Tiger's Mate

Chapter 4

"So, are you done with your 'bitchy' attitude from yesterday or am I going to suffer today?" I heard the annoyingly dry humorous voice of Katski say as I looked up from my book to see him standing there, beside my table of our History class.

Funny, not even three minutes since I arrived here and he was already being a prick.

My entire morning getting here had already been consumed with hearing nothing but talk of the new student Katski Black in the hallways, I swear, you'd think he was some sort of celebrity or something. He had all the other students gossiping, wondering where he came from, why he transferred, and all kinds of other things that I didn't give a crap about.

I narrowed my eyes at his condescending jab but kept my expression neutral, so that I didn't show just how much his presence was bothering me. "The fuck do you want, Kitty?" I asked.

"It's Katski," he corrected with a look of annoyance as he crossed his arms. "And I sit here, remember?"

I narrowed my eyes further as if I was visibly trying to think about it.

"Nope."

"You need to move your stuff," Katski said, ignoring me and gesturing to the bag that currently resides in what he seemed to think was 'his' seat.

"Why? Looks to me like my stuff is perfectly fine where it is..." I answered with a smirk, playing at false innocence.

Katski furrowed his eyes and glared at me, then in one quick move, he kicked the chair outwards with his foot, which made my bag lose balance and topple to the ground. I shot murderous daggers out of my eyes, but he merely returned with an innocent look.

"Oh well what a shame..." he sighed dramatically as he began to take a seat, but at the last second, I kicked the chair out from under him.

"You're right, what a shame," I said as Katski missed the chair and fell on his ass, cursing under his breath.

That seemed to catch the attention of some of the others in the class.

"Everything alright back there boys?" our teacher asked from the front of the room, turning away from her dusty white chalkboard to look our way.

I returned her concerned look with a smile of false innocence. "Yep, all good. Katski here just fell," I answered, and she just shrugged and turned back to the board.

When I looked back down Katski was getting up and shooting lasers at me with his eyes like fire. While I returned with a similar look of ice.

"Ass," I heard him mutter as he sat down set his chin down on his folded arms.

I watched him pout with an irritated look in his eyes, I just smirked. "Right back at ya, Kitty."

For the rest of the class, he was practically intolerable. We were told to get into groups of four to discuss the attributes of the novel; The Book Thief (because it revolved around the Second World War) with the tables either in front or behind us. So while everyone got into their double pairings, I was stuck with Katski and the pair of chatty gossip girls that sat in front of us. At least they seemed happy about it because I sure wasn't.

Even worse, Katski wouldn't stop being a pain. Every time I tried to say something about the story or what I thought the most important attributes to focus on were, he went ahead and contradicted everything with his own thoughts and opinions. I said one thing and he said the exact opposite.