I turned away quickly as she resumed her previous activities, pushing through the doors at the top of the stairs, glad to be out of the stairwell. I wasn't sure if I was going to like Maddie or not. She was certainly.... confident.
I found the English class just where the enthusiastic Mrs. Zenaqui had said it would be. Mr. Martins was a beanpole of a man with long arms and long legs and little round spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He had spiky blonde hair wit hbk too much gel in it. He squinted at me as I came in.
"Ah, Demitry Frost?"
I wondered if he asked me that because he wasn't sure of my name, or because he couldn't see me properly.
"Yes." I said. My last name wasn't Frost, but I didn't bother to correct him. There was no use getting into it. The Frosts took me in as a foster child when I was three years old so they were pretty much my only family. Some loving parent had dumped me on the walkway of the nearest hospital at the tender age of a newborn, so I had no wish for a family reunion.
"Demitry, have a seat." He gestured grandly at the desks in front of him, as if they were offering me a prize in the Price is Right, of something. I ran a critical eye over my new grade ten class. It was as much as I'd feared. I estimated twelve kids, maybe. They were all staring at me with great interest. No doubt I was the most interesting thing to happen since their annual cow tipping contest or whatever, they did in the place. I gave tdd them all a fake smile. "Hi."
A few of them murmured back, one girl, a noisy little thing with wisps of blonde hair falling out of her braids and wide brown eyes gave me a friendly wave. I gravitated toward her.
"Hi," she said, eyes shining with enthusiasm. "I'm Charlotte Reid. Everybody calls me Charlie."
I threw my bookbag down beside the desk and took a seat. "Hi."
We didn't get to say anything else, because Mr. Martins started the lesson. We would apparently be reading Lord of the Rings and dissecting it, which made the entire class groan.
"I've already read that," Charlie leaned over and whispered conspiratorially. "None of it made any sense at all."
I grinned at her and whispered back, "That's okay. We'll just make a symbolism when we have to write a report."
She seemed to get a kick out of this, snickering out loud so that Mr. Martin's arched one dark brow over his glasses at her. I smiled at the horrified look on her face.
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Lunch hour was interesting. There was no cafeteria at Blue Mountain High, it was too small. Instead, everyone ate in the hallways, leaning against the lockers and lounging in the benches at the end of the hallway. Some of the students left for lunch, just the seniors, I noticed.
"Are we not allowed to leave campus?" I asked Charlie, who was grabbing a lunch bag out bbn of her locker.
"Not till we're in grade twelve." She unzipped her bag, which had pictures of penguins on it, and pulled out a crushed looking sandwich. "Yum. peanut butter and jelly." She followed me to my locker, which they had assigned to me by way of a larger inked "32" on the top of my time table.
"I guess I should get a lock," I said, pulling a snack bar from my locker.
"Oh no." Charlie giggled. "Don't be silly, no one will steal anything. Everyone knows everyone here. You can't get away with anything."
We sat on one of the benches at the end of the hallway and zi took the opportunity to further examine my new schoolmates. In spite of how small the school was, their still managed to be a noticeable clique. There was everyone else, and then there was them.
They stood in the hallway, leaning against the lockers, talking loudly to one another. A group of five girls. I had to do a double take. One of them was Maddie, the girl whose makeout session I had interrupted earlier. The bizarre thing was that each girl was Maddie's height or taller. and they all had perfect pale skin and white blonde hair, my natural hair color.
"What the hell, " I muttered. "Are they related?"
Charlie glanced up from her sandwich and smirked." What? The Aryan group?"
"The what?"
"You know, Aryan race? The perfect race that Hitler tried to create?" Charlie grinned and gestured at the little clique with one half of her sandwich. "Oh, didn't you know? They all ended up at Blue Mountain. "
I blinked at her. It took me a minute to figure out she was joking. I looked back down the hall to find Maddie staring at me. She waved, and the other girls all looked at me. I couldn't help but feel alarmed by this.
"Ah." Charlie suddenly whipped around on the bench and stared at me. "Dammit, I should have known."
"What?" I stared at her, perplexed.
"You look like them." She gave me a wide eyed look of warning. "They're coming for you."
I laughed, sure she was joking, but when I looked up, Maddie and her group were indeed approaching.
"Shit," I mumbled. "You weren't joking. What is this, the twilight zone?"
They stopped and observed me coolly, and I observed them back, equally coolly, I hoped. The resemblance was really weird though, the five of them could have been sisters.
"Hi Demi," Maddie said. "These are my friends. Becky, Lilly, Molly, and Anna."
"Hi," I said. "Nice to meet you all." I lied. It wasn't nice at all, it was creepy.
The four girls behind Maddie nodded at me, and Becky, the tallest one on the right gave me a shy smile.
"Demi, we're going to the coffee shop down the street after school. We'd like you to join us." She arches one perfect pale brow at Charlie. "You can come too, if you like."
Charlie only nodded, looking stunned, but Maddie was looking at mr expectantly new.
"Uh," I mumbled. "Sure, okay. Sounds good."
Maddie turned, and her friends followed her back down the hallway, Becky giving me another small smile before she went.
"Well that was weird," I said.
Charlie's brown eyes were round. "They asked me to come? They've never asked me before."
I glanced over at my new friend, feeling a little worried. I strongly suspected that Maddie wasn't the most warm and sincere sort of individual. "I dunno, Charlie. Maybe we shouldn't go. They seem... weird."
Charlie laughed. "Well, they obviously want to be friends with you. I had better go with you to make sure they don't make you a member of their Aryan gang."
"I would love it if you went with me," I said, suddenly nervous. "For starters, they didn't ever tell me what coffee shop they're going to. I'm totally new here. I have no idea."
"Oh, that'll be Fevero," Charlie said immediately. "It's the one they always go to after school. It's the trendiest one in town."
I tried not sound unamused. "Sounds... great."
"What's California like?" Charlie said eager to change the subject. "It must be so warm all the time."
I sighed, wishing I could banish the thought if sun-kissed beaches and clear blue skies from my mind. "Yup, it's warm."
Charlie looked sympathetic. "So, why did you get hauled out here?"
"I was assigned a new foster family. My mom died giving birth to me. My dad's been a no so. And some family member dropped me on the steps of a hospital when I was an infant."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Charlie nodded.
"Yeah. How long have you lived here?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Teo years ago from Victoria, on Vancouver island. It was still sort of cold there, but nothing like here."
"Here sucks," I muttered.
"It does," Charlie said, and then the bell rang to end lunch and frowned out any further complaints we may have had.