2

After class, Kaity walked with Jenna. They were talking excitedly about the lesson when Jordan walked, he had his hand extended, like he wanted to shake, Kaity took a step back, and Jenna glared at it. Kaity saw her glare, and expected Jordan to start screaming like Austin did, she hoped he would anyway. This would be a great day for her if it did happen. Jordan looked strangely at Jenna, and took a step back.

“Look,” he said, “despite what this nut job tells you, I really am very nice.”

Jenna replied, “Oh, I’m sure you are, but you know what? This nut job is my friend, and I don’t just walk away from my friends, so, unless you have anything important to say, good bye.”

Jordan’s eyebrows went up, “Well, actually, I was hoping we could be friends if that was ok with you.”


“That would be fine, so long as you don’t mind Kaity hanging around, because she is my friend also.”

“Oh, come on, can we just forget about Kaity?”

“No, we cannot just forget about Kaity!”

“Why not?”

“Listen, don’t you have a girlfriend or someone else to harass?”

Jordan looked surprised, “I wasn’t aware I was harassing you, look, I was just wondering if we could-”

“You know what I’m wondering, Jordan?” Kaity asked, spitting out Jordan’s name like a swearword “is why you are still talking to Jenna.”

Jenna nodded, “I was wondering the exact same thing!” She said grinning sadistically at Jordan.

Jordan shook his head, “What ever, but hanging out with Kaity isn’t going to do you any good at this school, everybody hates her.”

Jill chose that moment to walk up, “Not everybody you jerk, get outta here!”

Jordan walked away with the little dignity he had left after the encounter with Jenna. Jill introduced herself, “Hello, my name is Jill.”

Jenna smiled her dazzling smile at her, “I’m Jenna.”

They gave each other high fives, and started walking together. “What’s your next class?” asked Kaity.

“Science, Mrs. James.” Jenna said, making a face at the word ‘science’.

Jill nodded, “Hey, that’s my next class too, Kaity has advanced math next.”

Kaity nodded, she was disappointed she and Jenna didn’t have another class together. Jill continued talking.

“Mrs. James is soooo weird, her hair is like, all over the place, it’s crazy. But her class is fun...if you know how to text under the desks without getting caught, but you have to pay attention a little, or you fail.”

Jenna nodded, “I don’t have my cell phone with me, it’s packed up in a cardboard box, we still haven’t totally unpacked yet from moving.”

Kaity nodded, “It takes forever, I moved here in fifth grade, and I swear, we are still finding cardboard boxes.”

Jenna laughed, and waved, “Hey, if I’m going to make it on time I’m going to have to go now, see you later, where do you sit at lunch?”

Jill replied before Kaity could answer, “Lunch is after third hour, which would be after science, you can just follow me, I’ll show you.”

Kaity nodded, “Ok, you do that; I’ll see you at lunch!”

Jenna and Jill waved goodbye, and Kaity walked towards her math class, she heard somebody come up behind her. She thought she knew who it would be, she turned around expecting to see the angry face of Jordan, instead she saw a boy, a tall boy. He had hair of about the same dark shade of Kaity’s, if not darker. He had muscular arms, thick muscular legs, and the chest of a body builder, his body had the shape of a football player, or a weightlifter, he was a boy so tall and handsome it made Kaity’s head spin, the type that you only see in your best dreams, the kind that are almost to handsome and charming to be real. He had the same shockingly bright smile of Jenna. His eyes were a happy, deep, sapphire blue, identical to Jenna’s. They had a humorous look in them, just looking into them made Kaity feel like giggling, she refrained with maximum self control. He spoke in a deep voice, musical in a way, but it frightened Kaity.

“I’m sorry, but do you know where room 306 is, I can’t find it, and I have been looking for it for forever!”

Kaity stuttered, “Um, it, it’s right next to my next class, um...”

The boy grinned, “Great, I’ll just follow you, I’m Logan by the way.” He held his hand up. Kaity had to jump to give him a high five, Logan laughed. “Sorry, I’m new here, just moved in with my little sister three days ago.”

Kaity gasped, “Is your sister Jenna?”

Logan nodded, “You know her?” He asked excitedly.

“Yes, she is soooo nice!”

Logan shook his head, “She has an attitude, you should see her at home, she gets grounded all the time.”

Kaity nodded, “She does have an attitude, I noticed, but still!”

