"Now these are the Derry School Rule Book and Code of Conduct. These are yours to keep. Consider it a gift." She smiles.
"Thank you..." Charlie says, losing grip on her fake smile.
We both walk out as the woman hollers, "Have a great first day!"
I turn to mutter something in response and when I turn back around, Charlie is already making her way down the hall.
I sigh and start to walk after her.
Except I can't because of the person I just ran into.
I look up and see the boy with black hair. I feel my palms become sweaty.
"Um, excuse me," I try to walk around him, but he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pushes me back in front of him.
"Um, can I-"
"I haven't seen you around here before." He says with a smirk on his face. He starts playing with my hair.
My eyes shift to his hand and I try my best to nudge it off.
"I'm new, I need to go find my locker." Hoping he'll let me leave, I turn in the opposite direction and the boy with cap grabs my backpack and pulls me back.
"Look, I don't want any trouble." I say, starting to get annoyed. "We don't want trouble. We're just trying to give you a nice Derry welcome." The tall one smiles and grabs both my backpack straps.
I look around to see if I can find an adult or even Charlie, but it's a sea of strangers and I'm in the jaws of a shark.
"What's your name?" He grabs my schedule, probably knowing I won't tell him.
"Lorraine..." He says my name and I hate the way it sounds coming from his mouth. "Well, Lorraine. I'm Patrick. Better get used to saying it. Or screaming it, whatever you want." He gives me a wink.
"Yeah, okay, bye," I say before grabbing my schedule and walking past him in one quick motion. I walk as fast as I can in the direction I saw Charlie disappear in. I see her searching around nonchalantly. Then she spots me and annoyance fills her eyes.
I walk to her and she throws up her arms.
"What the fuck dude?" She exclaims. "Where the hell did you go?"
"You're unbelievable."
-
I walk into my homeroom class with everyone else and walk to the teacher's desk.
"Mr. Meriwether? Hi, I'm Lorraine Finley."
He's an older man who has a friendly smile and warm eyes.
"Well hello, Lorraine. Um...hold on let me get you a textbook." He opens a cabinet behind his desk and gives me a Literature book. "And this is yours to keep up with until the end of the year," I nod and he scans the room for a place to seat me.
"Lorraine, you'll be sitting here." He points to a desk in the second row on the right, by the door. It's the second to last desk and looks well within seeing distance from the board so I walk over and sit.
About fifteen minutes into a discussion about The Scarlett Letter, I began zoning out.
I look around the room at everyone and see one of the four boys from before sitting in the back at the opposite side of the room.
He's the one with the cap and I quickly look away, hoping he didn't see me.
-
I'm sitting at a table in the cafeteria lunch line with Charlie and her new friend Greta.
Greta doesn't like me very much, but I can tell she so desperately wants Charlie to like her so she's tolerating me.
"So, um, how's your first day going?" Greta approaches the topic cautiously, afraid she might say the wrong thing.
Charlie doesn't look at Greta as she opens her soda.
"Fine." Greta looks disheartened that Charlie shut her down so quickly. She turns to me and I see her pretentious attitude fade. "And what about you?" She sneers in a way she wanted only me to notice.
"Good, I guess. It was a weird morning." I say eating a french fry.
Charlie digs her fork into a piece of peach. "Why?"
"I just ran into these guys,"
"What guys?" Greta suddenly became interested.
"These four guys. I don't know all their names just Patrick's."
Greta's jaw dropped and she looked at Charlie, who seemed just as confused as me.
"What?" She says to Greta. "Oh, nothing." She shrugs, an amused smirk evident on her freckled face. Charlie quickly drops the topic.
"I'll be right back, I'm gonna go get some chips."
"Okay..." Greta says, watching her leave then turning back to me, all smiles replaced with fake judgemental ones.
"So what'd they do to you?" She asks, stuffing forked chicken into her mouth.
"They didn't do anything," I said, annoyed at this girl by now. "Why, who are they?"
"Bowers' Gang."
"Bowers?"
"Yeah. The little blond one, that's Victor. He's like the least terrible out of all of them, but that isn't saying much." She shrugs. I nod.
"Then there's Belch. He's the big one. His name is Reginald, but you probably have a death wish if you call him that." She says with a smirk. "They just have him around because he's the only of them who actually owns a car." I can't believe how blunt she's being but I don't say anything because I need more information.
"Anyway, they're not the ones you should worry about. It's their leader. Watch out for him."
I shudder at the thought. "Oh, Patrick. Yeah, he seemed pretty-"
"Patrick? Ha, right. Patrick's not their leader. Henry Bowers is." She smirks.
"Henry? You mean the one with the mullet?" I make a motion to my hair. She snickers. "Yeah." I nod again, looking down.
"You're pretty lucky New Girl. They don't like to leave their victims unscathed."
I scoff, "What, so you're saying I should be grateful?" She gives me a condescending look. "Are you an idiot? That's exactly what I'm saying." She smirks and shrugs.
"That is unless they're planning on saving that for later." My heart sinks.
"Later?" She scoffs this time. "You didn't think they were done, did you? Wow, you really are dumb. Listen, we're not friends or anything, but you should stay away. He's bad news." I feel my blood run cold and my hands get clammy.
A few minutes go by and Charlie comes back with a bag of Doritos.
"What'd I miss?" She asks, seeing my visibly shaken demeanor.
"Nothing." Greta and I say in unison.
-
"Charlie, I don't know why you hang out with her," I say waiting at the bus stop outside the school with Charlie. "She's a bitch."
Charlie looks bored as she inspects her nails. "Oh please Lorraine. You and I both know she isn't smart enough for that. She's just annoying."
I shake my head. "Then why are you her friend?" I ask. "She makes me look good." I stare at her in disbelief.
Not even Greta deserved that. "You're such a bitch," I say.
She smiles as the bus pulls up. "Thanks." I scoff and follow her up the steps.
𝗗𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥 𝗘𝗬𝗘𝗦》02
Start from the beginning
