The Dark, Mysterious Type
Carly Wilkinson used a pencil to doodle on top of the dried paint on her shared table disinterestedly. Some of her friends were discussing the upcoming winter dance (again), the various dresses they were wearing to the thing (Carly was pretty sure she could have designed them all from scratch at this point after listening to so many detailed descriptions), and their potential dates (all of which were rather boring and common and duplicates could be found anywhere in the state of Washington). After scraping off all of the cracked grey paint with the tip of her mechanical pencil or covering it in a not-so-detailed rose garden, Carly let her hair down from its sloppy bun and zipped her jacket up in order to listen to her iPod unnoticed. Pulling her Kindle out of the messenger bag strapped across the back of her chair, she began sifting through the book recommendations in the store.
A girl is enrolled in a school for vampires, where she befriends a dark, mysterious boy named-
A girl moves out to the ‘middle of nowhere’ and can’t seem to find a place to fit in until she meets a dark, mysterious-
A girl is discovered to have powerful magic and is swept up into a world of charms and secrets, guided along by a dark, myst-
A girl-
Carly sighed, exasperated. She simply could not stand these uniform plots, written as if all of the authors got together beforehand to discuss what kind of teenage love interests the readers most wanted to see in their romance novels. What, exactly, qualified these guys to be ‘dark,’ anyway? Most of them were described as being unnaturally pale! And they can only be so mysterious when they spill all their secrets to, fall in love, and want to spend eternity with the first girl that crosses their line of sight. Honestly. And then there was always the multiple love interests issue that no girl in any teenage romance novel can ever seem to figure out without a considerable amount of angsting and whining. Also known as an instant recipe for ruining an almost okay story line. And Carly did not even want to begin to think about-
A short rap on the art room door interrupted Carly’s internal rant. Not a second later, before the teacher even became aware of the presence of somebody outside, in waltzed Walter Anders in all of his charismatic extroverted glory, followed shortly by another boy whom Carly could not quite recognize. Arching an eyebrow, Mrs. Yates calmly asked, “Mr. Anders, I assume you have reason to be skipping your eighth period class?”
Instead of being at all intimidated by the thinly veiled threat of an infraction, Walter merely smiled hugely and turned toward the class on the heels of his black uniform shoes. Despite his formidable height, he remained completely steady on his feet as he rocked back and forth like he had eaten caffein for breakfast. Then again, from what Carly could tell the guy always seemed to be high on something. Unless he was like this naturally twenty-four seven, which almost sounded worse.
“O-kay, everybody!” Walter announced enthusiastically. “I am proud to inform you that we have acquired a new Canadian! After good ole’ Maple Syrup Stiewitzky graduated last year, I was definitely feeling the lack of Canadianism around here. Anyway, this guy’s name is Sharpe. He’s a junior like us, so...” Walter waggled his eyebrows, and half the class expected him to say something obscene for sure, but he ended up finishing with “he’ll be in our classes. Starting with this one! Good luck, have fun, go Canada, all that good stuff-”
“Walter Anders,” the dean said over the loudspeakers. Walter grew a few shades whiter and lost his grin. “Please come see me in my office.” Walter cursed, excused himself from the classroom after shooting one last cheeky smirk at the teacher, and practically sprinted out into the hall. Suddenly, the classroom was a lot quieter. Carly smiled and relaxed before remembering the poor boy still standing awkwardly in front of the class. The teacher realized the need for a better introduction only a second or two after that.
“So, Mr.... Sharpe, right?” The boy nodded, looking rather unconcerned despite what was sure to have been hectic morning with Walter. “Care to introduce yourself?”
“Of course.” Carly looked up at what might have been a hint of an accent and quickly composed a short prayer begging God to let this guy have a cute accent. Please and thank you. “My name is Ambrose Sharpe. My uncle and I recently moved to Washington from Ottawa for his job as a traveling salesman, and as such I will probably not be staying here for too long. However, this is my first time in school. Because of the constant moving around, I am usually home schooled by whichever private tutors we can find in the area. I thought school would be a pleasant change of pace.” Ambrose sounded as if he was reciting a memorized script and kept his face carefully blank until he cracked a wicked grin and added, “But since going on a school-wide tour with Walter Anders, I might have to reconsider the ‘pleasant’ portion of that idea.”
