Authors: Lilian Carmine
I clenched my jaw tight and kept walking, a dark cloud of evil thoughts thundering over my head.
After about five minutes, I reached the school’s entrance. A large bronze sign half-covered the huge oak front doors. Sagan Boarding School. And parked right in front was the limo with Barbie Girl standing next to it, surrounded by an entourage of other Barbie-looking girls. I guessed this was the bitch-welcoming-squad from hell.
I walked up to the front doors, shooting daggers from my eyes, but Barbie-Girl-the-Third stepped in my way, blocking my passage.
I looked sharply at her. For a split second I saw surprise and pity flashing in her eyes, but it passed as fast as I saw it, to be replaced by something else. I was too pissed off to try to decipher anything. There was nothing inside that girl’s mind that interested me anyway.
“Oh, my. Look at you. I guess you should’ve been nicer to me back there on the road, dontcha think?” she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Her squad sneered along with her, glaring at me with contempt. “I guess I can let you try it one more time. Here’s my purse. Why don’t you carry that to my room upstairs? It’s on the third floor, honey,” she said, pushing her purse into my arms for the second time.
I looked down at her purse, and then up to her face. A warm smile spread across my lips, and joy glinted in my eyes. She seemed pleased with my change in attitude. So I grabbed her purse carefully with both hands, and dropped right in the middle of a big, stinky, deep puddle of mud at my feet, grinning like the devil all the time.
I heard gasps of indignation and outrage from her loyal crew, and a little squeal from herself. Boy, that was so worth it. I clapped my hands at a job well done, grabbed my case again and climbed the steps to the front doors, without looking back and with no regret in my heart.
I walked through the hall with people staring and whispering behind my back, but I didn’t care any more. I must’ve been quite a sight! Dripping wet with mud, and too angry to care. This was turning out to be the worst first day at school ever! I grabbed a poor kid and growled at him, asking for directions to the secretary’s office. After a while, I managed to find it. A small, fat, grumpy old lady was sitting behind her desk, scribbling on something. She didn’t even bother to stop or to look at me. What was it with this school and rude people?
“Yes, dear?” she said in a bored tone.
“I need my room number,” I growled at her. “I’m a late enrollment for the second semester.”
“Name, dear?” she asked, still not looking at me.
“Joe Gray.”
She typed fast on her keyboard, squinting at the computer screen, then grabbed a Post-it note and scribbled a number on it.
“There you go, dear, Room 101, Block B.”
I yanked the paper out of her hand and stormed out. I didn’t care if I was being rude any more. No one in this school deserved my niceness! I grabbed a few more kids on the way, and directions were promptly handed to me. Nobody wanted to mess with the crazy mud-all-over girl. Soon I was standing in front of the door to my room. Now I had to deal with my obnoxious roommates. They would probably be another bunch of spoiled Barbie girls. I was so doomed in this place! I pushed open the door to see a blond boy reclining lazily on a bed right in front of the door. He was reading a book but looked up, startled by my sudden entrance into the room.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I grunted.
He looked me up and down, knitting his eyebrows at the ghastly view displayed in front of him.
“I’m reading,” he said, flapping the book in his hand for showy effect.
I pursed my lips in frustration. “I mean, what are you doing here in this room? You do know this is the girls’ dormitory, right?” I asked, losing my patience now.
“I’m sorry, but this is the boys’ dormitory. Block B. B is for Boys. And this is MY room,” he declared, resting his book on the bed and giving me another inquisitive look.
“This is Room 101, Block B?” I said, hesitating a little now.
“Yep.”
“B is for b-boy?”
“Yep.”
Crap. Boys’ dormitory. Of course. The curse of the name. They thought I was a boy! Joe Gray. A boy.
Crap. Crap. Crap!
“Crap,” I said, stepping into the room and slamming the door behind me.
He looked a little shocked as I dragged my suitcase to what I assumed to be the bathroom door, muttering,
“That’s just freaking great”
on the way in. And then I slammed the bathroom door with a loud thud and locked it with a loud click.
