Chapter Four

We all sat in the classroom waiting for Mr. Davies to come. He was our history teacher and he loved practicals. Of course, it was going to be another practical for our continuous assessment, it is what we knew him for; always giving practical assignments which he normally used as assessments. Ava and her crew sat in a circle, talking about what I don’t give a fuck about. Frank and his friends were nowhere to be found and I kept on wondering where they were. I just sat close to Ellie, the new girl that was transferred from Trenty High School which was in the neighboring town, she wasn’t from the neighborhood either, so she didn’t have any friends yet.

“Why is this school so stratified?” she asked, while she wrote something in her book.

“Well that is the norm here, you’ll get used to it soon,” I said and smiled at her.

“I’m Ellie Johnson by the way,” she said. She was really cool and she looked like she doesn’t give a shit about what people think or say about her and I instantly fell in love with her. Not that romantic type of love though.

“Annabelle Rivers,” I said with a wide smile on my face.

“I like you, and I will love to be your friend.” I continued, still looking at her.

“Are you kidding? So you are not intimidated by my looks?” she asked with a voice that said, ‘you may not like me.’

The truth is this, she really had a mean face that radiated the Fuck Off sign. She had piercings on her tongue and almost every part of her ears. Her looks could really make one piss on his or her pants and she looked very ghetto. She had black short hair which she dyed blonde. I knew her hair was black because the root of her hair had already grown out some portion of black. She continued writing on her book and when I tried to see what kept her busy, she closed it immediately.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have looked in. It’s none of my business.” I said, apologizing for trying to poke my nose in her stuff.

“Sure…” she said before Frank and his crew walked into the class.

When I looked up at them Danny waved at me while they came closer. I was expecting Frank to at least say hi but instead, he just walked past me while John followed him. Danny looked at me with guilty eyes and passed me too. Well, I was surprised because we were all cool yesterday, laughing and having g so much fun, what changed now? Ava Sinter left her crew and walked up to where Frank sat with his friends, I looked away from them. I thought everything was fine between me and Frank, I was such a fool to even think that he would start having feelings for me.

“Are you alright?” Ellie asked, breaking me off from my thoughts.

“Yeah…yeah sure, I’m good,” I said, staring blankly at the space. I was pained, he couldn’t have just ignored me that way, that's rude. Did I do anything bad to him while we were at the cinema last night?

“You sure don’t look alright to me, Annie,” Ellie said before Mr. Davies came in. I looked at her and smiled before I mouthed a ‘thank you to her and she looked at me like I had horns on my head.

“I'm so sorry, I was late to class. A situation came up.” He said then people murmured to themselves. This was Mr. Davies for you. A situation always comes up. It was his usual excuse for being nonchalant. I heard that why he still retained his job was because he has a thing with the principal and that is why he does whatever he likes and goes away with it.

“You all know the usual by now, it’s a practical of course but, I’ll like to take a new dimension here.” He said and the murmurings in the class increased as everyone wondered what he was about to do now.

“Can I hear myself, be quiet everyone.” He said trying to restore order to the class that was already a bit noisy.

I looked at Ellie, she just sat and looked at Davies quietly. I wondered what was going on in her mind. She was so difficult to read. I couldn’t even make out if she was happy or sad from her facial expression. She just stared on.

“You guys will be in pairs instead of it being a group of six or seven. And you don’t get to choose your partner, I’ll do that myself okay.” He said and the class went wild. I wasn’t really expecting that though but there was nothing for us to do but wait to see who our partners were. I prayed silently in my heart to be paired with Frank. Well, I didn't know how everything was going to work out yet.

He began calling names of people and their partners and I just stared hopelessly at Mr. Davies. Ellie was just staring the way I was too. He didn't even look up from his book for one second. Well, it was cool.

“Ava Sinter…” he called out and I looked at her immediately, of course, she was confident of who her partner was going to be. She and Frank were the popular kids of the school and that’s because they came from wealthy, prominent families.

“Georgina Stephen will be your partner for this research.” He continued without flinching.

Oh, here it goes. She was mortified, the disappointment radiating all over her face. Georgina was one of her crew members so why was she sad? I was really enjoying the show and I was happy.

“Annabel Rivers…” he said, distracting me from my show. Right now, I bet Ellie could hear my heartbeat. I was so scared and anxious about who my partner for the research could be.

“Frank Kingston would be your research partner.” He continued then he went on with calling other names. Ava looked at me immediately and scoffed, not like I gave a fuck, so I just sat there staring into the thin air as if I wasn’t even happy about my partner but I was fuckn' elated. I didn’t even bother to look back to see his facial expression, it didn’t bother me at all, whether he was happy or sad about it was none of my business. Now, there was no need for him to avoid me because we were in this together. All thanks to Mr.Davies.