Chapter 2: Alex

I got to math class and started checking out the girls like all the other guys did at my old school. I am just trying to look like your average everyday highschooler, I thought. There is nothing strange about me. That is right; there is nothing strange about me at all. I am just your typical average high school boy, who landed in some backwater place to hide, that is all.

I bit my lower lip trying to keep a cool expression on my face. I decided to take a seat closer to the back, but also close to the door, while I would try to blend in. I knew I stood out like a sore thumb amongst all these preps and goody goodies, but if I could make it through the day, get back home to my room, and play some music I could get through this.

I sat all through math class just thinking about my new drum set sitting at home being unused. I can just see myself kicking my favorite beats out of them, as the clock creeps along.

I hated Kansas; it was not anything like Vegas. Las Vegas is the place to be, if you were bored there was always something to go do. Whenever I got bored, I liked to go out bmxing, or climbing, or boarding, or just go to the strip and watching the tourist. My posse and I loved to go boarding in the drained out pools during the winter, and on weekends there was always a place to go practice our stunts and to play our music. We were actually getting good. Now all I had left to do was practice, Solo practice. When it is just my drums and me, which is how I like it.

Jack and I were supposed to move to LA in two more years so that we could start up our own band, now that dream was fading in the strong Kansas sunlight. Kansas was going to be the death of me. I just knew it.

What a way to start a new school year: Here they started school two weeks earlier than Vegas did, I go and flip my bike and tear up my most prized shirt that I got from the Warped tour last year, and I go and land on a cute girl. Now she was cute in that shy kind of way. Nevertheless, this just was not my day.

What really brought it out was that every teacher was making sure to draw me out and say I was from Vegas. Why was it their duty to make me feel like I am at home? This is not home. This is Hell.

I am now in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go. Just fields and pastures to stare into forever. The closest major city was Wichita, which brings us to the point: Where the hell in the world is Wichita anyway. I stared blankly at the black board. Was this punishment from god for what happened last year? I most certainly thought yes as the teacher droned on and on over the lesson.

By lunchtime, I decided I needed to skip out and go look around the school. See it for what it was soon becoming in my mind, my future prison.

The way these people talked, they just did not know much about the outside world. They kept talking about country music or pop music artists that were like recycled, reused artists of yesteryear. No one here knew anything about the LA scene, or anything about the hot new styles. To them, I was the one who was out of style. Well who needs them anyway! All I have to do is suffer these next two years and make it back to the West Coast. Then life would return to normal.

"Hey you, what are you doing out of class?" Mrs. Thomas scolded me.

"I'm sorry, I'm new here, and I'm trying to find my locker." I smiled as I tried to look lost, which was not much of a stretch.

"Are you a freshman? If you are then you need to go down the hall till you reach the 300 classes."

"No, I'm a junior." I said, shocked that she thought I was so young.

"Oh I'm sorry, you need to go down this hall to the 600 classes, and then you'll be in the right hallway." She smiled at me.

"How can you tell which hallway is which? It's just one big long circle!" I commented.

"After a couple weeks you'll figure it out, now get to where you need to go and get back to class." She said sternly, yet still smiling.

"I guess." I slumped forward as I kept stumbling down the hallway. There was no reason to rush since I still had ten minutes to get back from lunch.

I got to my locker and pulled out my MP3 player slipped it on and played at full crank "Million Miles Away" by Offspring, while staring out at the sunlight coming in from the other end of the hall. I sat down in front of my locker and just closed my eyes. I must have dozed off a bit because a kid was ripping off my headphones and asking to get into his locker. I got up quickly, looked at the clock and my schedule, and ran to my next class. As I was slipping back on my headphones, I heard someone near by comment "Freak!" I just ignored it and went on.

It was time for 'Chemistry 2'. For this school, it was about the highest science class they had. I got in and quickly took a seat. That is when I saw her again. She was sitting two rows up from me, and she was whispering to the girl next to her. 'It was her earlier', I thought I had seen her earlier but I could not quiet be sure it was her; she just kept walking on and did not even look back at me. I must be a total loser if I am going to be a pariah here. Why did Mom have to move back to Kansas of all places?

"Ok everyone, open your texts books to page 241 and start reading the section." Mr. Wise said.

"But Mr. Wise, aren't you going to have the new student introduce himself." A student asked.

"Unlike all the other teachers here, I don't dish out punishment to new students on the first day. I save it for their last." Mr. Wise smiled as he looked at me. The class laughed at his bad joke and went on to reading. I felt a bit relieved that at least one teacher was kind enough to ignore the fact that I was new. Maybe this class would not be so bad after all.

Towards the end of class he assigned all of the questions at the end of the chapter due Thursday for review. If we have any questions, he would address them during the next two classes. He seemed easy going but a whole chapter in one week's time seemed a little extreme. After he dismissed the class a whole 5 minutes prior to the bell ringing, he called me to stay after the bell.

"So how bad has your first day been so far Mr. Regan?" He smiled as I walked over.

"Not too bad." I smiled, not faking one this time.

"That's good, well you'll notice I expect a lot of my students, but I'm pretty flexible on homework and test. However, do not think I give easy A's just because I am flexible. I expect as much work out of my C students as I do my A students."

"Then why don't your C students make A's?" I asked knowing it was a dumb question.

"If I answer that then your not learning, now are you?" He smiled at me; he realized I was trying to be sarcastic. He was not like these people at all. I really was going to enjoy his class.

I got out into the hall and was about to go to my last class when I saw her standing in the hallway waiting for me. She looked me up and down with her surprisingly green eyes. If only she would smile I would feel like I was not about to be sentenced. I smiled and ducked around her quickly as I ran to my locker and to my last class, Gym. What I did not notice was she followed me,

When I got my locker opened, a hand-grabbed mine and startled me. If that was not enough, I had jumped back and slammed into the Varsity Quarterback, Jason Dallas, and his two cronies Tyler, and Thomas. The instant Jason saw that I slammed into him; he slammed me straight into the ground. His two friends chuckled.

I jumped up and stepped right into his face. "What was that for?" I looked him right in the nose. He stood at least a whole head taller than I did; so did his friends.

"Because you underclassmen need to know your place, freak." Jason stated as if it was a fact around the school. His friends chuckled as all three grabbed me, walked over to the trashcan to try to throw me in.

I reacted quickly. I kicked Jason in the right inner thigh, which loosened his grip as I kicked him again straight in the solarplex. He dropped to the ground and my legs followed. As soon as they touched I yanked straight down as hard as I could to get free, which ripped my sleeves on my shirt but at this point, I did not care.

I jumped and tumbled over Jason, as he was trying to get up. I landed and heard them scream, "Get the freak!" so I kicked Jason straight into Thomas as he was turning around which slammed them both into the lockers beside them.

Unfortunately for me that left me with Tyler. He was at least a full foot taller than I was and built like a bodybuilder. As he swung and nailed my jaw, I stumbled back and landed on the door to the outside. Luckily, it was one of those easy to push open doors so it opened with ease, unluckily for me my back had opened it as I landed on it, so I spilled outside and landed on the pavement. The door was shutting as a hand reached it, it was not a small hand, Tyler was still coming out to pound on me, and his friends would be only a few steps behind him so I panicked. I kicked the door shut. That was a BIG mistake.