Carly could not decide whether this guy was really cute, kind of hot, or both. Dark blond hair framed a thin face with well-placed cheekbones and pretty (violet? blue? black?) eyes. The wide smile, too, was a force to be reckoned with. A relatively loose grey coat accompanied by black gloves tucked into its pockets was layered on top of a deep red sweater and almost-but-not-quite-skinny black jeans. And his accent... Carly could not quite put a finger on it. The tone and inflection definitely weren’t Canadian, nor were they anything else very recognizable. She chalked it up to a large amount of traveling around the world. That last thought sounded so amazing. She kind of loved this kid.
Mrs. Yates managed to catch herself before she smiled at the jab at Walter and motioned for Ambrose to sit down somewhere. For a split second, his face turned cold and calculative as he scanned the class for a slightly less than full table. Ignoring the slightly foreboding feeling in her stomach, Carly grinned welcomingly and pointed out a seat at her table when she caught his eye, which seemed to make up his mind. Taking long, even strides, Ambrose walked over and sank quickly into his new seat between Carly and one of her friends. Seeing that there were still five minutes left of art class, she paused her iPod, put away her Kindle, and swiveled in her seat to face him.
“Hi, my name’s Carly,” she said politely before noticing how all her friends were staring at her pointedly. She sighed. “And these people are Michael, Noemi, Marcie, and Neil. Besides being the people who assist me in slacking off during art, I occasionally consider them to be my friends.”
“We love you, too, Carly,” Neil said sarcastically, reaching over Marcie to mess up the redhead’s low ponytails. Carly scowled at him playfully and batted his hand away.
“Soooo, Ambrose...” Noemi said as placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. For a second, she paused and seemingly forgot her question in place of another. Much less alluringly this time, she asked, “What kind of name is Ambrose anyway?”
“Greek, I think,” Ambrose told her, ignoring the flirting from a second ago.
Marcie perked up. “Isn’t ambrosia the the food of the gods in Greek mythology? It was supposed to taste, like, heavenly, right?”
“Oh, so you taste heavenly, is that it?” Noemi purred, back on track. Ambrose looked slightly disturbed.
Carly, deciding it was time to step in before things got out of hand (Noemi did this to all the new guys; the last one still wouldn’t speak to her), spoke up with, “I’m pretty sure that’s not what his parents had in mind when they named him-”
“Found it.” The other jumped, having almost forgotten about Michael sitting quietly by Carly. He held up his phone, the screen currently displaying a name meanings website. “It means immortal, right?” The undecipherable look on Ambrose’s face as he slowly nodded stirred something in Carly. There had been the strangest violet glint in his eyes, akin to the color of aged red wine. Nobody else seemed to notice and kept up their chatter until the bell rang, signaling the end of second period, which, in their school’s block schedule, meant lunchtime. Still slightly unnerved by the new student, Carly packed up and quickly followed her friends out to the cafeteria, glancing over her shoulder one last time to see Ambrose get up to sort things out with Mrs. Yates. She then bit back a giggle upon realizing that what a teenage paranormal romance novelist might consider a “dark, mysterious transfer student” had just enrolled in her school.
Ambrose watched as a group of no less than five potential candidates exited the classroom. He felt the slightest bit of pride in himself before returning to the matter at hand. “What business do you have interfering with my mission?” he seethed at the angel in front of him. Mrs. Yates smiled warmly, sky blue eyes not hesitating to meet Ambrose’s dark pair.
“I have not yet interfered,” she replied serenely to the demon in front of her. “You must understand. We simply cannot have a demon running around unrestrained in the world of the living.”
“I am on a strict mission, and am scheduled to return to the Netherworld after its completion at the end of November.” Of course they would send an angel nosing around just to make things that much harder on him. However, from the angel’s apparent lack of concern about what his mission entailed, he deduced that she had not been fully informed.
