"Hey useless!" A nasally voice says from behind me.
Great. Not even ten minutes after I started reading and I'm already being interrupted.
"Don't ignore me you freak!" The voice says again as a hard punch is delivered to my arm.
The person insulting me and hitting me is Ruck, pronounced like duck or yuck. He's a big nosed boy with a bigger body and bigger anger issues.
I don't like hims so I lower my head, burying it deeper into the book.
"Hey, what's it readin?" A pitchy, scratching voice says in front of me.
"Hey let me see!" A slightly deeper one yells and snatches the book from me.
These two are Arcadia and Arkadius. They're a pair of boy and girl twins who look nearly identical. The only giveaway of who is who is that Arcadia has a mole on her right cheek, and Arkadius has one on his left.
"W-woho, deed I… mooder?" Arkadius struggles and his sister snatches the book from him.
"No you idiot! It's…" She glances at the title, "Woo died I Merdir" and pronounces it completely wrong.
"Who cares about what this runt is reading?" Ruck says as he snatches the book from Arcadia (there's a lot of snatching today) and throws it across the room getting snickers from the twins.
Because he wasn't looking when he tossed the book, Ruck tossed it right at Ryder's feet.
"Ruck! You can't just throw books around!" He says as he picks it up.
Ryder, just like me, enjoys reading, so when he picks up the book he takes an interest in it.
"Who Did I Murder?" He reads aloud, pronouncing it correctly. Maybe we can read it together.
"What sort of malarkey is this!?" He shouts, tossing the book behind his shoulder. So, maybe not.
"What makes ya think I know?! This runt was reading it!" Ruck then pushes me forwards and I fall down, erupting laughs from him and the twins.
"How discouraging. Impractical in every single way. If you stopped deteriorating your time reading such literary balderdash then perhaps you would be more intuitive." Ryder scolds as he looks down his nose at me. I don't think it's a dumb book. It's quite well written and the way it misleads its readers and makes them investigate alongside the characters is really good.
"Stop wasting your time with him." A new voice says from behind Ryder. It's feminine and fried. I don't have to stand up to know who it is, it's the only other kid on this island who is in our age group.
"Aww c'mon Arika!" Arkadius whines,
"Can't you let us have our fun!?" Arcadia concludes.
"No, I can't." She says as she walks closer.
"Don't tell me that you feel-" Ruck gags, "sorry for him." Rick laughs as if it's something funny and Arika punches him on the arm.
"OW!"
"I could never feel sorry for him!"
I roll my eyes, discreetly crawl away and grab my book. 'There's no need to sound so disgusted'
In the distance, over the groups arguing, I can hear familiar footsteps.
"What are you doing on the floor kiddo?" A deep voice says as a large black hand lifts me up by my elbow.
"Edgar! I-I like sitting on the floor!"
"Well you shouldn't, it's not sanitary." He turns to the other kids,
"Alright you lot! Who's ready to learn something?" He flashes then a big toothy grin.
"Do we have to??" The twins whine in unison.
"Yes, you have to." Edgar replies in a deadpanned tone and leads us to a table.