Chapter 2

As mum pulled up at the entrance of St Mary’s school, she parked the car near the entrance.

She asked, “Do you have your lunch money with you? Are you going to be ok? Do you want me to come inside with you?”

When she finished, she leant forward to kiss me on the cheek; I just put my hand out.

“Mum please, I’ve got it from here.”

I got out of the car and started making my way to the school gate when I noticed a couple of boys staring at me. As I approached them, I saw they were two of the lads in Tin Tin’s gang. I went past them, they both nodded their heads.

One of them said, “Alright?”

I looked at him and smiled, nodding my head.

As I entered the school yard, most of the students that were there just stopped what they were doing. I just looked around, found the nearest empty bench to sit down. I took my backpack off my shoulder, opened it and started looking for something to read just to distract me. After a few moments, everyone went back to normal.

A little while later, the school bell sounded. Everyone started making their way into the school. I went straight to the reception desk to ask where I had to go. On approaching the desk, I noticed a group of girls chatting and giggling between themselves.

I said to the lady, who reminded me of the Britain’s Got Talent winner Susan Boyle, “Excuse me, could you please direct me?”

“Why don’t you look at the information board for your name to see where you need to go young man?”

The girls started to giggle again. Susan Boyle turned to them and irritatedly yelled, “Girls! What is so amusing?”

One of the girls chuckled, “He would, Miss, but he’s a new student.”

Susan looked at me, smiled, and looked at the girls. “Can one of you girls show this young man were to go please.”

All of a sudden the girls scattered around apart from one who just stood there looking away from me.

Shouting out, “Great bunch of friends you are!” she turned and whispered, “Hi,” while staring at her shoes.

I recognised her straight away: the girl who slapped me. “Hi.”

“If you follow me I’ll show you where the information board is.”

Then she started to walk down the corridor at a fast pace. I quickly threw my backpack over my shoulder and began to follow her, dodging all the other students while I was trying to keep up with her. It reminded me of one of those movies when the protagonist is hurrying down a busy high road full of pedestrians.

I called out, “Can you tell me what race we are in?”

She suddenly came to a halt, quickly turned around, made eye contact and said, “I am sorry about that night when I slapped you. After my little brother explained to me what happened, I felt like shit. Are you happy now?”

“I didn’t say anything. Let’s start from the beginning. My name is Jack; it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“My name is Emma; I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

After the ice breaker, we made our way to the information board in which we both looked up our names to check our schedule for the term. To our surprise, we were in the same form year; we had most of the lessons together. We looked at each other and started laughing.

When we stopped, I asked, “Out of curiosity, why were those boys picking on your brother that night?”

I’ll tell you later. Let’s go to our lesson. We don’t want to be late for English; the teacher is a bit strict on punctuality.”

At lunch time, Emma took me to the school canteen to get something to eat. With our trays in hand, we found an empty table to sit down. We didn’t get the chance to pick up our cutlery and start eating when our table, as well as the table next to us, was swarmed by her friends. With her eyes fixed on me, she said to her friends, “Thanks a lot for leaving me in such a sticky situation earlier this morning.” That’s when everyone started laughing, including me.