First sight

Shana meets a strange boy at school

Chapter 2

First sight

 

17 years later, Shana Cole was staring blankly out of the window in her room, watching the sun rise. Normally she hated being up early, but a very disturbing dream about a fire and a cold shrilly laughter had woken her up at five in the morning. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her alarm clock. She got up from the windowsill, in which she had been sitting for over an hour, and stepped over to her bedside table to turn of the noise. She then strode over to the mirror. A red nuanced brunette was looking back at her with big green eyes; she looked tired and half asleep. Shana pulled herself away from her reflection and began pulling on her jeans and a blue t-shirt. Halfway down the stairs her name was carried to her from the kitchen; “Shana, breakfast!”

  “Coming!” she yelled back, entering the kitchen 5 seconds later.

  “Oh there you are, here,” a plate of toast and scrambled eggs was shoved into her hands.

  “Thanks Aunt Sarah and a good morning to you too?” 

  “There’s tea on the kettle, Gareth did you get the paper?” oblivious to the fact that she had just been talked to. Shana smiled to herself and stepped inside the living room to eat her breakfast. “Yes dear! Oh morning love, did you sleep well?” Shanas uncle stood up and was halfway to the exit before Shana could give an affirmative yes, then he was out the door to get the mail.

  The morning continued as it always did, only today Aunt Sarah seemed to be very upset by something. And it didn’t take more than a simple “what’s wrong?” from Shana, before she cried to the heavens about last nights’ community meeting. It was a long ramble of steadily flowing information that Shana didn’t understand the half of. “And now Mrs. Cowen from across the street is talking about cutting down the birch trees on the street and plant bushes instead! I mean really that would simply look ridiculous!” Shana pushed in her agreement, while trying to conceal a giggle. Uncle Gareth simply sat down and began reading the Stock Exchange.

 “And honestly those gnomes Mrs. Martins insist on having in her garden they are just hideous! Oh Shana dear do remember you have judo class this afternoon.” She babbled on and on and on, the part about judo class was just a precaution. Shana had never forgotten judo, nor had she ever forgotten karate, shiatsu, tai chi or any of her other martial arts classes. Shana loved her lessons. Reading in the library, taking a walk and finishing off with a good amount of kick-boxing, was her idea of a perfect day. When Shana closed the door to the house at half past seven to leave for school, she wasn’t even sure Sarah noticed, Gareth simply sent Shana an exasperated look and buried himself yet again in the pages of the morning paper. When Shana passed through the school gates she looked up, the old wooden sign that read; ‘Hill Hope High’ was looking more ragged than ever, as though the weekend had taken its toll on it. She was squashed between the bustling students, as she entered the school, and could hardly open her locker because of the crowd.

  “Did you hear?” asked a girls voice behind Shana.

  “Hear what?” another girl voice enquired.

  “There’s going to be a new student in English Lit class,” said the first. Shana turned around and saw that it was Mary and Caroline. They were nice, but she wasn’t on speaking terms with them as such, she wasn’t really with anyone. It wasn’t because she was unpopular or anything, she just blended into the background, and didn’t really share any interests with any of the others. She could talk with them, but it was mostly empty conversations, about trivial stuff such as the weather or school.

  “Seriously? Guy or girl?”

  “No idea,” answered Caroline, they moved out of earshot and Shana was left to ponder on her own. She checked her timetable; English Lit was 2 hours away. She stuffed it back into her bag and shouldered it, closing her locker with an elbow. When she looked down towards the cantina, her eyes froze solid as she saw a guy, who she was sure she had never seen before. He had blond smooth hair, which was a bit longer than normal for a dude. He was wearing white jeans and a white T-shirt with what looked like a black bird on it. He was leaning up a column, reading a book, which he seemed to be unnaturally absorbed by. But the main reason Shana was staring so unnaturally at the guy, was because of his overall looks. That guy was the most stunningly beautiful, hot and gorgeous guy Shana had ever seen. She was interrupted in her glaring, when some idiot ran into her, making her drop her books.

  “Hey watch it!” The guy didn’t appear to hear her, he simply ran off with his friends, leaving Shana to pick her stuff up by herself.

  “Let me help you with that,” a voice said. Shana thought that it was the guy who had toppled her over in the first place, and shot a nasty comment at him.

  “I am sorry, I did not mean to offend you,” Shana looked up, and was ready to eat her heart out. The blonde guy she had been staring at only half a minute earlier, was standing with one of her books in his hand, offering for her to take it.

  “Sorry, thought you were someone else,” Shana managed to say, after helplessly trying to form a longer sentence. She took the book and stuffed it into her bag. When she looked up again he was gone, with no sign of him ever being there. She looked around, but when the bell rang, she admitted defeat and moved with the crowd to reach math class.

  Itching for something to happen, only makes time go slower. A truth Shana learned to appreciate the hard way. Math was always boring, but today, doubly so. After math she lived through physics, and when she finally reached her desk in English Lit class, her eyes were glued to the door, waiting to see if her theory was right.

  “Incoming!” Charlotte yelled, she had been the one to stand guard waiting for the teacher, while everybody else behaved like crazed monkeys. Everyone settled down, and just as the last got to sit down, Mr. Brooks entered the room. He was a shabby man, with thin graying hair, and his eyes were magnified by his rectangular glasses.