The angel suddenly leaned forward across the teacher’s desk. “I am curious,” she said innocently. “What is the Netherworld like? I have never heard a first-hand account on the matter. Do you enjoy it there?” Ambrose narrowed his eyes. Was the angel taunting him, flaunting her own access to the skies while he was forced to wither away down below?
“The Netherworld is not something a heavenly being such as yourself should be concerning herself with. That world is reserved for the irredeemable. I believe that your abilities would be put to better use in this world of constant change.”
“Change... can be a scary thing,” the angel said softly. “Even angels can change in this world. Once this body dies, I might just end up in the Netherworld if I am not careful here.”
“That,” Ambrose said coldly, glaring at the angel across from him, “is your problem. Should you end up in that miserable world after a second life would be your own loss.” The angel sighed, as if she was trying to get a simple concept across to someone much younger than herself. Ambrose bristled indignantly. First the Head of the Grand Council and now this intrusive angel acted like they thought him unable to grasp some bigger picture.
“Even someone such as yourself-” the angel was interrupted by the sound of a chair scraping across the linoleum floor that Ambrose angrily pushed it out of his way as he treaded heavily toward the door. The angel, arbitrating that the matter would not be pursued for now, dulled her blue eyes and readjusted her glasses and graying hair, once again becoming Mrs. Yates, the juniors’ art teacher.
Teddy pushed his glasses farther up his nose before taking a ferocious bite out of his ham sandwich. Anthony opened his mouth for a second, contemplating saying something to his friend about not getting food on his new camera, but quickly decided that it would be in his best interests to refrain from doing so while his friend seemed to be in such a volatile mood. Teddy had been grumpy all day, apparently stemming from something his mother had implied that morning about his not having a single friend outside of the useless clubs he participated in. Anthony, being a member of one such useless club, couldn’t really think up anything he could say to his friend to calm him down. Despite being rather short and scrawny looking, Anthony knew from experience that his blond friend could be rather tough when he wanted to be. And trying to run away was an attempt so useless against the fastest guy on the track team that Anthony wasn’t even going to go into the particulars of that scenario.
Friends outside of his clubs... Teddy took another viscous bite of his lunch. The reason he was friends with who he was friends with was because they shared particular interests with each other, and those particular interests manifested themselves in the various clubs Teddy aligned himself with. Did that make no sense to his mother? Teddy remembered when she had walked in to his room during freshman year and found him and one of his new friends poring over a cheats guide online while the PS2 first-person shooting game they had been playing on Teddy’s TV remained paused and in plain view. Freshman year had not been a good year for him.
This morning, however, things had come to a head between Teddy and his mother (who, he knew somewhere deep inside him, was really just overly worried about him). He had taken out his camera to snap a few last-minute photographs for this week’s collection that he wanted to put in the black room so that they would be ready by Friday's photography club meeting, and his mother had merely looked at him before remarking, “Can you not even eat your breakfast without inspecting it with that stupid camera first?”
Something about the inflection of that simple, condescending comment drove Teddy to explode. Neither of them ever yelled throughout the fight. Instead, malicious words flew venomously from both sides; first about Teddy’s supposed “obsession” with his various clubs (he was “meant to be a doctor, or something else that actually requires the use of your brain!”), and then onto not even having a life or any good friends outside of said clubs. Thankfully, Teddy’s carpool chose that moment to blow his horn in the front yard and he was able to escape the hell that was his home at the moment.
Teddy had contemplated just ignoring his mother’s remarks regarding his social life and going on with his life the same as he’d always done, but in the end the suggestion that he was incapable of making friends outside of clubs bothered him. He knew he could, he just really did not want to. Without the shared interests expressed in clubs, there would not be very much to discuss. But all he needed was just one invitation or something else as tangible evidence for his mother. After that, life could revert to normal again, with only an added person to smile at politely when he passed them in the hall.
