Author's Note: I wrote this for school, but I liked it so I put it here.
Author's Other Note: This is my story, so please don't steal it. Please?
Nickolas stood in the middle of the main hall of his new school. Students were chattering happily all around him, walking around with purpose in their steps. Nickolas just looked lost and confused. It was his first day in ninth grade, and he was all alone.
The students had all managed to become friends and join cliques and clubs in middle school, and now, he would be left all by himself. Like always. It really was no fun when no one liked you. Oh well, he never liked any of them either!
He looked ruefully at a couple in front of him. They had their arms around each other and were talking animatedly to some of their friends.
Nickolas scowled. It just wasn't fair! First his mother seft, then they had to move from their cozy apartment in the big city, and now he couldn't make heads or tails of his new schedule.
He turned it upside-down experimentally. Nope, he could still understand nothing. He brought it closer to his face as he squinted at the slightly grimy piece of paper.
"Chemistry in room 8102- no, that's a 'b.' Wait a minute…" Nickolas stood muttering to himself. With a growl he crumpled the schedule up and threw it on the floor. Then he sighed and picked it back up. He tried to smooth it, but his efforts were in vain. He glared at the offending paper with the hope that it might get scared and reveal all its secrets. No such luck.
"Now it's even harder to read!" he muttered under his breath. "Whoever designed this school was either crazy or liked to torture people." Nickolas took out a map of the school. "Or both," he continued as he looked at it. He glanced up at the clock and heaved an exasperated sigh. He still had fifteen minutes, which is a lot under normal circumstances, but if things kept going this way, he would be late to his first class. Yeah, late by a few years.
"You're in my way," came a low voice from behind him. Nickolas whirled around, and found himself facing the chin of a very tall, very big, very scary young man. He had tangled black hair and a nose thatlooked toNickolas to have belonged to a pig. The boy was wearing a black shirt with a skull and crossbones on it.
Nickolas being the short, lean, small boy he was would have normally just stepped aside without a fuss, but right now he was angry. He wasn't thinking clearly, or more accurately, he wasn't thinking at all.
"Did you ever think that maybe you were in my way?!" he demanded angrily. The larger boy bared his teeth in a scowl and brushed past, shoving Nickolas to the side in the process. The following result was very similar to a tennis ball hitting a wall. Nickolas was the tennis ball.
He hit a locker face on, and seemed to bounce back to fall on the floor. His black backpack stayed on, and thus provided extra weight to drag him down.
"This is so not the best day of my life," he groaned.
"Wow, you're the only one who's done that before," came a slightly amused voice from somewhere above him.
"I don't intend to do it again, either," he answered. He looked up and saw a boy with curly dark brown hair and blue eyes, the kind of boy that girls swoon over. He was offering his hand to Nickolas, who cautiously took it. The mystery boy pulled him up, and Nickolas noticed how tall the boy was. Suddenly he felt very small, and very much like the ugly duckling. Nickolas fingered his light hair nervously.
"I'm Leo," the boy introduced himself, "and you're bleeding."
"Blood?!" asked Nickolas in a panicky voice. He looked down at himself, seeing nothing. At the aching in his face he brought his hand to his nose. His fingers came away red. He stared at them with wide eyes.
Leo laughed, "come on, let's get you cleaned up." He took hold of Nickolas' clean hand and dragged him off into a bathroom. Soon Nickolas was dabbing at his face with a wet paper towel. In a couple of minutes the bleeding had stopped.
"You're new, aren't you," said Leo. It was a statement, not a question.
"Is it that obvious?" asked Nickolas.
"No one here talks back to Richard," at Nickolas' confused expression Leo explained, "the tall kid that you happened to get in the way of. Besides, you were standing in the middle of the hall looking extremely lost."
"It's not my fault this school is built like a labyrinth!" exclaimed Nickolas, throwing up his hands. Finally, someone to listen to his frustrations!
Leo laughed again. "I'll help you out, show me your schedule." Nickolas took it out of his pocket and gave it to him.
Leo raised an eyebrow, "did it get run over by a truck?" he looked at the paper. It was crumpled, grimy, and had a footprint on it.
"No," answered Nickolas defensively, but Leo wasn't listening.
"You have math, first." Leo looked up at Nickolas, "would you happen to have a map of the school and a pen?" Nickolas found both and handed them over silently. Leo checked to make sure the sink was dry, and put the map on it. "We're over here…" he circled a small square on the map. "You have math in H56, that's over here…" he circled that room as well. "You want to go this way…" he drew a line from the bathroom to H56. "You'll have to go up these stairs for your next class… then the gym is right over here…" Leo kept circling the rooms and marking the paths.
Nickolas looked over his shoulder gratefully. Finally Leo was done, and he gave the map back to its original owner. "That should do it," he said.
"Thanks," said Nickolas with a smile. Leo smiled back.
"Now that you know where to go, you should go there. There are only five minutes left until the final bell. I suggest you run."
Nickolas looked startled as he looked at his watch. "Whoops!" He turned around to go, but then remembering himself, he faced Leo again. He flashed the dark-haired boy a wide grin, "by the way, my name is Nickolas, and thanks," he said, and then ran off.
Leo looked after him, then at the pen that Nickolas left behind. He examined the plain piece of plastic, and moved to throw it into the trash. He hesitated for a moment, and then pocketed it.
"Huh," he murmured to himself before stepping out. "Let's go, Richard," he said to the large boy who was waiting for him just outside the bathroom door. Then he walked quickly to his first class. After all, it wouldn't do to be late.
Author's Note: this'll probably stay as a one-shot... And if I do decide to update it, I would do this very erratically