Among Others Chapter Four

Carol dropped me off outside the front entrance, the school loaming over me. Once again the familiar butterflies run though my gut. 1

But today, as I slowly made my way towards my first lesson, people started to smile at me. Random people I’d never met before just grinned as I passed. I guessed it was because I’d been seen with Kassie yesterday. Maybe that had put me onto some kind of school map. Whatever it was, it was starting to give me that unnerved feeling again, like something wasn’t quite right. As if the scales were tipped against me. 2

I had music first. I’d loved music in my old school be-cause we spent the majority of the time on the keyboards at the back of the room, working alone. 3

I was not going to enjoy these new ones quite as much. 4

As I walked through the open doorway, I noticed there weren’t many people here yet. The perfect time to tell the teacher who I was without being gazed at by the whole class.5

“Ah.” The teacher said as I crossed over to him. “You must be,” He glanced down at the piece of paper in front of him. “Alyssa?”6

“I prefer Ally.” 7

“Of course.” He smiled, scribbling it down. He looked like one of those older men that you could tell was good looking 20 years ago. His hair wasn’t going grey, just stay-ing a nice shade of dirty blonde, his eyes still filled with the hope of youth. As you would expect, there was the odd wrinkle here and there but he didn’t look to bad for his obvi-ous old age. I guess that’s how music keeps you young.8

“If you want to take a seat,” He pointed to the desk nearest his desk. “Oh and Ally, what instrument do you play?”9

“Guitar.” I stated and turned to sit before he could ask me anything else. Sliding down in my seat, I started to count the ceiling tiles to pass the time. Trivial things like this kept my head busy and stopped me thinking too much like Mum always told me I did. 10

Slowly people filled the spaces around me and I was glad to see that I’d taken no one’s seat and there were enough spaces that no one sat next to me. I was able to be invisible... or so I thought.11

No sooner had class started had Mr Webster pointed me out to the class.12

“Ally, you want to play us something?” He asked, his eyes staring me down.13

“I don’t have my guitar.” I stated, going red.14

“We have some.” He nodded, walking out the room and returning with a Farida FST-6 Electric Guitar. A nice in-strument if a little basic. 15

I crossed the room, keeping my head down and avoiding all eye contact with the class as they whispered things I couldn’t quite catch. 16

Slowly, I sat on the stool and Mr Webster handed me the guitar and plugged it quickly into the amp.17

Taking a short, sharp breath, I turned to him.18

“What shall I play?” I asked, watching him walk back to his desk.19

“Whatever you like. A song you know. A song you wrote. Or even just improvise.”20

I sighed, returning my gaze back to the worn fret board. I decided to improvise. I’d been learning for about 7 years now, so most of it came naturally to me, I just had to control my nerves to stop my hands shaking. 21

I started with a soft, slow melody, lulling the class in. Someone faked a yawn and I took my queue to jump to thrashing chords. 22

As I blasted out my music, quickly adding notes be-tween each chord sequence, I barely heard a knock at the door and luckily Mr Webster did. I felt a breeze wash over me as someone walked around the back of me. I blocked out all other noise, even the students clapping or cheering along. I was just content, me and the guitar. 23

I slid my hand down the E string and returned to my slowly melody to close it up. Letting the last note ring out, I realised people were clapping. 24

I stayed sitting, almost glued to my seat by the atten-tion. I’d never played to more than Mum and Dad, and even then, they had to say it was good. This was genuine praise.25

“Wow Ally.” I turned to see Mr Webster sitting at his desk. Leaning on the side of it was the dark hair boy from the house on the edge of my street. He looked even darker in the light if it was possible. His completely black eyes never looked away from mine as I felt locked in the staring match. I willed myself not to be the first to break it.26

“What did you think?” Mr Webster was talking to the boy and he looked away from me long enough to shrug to him.27

“Ok I guess.” 28

“You can go now.” Mr Webster waved him off and told me to go back to my place. Then he set us off onto key-boards dotted around the whole 3 rooms that was the music department. 29

Before assigning me a room, he smiled.30

“I can see you’re going to be a favourite around here.”31

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant but I smiled and thanked him politely. 32

I couldn’t get that boys fixed stare out of my mind. I’d always prided myself on being able to read people but there was something in his eyes I couldn’t understand. Almost hate, but slightly softer. 33

I forced him out of my mind as I sat for the rest of the double period getting used to the new keyboard and, most importantly, going though all the sound effects to find the funniest ones. 34