At that moment, a strange aroma reached the table Teddy and Anthony sat at. It smelled of snow and an odd, almost displeasing fragrance that reminded Teddy simultaneously of both a new book and of anesthesia. The source was located fairly quickly due to the fact that he fell onto the seat next to him not a second later. A redheaded girl hesitantly followed him after looking back at the table where it appeared the rest of her friends had seated themselves. Who… Right, Carly Wilkinson. She was in Teddy’s second semester study hall last year. He supposed she was okay, always reading a book under her desk or doodling something in blue ink on the skin of her arms. But the dark blond sitting between them had to have been new- he seemed to be observing everything in the cafeteria, from the students in the lunch line to the abnormally brown meat on the trays of those walking by him. Although he looked to be around the same age as Teddy and Carly, Teddy had never seen him around before. He wasn’t aware that their school accepted new kids so far into high school.
“Hello,” the boy said evenly, rather unimpressed by his study of the lunch room.
“Uh, hi,” Teddy replied. Then it hit him- had he not just been fuming over the accusation his mother made about his lack of friends? This was perfect! Swallowing any unease the boy’s presence induced in him, Teddy took a moment to gather up the courage to introduce himself. And sound confident while doing so. “My name’s Teddy, and this is Anthony. You’re new here, right?” Anthony looked slightly apprehensive about having his name mentioned, and Teddy couldn’t find it within himself to not blame him- the guy was, for lack of a better word, intimidating, even though he was not very tall and actually quite skinny.
The boy seemed to evaluate them for a moment before replying. “Good morning. I’m Ambrose Sharpe. And yes, I’m new here. So new, in fact, that I’m fairly sure I would have wandered into the maintenance room earlier in my search for the cafeteria if Carly hadn’t found me. Thank you, by the way,” he added with a hint of a smile, partially turning toward Carly. After her initial shock at the acknowledgement, she blinked a couple times before finally settling for a blush and a mumbled “no problem.” Teddy barely stifled a laugh and earned a glare from the embarrassed girl in return.
“I’m done, so I’m going to get my photos from the development room. Um, just find me later, Teddy…” Anthony shot one last perturbed glance at Ambrose before grabbing his lunch tray and shuffling out of the lunch room. The new student appeared to either take no notice or apparently not care that Teddy’s friend was so unsettled around him. Teddy waved a little, contemplating whether or not to follow his friend and avoid the awkward situation that he had so often faced as a freshman: sitting at a table with people who kind of knew each other whom he knew nothing about. At all. After a moment of deliberation, Teddy decided on sticking with his original plan: befriend the new kid and prove to his mom that he was most certainly not some school pariah or something. Plan BtNKaPtHMtHWMCNSSPoS. He really needed to think up a better name for that plan…
“So, Ambrose, do you know your schedule?” Carly asked, tentatively breaking the silence.
“Well, I did manage to find my second period class…”
“Right, sorry,” she laughed nervously, glancing longingly at the table her friends were sitting at. “I guess what I meant was, do you need help getting to your next class? If I’m nearby, I could help. You know, to avoid another incident like mistaking a closet for the cafeteria.” Now Carly’s snicker was genuine. Ambrose pretended to scowl.
“The doors sort of look similar! You can’t honestly tell me that nobody has ever mistaken them before. But… some help would be nice. If the cafeteria doors and the maintenance closet doors look similar, then the classroom doors must be a nightmare. Oh, come on, even you can’t have gotten them all right the first day! Miss Compass Rose… Anyway, any idea where the chemistry classroom is? Mr. Wendall’s class.” Carly toned down her giggling enough to agree to help him, seeing as how the English classroom where she had her next class was nearby.
“You came on a good day,” Teddy piped up helpfully. “Mr. Wendall’s a bit of a nature nut, so I think we’re just hanging outside today and doing a worksheet.”
“You’re in my class?” Ambrose asked hopefully.
“Apparently so.”
“And does sitting outside have anything to do with chemistry?”
“Not what we’re studying.” Ambrose smiled at him, and Teddy fleetingly felt like he had reached the peak of the first hill in a rollercoaster ride. Like he had half expected pointed teeth to reveal themselves in the mouth of a boy no older than himself and barely any taller. Teddy supposed that social anxiety can do that to a person. He, Ambrose, and Carly all moved to stack their trays on the rack by the cafeteria doors (which, Teddy noted, did bear a bit of a resemblance to those of the maintenance closet) and left to run to their next classes- time had flown by quickly and they had about one minute to sprint up two flights of stairs.