Logan nodded again, “Yea, you’d have to be stupid not to notice! Has she gotten in trouble yet?”

“Well, she just pissed off the most popular kid in the eighth grade, on her first day here, that can’t be good for her reputation if you know what I mean, but he had it comin’. His friend whistled at her, and somebody else tried to touch her, if you get my meaning...”

Logan had stopped walking, “Oh wow, she hates the whistling, but someone like to touch her, you mean like, harassment type?”

Kaity nodded, “but he couldn’t, Jenna glared at him, and he started screaming, it was weird.”

Logan paled, “She did what?” he said, practically yelling, and then stopped him. “Oh, um, I need to get to 306 now...” Kaity pointed towards the room he was looking for, and he dashed to it quickly.

“Peculiar.” Kaity said, to no one in particular, “I need to find out more about Jenna and her family.”

The bell began to ring, and Kaity rushed to her classroom, making it to her seat by the time the bell was done ringing. The lesson began, it was a review of Algebra, Kaity was bored, she has gotten 100% on the test, and knew that they would be going over this for quite some time. She began to think, wondering what it was about Jenna and Logan that made her suspicious, she failed to notice when the teacher called on her, she was close to it, something about them both that wasn’t natural.

“Kaity!” It was the math teacher, Kaity jumped.

“Sorry, sorry, I zoned out!” She squinted at the overhead, it looked weird, she copied down the problem and answered quickly. “X equals 7!”

The teacher smiled, “Correct Kaity, pay attention next time ok?”

Kaity nodded, but she could help feeling annoyed, she had been close! It was something about the two newcomers, she had almost had it!

The bell rang twenty minutes later, and Kaity stood up, putting her notebook away, the teacher came up to her, speaking quietly.

“Are you ok Kaity? You seemed unusually distracted during class today.”

Kaity nodded, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she winced as a small thread locked onto her hair, pulling it, she loosed her hair and replied, “Yea, I’m fine, I just was thinking about something, it’s been bugging me, and I’m so close!”

The math teacher patted her shoulder, “You figure it out sweetie, you always do.”

Katie felt a surge of gratitude towards the teacher, “Thanks,” she said. Then she walked out the door of the classroom, she walked slowly for a little while, and then began to jog, she was excited to get to lunch. She reached the table where she usually sat, but to her Dismay, Jordan was sitting there, his little group of people surrounding him, Jenna sat on the far end of the table, Jill sat there too, they both looked rather unhappy about the crowd at the table, Kaity heard a whistle, and someone shouted to Jenna.

“Hey baby! Forget those freaks, come sit over here!” Kaity didn’t look over to see who did it, until the kid yelled, he clutched his head. Jordan looked at him with his eyebrows arched, the kid moaned, “Major headache,” he muttered, “my head is killing me.”

Jordan replied, “Well suck it up!”

Kaity laughed, and Jordan growled at her, “Shut up,” he said, and then cussed at her, Kaity glared and walked over to where Jenna and Jill were. Jenna looks at Kaity.

“Took you long enough, these idiots have been flirting with Jenna for the past four or five minutes, it’s sickening.”

Kaity replied, “Five minutes, it couldn’t have taken that long!”

“Ok, it’s more like two minutes, where were you?”

“Had to stay behind to talk to the math teacher.”

“Oh, what’d she want?”

“I don’t really know, she thought I looked distracted today.”

“Were you?”

“No!” Kaity lied.

“Oh, ok then,” Jill said. “So what’d you do in math today?”

“Ugh, an algebra review, it was booorring!”

Jenna giggled, “Funny, algebra is fun to me...or as fun as you can get with math.”

“Yes, it usually is, but after a week of working and testing it gets old.”

Jenna nodded in agreement, “Yea that would get a little annoying after a while.”

Jill nodded in agreement, and Kaity sat down, pulling a slightly squished bag-lunch from her backpack, she dumped its contents, an orange, some grapes, a slightly flattened sandwich, and a chocolate muffin. Jenna looked at the muffin.

“What kind of muffin is that?”

“Chocolate, why?”

“Banana-nut is better.” Jenna said.

“Oh, no way, you did not just say that banana-nut muffins are better than chocolate ones!”

Jenna nodded, “It’s a fact of life, banana-nut muffins are always better than chocolate, it’s against the laws of nature for them not to be.”

Jill shook her head, “You’re both wrong, blueberry muffins are the best.”

