The Hilstead Experiment: 1986 (Rough Draft)

4: The Girl with the White Hair (Need to fix)

Make sure to change everything in bold in the original copy 

4

Avery Heart sighs in relief when class is released for the day. She holds back for a second longer than normal and lets the heard of impatient students flood the two stair cases down to the main doors.

Freedom is so close she can almost taste it but when she thinks she's found her out she notices Professor Wilson cock an eyebrow in a 'I'm waiting' signal. Avery's shoulders slump in defeat.

Better get this over with. She thinks as shoves her notebook into her bag.

"Hey Avery." The voice has a slight twang to it.

"Um... hey yourself." Avery looks up and frowns at the dark haired Asian boy standing in the row just below hers. He smiles, showing off two rows of straight white teeth. "What did you do to Hailey?"

"Nothing she didn't deserve. Why?" Avery hates the automatic feeling of being on defense.

"Don't let girls like Hailey get to you." He readjusts his backpack and seems a little awkward now. "Girls like her are broken."

"Thanks for the pep talk." Avery stands and heaves her overly stuff backpack over her shoulders.

"I'm Glenn by the way." He holds his hand out towards her but she doesn't take it. Avery hates touching people and hates it even more when they try to touch her.

She plays it off like she's in a hurry and says, "I have to go face the firing squad."

"Has the white haired girl come to you yet?" He asks and his voice is low, almost a whisper.

She freezes with her foot on the first step down only she doesn't turn around.

"She comes to me too." He perks up, speaking louder this time but it's too late. Avery is halfway down the stairs, shaking her head as though the movement will rid her mind of the face of the white haired girl in her own dreams.

How does he know? She turns back when she reaches the bottom of the stairs but the boy is nowhere to be found.

"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?" Avery's head whips back around to find a very heated Mia standing in front of her.

"Where do I start?" Avery jokes but Mia doesn't let her off the hook that easy.

"Wilson's out for blood and you're on the top of his shit list for sure after the stunt you just pulled." Mia glances over her shoulder. Her course black hair is pulled back into a tight pony tail and there are little smudges on the lenses of her wire rimmed glasses.

She quickly turns back around when the Professor catches the pair staring and smiles, "Tell me what he does, okay, I want all the details." She knows not to hug Avery so she just nods quickly and heads towards the door, leaving Avery in her wake.

"Ms. Heart you managed to make it through one class without falling asleep. Big improvement." Professor Wilson says after the last of the students leave. He takes his normal position and leans against his desk, only think time he doesn't cross his arms over his chest. "I'm surprised."

"Me too actually." She freezes when she realizes she spoke these words out loud. "I'm sorry!"

He cocks a snow white eye brow for a moment and smiles. His normally stern features soften and she can make out actually laugh lines around his eyes and mouth.

"You're a smart girl, Avery Heart." His hand comes to rest on her upper arm and once again she freezes.

Why are you touching me? She wants to blurt this out but wills herself not to embarrass herself. I hate people touching me.

"You're a smart girl in a sea of idiots in this class." His hand gives her arm a gentle squeeze before letting her go.

"I am?" She asks, thinking that maybe he isn't the mean professor everyone thinks he is. Then he continues.

"I wouldn't take that as a compliment." He walks behind his desk and pulls his briefcase onto the clean surface. "You're smart but you're also lazy and unmotivated. Which are two horrible attributes."

He rifles through his bag, pulls out a packet of paper and hands it to her. "You're one of the only few to get a passing grade."

Avery looks down at her paper, expecting to see an A or at least a B but frowns, "A C?"

"I said it was passing. Not a good respectable one." He zips his bag closed and looks up at her. "I expect better from you."

"Okay." Avery says simply and shoves the paper into her back pack. To her dismay a flier falls to the floor and Professor Wilson stoops to pick it up before she even notices it.

"This thing is still floating around? Where'd you find it?" Avery took the page from him and folded it in half.