Cross

Book 1 Chapter I - The New Maths Teacher

Chapter 1 - The New Maths Teacher

"What's the meaning of this?" Headmaster West demanded.

Dani scuffed her shoes against the tile floor and wound a finger through her blonde hair uncomfortably, looking everywhere except at him. She was in trouble. Trouble of the "tried to go to the library to look up about the spaceship she saw last night, only for an off-duty policewoman to ask why she wasn't in school and personally escort her there when she couldn't find a good enough excuse" sort.

"I asked you a question. I expect an answer."

Obviously, there would be no way out of this except to answer.

"I didn't want to come to school," she muttered, not taking her eyes off the clock on the wall opposite her.

"And why not?"

"I didn't feel like it."

The headmaster sighed. "I see. Well, effective immediately, you're in detention -"

West was cut off when the door was thrown open with such force it hit the wall with a crash, startling him so much he knocked over several stacks of papers. Dani jumped violently and spun round. The boy responsible for all the commotion stood in the doorway, looking as surprised as she was and considerably embarrassed at the disturbance he'd caused.

"Sorry, the front door was open and the draught blew the handle out of my hand," he said by way of explanation.

"Try to be more careful in future, please," West said coolly. "I'll speak to you in a moment. As I was saying, Miss Tamari, you're in detention for the rest of the week. You can leave. Cross, what kept you? You're almost an hour late."

Dani turned and left, glancing curiously at "Cross", as West called the boy. Well, "boy" might be stretching things a bit. He looked like he was in his early twenties, maybe twenty-one. He also didn't look very healthy - his skin was white - not merely pale, white - there were dark circles around his grey eyes, and he apparently hadn't had a decent meal in several weeks. She also thought he could do with a haircut - his dark brown hair reached almost to his shoulders and clearly had not been combed for a while.

I wonder who he is and why he's here, she thought.

Dani was too late for Geography, the first lesson of the day, something she was extremely thankful for. Anahita Avalon, who taught that subject, was not her favourite teacher. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, she wasn't lucky enough to avoid English, which was taught by Anahita's mother, Angerona, who was if anything an even stricter teacher than her daughter.

"You're late," Angerona said sharply.

"The headmaster wanted to talk to me," Dani said as she took her seat next to one of her best friends, Gareth Brown.

"Where were you?" Gareth asked as soon as class was dismissed and the students filed out to get the books they needed for Science, the next lesson, and then proceeded to the Science classroom. "The headmaster couldn't have wanted to talk to you for that long."

"I went to the library," Dani said. "I wanted to see if I could find - Oh, never mind. I'll tell you at dinner."

"All right. I'll hold you to that, though. By the way, have you heard about the new student? Her name's Celeste LaMorgan and she's the daughter of a famous French actress. Apparently, her mother's here with a film crew working on her latest movie or something."

"Really?" She was hardly listening, so wasn't sure what to say. "That's... interesting."

On the way to dinner, Dani was elbowed, shoved, tripped, knocked against, pushed and had her feet trodden on by every student in the school, or so it seemed. Almost everyone wanted to get a chance to speak to the new girl and ask if she could introduce them to her mother, and those who just wanted to get their dinner didn't find navigating the crowded hallways an easy task.