Maybe, Teddy thought as he laughed and easily passed Ambrose and Carly on the way up, Plan B-tunk-whatever won’t be as much of a drag as I thought.
A girl is enrolled in a school for vampires, where she befriends a dark, mysterious boy named-
A girl moves out to the ‘middle of nowhere’ and can’t seem to find a place to fit in until she meets a dark, mysterious-
A girl is discovered to have powerful magic and is swept up into a world of charms and secrets, guided along by a dark, myst-
A girl-
Carly sighed, exasperated. She simply could not stand these uniform plots, written as if all of the authors got together beforehand to discuss what kind of teenage love interests the readers most wanted to see in their romance novels. What, exactly, qualified these guys to be ‘dark,’ anyway? Most of them were described as being unnaturally pale! And they can only be so mysterious when they spill all their secrets to, fall in love, and want to spend eternity with the first girl that crosses their line of sight. Honestly. And then there was always the multiple love interests issue that no girl in any teenage romance novel can ever seem to figure out without a considerable amount of angsting and whining. Also known as an instant recipe for ruining an almost okay story line. And Carly did not even want to begin to think about-
A short rap on the art room door interrupted Carly’s internal rant. Not a second later, before the teacher even became aware of the presence of somebody outside, in waltzed Walter Anders in all of his charismatic extroverted glory, followed shortly by another boy whom Carly could not quite recognize. Arching an eyebrow, Mrs. Yates calmly asked, “Mr. Anders, I assume you have reason to be skipping your eighth period class?”
Instead of being at all intimidated by the thinly veiled threat of an infraction, Walter merely smiled hugely and turned toward the class on the heels of his black uniform shoes. Despite his formidable height, he remained completely steady on his feet as he rocked back and forth like he had eaten caffein for breakfast. Then again, from what Carly could tell the guy always seemed to be high on something. Unless he was like this naturally twenty-four seven, which almost sounded worse.
“O-kay, everybody!” Walter announced enthusiastically. “I am proud to inform you that we have acquired a new Canadian! After good ole’ Maple Syrup Stiewitzky graduated last year, I was definitely feeling the lack of Canadianism around here. Anyway, this guy’s name is Sharpe. He’s a junior like us, so...” Walter waggled his eyebrows, and half the class expected him to say something obscene for sure, but he ended up finishing with “he’ll be in our classes. Starting with this one! Good luck, have fun, go Canada, all that good stuff-”
“Walter Anders,” the dean said over the loudspeakers. Walter grew a few shades whiter and lost his grin. “Please come see me in my office.” Walter cursed, excused himself from the classroom after shooting one last cheeky smirk at the teacher, and practically sprinted out into the hall. Suddenly, the classroom was a lot quieter. Carly smiled and relaxed before remembering the poor boy still standing awkwardly in front of the class. The teacher realized the need for a better introduction only a second or two after that.
“So, Mr.... Sharpe, right?” The boy nodded, looking rather unconcerned despite what was sure to have been hectic morning with Walter. “Care to introduce yourself?”
“Of course.” Carly looked up at what might have been a hint of an accent and quickly composed a short prayer begging God to let this guy have a cute accent. Please and thank you. “My name is Ambrose Sharpe. My uncle and I recently moved to Washington from Ottawa for his job as a traveling salesman, and as such I will probably not be staying here for too long. However, this is my first time in school. Because of the constant moving around, I am usually home schooled by whichever private tutors we can find in the area. I thought school would be a pleasant change of pace.” Ambrose sounded as if he was reciting a memorized script and kept his face carefully blank until he cracked a wicked grin and added, “But since going on a school-wide tour with Walter Anders, I might have to reconsider the ‘pleasant’ portion of that idea.”
