The High School Experience

» absolute wimps

· Chapter Three ·

I pushed open the door to my Maths class, and stepping inside, I located my friends at the back. It was noisy, as always, and people were goofing about, but that was mainly the boys. Papers were getting chucked around the classroom and a few of them were pretending to fight. You would think that seventeen/eighteen-year-olds would ditch the immatureness in middle school. But no.

It was the start of the school day. A quarter to nine to be exact. I could not understand how people could be so energetic; it was a struggle every day for me to even get out of bed! I side-stepped around one of the boys that were play-fighting, and was lying sprawled across the floor, and made my way to Caryn and Natalia.

"Hey," I greeted. Caryn smiled and Natalia nodded. They both, like me, were not morning persons either. I slid into my seat next to Caryn and slowly took out my exercise book.

"How can you be in the mood for Maths so early in the morning?" Natalia grumbled. She was watching me lazily, her eyes half-drooping. I noticed her makeup was quite minimal that day.

"I'm not," I replied. "But the teacher's gonna be here soon." As if on cue, the door to the classroom swung open. Everything that was going on around me seemed to stop for a second. Most people were probably thinking it was Mrs. Hilton. But it wasn't. Mrs. Hilton was the last person on their list that they wanted to see, but the person that walked in was the exact opposite.

Natalia opened her eyes when she noticed the noise had stopped. She looked around sleepily before glancing at the front. The second she recognised the person, her chocolate brown eyes went wide with shock. She abruptly sat up, her back as straight as a flagpole.

Freddie Fox stepped hesitantly further into the room, a little startled at the sudden change of atmosphere, and took his seat. Soon after, everyone went back to whatever they were doing, but Natalia (and most of the other girls) were indifferent. It wasn't that hard to catch on that they were checking him out, even though they thought they were doing it discreetly.

Natalia leaned forward, as she was in the seat to my right, and in what was supposed to be a whisper, she said, "Hide me!"

I glanced around, confused. "Why? Mrs. Hilton isn't--"

"No! Not her. I look like a mess!" Her hands were waving around frantically, looking for some sort of solution. The fact she said she 'looked like a mess' was a complete lie in my opinion. I don't know how, but she always managed to appear flawless every morning at school, as she did today. If that was her looking like a mess, then obviously I looked like a deformed sloth everyday.

"I think she means Freddie," Caryn said. As always, she was one of those people who noticed those type of things, not me. I turned slightly in my seat to peer at him, but according to Natalia, I shouldn't have.

"No! Don't look!" The fact that she was supposed to be whispering completely went out of the window, and Freddie himself glanced our way. Natalia stared at him for what seemed like hours before offering him a small smile. His gaze skipped to me, and I felt a little uncomfortable under his scrutiny. Then he smiled, at me.

Natalia sighed quietly when he turned back to re-join the conversation he and his friends were having. It was safe to say that Natalia had a 'thing' for him, if not an infatuation. There wasn't any surprise, really, because half of the year was in love with him, or so they thought. Sure, he was good-looking, with blonde hair and brown eyes, but according to Natalia, I was blind to his 'hotness'. I wasn't the only one, though. Caryn was with me on that one. But the thing is, Natalia had had this little 'thing' for Freddie for years. We three had all gone to the same elementary school, so actually knew each other pretty well. And when puberty had started kicking in towards the start of middle school, Natalia had had the eyes for him ever since.