Night Creatures

Night Creatures 4

When I got to school, I made sure that I barely made it to class on time. Shay said that Kaydeny didn’t want to talk to me, but it seemed like she did and I didn’t want to give her the cold shoulder when she had always been nice to me. I noticed for the first time that Derek Capal, who I sat next to in English, also had this class with me. When he saw me looking at him he smiled a hello and waved. I got through the class without talking to Kaydeny and nearly ran out the door when the bell rang.

I once again waited in the bathrooms until I barely had time to make it to Biology. I knew that I would be harder to avoid Jace since he was my science partner. Luckily, Mr. Coop came in after me, wheeling in an out dated TV on a cart. Movie day. The lift in the class mood was tangible.

By the end of class, the movie still wasn’t over so we got to watch it again tomorrow. I honestly couldn’t remember what it was about, I was so preoccupied with my thoughts. I still couldn’t figure out why Shay hated me.

It also turned out that Derek was in my Trig class right before lunch and he invited me to sit with him and his friends. I was relieved. I didn’t know where else I would have sat, or could have because of the overcrowding problem.

As we were walking there, I was getting jealous glances from all the girls that we passed and respectful looks from the guys. I was starting to figure out that Derek was the Popular Guy in this school.

When I got to his table, it was already full except for two seats. A few minutes later, more people came and had to stand up around us.

“Hey Derek whose your new girlfriend?” a guy with sandy-blonde hair asked when he walked up to the table. The girl he was with hit him on the arm. I blushed.

“She’s not my girlfriend. Her name is Alice.”

“Oh yeah. The new girl,” he replied, making me blush again.

Derek turned toward me, “That’s Jack by the way. You can call him Jackass if you want.”

“Jack Fere, at your service,” he replied, ignoring the jibe.

“I’m Willow Foll,” a girl with white-blonde hair said.

Hestar Liurt, Will Eli, Dean Dono, Leslie Mormes, Nina Gerld-Moore, Foster Doulnally. The rest of the table said their names, one after the other. The girls all seemed nice and the guys too.

The guys were buff, like football players and the girls pretty like cheerleaders. Some were even wearing letter jackets.

All of them had huge amounts of food in front of them, even the girls, though they were skinny. Not twig-like like Kaydeny, just not fat like you would expect with all that junk food. All of them except one girl. It was the girl who had come with Jack, Leslie Mormes.

The atmosphere of their table couldn’t have been more different from Shay’s table. Where Shay’s was quiet, with maybe some small talk, Derek’s was loud, with too many conversations going on at once to count.

I was partly expecting to be either ignored or questioned relentlessly, but all of them seemed to accept me without hesitation. They asked me a few questions, normal ones like what other schools I had been to, what classes I had, or if I was in any sports.

My assertion that the guys played football and the girls were cheerleaders was correct. Most of the conversations were about past football games or were anecdotes about football. Apparently Derek was the team captain and he was going to college on a full-ride football scholarship.

“So are you going to the next game, Alice? It’s against Weston High. So far they’ve been undefeated so we might not beat them. Okay we’ll beat them but still. It’ll be fun,” Derek asked me. It seemed like he really wanted me to go.

“That would be cool. I’m not in cheer, so we can sit together,” Leslie Mormes said. She was pretty with long golden brown hair and electric blue eyes the same color as mine.

“I will if I can. It’s tomorrow right?”

“Yep. You can watch us practice before the game, too, if you want.”

“Its hilarious to watch them. They do some of the weirdest warm ups I have ever seen. We can sit together and laugh at them.” Leslie seemed really nice, as if she really wanted to be my friend instead of was just tolerating me. “But no really, our team is great. We’ve been undefeated ever since I got here a few months ago.”

“You haven’t always been here?” I asked. She fit in with them so perfectly that I had assumed that she had known them all for years.

“No. I moved over from Weston back in December. That’s why I’m not in cheer.”

“Oh.” I said. That meant that she knew what it was like to be a new kid, too. Maybe that was why she was being so nice to me. “So the game is against your old school?”

“Yep. My ex is on the team. I want to rub our victory in his face.”

“Then I’ll definitely be there,” I replied with a smile. I seemed like we were going to be friends.

Before I knew it, lunch was over. It had been so much fun that the time flew. Derek held my books for me as we walked to class, then sat on the edge of the desk and talked to me, even though his own seat was barely a foot farther away.

We had a pop quiz on Wuthering Heights. It was strait forward, very easy.

After class, Derek walked me to the locker rooms. He paused and looked at me. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but he changed his mind and closed it.

We were blocking the doors to the boys’ locker room and I heard a cough behind Derek. It was a cough that was meant as a ‘get out of my way’. I looked up to see who it was and saw an angry and impatient-looking Shay. It made me smile.

“I’ll see you later,” Derek said and he walked away to his next class.

Gym was brutal. We had moved on to basketball and I tripped a few times. And brought people down when I fell. I learned to stay off to the side and my teammates learned not to pass to me. Shay was on my team and he could have easily beaten the other team single-handedly but he always passed before he made the shot. He would pass to anyone, even to people that he knew would miss the shot. He never passed to me, though.

The torture finally ended and we were let out of school. I made my way to the bus stop quickly. I was getting more than one unfriendly glance from the people I had Gym with.

“Alice!” I heard a voice yell from a few yards away. I looked around and saw Leslie walking toward me.

“Oh, hey. What’s up?”

“Not much. So you ride this bus, too?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m so glad that Derek likes you. Now I have someone to hang out with after school since everyone else is at either football practice or cheer. That’s where Jack is right now. I tried to get him to ditch, but he said no since tomorrow is game day. I’m so excited. It’ll be so much fun…” she kept babbling on, but I was distracted. I saw Jace and Kaydeny out of the corner of my eye and they were looking my way, confused. It looked like they asked Shay a question about me because they turned toward him, then all three looked my way. Shay just shrugged and turned away, leaving Jace and Kaydeny with their confused looks.

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a/n: Whoo, reading over this made me realize how lacking I am in dialogue and subtlety. Yikes!