The Everblooming Flower [Book One of The Dreamers Series]

Chapter Eight

My experiments had been going fairly well and as predicted. I'd been spacing them out over a few days to not draw attention to my late-night activities. But the frost burn I'd managed to give myself with dry ice that I may or may not have stolen from the Science office at school had fully healed. Not even a red spot where I had held the dry ice to.

I glanced at the very spot I did so on my ankle in slight awe at how it remained unblemished. It most certainly was not a very human thing to do, which – as I thought it in my head – made me scold myself. I was being ridiculous.

I pulled my sock over my heel and tied my sneakers up before getting up and pulling my bag over my shoulder. School was what mattered at the moment. I had been right to think I wouldn't get flirted with as much. Granted, that could've been because there were less students, but it was still, and improvement and I would take it.

I had been attending Nangidon for a week and a half, and I didn't think it was that bad. I was taking Cul Ed, and Woodwork like I'd wanted to, but unfortunately the Business class – as they had called it – was full and so I was instead taking a class called Currency. Currency was essentially a class to teach us about responsible spending. Not quite what I'd had in mind, but it worked, I guess.

Zak was in Caretaker Ed, and Ciara was in Phys Ed. That left me, pretty much on my own in Currency. Or so I thought. There was a knock on the door just before Mrs Tsocratmin, or Mrs T as she asked us to call her, called the roll.

"Gabriel," she said in an annoyed tone. "Are we late again? Because punctuality is important for success."

I looked over to see Gabe standing in the doorway. "Who knows," Gabe shrugged. "I might break a world record for most late notices. That would make me pretty successful."

The class chuckled and Mrs T told him to take his seat. "You're lucky I hadn't called the roll yet."

The desks had been lined so that there were rows of computers. I sat in the middle row, facing the outside wall so that I was able to see out of the windows. Windows that literally had bars on them. Gabe sat in the seat behind me so that our backs faced each other and logged on.

Everyone by that point had gotten used to hearing my name for the most part, and so I had pretty much met everyone in my year. The eshay's, the netball girls, the game obsessed or anime obsessed people, the footyfucks – Zak's words, not mine – and the people that didn't fit into any of the above. I don't know why Zak nicknamed the footyfucks what he did, but the whole school called them that, so maybe it wasn't Zak that came up with the name. He said it was because they were completely fuckwitted at the best of times and for some reason a bunch of them had mullets. I don't know what that had to do with the nickname, but Zak insisted that it solidified their fuckwittedness. Also, his words not mine. Bit weird, but I got used to it. Mostly.

I glanced at Gabe. He looked like he had fallen out of bed and hurriedly put his clothes on while trying to get to his parents car. Although, his face was red, and he was breathing heavily.

Mrs T went on with the lesson after calling the roll. We were looking at the bucket system. And I mean she literally had three buckets on her desk.

I let out an annoyed sigh. "This class is prison," I mumbled under my breath.

I heard Gabe stifle a laugh. "And what makes you think that?" He whispered.

"The bars on the windows," I returned with a smile. "Seems very prison esk if you ask me."

"Can't argue with that," Gabe shrugged.

I had begun to warm up to Gabe. He wasn't as bad as I thought he'd be. We'd been sitting next to each other in Math for a few days, so we'd had to get along to avoid causing a ruckus. But I was pleasantly surprised by him. He'd reminded me a little of Triston, as much as I didn't want to admit it.