I would deal with this situation later. Now what I needed was to get clean and change my muddy clothes. After twenty minutes under a hot shower, I was feeling loads better and ready to deal with Blond Dude outside. I got dressed in baggy jeans and a black sweater, and unlocked the door, stepping outside cautiously.
The boy was still leaning back on his bed, legs and arms crossed casually, the book abandoned. Now that I was calmer, I could take a better look at him. He was wearing faded blue jeans, white T-shirt and white socks. His sneakers were scattered on the floor. There were a lot of scrambled pieces of papers strewn across his bed that I hadn’t noticed when I entered the room. His bright blond hair was meticulously messed up in a spiked, pointy hairstyle. It was hard to describe it, but it looked good on him. He was eyeing me again, with curious hazel eyes. I decided it was a good time to apologize for my earlier angry stampede.
“Hey, I’m sorry about that entrance. I’m having a really crappy day, as you might have noticed. I guess they gave me this room by mistake, and I’m going to try and fix it now,” I said apologetically.
A little smile showed at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t bother. All the rooms are taken. School’s already started; nobody will want to change rooms now. You can leave a note with the secretary; maybe there’s still an open spot somewhere in the girls’ dorms. But I guess you’re stuck here for now until they solve this problem. I’ll be your roomie, then. I’m Seth. Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand to me.
“Joe. Joe Gray,” I said, shaking his hand and preparing myself for the script line.
“But … Joe is …”
“A boy’s name. Yeah.” I flopped onto the bed next to him. “Hence the room mix-up. They must have muddled up my birth certificate and registration papers.”
He scratched his head, messing up his blond hair. He looked so cute doing it. “I guess you must get that a lot, right?” he said, embarrassed.
“Just … always. Never failed me. Not once in my life,” I muttered, looking around the room. There were two other beds. One looked kind of broken. I guessed the other would be mine, then.
“So, Joe, would you mind telling me the tale of your muddy clothes? That was quite a sight!” he said, chuckling. I thought he was making fun of me, but I saw only genuine curiosity in his eyes. And now that I was closer, I could also see how handsome he was. Thin lips matching a thin nose, and hazel eyes that sparkled with honesty. The total effect made you instantly trust him.
Maybe I shouldn’t try to switch rooms after all, I thought. He seemed like a pretty decent guy; rooming with him might not be so bad. It was a large room and there was a decent-sized bathroom I could change in, for modesty’s sake. And if I did switch rooms, I could easily end up with one of those horrible Barbie girls from the Tiffany Squad. That idea gave me shivers.
I sat cross-legged on my bed and told Seth all about my first encounter with Tiffany the Third, the walk up to the school, the big mud splash, the dropping of her purse in the puddle of stinky mud. That earned me a round of loud laughter from him. His laughter was so free and fun that I started giggling myself.
“Come on! Did you seriously do that? To Tiffany? Man, you have some balls, I tell you that!” he exclaimed.
“How come?”
“Well, you do know she’s like the richest person in this entire school, and that is not an easy feat cos there’s some seriously loaded people here. She owns like half the state in properties and business enterprises. Well, her parents do. Nobody here dares to contradict her, for fear she might retaliate. And when a Worthington retaliates, you better not be around!” he said, passing his hand over his blond head. “She’s like our own private Paris Hilton. She’s used to people groveling before her all the time.”
“Oh. I see,” I said, a little wide-eyed.
He looked curiously at me. “You didn’t know, did you?” he asked, understanding my nervous stance.
“Nope. But it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t change a thing of what I did back there. If she wants to retaliate, it’s up to her. I don’t grovel to anyone,” I said firmly.
“Well, you have my support. If you need backup from the Vengeance of the Thirds, you give me a shout out,” he said, reclining on his bed.
“So what about you? Aren’t you afraid of her retaliation?”
“No. And I don’t grovel either. That’s not how I roll,” he said, adopting a cool position on the bed for show. He was funny. I liked him.
After that we chatted for a while, exchanging life stories. Seth was a real sweetheart. I was really glad I’d ended up his room-mate. He told me he’d been going to this school since he was little, and he pretty much knew everybody and everywhere around the place. He also told me about his parents and that they lived in another state, that he had no siblings and that basically he was pretty much loaded too. Not like Tiffany, but enough. Even though I was still a little skeptical and apprehensive about him, Seth was nothing but open and kind towards me, not one ounce of “bratty” about him. He offered me his friendship without judging me, or asking for anything in return.
