Part 1: Cooper

I met Justin in form, breathing heavily. I had had football practice that morning.

“Hello my overworked friend,” Justin welcomed me.

“Hey,” I practically huffed. “How red’s my face?”

“Ummm…” Justin thought. “Scale?”

“Tomato to, I have no idea! Just how red am I?” I asked again, irritated.

“You are-” Justin began.

“About as red as the sky on a bad day.”

I felt my chest tighten as the sound of Jasmine's voice. I turned around to see her putting her bag down next to me.

“Miss has forced us to sit next to you losers,” Sara collapsed into the seat next to Jasmine.

“What a joy!” I threw my hands into the air melodramatically.

Sara pulled out her notebook and began to draw. The rest of us remained silent.

Form ended and the first lessons of the day whizzed by. Suddenly, I was sitting next to Nick and Justin, two pieces of pizza in my hand.

“And now we sit next to them,” Justin finished.

“It’s gonna be hell!” I raged.

“I think hell would be worse,” retorted Nick, who proceeded to devour his sausage roll.

“Geez, how hungry are you?” asked Justin, somewhat appalled with Nick’s pig-like eating.

“I didn’t eat much breakfast,”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t hungry then: but I am now. Let me eat Justin.” And Nick ended the conversation with a satisfactory bite of sausage roll.

“Hey guys! I got a new scarf yesterday! What do you think?” asked Peggy, sitting next to Nick, a yellow-green knitted scarf around her neck.

“It looks great!” replied Nick, colour racing to his cheeks.

“I love it! Yellow is a good colour for you!” Justin smiled.

“Isn’t it green?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Peggy replied, pulling it up towards her eyes. “It’s kind of a bit of both.”

Nick nodded, and stood up to put his sausage roll wrapper in the bin.

“I heard you’re new form seats from Sara! I think it’s a good opportunity to bond; be more friendly with Jasmine and her friends, you know?” Peggy shuffled in her seat. Justin opened his mouth to say yes, but I interrupted with:

“No.”

“Oh. Okay then!”

At that moment, the bell rang for the end of break. Nick ran over to us.

“Let’s go!” he cried.

“Since when were you so excited about lessons?” I questioned.

“Since he became friends with me,” Peggy explained.

We all laughed and walked in the direction of our next class.