Carly could not decide whether this guy was really cute, kind of hot, or both. Dark blond hair framed a thin face with well-placed cheekbones and pretty (violet? blue? black?) eyes. The wide smile, too, was a force to be reckoned with. A relatively loose grey coat accompanied by black gloves tucked into its pockets was layered on top of a deep red sweater and almost-but-not-quite-skinny black jeans. And his accent... Carly could not quite put a finger on it. The tone and inflection definitely weren’t Canadian, nor were they anything else very recognizable. She chalked it up to a large amount of traveling around the world. That last thought sounded so amazing. She kind of loved this kid.
Mrs. Yates managed to catch herself before she smiled at the jab at Walter and motioned for Ambrose to sit down somewhere. For a split second, his face turned cold and calculative as he scanned the class for a slightly less than full table. Ignoring the slightly foreboding feeling in her stomach, Carly grinned welcomingly and pointed out a seat at her table when she caught his eye, which seemed to make up his mind. Taking long, even strides, Ambrose walked over and sank quickly into his new seat between Carly and one of her friends. Seeing that there were still five minutes left of art class, she paused her iPod, put away her Kindle, and swiveled in her seat to face him.
“Hi, my name’s Carly,” she said politely before noticing how all her friends were staring at her pointedly. She sighed. “And these people are Michael, Noemi, Marcie, and Neil. Besides being the people who assist me in slacking off during art, I occasionally consider them to be my friends.”
“We love you, too, Carly,” Neil said sarcastically, reaching over Marcie to mess up the redhead’s low ponytails. Carly scowled at him playfully and batted his hand away.
“Soooo, Ambrose...” Noemi said as placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. For a second, she paused and seemingly forgot her question in place of another. Much less alluringly this time, she asked, “What kind of name is Ambrose anyway?”
“Greek, I think,” Ambrose told her, ignoring the flirting from a second ago.
Marcie perked up. “Isn’t ambrosia the the food of the gods in Greek mythology? It was supposed to taste, like, heavenly, right?”
“Oh, so you taste heavenly, is that it?” Noemi purred, back on track. Ambrose looked slightly disturbed.
Carly, deciding it was time to step in before things got out of hand (Noemi did this to all the new guys; the last one still wouldn’t speak to her), spoke up with, “I’m pretty sure that’s not what his parents had in mind when they named him-”
“Found it.” The other jumped, having almost forgotten about Michael sitting quietly by Carly. He held up his phone, the screen currently displaying a name meanings website. “It means immortal, right?” The undecipherable look on Ambrose’s face as he slowly nodded stirred something in Carly. There had been the strangest violet glint in his eyes, akin to the color of aged red wine. Nobody else seemed to notice and kept up their chatter until the bell rang, signaling the end of second period, which, in their school’s block schedule, meant lunchtime. Still slightly unnerved by the new student, Carly packed up and quickly followed her friends out to the cafeteria, glancing over her shoulder one last time to see Ambrose get up to sort things out with Mrs. Yates. She then bit back a giggle upon realizing that what a teenage paranormal romance novelist might consider a “dark, mysterious transfer student” had just enrolled in her school.
Ambrose watched as a group of no less than five potential candidates exited the classroom. He felt the slightest bit of pride in himself before returning to the matter at hand. “What business do you have interfering with my mission?” he seethed at the angel in front of him. Mrs. Yates smiled warmly, sky blue eyes not hesitating to meet Ambrose’s dark pair.
“I have not yet interfered,” she replied serenely to the demon in front of her. “You must understand. We simply cannot have a demon running around unrestrained in the world of the living.”
“I am on a strict mission, and am scheduled to return to the Netherworld after its completion at the end of November.” Of course they would send an angel nosing around just to make things that much harder on him. However, from the angel’s apparent lack of concern about what his mission entailed, he deduced that she had not been fully informed.
The angel suddenly leaned forward across the teacher’s desk. “I am curious,” she said innocently. “What is the Netherworld like? I have never heard a first-hand account on the matter. Do you enjoy it there?” Ambrose narrowed his eyes. Was the angel taunting him, flaunting her own access to the skies while he was forced to wither away down below?
“The Netherworld is not something a heavenly being such as yourself should be concerning herself with. That world is reserved for the irredeemable. I believe that your abilities would be put to better use in this world of constant change.”
