Chapter 2

After the world’s most boring talk with the principal, I’m finally allowed to go to my first lesson. Thankfully at least, it’s science - my favourite subject, aside from PE. Annoyingly, however, I do have to stand in front of a class full of people and go ‘hello my name is blah I just moved here from blah thanks for having me’ and all that shit.

The moment I step into the classroom, a few minutes late thanks to the tour with the principal, there are already whispers going around. “As I was saying, this is our new student, Avi Hendricks. Avi, would you like to introduce yourself?” The teacher asks pointedly, and I bite my tongue to stop myself from correcting her pronunciation of my name. Normally, I just say ‘oh actually it’s like Harvey without the aitch,’ but I’ve been called pretentious for doing that before, and it’s not like I give a shit about any of the people here anyway or what they call me.

I’m not going to become friends with any of them, so it doesn’t matter if they call me ‘ay-vee’ or ‘ar-v-eye’ or ‘ah-v-eye’ or any of the other many possible pronunciations for my combination of letters. So instead, I just whip up my signature demure smile in front of the teacher, and flick my eyes across the students seated in front of me.

“Nice to meet you all. I just moved here from England, and this is my first time in America but I’m really excited to see the place,” I fake, wondering if any of the 16 and 17 year olds in this class know that I’m a full year - if not more - older than them. Hopefully not; I mean I just want to blend in as much as possible.

Which is a little hard when I stand out visually, being tall, a little muscular and not too ghastly to look at the face of. And then there’s my British accent, and I can’t wait for someone to ask me to say ‘watermelon’ or something else stupid as their personal Talking Tom. And just to top everything off, I have hearing aids too. They aren’t ridiculously obvious, but I’ve never bothered to grow my hair out long enough to cover them, and whilst it didn’t matter at my old school - I had them the whole time, have my whole life after all - here I bet it’ll just be another thing that nosy kids are curious about.

“Your seat is right here at the front - so that you can hear me,” the teacher says very slowly, and my fake smile twitches slightly. Ah yes, there it is. The assumption that because I have hearing issues, I must also be dumb and need extra help. 

I’m just a normal person. 

Sometimes I wonder why the slightest reason to stand out makes everyone else treat you entirely differently.

Sitting down heavily in the seat directly opposite the teacher, I ignore the urge to simply lay my head down on the desk - we aren’t in the science labs at least, so if I did fancy a nap then I wouldn’t knock myself out on the taps or anything.

I do eventually start taking notes - after all, science is an interesting subject, and the art of note-taking is basically burned into my brain, after being a top student for the majority of my life. Now, I just can’t be bothered. I mean I always put so much effort into school and grades and athletics because it made my parents proud and happy to see me thriving, but now…

Well, I just don’t care.

The only thing I really kept up with was sports, because at least they’re fun and a good use of my energy. But academia? There’s no point spending hours on the subjects that don’t even interest me, like history or geography. None of that shit is interesting, so my plan is to only put effort in where I care.

But I don’t particularly feel like caring today, so when English rolls around, I finally give in and nap throughout the lesson. Not like the teacher cares either - he didn’t even give me a seat near the front, and instead put me all the way in the back, like he wants me to fall asleep. And besides, from this distance, when the guy turns his back, I do struggle a little to hear what he says. Not that I’d admit it to anyone.

After English, the lunch break finally arrives, and I plan to seclude myself on a bench somewhere outside and ignore everyone and everything, but frustratingly, a guy I vaguely recognise from my science class approaches me.

“Hey! It’s Hendricks, right? Join us for basketball!” He says brightly, a ball trapped underneath his muscular arm. Before I have the chance to say no, his buddies pull me up from the bench and drag me along to what can only be described as a playground for big kids.

“I’m Jeremiah Kennedy, but my buddies all just call me Kenny - which automatically makes you Hendy, got it?” The first guy says, continuing to frog march me over to the basketball hoop. Yay. At least I’m decent at basketball, or good enough to not embarrass myself immediately anyway.

“Sure. Good to meet you, Kenny,” I say after a moment, already hating this nickname system. Why not just call each other by our first names like normal people?

Joining in the game with the other guys, I actually find myself beginning to enjoy it, until Jeremiah and I jump up at the same time, and his elbow collides with my head, knocking me roughly. At the same time, my legs tangle with his slightly, causing us to both fall to the ground. Some of the other guys make an ‘ooh’ sound before rushing over to check that we’re both alright.

“Jeremiah!” Someone shouts, trying to squeeze past the guys to get to Kennedy, where he’s touching his temple lightly, a small graze there. Someone says something quietly, but when Jeremiah’s elbow hit my head, one of my hearing aids got knocked out. It’s probably crushed beneath all these heavy guys’ feet by now, but I have to try and find it. I don’t want to inconvenience Joyce and Sam anymore than I already have, and having to get a new hearing aid would definitely fall into the ‘inconvenient’ category.

“Relax, Chester! I’m fine,” Kennedy practically shouts from right next to me, and I stop my search in favour of watching a skinny short boy throw himself into Jeremiah’s arms. The two embrace for a long moment, before the kid pulls back from the hug, inspecting the wound on Jeremiah’s temple.

“We have to go to the nurse,” he says determinedly, and Jeremiah laughs. “Always the protective big brother, eh.”

No way is this scrawny guy Kennedy’s older brother. No fucking way. They don’t even look that similar - I mean there are some similarities, but barely! Although that could be because all of Jeremiah’s features are hard and defined, meanwhile Chester’s are much rounder and softer. And extremely pierced. This guy has like a million different piercings in his face and ears.

Standing up, I push past a few of the other guys, still searching for my lost hearing aid. Now away from the main throng of people, I can’t hear Jeremiah and his brother screeching in my ears, so at least that’s good. They were very loud, even I could tell that.

“-Hendy! Man, how many times do I have to call you?” Jeremiah shouts from behind me, and I turn around, raising an eyebrow at him and his brother, who is still grabbing onto Jeremiah’s arm and trying to pull him in the direction of the school nurse.

Jeremiah walks up to me, planting his hand firmly on my shoulder. “Are you alright? I knocked you pretty hard; you should come to the nurse’s office with us,” he says so strongly that I actually wonder if I have a choice or not.

“Ah, I’m fine. I’ll catch up later; I dropped something,” I explain, hoping the two Kennedys will leave me alone. But Jeremiah just frowns, glancing down at the floor around us. “What’d you drop? Chester and I’ll help you find it.”

Shrugging, I say “my hearing aid.” I’d kind of assumed that Jeremiah had already seen that I have them, but apparently not, when he looks at me in total surprise.

“Seriously? Didn’t even realise you’ve got them- or one now, anyway. Shit though! We gotta find that! Don’t those fuckers cost a whole fortune?!” Jeremiah exclaims, and I shrug. “I guess…” I mutter, staring at the ground. I doubt I’ll find it though, and if I do, it’ll probably be smashed to pieces. Not really much point in looking for it any longer, if it’s keeping Jeremiah away from the nurse’s office. 

But both he and Chester instantly start scouring the ground with their eyes, and Jeremiah even gets the other guys to look around for it.

Maybe today wasn’t so horrific after all.