I wasn’t used to trusting people easily, but Seth broke through my protective barriers within half an hour of conversation. His smile was warm and confident. The future at Sagan didn’t seem so gloomy any more: Seth was like a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
After a few hours, he went out to meet some of his friends, and I spent the rest of the day unpacking and talking to my mom on the phone. I skipped the whole mud incident, and my current living arrangements – she didn’t need to know about those – and just told her everything was fine my first day at school. Tomorrow, Monday, would be my first official day with classes and teachers; I would have a lot more things to talk about after that. I went to bed early, and didn’t even hear Seth return to the room.
I woke up the next day with the sound of his alarm clock pounding in my ears, and his heavy hand crashing over the snooze button. I could only discern a mess of blond hair from beneath a pile of soft blankets on the bed next to mine. I smiled under my covers.
Monday had started!
Chapter Twelve
The Vengeance of the Thirds
It was early, so it was still dark outside the window, but I was so excited that I couldn’t stay still in bed for one more second. Even though this day wasn’t that special for everybody else here, since it was week two of their second semester and they’d known their routine, classes and teachers already for half a year, for me it was my first day of school.
Seth got up from his bed and went to the bathroom, shirtless but with sweat pants on. He didn’t seem to mind having a girl sharing the room with him.
He soon emerged all dressed up and with his hair fully styled. How he could manage that amazing hair in so short a time, I would never know. He noticed me gawking and smiled.
“So, looking good?” he teased lightly, smoothing the side of his hair.
“Yeah. Not many people can pull that hair off, but you totally manage,” I mused. He really did. Waves of blond locks pushed tightly upwards in a small mohawk. He looked really good.
Seth beamed, satisfied with my answer. “Better hurry up and get ready quickly, Joe, otherwise I won’t be able to give you the tour!” he said, winking and putting his sneakers on.
I jumped out of bed and darted to the bathroom. I was showered and dressed in ten minutes, with my baggy blue jeans and gray sweater on, hair high up in my usual ponytail. That earned me raised eyebrows from Seth.
“Whoa, that was wicked fast! I have never witnessed a girl get ready so quickly. You’re something else, Joe Gray.”
I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed my backpack, deciding to take that as a compliment.
Seth walked with me to his locker first, and helped me find mine afterwards. Then he showed me the school venues, pointing me first to the west wing, where the girl’s dormitories were. The boy’s dormitories were in the east wing. The classrooms were in the middle of the stone building, and at the back were located the basketball court, pool area, music auditorium and theater. The building in its entirety was three storeys high, and apparently the third floor was designated as the teachers’ private quarters along with some exclusive students’ bedrooms. Third-floor students didn’t have to share rooms. No wonder obnoxious Tiffany was up on the third floor.
The school looked like a gigantic old monastery. Everything was built with gray, dull blocks of heavy stone. The hallways were freezing cold, and constantly swept by a chilling wind.
Then the bell rang, indicating the start of classes, ending my tour around the school. I wasn’t sharing any classes with Seth today, but after we hastily exchanged our timetables I saw that we were in many classes together over the week. That cheered me up a bit. Seth walked me to the door of my first classroom and waved me goodbye, disappearing to find his own.
I glanced inside the room and rolled my eyes, mentally cursing the Gods of Destiny. Of course, my very first class, on my very first day at school, would have to be the same one as Tiffany-the-freaking-Third’s and her cheerleading squad from hell. Why was I even surprised? I looked at them and they all sneered at me in unison, like they’d rehearsed it!
So typical. So damn predictable.
I huffed, annoyed, and walked in, sitting on a chair at the back of the room, a few chairs behind Tiffany’s place. Then began a series of whisperings and backward glances in my direction. I took the time to study my situation. I decided I wasn’t going to follow the old, done-to-death script of high school teen movies. I wasn’t going to stand for any bullying from bleached pompom squads.