  “All right ya’ bunch of piranhas; this is our new student, Hero. He will be joining us from this day onward. Greet him nicely and don’t try to eat him in one bite eh?” He looked with a measuring eye at Hero and directed him to the desk beside Shana. She was ready to sink into the floor as he approached her. He didn’t say anything, and Shana thanked God for it.

  “If you will all please turn your attention to page 418, your assignment is to split into pairs and analyze the sonnet.” An enormous uproar of “no way!” and “too boring!” started in the classroom, but Mr. Brooks simply sat down and began reading, which miraculously resulted in people actually doing what he had asked. Brooks was several of the student’s favorite teacher, simply because if the students did what he asked, he let them do whatever they wanted during the rest of class (as long as it happened inside the classroom and with a descent bit of ‘hush’). Shana looked around, she was used to either working alone. When she realized everybody else had paired up, she reached into her bag and pulled out her book.

  “So, will we be working together?” Shanas body stiffened, she almost dropped the book. Looking up, Hero was looking down at her, his mouth was formed into a weak smile, and his eyes expressed uncertainty.

  “Uhh… sure,” she said, trying not to sound too squeaky. They opened their books, and started analyzing.

“Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?”, “And every fair from fair sometime declines”, “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”. The sentences from one of the most romantic sonnets of all time were flying around the classroom. And every time Hero read aloud to Shana, she felt weak and blurry, and noticed several looks of utter insult from some of the other girls, since he was quoting this romantic poem to someone as simple and non-popular as Shana herself, and not any of the other more popular girls. But Shana had expected no less than this, because Hero had been marked; ‘Hot male, first lion gets the feast’. She herself didn’t take it seriously, but the popular girls most certainly did. Hero was by far the hottest guy in the class, if not in the entire school. He, of course, had no idea of this fact, and looked extremely puzzled every time he received a filthy look from one of the other girls. Shana desperately tried to keep herself casual, but the incident in the hallway kept creeping into her mind, and it seemed to become more and more embarrassing. Luckily after the first hour, it became obvious that he wouldn’t mention the thing, and she felt herself relax a little, but not too much. She felt all her movements were clumsy and elaborate, and her voice far too normal, compared to the way he almost sang each word.

  After two hours of reading, giggling, explaining and interpreting, the class began packing and moving towards the door. Shana had been fighting with her bag on the floor to make room for her books, and as she looked up, she saw Hero was waiting for her. He had obviously been ready for some time. He was smiling, probably after watching her argue with her schoolbag.

  “I really need a bigger bag” she sighed as they walked towards the door. He gave a chuckle, and she felt her knees weaken. As they exited the classroom, Shana noticed that he was looking around, with what seemed to be unnatural curiosity.

  “What are you looking at?” She asked, surprise of his absorbing look overcoming extreme nervousness.

  “Hmm? Oh nothing, just… nothing…” he answered, Shana wasn’t convinced at all.

  “I gotta go, goodbye,” he gave her what she half believed to be a bow, and walked towards the door to the school yard. Shana stood awkwardly in the middle of the hallway, feeling a slight tinge of abandonment, not to mention foolish for gawking at him. When Shana was about to walk towards the cantina, she was stopped by none other than the school queen, Patricia Johnson.

  “Hey Cole! What the hell d’you think you’re doing?” Shana hesitated, not having the farthest idea of what Patricia was talking about, she decided on playing along, she didn’t have a choice in any case.

  “I dunno, what do you think I think I’m doing?” Patricia who, in spite of her extraordinary beauty, was not quite as intelligent as Shana, had to think twice to understand what had just been said. When she appeared to realize it, she looked little less than infuriated.

  “I think you’re trying to steal away the new student, who it just so happens I have selected to be my new friend. And I will not have my friends running around with people such as yourself,” she kicked the last bit in just to hurt Shana, but it really didn’t. Patricia’s loyal group of unintelligent football players, and squeamish girls guffawed at their leader’s humor. Shana couldn’t resist giving a weak laugh as she saw them sway at her every wink.

  “What are you smirking at Cole?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all”

  “No you’d better not, or I swear I’ll wipe that smile off your face myself!” Patricia turned her back on Shana and strode away with steps worthy of someone who thought herself royalty. Shana couldn’t help finding that girl amusing. After 17 years, Patricia still hadn’t learned that she neither feared, nor envied her. When she reached the cantina, she hesitated when she saw Hero sitting alone. Wondering why he was suddenly here, after just telling her he needed to go, she thought about asking if she could sit with, chickening out when she reached him. So she passed as all the others.

  “Won’t you join me?” Shana stopped at turned around. If it wasn’t because Hero had been looking at her, she might have thought he was talking to someone else.

  “Sure,” she said in a hesitant voice and sat down. Just as she was about to take a bite of her sandwich, she smiled, as she saw Patricia sending her a look of outrage.

Author's Note

English is not my first language, so there may be some errors..

Reviews

[zainul]

You have presented a wonderful story in this piece.
I appreciate the detailed description.
Congratulations,Mousefairy!!!