I was pleasantly surprised to find Kassie waiting out-side my music class.35

“How’d it go? I hear that class can really eat new peo-ple alive.”36

“It was alright.” I shrugged, not really wanting to go into it. Apparently my simple sentence was enough to keep her happy.37

“Are you coming out to the field with us?” She asked, pointing to a couple of her friends that were standing around her.38

“Sure.” I smiled, following them out. 39

The sun was still weirdly bright, but everyone was making the most of it as the weather people were saying it would last much longer. The field was packed with people sucking up the sun. Games of football scattered the ground making it unsafe for most spectators or any other students trying to cross the grass. Groups of kids lounged out on the picnic, some guys even topless, slapping on the sun cream... not that I was complaining.40

Kassie waved at a group sitting under a huge willow tree. There must have been about 15 students there, some I recognised from yesterday, others seemed new. But I hadn’t been playing that much attention last time.41

“Hey guys.” Kassie sighed, sitting under the tree, grabbing another boy’s sun cream and starting to roll up her sleeves. 42

“Hey Kass. How’s your friend?” One girl asked.43

“This is Ally.” Kassie smiled, pulling my arm to make me sit beside her. 44

“Yeah,” Another guy moved towards us. “You were in my music class right?” I knew he was addressing me, but I kept my head down as my face flushed.45

Kassie must have realised I couldn’t find the words to speak so jumped in for me.46

“Yeah she was.”47

“Dynamite guitar work.” The guy stated no sign of mocking. I let myself look up. His hair was a deep purple colour, which I guessed was dark brown in normal light, his eyes such an unusual brown they looked almost red. He didn’t look normal, he was almost exotic. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see I wasn’t the only girl who thought so.48

“You play?” I almost whispered. Part of me thought – or rather wished- he didn’t hear me, but he smiled like I’d said it in a perfectly normal tone.49

“Not guitar. I play drums.” 50

I nodded, impressed. I’d tried once with limited suc-cess.51

“You in a band?” He asked and I noticed everyone else had started their own conversations. I looked back at him and got lost in his eyes again.52

“No. Not yet.” I felt myself getting more confident with every second that passed.53

“Well, there’s a battle of the bands every year at the school.” I found it surprisingly hard to focus on what he was saying as I watched his lips. “Mr Webster always gets a group together of the best musicians he knows – I’m sure after today he won’t hesitate to ask you – then others are allowed to form groups and tryout.” He stretched his lips over his perfect teeth. “If you don’t want to be part of Webster’s, I’d be happy to make a band with you. All we need is a bassist and maybe a singer.” 54

I nodded.55

“I might later. You said it was later in the year right?” He nodded. “Well for now I’m just going to try and focus on school work and settling in.” And his perfect eyes. I cursed myself for the last thought. 56

“Makes sense.” 57

A goal celebration from a winning football team tore my gaze from the boys face – memo to self: learn people’s names. 58

I turned to look at the team and found that dark hair boy again, the one from the window, the one from the music class. 59

“Who are they?” I asked the red eyed boy, pointed to the team the boy was high-fiving.60

“Well, the boy that rudely interrupted your playing ear-lier to talk to Webster is called Max.” Nice to put a name to a face, I thought. “He’s year 11. The others are his family. Molly’s the tall girl. She’s our year.” 61

I watched as the girl with long straight blonde hair ran back down the pitch into defence. She was tall and slim, model like almost, although she had these piercing green eyes that I could see even from here. 62

“Then the smaller boy is Spike. He’s a little bit of a freak, hardly speaks. He’s year 8. And their youngest sister, Opal. Year 7. Hippy.” He stated, as if reading it off a fact file.63

I watched the younger two in midfield. Spike had his sister’s eyes but his brother’s brawn, strong built even at his age. Opal was a lot smaller, but her eyes stood out, not for colour, which was the same black as her brother, but for the size of them. They were big beautiful eyes, making me immediately conscience of how small mine were. 64

“Oh, I’m so rude.” I turned back to the nameless red eyed boy. “I completely forgot to ask your name.”65

“Bradley.” He smiled.66

“What you talking about?” Kassie moved closer to us, rubbing the sun lotion into her already bronzed arms. I moved slightly back into the shade, suddenly aware of the sun on my face which I had thought was just me blushing and determined not to burn. 67

“The Emorys.” Bradley nodded.68

“Oh, don’t bother with them.” Kassie looked at me se-riously for the first time ever I think. “They’re not popular enough to be worth knowing.”69

Those words echoed in my head as I left for Maths, Kassie blabbering the whole way.70

Maybe I wanted to get to know them. 71