Chapter 2 (part one)

“So what’s their latest theory?” Tash asks as we walk down the street, her voice sounding a little like she couldn’t care less.
“Suicide,” I reply giving her a look that says not to ask any more questions, we always talked about this before school but today I just didn’t have the energy. Ignoring the look tash asks if I believe it. I think about this before I answer. No. It’s the first thing that comes to mind, there was no way my mum could have committed suicide. It just didn’t seem to fit.
“No, she’s not dead, just not here either,” I reply, looking across the street, attempting to hide the sadness that crossed my face. But no matter how much I tried to hide the expression whenever we talked about the subject, Tash always seemed to see it because the next thing I know she has her arm over my shoulders & was telling me that it would be okay. A strange look crosses tash’s face, it seems almost like she was having an internal fight with herself over something but is was quickly gone. Attempting to get my mind and probably hers off the subject knowing that I wouldn’t answer anymore questions tash started to tell me how we were going to have a blast this year kicking Lexie’s huge ego. That brought a smile to my face, I don’t think her ego was the only thing that tash wanted to kick.
“What if she’s suddenly turned nice?” I ask turning towards her. “What are you going to do then?” I always enjoyed playing the devil with these sorts of things. It never failed to produce some interesting comments.
“Lexie White becomes nice? Ha, that girl hasn’t been nice since you stole her crayon and ate it in kindergarten” Tash says with a smile on her face.
“Hey, you were the one who told me to do it.” I say with my hands up in the air in mock surrender. Shaking our heads and grinning at each other we carry on toward school debating on how we were going to beat her, and what we were going to do after school today.
However all too soon we were at the gates of Horizon High school and heading towards the gymnasium to see which classes we would be in for the rest of the year.
“Oh I hope I’m in the same class as Peter.” I say to tash before we go into the gym, trying not to blush too much. It sounded really desperate but he was so hot & I really liked him, it just kind of slipped out.
“Ooh, Belle & Peter up a tree...” I give her a glare so hard that she falls silent, not daring to finish the little school girl chant.
“I just want to be in a good one, doesn’t matter who’s in my class,” Tash replies afterwards. I give her a yea right look.
“So you wouldn’t mind being in you-know-whose class?” I ask her, my eyebrows raised.
Tash just looks at me and walks off to find her name near the bottom of the long list of year 11’s not bothering to answer. I headed off to find ‘K’ where my name would be situated. Moving my finger down the very short list of k’s, I see my name: King, Maybelle Rose. I look across the row to see that my form class is 11SA. Not too bad, Miss Sacrement has been known to be a bit easier than all the other teachers. Knowing my form class I head over to the desk to get a full class list with all my teachers as I would only have Miss Sacrement a couple of times a week. The lady behind the desk smiled at me as she handed over the list.
“Here you go honey,” she says. “Enjoy your year.”
With the list in hand I turn around to look for tash when I suddenly bump into someone.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Are you alright?” I ask feeling so embarrassed my cheeks go pink.
“I’m fine, it’s Maybelle right?” The stranger asks but he’s not a stranger. It’s Peter. My cheeks go from pink to bright scarlet as I stumble over what peter had actually said.
“Yes...But peo-ple ca-call me belle,” this was not the way I wanted to make my first impression to the hottest guy in school.
“Cool. What classes do we have together” With that he grabs my schedule from my hands but I don’t mind. Peter scans my schedule then looks up at me.
“We’ve got English to –“ But Peter didn’t finish because he was interrupted by lexie’s high pitch shrill.
“Peter, darling.” She rushes over when she finally sees him. “How are you? Gosh don’t you look tanned.” She continued to talk to Peter as if I was a ghost, completely oblivious to my exists. Oh my gosh this was so much more embarrassing than before, although Peter didn’t look that thrilled about lexie showing up. I was about to leave when I realise that Peter still held my schedule. I reached my hand forward hopping to take it from Peter’s hand but it was just a bit too far away. This just wasn’t worth it so I turn around & head back to the table to ask for another sheet. I had to wait for a little bit as the lady went and printed off another sheet. In the mean time I scanned all the other people that are in my year searching for tash. I couldn’t see her so I took my newly printed class sheet and moved away from the desk. Careful not to bump into anyone again I pull out my phone & text tash to find out where she is.
WEA R U? ND 2 TLK I text her
I C U BY DA DSK, B DEA SN. Tash replies
I look around and spot her coming towards me from the ‘W’ section.
“Which class?” I ask hopeful that she’ll be in mine.
“11WD.” She says with a sad smile on her face, it was almost like she knew something wasn't right.
“What about you?” She asked a short time later.
“11SA,” We both just look at each other, both trying to think of any reason that we wouldn’t be in the same classes together. Tash was the first one to speak
“They must have made a mistake.” She says. “We’ve been in the same class since we were in kindergarten, how could they split us up?” Tash looks like she might cry soon so this time it’s me who has to do the comforting.
“It’ll be okay, we’ll go see the head of year afterschool” and with that the bell goes and we are forced to go our separate ways.

TO BE CONTIUED...