Chapter Two: Strange Exchange

                The morning had been that awful grey that made everything feel… grumpy. It was damp and cold and windy; all the qualities needed to make a morning bad. Noa had snapped at her mother about pointless things"the toaster wasn’t working, the jam was the wrong kind, etc. It was funny; normally she couldn’t have cared less about toast or jam.

                The car wouldn’t start that morning so Nao had to walk quite a ways to get to school. Her mother had offered to call a taxi but she was in the mood to mope and opted to trudge through the rain. When she finally made it to school her shoes had been soaked and they still hadn’t dried out yet.

                Mr. Reed had only just started his lesson and she already couldn’t keep her eyes open. There was something about his voice, his way of talking that lulled her to sleep. It was as if he droned through his lessons; a lack of emotion in your voice could be a downfall.

                Was that was why Noa didn’t like his class? Because it was hard to pay attention to his boring voice… maybe. It may have been the students as well. They all had those boring expressions, oddly annoying voices, and somehow looked better in their uniforms than she did. How was that possible? They wore the same clothes!

Her less than pleasant thought were interrupted as the classroom door opened. Noa sat in the back of the room so she didn’t have a clear view to the door and couldn’t see who it was. The voice of Mr. Gray, the headmaster was blatantly obvious, she’d been sent to his office a number of times for dosing off in class as well as the few times she’d punched another student. She wasn’t taking preppy nonsense from anyone.

The conversation between the Headmaster and Mr. Reed ended quickly and Mr. Gray exited the room. Noa expected Mr. Reed to hop back into his lesson but instead he made his way to the center of the room.

“Students,” He got their attention with one word so he continued on, “I would like to introduce Manasseh Reamer, an exchange student from our neighbouring country Arcarius. He will be joining us for the remainder of the school year, please treat him kindly.”

The exchange student was tall with a head of neatly groomed, medium brown hair. He was relatively good looking from what she could see from her seat, just not enough to make her swoon. The rest of her female classmates seemed to disagree with her on that last part"excited whispers were already audible. Noa was disgusted. More than likely this Manasseh guy was another political kid like the rest of them and probably had a boring personality. He would fit in just fine.

“Take a seat at the back Manasseh.” Mr. Reed instructed and Noa nearly groaned in annoyance, of course buddy-boy would be sitting next to her. I swear, if he talks to me I’m going to lose it, she thought bitterly.

Manasseh made his way to the back of the room with relative ease; the stares of his female classmates didn’t seem to bother him. This sort of behaviour was normal in the preppy students, but she was surprised Manasseh didn’t react more; she figured he would have been living up his new popularity.

“Good morning.” The exchange student’s voice was relatively standard, though Noa couldn’t help but loathe the overly happy tone in his voice; it sounded more like he was talking to a queen rather than some random girl in his class that he’d never met before. She hated him already. “Would you mind if I looked at your Textbook? I just got here yesterday and haven’t been able to get one yet.”

And suddenly she disliked him more. If someone was influential enough to be an exchange student to this school, clearly he could have clapped his hands and had a hundred textbooks before at any second he liked. “You know what, just take it, I’ll look it over on the weekend,” she huffed, handing him the book, “But don’t get the wrong idea; we are not friends, I’m just lending you my book.”

The expression of his face was shocking; the hurt in his eyes was ridiculous for something as trivial as her not being his friend. Noa gripped her edge of her desk so hard her knuckles were white, how could a mere expression make her feel this guilty; it was as if she had stabbed the kid.

“Okay…” Manasseh’s voice had lost the cheer it had held earlier, now he seemed almost ill. There was something strange about him, something that made Noa uneasy and scared. Rather than dwell on the weirdness of the exchange student she went back to listening to Mr. Reed drone on about whatever it was they were learning in this class.

Reviews

[Amaya Sullivan]

Next chapter please! It is very good so far. I wonder when and how you are going to have her remember her past life and reveal the "imaginary" friend. Its so interesting. How did you come up with this storyline? I love it so far.

[Atta]

Thank you :3
In all honesty the story came to me in a dream. I had to tweek A LOT so it wasn't ridiculous and strange beyond reason. It's actually taking quite a while to sort everything out in a good order.
I'm glad you like it though!

[Amaya Sullivan]

I love dreams that can inspire you write something very good! ^_^