woa!" Vio ran over, laughing his head off, "Sorry, mate! I DID warn you!" He held out a hand and Link took it, getting pulled to his feet.
"Don't worry about it." Link smiled. He had made Zelda laugh. That made him happy.
That lunch time, Link walked out of the canteen balancing a pasta pot, a bottle of water and his two bags in his arms, using his chin to balance them. Only just making it to the table, he placed his lunch down and swung the bags under it, sitting down next to Vio and facing Green and Blue for the first time that day.
"Hey, Link!" Green's face was red, as if he had been laughing hard, "Vio was just telling us about the cricket thing. Haha!"
"Oh, that." Link said through a mouthful of pasta and swallowed it, chuckling and looking down at the pot.
"Yeah, made a right fool of yourself in front of Zelda, sounds like!" Blue exclaimed, laughing.
"I don't know. She was laughing." Link shrugged.
"Ha! Look, she's the hottest babe here, mate! You think she'd fall for guys like us? Hmph." Blue shook his head, pointing his thumb over his shoulder, "She'd probably go with guys like them, knowing her." He was pointing to Groose and his cronies.
"She doesn't seem like the kind of girl to be going out with thugs like them."
"Trust me, mate."
Link sighed, "Ah, we sound like a bunch of girls, gossiping about her! What about the athletics tournament, yesterday, Green, how'd it go?"
"It went pretty well. I came fifth in the long distance."
"Wow!" The table gasped in awe of their friend.