My Little Murder

Chapter 4 - The Front of Faces

Rye, as it seemed, didn't like any form of interaction with people he knew while he was at school. It was almost like he didn't want people to know he had feelings. So, as it turned out, I would be alone again. Well, I did have Max, but I hadn't met him before the previous day, so we didn't really have much to say to one another.

"Hey, guess who doesn't have a chem partner this year?" Max asked me as I walked into the room with him. I glanced sideways at him, cocking an eyebrow.

"Let me guess," I frowned, putting a finger to my cheek as if I was thinking about it. "You?"

"Bingo," Max grinned. "Wanna be partners?"

So, apparently I was wrong.

"As long as you don't set my hair on fire," I sighed, dropping my bag on a desk next to Max. His fist pumped the air and I managed a slight chuckle at his mood. Apparently, he was always like this; energetic, funny and always on his feet. He always had something to say, and it was pretty amusing most of the time. Even in serious situations, apparently, he was always trying to bring a grin to the group.

Okay, before I go any further, I just want to straighten out the whole 'Pax's friends' thing, because it confused me at first, too. So, Max was in grade 11 with me, Charlie and Rye. Ivy, who was the really nice Italian girl at lunch on Monday; she was in grade 12 with Pax, and so was Liam. Max had to stay back a year, which was why he was in the grade he was in, but it was only because he wanted to; he felt like staying back could aid him somehow. That's fairly gutsy, if you ask me.

"Alright, settle down in your partners, guys," the chemistry teacher called over the chatting classroom, her voice booming intimidatingly. She was kind of tall, with a black bob for hair that sat anxiously on her head. Her features were fairly good-looking, save for the stress that had wrinkled the corners of her eyes and mouth, leaving three long lines on her forehead, too. She was rather thin, too; she looked like the kind of person who went to the gym every morning, and drank protein shakes at 6am after getting home from an early power-walk. She also had a white lab coat tied around her waist that was worn and torn and looked like it had been through the Second World War. I could just read a name tag from my table: Julia Jones. Everyone settled down at the sound of her voice, and some of my classmates seemed to be buzzing with excitement or curiosity. I didn't know why.

"Okay, I wanted to spend half of today's double lesson focusing on the camp next week," Mrs. Jones began, and I murmured a little 'ahh' in realisation. So that's what they were bustling about. "Our entire plan for what we were going to do has changed. I know that most of you know what's what, and you all reckon you have a pretty good idea on what's expected of you, though, but as you might know, we have another member to our party. So we'll need to fit her into it all somehow."

"I could tell her the basics," Max volunteered, his hand held up beside his head as he spoke. Mrs. Jones nodded at him.

"You can get right onto that as soon as I've finished talking," she replied, and Max murmured something in turn. "Since the basis of this camp was to study the effects that pollution and erosion - as two separate topics - can have on the wildlife around us, I've decided on a more reliable way of looking into this given the fact that the school isn't going to fund it to let us go in time. And, seeing as how we'll be gone for five days, with two extra days for travelling to and from, I've decided on changing our destination and plan. We're going to be staying at a 'summer camp' location, but we'll be the only ones there. They have cabins next to a big lake, with bathrooms that have showers and everything. There'll be a dining room, a bonfire set-up, and it's in the perfect location for what we're going to be doing."

There were a few whines.

"But my mum's already got me a tent, Miss!" a girl called Mara complained from somewhere up the back. "That's going to be really annoying for her."