Around Here

Around Here [preslash]

Short stories are works of brief narrative prose, which usually focus on a limited number of characters and a single, decisive plot incident. Significantly shorter and more compact than novels, short stories leave the reader with a snapshot or slice of life.

🌻 click the inline comments on this line to view the Scots to English translations 🌻

.:*~*:._.:*~*:.

The moment that Jordan Shearer steps into the classroom, Lee knows that he's not from around here.

        His first clue is the way that the teachers all hover over him, as though he's constructed entirely of glass and could shatter at any second. They handle him delicately, fawning over the "poor wee soul" with concern clouding their faces as he stumbles into the classroom, sporting a frown on his own.

        That frown is the second.

        Jordan looks as though he'd rather be scraping his eyes out with kitchen utensils than spend another moment in the classroom. Lee can't blame him really, considering how at the moment he's being pinned to the spot like a butterfly by the piercing gazes of thirty odd curious teenagers, each formulating their own theories, rumours, and conclusions...

        "Just sit down there next to Lee on the left there," the teacher instructs, gently patting Jordan's blazer clad shoulder. The jacket looks awkward on him – it's slightly too baggy and there's an embarrassing indent on the right shoulder pad. Jordan shoots her a poisonous glare before gracelessly slinking into the empty chair next to Lee and casting his eyes downward.

Tentatively, Lee taps him on the elbow. Jordan's startled, and lets out a small hiss of swears before glowering up at Lee and darkly spitting out, "What?"

        "Um, do you want to borrow some notes?" he asks shyly, a faint pink staining his freckled face. "Unless you want to copy them up later or –" 

        "Nah, you're alrightpal," Jordan bites back. Lee flinches and feels his insides shrivelling up in embarrassment. He swallows thickly and turns away.

        He doesn't really want to be Jordan's mate anyway. He talks like a ned.

Jordan quickly strikes up quite a reputation at school. Within his first three weeks, he manages to instigate three fights, receive no less than nine punishment exercises, and spray-paints a towering mural on the PE block. When Lee finally gets a look at it, the first thing he does is laugh – Jordan's painted a cartoonized version of his registration class, complete with an ungainly thin character next to Jordan's avatar blushing crimson as he pokes Jordan in the side.

        The next time they're in class together (which happens to be later that very sun-baked afternoon), Lee sucks in a dry breath and takes a huge leap of faith; he compliments Jordan's artwork.

        "Are you taking the mickey?" is Jordan's first instinct. Confused, Lee shakes his head.

        "Um, no..." he says, hoping against hope that 'taking the mickey' means what he thinks it means. "I thought it was pretty funny. Although just saying, I didn't blush like that." A small snort escapes Jordan's staunch demeanour and he quickly rearranges his features to a practised scowl, perfected by years of rehearsal. Lee feels a smile tug at his own lips. "I didn't," he insists, his mouth beginning to crack into a wide grin. "But I'll let you off under the pretext of 'artistic license'."

        Jordan glances at him from the side of his deep set eyes and runs a nervous hand over closely cropped hair. "Under the what of the what?"