Jenna thought for a second then said, “No, still banana-nut, but blueberry comes close.

“Where’s chocolate then?” Kaity asked

Jenna replied easily, “Oh, way down next to orange-nut muffins!”

“Is there even such thing as orange-nut muffins?” Kaity asked curiously.

“Oh, the nastiest things I have ever eaten, next to that cockroach I ate on a dare, are orange-nut muffins.”

“You ate a cockroach?” Kaity said, aghast.

“It was for truth-or-dare, it was gross, it turned out it had all these little eggs in it, I took a bite, and all the eggs spilled out, it was soooo gross! I threw up like, five times, and was sick for like two days afterwards!”

“I’ll bet!” Kaity said, “That is disgusting.”

Jill grimaced, “Hey Jenna, Jordan wants you to go sit with him.”

Jenna turned her head slowly in Jordan’s direction, glared at him, and said, “You know what Jordan, I think I’m going to report you to a counselor!” She turned back to Jenna, “This school does have counselors right?”

Kaity nodded, “Yea.”

Jenna turned back; Jordan was red in the face with embarrassment and anger. One of Jordan’s friends stood up from the table and strutted over to Kaity’s end of the table.

“Yall best had done what Jordan says,” He said stupidly, “You don’t want’a make Jordan mad.”

Jenna glared at him; he yelped and took a step back, holding his arm and rubbing it.

Cursing madly for a few moments, he walked back muttering, “I must’ve gotten stung by something.”

Kaity looked at Jenna for a few second, before asking, “Why is it that whenever you glare at people they start hurting?”

“Huh?”

“Social Studies today, Austin started screaming when you glared at him, why was that?”

“I don’t know, odd coincidence I suppose.”

“Yea must be.” Kaity said, but she still wasn’t quite sure. Then, for the sake of conversation more than anything else, said, “Your brother is very nice.”

Jenna, at that time, was chewing a bite of pizza, she heard the comment and choke, swallowing the pizza down, and spewing crumbs and flecks of pizza sauce across the table as she coughed. “You, you talked to him?” She said incredulously, “Whoa.”

“What?”

“I dunno, its just seemed weird to me I guess. Why do you think he is nice?”

“Oh, he was very polite, he couldn’t find his third hour.”

Jenna shook her head, “That little flirt knows exactly where his classes are! He found them at the beginning of school today, oh wow, guess he just can’t wait to start making friends with the girls...”

Kaity laughed, “I didn’t mind...and probably still wouldn’t mind! He was hot!”

Jenna coughed again, and burst into hysterics. “Oh, hahahaha! That’s good, I bet he’d love to hear that, his girlfriend back home looks almost exactly like you, except for taller and blonde.”

Kaity replied back in a pleading tone, “Don’t tell him I said that!”

Jenna shook her head, still grinning, “Don’t worry, I can keep a secret.”

Jill shook her head, “I can’t, so don’t tell me!”

Kaity nodded, “Ok then, I won’t!”

Jill nodded, “Thanks.”

Jenna was still giggling as the lunch bell rung, “I’m sorry, I just think that’s funny! If you had a brother or a sister you’d understand.”

Kaity nodded, “Ok, so what’s your next class?”

“Um, an elective, I took choir at my old school and liked it, so I figured, what the heck!”

“Alright! That’s my next hour, choir is fun, but the teacher is kind of crazy, like, honestly, it’s hilarious in class!”

A mocking tone from behind her made Kaity turn around. She growled, “Jordan, can’t you just leave us alone?”

Jordan shook his head, “I’m afraid I can’t, I still haven’t made friends with the beautiful newcomer.”

Jenna growled a reply, “And you aren’t going to, jerk, get away from me!”

Jordan assumed a hurt look on his face, “Oh, your upset, do you need a hug?”

Jenna stopped walking, raised her hand, and slapped Jordan...hard! Kaity could see a handprint from where the slap had hit him, Jordan yelled in pain and jumped backward, swearing at Jenna, “You’ll pay for that!”

Jenna ignored him, “Come on Kaity, we have to go talk to a counselor.”

Jordan shut up, and then called to her, “I’m sorry.”

Jenna didn’t look back as she replied, “I’m not!”

Jenna marched right up to the counselors office, and Kaity followed her, hesitating slightly as she pulled open the door, and walked in, then, knowing it was for the best, she walked in after Jenna. For the first time ever at school, she felt in control.