Foreign Exchange // Punk Luke Hemmings

Arrival

"It's not the end of the world, Hay. I mean, he's cute right? And only a year older than us," Tanner said through a mouthful of food. "Be happy he's not some gross jock or something like that." She swallowed, only to replace it with more food.

"I know. But there's just something about him. I don't know, he just seems like bad news," I shrugged and moved my gross cafeteria food around on the tray.

"Haylee, just deal with it," she rolled her eyes. "I don't feel like talking about how sucky your life is going to be when this hot guy starts living in your house. Okay?"

"Fine." I muttered. We sat in silence for a few minutes before the bell rang to signal the end of the period. "See you later T," I said as I stood and grabbed my things.

"Bye Hay. Love ya," she smiled and we went our separate ways. I had Advanced Chorale next period, which was the only class I really loved. Music just had this pull on my mind and heart. It was one of the things that made me happy.

"Hi Ms. Tessle," I greeted the teacher as I entered the classroom. As usual, I was the first one here.

"Hi Haylee," she smiled and came over from behind her desk. She was very young, 22 to be exact. We're very close on account of that. We have similar music tastes and interests, so we clicked from the start.

"What's the plan for today?" I asked and place my things next to my chair. There were four tiered rows of chairs in the music room, the wooden steps slightly curved. I was in the third row, even though the first two weren't nearly full.

"Oh, not much. Though I do have a surprise for today," she filed through some papers on the piano top. "I'd tell you, but I want it to be a surprise for you as well."

"Aw, come on!" I whined and walked over to sit at the piano bench. "I thought I was your favourite!"

"Haylee, you know I can't play favourites," she winked, meaning I'd hit the nail on the head. "Good afternoon Mitch." I looked over to see one of my friends, Mitch, entering the room.

"Hey Ms. Tessle," he smiled. "'Sup Haylee." He walked over to his seat as the rest of the class started trickling in. I went to sit in my chair, taking out a Sharpie marker and redrawing the doodles on my hands. I had drawn stars and skulls, black flowers and random doodles on my skin, as I did every day.

I waited for class to start before realising Danny, who's also in this class, wasn't here yet. He was always here with at least two minutes left of passing time. Where was he?

"Alright class. Big day today!" Ms. Tessle announced just after the bell rang. "I just found out that our principal want to have an assembly showcasing all the fine arts and clubs this school has to offer." She smiled at everyone. "Does anyone know what that means?"

She was answered with silence. "That means that we get to preform. In front of the school. And we need some soloists to preform a song each. We have the last twenty-five minutes of the assembly to sing, so we can have a duet as well as two or three solos, on top of the entire choir singing two or three songs as well."

A girl named Ashley, whom I didn't particularly like, raised her hand. "Yes Ashley?"

"How will we decide who is a soloist or in the duet?" she asked in her annoying voice.

"I'll hold some tryouts later this week for both slots," Ms. Tessle explained. She looked at me with a look that said she wanted me to try out, and I shrugged. Maybe.

"I think Haylee should be a soloist. She shouldn't even need to try out," Keran, a boy who was pretty nice but never really talked to me, said quietly. A few people agreed, making me blush.

"Well we have to be fair. Besides, Haylee might not even want to sing," Ms. Tessle pointed out. I almost sighed with relief. I wasn't sure if I wanted to or not.

"But she's so good!" Mitch said and looked back at me. I gave him a glare and he turned back around with a scowl.

"Well, anyway," Ms. Tessle put her hands together. "How about we start with what we have to do today?"

We started off with a warm up as always, before moving on to learning a new section of the song we were working on. I looked at the clock about halfway through class to find that it was almost one in the afternoon. Only two hours left in the school day.

About five minutes later, the door opened and Danny's face peeked in. Ms. Tessle cut off the song to glare at him. "How nice of you to show up Daniel," she chided, using his full name.

"Hi Ms. Tessle. Um, I have a valid reason. Can you come in the hall for a second please?" he asked, glancing at me. I rolled my eyes, then looked away. Ms. Tessle did the same, but walked out into the hall. A few minutes later she returned with a smile on her face.

"Students, today just got better. We have a new guest with us," she said happily.

I froze. What did she mean? What new guest? And why was Danny so late?

"Okay boys. Come on in," she called out the door. It opened and Danny walked in again. But his "visitor" came in as well.

That's when I really froze.

The boy had a smirk on his face as he came up with Danny to the third row. My brother sat next to me, and the boy sat on his other side. My brother smiled at me, and I gave him a feeble smile in return. But in reality, it was more of a grimace.

That boy was Luke.