‘Don’t stop on my account. I’ll just be downstairs working on the floor,’ Jack said, walking out of the room leaving Cait staring back at the painting. Not much had been done since she first started hours before except for the eye was more detailed and obviously belonged to a girl. She sighed loudly before walking out of the room, closing the door behind her. Instead of following, as I had done all day, I decided to head to the library to finish off the book I had started the night before.
10
Finn
How was your first day?’ my mum said with a hopeful smile as I climbed into the back seat.
I shrugged and made a noise as I looked out of the window at Theo standing outside surrounded by his new friends.
He was full of smiles, making everyone laugh, while all I wanted to do was punch him in the face.
Eventually, he waved his friends goodbye and headed for the car with a smile that seemed smug.
‘Are they your new friends?’ Mum asked, and Theo went on to talk about how great his first day was and how he’d been accepted to the school’s football team.
I rolled my eyes, my own first day not being even close to Theo’s. It started with me going to a class that I hadn’t been registered in, where my teacher spent almost fifteen minutes pointing out that I was not on his register. His bushy grey and black eyebrows frowned as he threw his arms up and told me to go back to the school reception to get it sorted. Why he couldn’t just let me in, I don’t know. I had left the room feeling like I was about to vomit after having the entire class sit and stare at me. It took an hour for the pink lipped receptionist to reprint my class schedule at which point I had missed my first lesson and had to join the next lesson while it was midway through.
‘Sorry, Mr Paxman, this is our new student, Finn.’ The receptionist handed me over to Mr Paxman like I was a disease.
‘Ah, I was wondering where you had gotten to. Welcome to the class, Finn—you can call me Alex!’ The teacher grinned. He was obviously one of those younger teachers that thought by getting everyone to call him by his first name, he was immediately cooler. As I felt the eyes of every kid in the class drilling holes into the back of my head, Mr Paxman—Alex—went to speak again.
‘Please do not ask me to tell everyone three cool facts about me. Please,’ I said silently, knowing his type.
Mr Paxman stopped for a moment and smiled before pointing me out to a desk at the back of the room.
Just when I was starting to think Mr Paxman might be an ok teacher after all, he called for me to stay behind once the class bell rang.
‘New kid is in trouble already,’ someone muttered as they passed me until I recognised him as the one that barged into me earlier.
I stayed at my desk until the room was empty, and Mr Paxman leaned against the desk in front of me.
‘So, Finn. How are you settling in?’
Internally, I sighed wondering if this was my mum’s doing. Had she told my teachers to keep an eye on me?
‘Fine.’
He nodded and crossed his arms. ‘I saw your grades from your last school, and I have to say, I was pretty excited to be getting a student so keen on history.’
I weakly smiled noticing his choice of words—he was excited.
‘Anyway, I’m looking forward to working with you, and if any of the stuff I give you seems a little easy make sure you let me know, ok?’
I nodded, relieved that was all he wanted to talk about.
‘Yeah. Fine. Can I go now?’ I asked, eager not to miss the start of another class.
‘As you were,’ he said returning to his desk and allowing me to leave.
The rest of the morning had been less chaotic, and I knew that after lunch I had two hours of study break before my final class. I just had to get past the dreaded lunchtime. At my last school, I would head to the far side of the football pitch, climb through the small hole in the fence and go to the local park. It was the escape route some people took to bunk school, but I’d always return once I had eaten my lunch and class was about to begin. It was different here though. I was almost certain that a school like this didn’t have any holes in the fence, and plus, I didn’t have any lunch—thanks to my dad. I felt the money in my jeans pocket and the grumble in my stomach as I eyed up the school cafeteria. I could feel my cheeks radiating heat across my face as my heart raced. My stomach growled in protest as I wondered if I could go without lunch. I cursed at myself silently for being such an idiot about going into a school cafeteria. There were kids that we almost half my size in their first year in secondary school, and yet they walked around with confidence. I took a deep breath as I headed for the entrance and walked into the huge hall of chattering, feeling my heart race against my chest. I could see the sandwich stall at the far end as I weaved between the other kids with the money tight in my sweaty hand.
‘What would you like?’ The server asked without even looking at me.
‘Just this,’ I said holding up a chicken sandwich. I would have preferred an egg mayo sandwich, but I didn’t have time to look around for one so grabbed the first one that looked edible.
I handed over the money, receiving a look once they had realised the money was wet from the sweat of my hands. I didn’t wait around for the penny change as I hurried out of the hall, dropping my lunch on the floor.
‘Hey, slow down buddy!’ Mr Paxman said as he bent down to reach my sandwich. ‘Finn,’ he handed over my sandwich with curious eyes. ‘Everything ok?’
I nodded, a little too enthusiastically. ‘Yeah, sorry.’ I began to walk off before he called my name again.
My stomach was in knots as he walked over to me.
‘Where are you heading?’
‘Erm, the toilet,’ I stuttered feeling my face grow red.
‘With your sandwich?’ He looked at me with the same curious eyes. The kind that saw right through me.
He went into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys before handing me them.
‘The big one will get you into my classroom. I’ll be back to get them in about forty-five minutes,’ he said.
I watched his face for a look of judgement but instead there was only a pair of soft green eyes looking at me with a smile.
‘We’ve all been the new kid before.’ He winked before walking off into the cafeteria.
Without a second thought, I walked off trying to remember where his class was and was relieved when I finally found it.
The rest of the school day had been okay except for a few minutes before the end of school bell rang. I was leaving the only class I shared with Theo when I was shoved into, and I dropped my phone on the floor.
‘You, again. I’m starting to get irritated by you, man,’ said the boy from earlier that morning as he got close to my face. Just as he was about to take another step closer to me Theo appeared beside us.
‘TJ, what’s going on?’ he said.
‘Just this dickhead constantly getting in my way,’ TJ said sticking out his chest obviously feeling inferior to Theo’s size.
‘Cool, well I’m sure he didn’t mean it, right, Finn?’ Theo looked at me with a serious glare.
‘I didn’t do anything in the first place,’ I said reaching down to pick up my phone, but TJ’s foot got there first.