“Change... can be a scary thing,” the angel said softly. “Even angels can change in this world. Once this body dies, I might just end up in the Netherworld if I am not careful here.”
“That,” Ambrose said coldly, glaring at the angel across from him, “is your problem. Should you end up in that miserable world after a second life would be your own loss.” The angel sighed, as if she was trying to get a simple concept across to someone much younger than herself. Ambrose bristled indignantly. First the Head of the Grand Council and now this intrusive angel acted like they thought him unable to grasp some bigger picture.
“Even someone such as yourself-” the angel was interrupted by the sound of a chair scraping across the linoleum floor that Ambrose angrily pushed it out of his way as he treaded heavily toward the door. The angel, arbitrating that the matter would not be pursued for now, dulled her blue eyes and readjusted her glasses and graying hair, once again becoming Mrs. Yates, the juniors’ art teacher.
Teddy pushed his glasses farther up his nose before taking a ferocious bite out of his ham sandwich. Anthony opened his mouth for a second, contemplating saying something to his friend about not getting food on his new camera, but quickly decided that it would be in his best interests to refrain from doing so while his friend seemed to be in such a volatile mood. Teddy had been grumpy all day, apparently stemming from something his mother had implied that morning about his not having a single friend outside of the useless clubs he participated in. Anthony, being a member of one such useless club, couldn’t really think up anything he could say to his friend to calm him down. Despite being rather short and scrawny looking, Anthony knew from experience that his blond friend could be rather tough when he wanted to be. And trying to run away was an attempt so useless against the fastest guy on the track team that Anthony wasn’t even going to go into the particulars of that scenario.
Friends outside of his clubs... Teddy took another viscous bite of his lunch. The reason he was friends with who he was friends with was because they shared particular interests with each other, and those particular interests manifested themselves in the various clubs Teddy aligned himself with. Did that make no sense to his mother? Teddy remembered when she had walked in to his room during freshman year and found him and one of his new friends poring over a cheats guide online while the PS2 first-person shooting game they had been playing on Teddy’s TV remained paused and in plain view. Freshman year had not been a good year for him.
This morning, however, things had come to a head between Teddy and his mother (who, he knew somewhere deep inside him, was really just overly worried about him). He had taken out his camera to snap a few last-minute photographs for this week’s collection that he wanted to put in the black room so that they would be ready by Friday's photography club meeting, and his mother had merely looked at him before remarking, “Can you not even eat your breakfast without inspecting it with that stupid camera first?”
Something about the inflection of that simple, condescending comment drove Teddy to explode. Neither of them ever yelled throughout the fight. Instead, malicious words flew venomously from both sides; first about Teddy’s supposed “obsession” with his various clubs (he was “meant to be a doctor, or something else that actually requires the use of your brain!”), and then onto not even having a life or any good friends outside of said clubs. Thankfully, Teddy’s carpool chose that moment to blow his horn in the front yard and he was able to escape the hell that was his home at the moment.
Teddy had contemplated just ignoring his mother’s remarks regarding his social life and going on with his life the same as he’d always done, but in the end the suggestion that he was incapable of making friends outside of clubs bothered him. He knew he could, he just really did not want to. Without the shared interests expressed in clubs, there would not be very much to discuss. But all he needed was just one invitation or something else as tangible evidence for his mother. After that, life could revert to normal again, with only an added person to smile at politely when he passed them in the hall.
At that moment, a strange aroma reached the table Teddy and Anthony sat at. It smelled of snow and an odd, almost displeasing fragrance that reminded Teddy simultaneously of both a new book and of anesthesia. The source was located fairly quickly due to the fact that he fell onto the seat next to him not a second later. A redheaded girl hesitantly followed him after looking back at the table where it appeared the rest of her friends had seated themselves. Who… Right, Carly Wilkinson. She was in Teddy’s second semester study hall last year. He supposed she was okay, always reading a book under her desk or doodling something in blue ink on the skin of her arms. But the dark blond sitting between them had to have been new- he seemed to be observing everything in the cafeteria, from the students in the lunch line to the abnormally brown meat on the trays of those walking by him. Although he looked to be around the same age as Teddy and Carly, Teddy had never seen him around before. He wasn’t aware that their school accepted new kids so far into high school.
