More Than Friends | ✓

Chapter Two

The next day I went to school again, slipping into the stream of kids between two groups. I went straight to the back corner of the form classroom, realising that the bunch of boys who sat in front of me didn't look so friendly. I guess they didn't like that I was getting in with Helen and Katie and the back row?

Helen seemed really nice. Sure she liked me ogling her boobs, but she liked that kind of attention from all the boys. She was a flirt, but she was also kind and considerate. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. She was way out of my league, but I guess she didn't know that on account of nobody knowing my history.

The back row girls knew all the other boys who had gone on to six-form from the high school and they weren't really their type. Most of the back row girls had boyfriends who were a year or two older and had left school and were working or looking for it. I think Helen had a boyfriend, although she carefully kept it ambiguous. But Katie kept gleefully implying it.

That lunchtime I looked at my map for somewhere to explore as something to do. I went to the library. The library was in the main old school building and had high stained glass windows. It was almost deserted. I went along the rows of shelves, full of boring books.

And there she was. That magnificent long fuzzy blonde hair. It had to be Flat Alice. She was sitting hunched over her open binder, writing. I walked around her table and stood in front of her and cleared my throat. She looked up. She had small delicate features and high cheekbones, eyebrows so blonde they almost didn't show and very light blue eyes. She had a few zits but real girls do. So do boys. Hell, I had some zits.

I could sense she was different. I could sense she was special. She seemed approachable, she seemed genuine. It was a vibe she gave off. We were two outsiders.

I introduced myself and asked if we were in the same form. Then there was silence. She hadn't said anything. She hadn't answered my question. She was looking at me like I was mad.

Finally she reached out a hand to shake mine, saying "Hi, I'm Alice. Yeah we're in the same form. Is there anything I can help you with?" She said it in that tone she'd use when showing first-years around on an open-day. She looked just the type of respectable teenager who'd be asked to show first-years and their parents around on open-days.

My builder bravado kicked in.
"Yeah, actually, there is. Can you show me where the cafeteria is please?"

She kicked up the responsible student attitude a notch and looked seriously concerned, muttering soothingly about how it was awful I hadn't been shown around properly. She started to give directions.

I played dumb and pleaded. "Can you just show me, please? It'll be easier."

Easier? Who was I kidding? She didn't seem easily convinced but in the end the responsible student closed her binder and stood up, hugging it.

"Follow me," she said and I did.

We marched side by side across the quad towards the cafeteria. The rush had died down and it was only half full. She was about to turn away when we reached the door, but I asked her if she wanted to eat with me. She just stood there, saying nothing, until I pleaded "Please?" She caved in, and she went sat down at an empty table while I got my lunch of sausage, baked beans and chips.

I sat down across from her. She sniffed her nose up at my plate. "How can you eat that muck?"

I started to explain the mechanics of knifes and forks like I was some kind of wit. I asked what she was going to eat. She opened her bag and plucked out some neatly wrapped sandwiches. She started to describe the school schedule as we sat there. She just talked and talked. I figured it was her kind of defensive mechanism. I listened to her, hanging on every word.

***

Wednesday morning, I had to run past a couple of groups of kids to catch up with Alice who was walking alone to school. She didn't pay any attention as I caught her up, but when I said "Hi Alice." she turned, alarmed, saw it was me and calmed down.

She seemed defensive, but at least she talked back. I said we must live quite close, and she smiled weakly and didn't offer any hints of where exactly she lived. And by now we were at school and we headed together to our form room.

Helen was bubbly and chatty as always and we talked telly, with Katie and the others trying to chime in.

Then that lunch time I rushed off to the library. It was empty. I was a bit gutted and was a bit overwhelmed with a loneliness. But, nothing better to do, I stood outside by the door and waited. Alice was coming across the quad towards me.

"Are you stalking me?" she asked.

From the tone and neutral face I couldn't tell if she was joking. I asked if she wanted to eat with me.

She countered coolly, "You aren't going to pretend you can't remember where the canteen is again, are you?"

I fished some sandwiches out of my bag and held them up swinging in front of her face. She suddenly cracked an unwilling small smile as though she couldn't help herself.

"Oh okay." she surrendered, sounding exasperated, like I was a naughty puppy, and she led me off across the game field to some benches on the far side.

We walked in comfortable silence. When we sat and ate, I started to ask her about herself. And little by little she dropped her guard. Alice is actually Norwegian, although her mum had moved to London when she was very little and she didn't remember much. Although she spends all her summers in Norway visiting family and loves it, London is 'home' now. Her real name is Erika, but Alice is her English name and she likes it better; I should call her Alice. Her mum was a young mother and her dad didn't stick around and that's one of the big reasons why they moved to England, for a new start. That and that the English really need dentists!

Alice's mum was a trained dental nurse. Alice's hobby is ice skating, which comes naturally on account of her being Norwegian, and her mum is the instructor in the local rink. I just kept asking questions and Alice kept answering and all this came tumbling out. I don't remember that we ate any sandwiches.

Then Alice looked at her watch and said we had to get to lessons. It was a bit early I thought, and I said there was no rush. But Alice jerked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating towards a copse at the bottom corner of the games field, and said, "The Posse will be finishing their fags and coming back soon and it won't be good for us to be seen together" as explanation.

Obviously the hard kids went and smoked in the copse at lunch times. We hurried across the field towards the six-form portacabins.

I rushed to the school gates at home time too, thinking Alice would have to pass through them to go home. Yes I was forcing my company upon her. No I didn't think about it that way. All I could think about was Alice. I was already infatuated. And so we walked home together too.

I had a crush on her and alone with her I was feeling brave. I worked up the guts to make a move: I asked her if she wanted to go down the high street after school tomorrow. She tentatively agreed. It was all going so fast. At high school I had been so moody, bullied and socially awkward that I had never ever spent any time with any girl ever. And yet now I was coming out of my shell so fast I was at risk of doing something really stupid. I should have been thinking about things from Alice's angle, knowing how it is to be an outsider on the edge of school life being pursued by a horny new boy, but I couldn't. But luckily it was turning out okay - I think she was warming to me, warming to having a friend.

We agreed to bring a change of clothes to school so we wouldn't be in uniform. Then we got to the top of my road and I pointed out where I lived, but she didn't offer directions to hers and I didn't really want to pry. Alice seemed on her guard and value her privacy. But it kind of felt like we had a date. At least, in my mind, we had a date.

So, of course, that evening and at school the next day my mind was only on going down the high street with Alice.