The Rejects Club

Chapter 26 - A Spark Of Recognition

Men of few words are the best men. - William Shakespeare, Henry V

Wednesday 14th February

It was Valentine's day. The day of romance and love, and for Kirstie, avoiding every boy in sight. Even though she knew she had no need to worry about this in Mr L's class she still kept up the pretence of needing isolation. Right now, she had pushed the two bookcases to make a kind of barrier around the beanbags in the corner, and was sat in silence working on her essay. This work was easy, if not kind of boring, Kirstie found that given enough peace and quiet she could write for hours about a whole score of topics.

Mitch had taken Scott and Kevin to the library to work on their essays, more fool him, Kirstie thought, and Mr L and Avi were somewhere in the classroom getting on with whatever work they had to do.

Even though it had been over a week since her and Scott's "little" spat, for Kirstie there still seemed to be a slight tension lingering in the air whenever they were all in the room together. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but she could have sworn Kevin was more cautious with his joking around her now, and that Mitch sent more dull stares rather than smiles her way.

They were probably all wondering why she had been so cruel to the youngest, and at times she wondered too. It was silly really. She knew why. She was starting to see him as a little brother. For God's sake, it wasn't hard. Scott knew how to worm his way into everyone's heart. But something big was coming. Something she had no control over and it was best for both him and her if they kept their distance from each other.

Don't get her wrong, fighting with the boy constantly hurt her more than anything, but losing him to someone else's hand rather than pushing him away with her own would be so much more painful. So she had been purposefully going out her way to poke fun at him, to throw insults at him that she knew would hit a sore spot. Calling him dumb, making fun of his height, and being rude about his mom.

The kid was most likely going to hate her soon, an emotion he had never seemed capable of but it looked like Kirstie was going to be given a special exception. The girl let out a long yawn as she continued to scribble down her ideas on her chosen topic. She heard the boy come up behind her before she saw him, quiet footsteps on the carpet. "Hey," the deep voice greeted her.

"Hi," she replied amicably enough. At least she new she wouldn't have to worry about sexual advances from this one. Since Avi had uttered his first words she had gone out of her way to try and coax more out of him. Out of everyone she was the one who could get him to speak the most, mainly because Kevin and Scott talked more than listened and the teen still seemed slightly intimidated by Mitch and Mr L. Even with Kirstie however, his sentence limit rarely exceeded five words.

Allowing him to invade her space, she watched as Avi pulled up a beanbag beside her, knelt down and peered at what she had written so far. "You've wrote a lot," he acknowledged.

Kirstie shrugged. "It's just an essay. It's easy."

Avi tilted his head a little, "Well, what topic did you choose?" he asked her.

"The Romantic Poets."

"Why's that easy?"

"Cos there's just not much to say."

Avi hesitantly reached out to lift the paper to read it himself. "The Romantic Poets were a bunch of emos," he read the first sentence and gave her a small smile.

They both said nothing more and Kirstie expected the older boy to awkwardly shuffle away like he usually did when the conversation was at an end and he could think of no more ways to keep it going. She couldn't be bothered to keep the flow of talk going today.