“Hello,” the boy said evenly, rather unimpressed by his study of the lunch room.
“Uh, hi,” Teddy replied. Then it hit him- had he not just been fuming over the accusation his mother made about his lack of friends? This was perfect! Swallowing any unease the boy’s presence induced in him, Teddy took a moment to gather up the courage to introduce himself. And sound confident while doing so. “My name’s Teddy, and this is Anthony. You’re new here, right?” Anthony looked slightly apprehensive about having his name mentioned, and Teddy couldn’t find it within himself to not blame him- the guy was, for lack of a better word, intimidating, even though he was not very tall and actually quite skinny.
The boy seemed to evaluate them for a moment before replying. “Good morning. I’m Ambrose Sharpe. And yes, I’m new here. So new, in fact, that I’m fairly sure I would have wandered into the maintenance room earlier in my search for the cafeteria if Carly hadn’t found me. Thank you, by the way,” he added with a hint of a smile, partially turning toward Carly. After her initial shock at the acknowledgement, she blinked a couple times before finally settling for a blush and a mumbled “no problem.” Teddy barely stifled a laugh and earned a glare from the embarrassed girl in return.
“I’m done, so I’m going to get my photos from the development room. Um, just find me later, Teddy…” Anthony shot one last perturbed glance at Ambrose before grabbing his lunch tray and shuffling out of the lunch room. The new student appeared to either take no notice or apparently not care that Teddy’s friend was so unsettled around him. Teddy waved a little, contemplating whether or not to follow his friend and avoid the awkward situation that he had so often faced as a freshman: sitting at a table with people who kind of knew each other whom he knew nothing about. At all. After a moment of deliberation, Teddy decided on sticking with his original plan: befriend the new kid and prove to his mom that he was most certainly not some school pariah or something. Plan BtNKaPtHMtHWMCNSSPoS. He really needed to think up a better name for that plan…
“So, Ambrose, do you know your schedule?” Carly asked, tentatively breaking the silence.
“Well, I did manage to find my second period class…”
“Right, sorry,” she laughed nervously, glancing longingly at the table her friends were sitting at. “I guess what I meant was, do you need help getting to your next class? If I’m nearby, I could help. You know, to avoid another incident like mistaking a closet for the cafeteria.” Now Carly’s snicker was genuine. Ambrose pretended to scowl.
“The doors sort of look similar! You can’t honestly tell me that nobody has ever mistaken them before. But… some help would be nice. If the cafeteria doors and the maintenance closet doors look similar, then the classroom doors must be a nightmare. Oh, come on, even you can’t have gotten them all right the first day! Miss Compass Rose… Anyway, any idea where the chemistry classroom is? Mr. Wendall’s class.” Carly toned down her giggling enough to agree to help him, seeing as how the English classroom where she had her next class was nearby.
“You came on a good day,” Teddy piped up helpfully. “Mr. Wendall’s a bit of a nature nut, so I think we’re just hanging outside today and doing a worksheet.”
“You’re in my class?” Ambrose asked hopefully.
“Apparently so.”
“And does sitting outside have anything to do with chemistry?”
“Not what we’re studying.” Ambrose smiled at him, and Teddy fleetingly felt like he had reached the peak of the first hill in a rollercoaster ride. Like he had half expected pointed teeth to reveal themselves in the mouth of a boy no older than himself and barely any taller. Teddy supposed that social anxiety can do that to a person. He, Ambrose, and Carly all moved to stack their trays on the rack by the cafeteria doors (which, Teddy noted, did bear a bit of a resemblance to those of the maintenance closet) and left to run to their next classes- time had flown by quickly and they had about one minute to sprint up two flights of stairs.
Maybe, Teddy thought as he laughed and easily passed Ambrose and Carly on the way up, Plan B-tunk-whatever won’t be as much of a drag as I thought.