“Oh, why was today so quick then?” I looked back at the now empty buffet—all the kids seated, eating, aside from a few dregs gathering by the drink machine or buying dessert.
“They had help today.”
“Volunteers?”
“Of a sort.” David covered his smile with a fist. “Half the football team is serving detention in the kitchen.”
“Really? Why?”
“Something about ditching paper cannons.” He picked up a corn chip and held it near his mouth. “You planning to eat?”
“Oh, um, yeah.” I straightened my tray and leaned my elbows on the table. “So, what’s the deal here anyway, like, social hierarchy? I’m guessing they’re at the top.” I pointed to the group of well-built jocks at the corner of the room.
“The guys having the fruit war?” He smiled as a piece of banana hit the glass window then slid down into a pile of pulp on the floor. “That’s the other half of the football team, and yeah—” he nodded, looking away from them, “—they’re pretty much the top of the food chain. Fourth on the list would be these guys.” He waved at one of the girls at the table in front of us. “Music class. They pretty much hang out together. The lowest ranking would be the boys behind you.”
“Let me guess.” I smirked, looking at their paper-wrapped sandwiches and milk cartons beside the chessboard. “They’re the chess geeks.”
David laughed. “You must be psychic.”
“Well, the whole scene is self-explanatory, but the ‘Chess Club’ jacket was a dead giveaway.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. Do you play?”
“Play?”
“Chess.”
“Oh, yeah. I do. Should I be sitting with them?”
“No.” He chuckled. “Unless you want to wear fruit juice home every day.”
I shrugged. “Strawberry would look rather fetching on me, I think.”
“Your hair smells like strawberries,” he said, and I wondered quietly how he could smell that.
“So where do you fit in?” I asked.
David looked to the side. “Well—”
“Hey, guys.” Emily perched herself on the seat across from David.
“Emily.” He nodded his greeting.
“Hi,” I said, then shovelled a mouthful of lasagne into my gob—an offering for the empty hole in my belly where a green ogre dwelled.
“Hey, do you guys mind if Ryan and Alana sit with us?” she asked. “They’ve got new-girl fever.”
“No,” I scoffed, “why would I mind?”
David lifted one shoulder. “Fine with me.”
After Emily signalled them over, she leaned forward and a bright grin lit up her caramel eyes. “So, what’dya think—a new love blossoming, or what?”
New love? My head burned as if a warm towel had just been wrapped around it.
“I think you might be right, Emily,” David said, a sassy smile twinkling in the corners of his eyes. And as I was about to grab both cheeks and run screaming like a girl at a boy-band concert, he redirected his gaze to the pair walking toward us, standing as close to each other as possible. “I don’t think either of them has figured it out, yet, though,” he finished.
Emily sighed, gazing dreamily at Alana and Ryan, while I caught my breath.
“Hey, all.” Ryan bumped knuckles with David, then sat down next to Emily, sliding Alana’s tray closer to his.
“Hi, guys.” I smiled, still feeling silly.
“Hey, Ara—so cool what you did to Mr Grant, today.” Ryan pointed gun-fingers at me. “I’m sure it’ll go down in high school history: The Newbie Bites Back. Part One.” Beneath his docile tones, he made himself sound like the voice-over for a movie trailer.
“I wasn’t biting back,” I said with my mouth a little full, “not really. I was just…politely not taking any crap.”
“So noble.” Ryan nodded, lost in awe. Alana sat quietly beside him, not making any effort to stand out.
“So, Ara?” Emily said. “We just finished French class—are you taking French this semester?”
“Nope. Foreign languages just don’t click up here.” I tapped my head. “My friend tried to teach me some French once…it was bad. I sounded like I was spitting insults at someone who made me hungry.”
Ryan and David chuckled to themselves.
“That’s a pity.” Emily propped her cheek against her hand. “I was kinda hoping we’d have someone to take the spotlight off us for a while.”
“Spotlight?”
“Yeah. Our teacher, Mz Sears—” Ryan pointed his chip at me, “—Total cow.”
“You mean grenouille?” Emily said.
“Uh, Em?” David frowned. “You know that doesn’t mean cow, right?”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “Uh—”
“Well, what’s being a cow got to do with a spotlight?” I asked. Unless she was a Broadway cow.
“Oh, nothing.” Emily sighed. “I just thought she might play nice in front of a new kid for a while.”
“She’s not nice?”
“Sometimes, but she’s just so finicky. Everything has to be done a certain way. If you don’t follow her rules to the T, she goes all PMS on you,” Emily added, then looked at Ryan.
“Yeah. She’s so stuck-up, Ara, like you wouldn’t believe. She came from some private school in the city, and she just doesn’t understand our ways.” Ryan waved his hands about in the air, making ‘scary fingers’.
Alana shook her head and smiled into her salad.
“Well, I come from a private school. I’m not stuck-up, am I?” I asked.
“You come from a private school? No way.” Ryan leaned back in his seat, making a cross with his index fingers.
“Yes way.” I sipped my choc-milk to wash down my lunch. “It’s nothing like this place. A different world.”
“So where did you go to school?” Alana finally spoke up.
“Really far away.” I smirked.
“How far?” Ryan asked.
“Very far.”
“Yeah, you have a bit of an accent there. What is that? English?” Emily leaned in slightly, as did Ryan and Alana, and the eager curiosity in their eyes made me want to smile—until I looked at David. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t care, or didn’t want to know, but he sat still, with his fingers clasped just in front of his simple smile.