Just Friends

Chapter 3

Mr Deegan passed Maria on the way back to his class, he looked at her with a grimace and said a quick hello. She smiled brightly and said hello. She heard his classroom door close and laughed to herself. He had been avoiding her like the plague since her mother went to the school and reprimanded him for embarrassing her in front of everyone. He was very apologetic when he found out she had nothing to do with the note but she knew he was only apologising because he was a bit afraid of her mother. She was a scary woman, she looked like your average middle aged mother but when she was pissed off she became VERY scary, especially if she was defending her loved ones. 

Back in the classroom she sat down at her table. Vicky was at the other table scribbling something down on her copy. She looked across the table to see her crush, Keith, looking in her direction. She wiped at her face and fixed her hair. She caught his eye and he smiled at her, she felt her face heat up as the blush was rising up to her cheeks. She quickly looked down and pretended she was reading. Mr Kennedy's voice boomed out after a few minutes of silence. 

"Ok class! It's time to move on to some maths now." 

Maria groaned, she hated maths. This is going to be a bit different though, I need you to pick a partner from your table and then I'll explain what we're going to do. Maria looked across at Vicky, she could see the panic in her eyes as she looked around her table for someone to partner with. They usually partner together but Mr Kennedy moved the tables around at the start of the week and now they weren't at the same table. 

"Hey, do you want to be my partner?" 

Maria looked across the table at Keith in confusion, he was looking at her but he couldn't have been talking to her. Keith was the most popular boy in their year. He was tall,light brown hair, bright blue eyes and because he was quite athletic he was starting to get muscles in all of the right places. There's no way he would want to partner up with someone like her. She was small, had dirty blonde hair, dull blue-grey eyes and was a bit on the chubbier side. Sometimes, very rarely, she wished she could be more like the other girls but then she realised she was perfectly fine the way she is. 

"Maria? would you?"

 Maria looked at him and blinked

 "Oh sorry, I didn't know you were talking to me. Yeah sure we can be partners. I'm not very good at maths though, just a warning." 

He laughed and walked around with his chair to sit beside her. She was getting death stares from Kelly and Sinead. The 4 other people at their table quickly scrambled to partner up. They had obviously been just as surprised as she was when Keith asked her to partner up. When the bell went to signal the end of the day Maria packed up her stuff and stood up. She noticed Vicky was making a beeline for her but suddenly stopped. The reason why spoke behind her moments later 

"Hey, thanks for being my partner earlier. I had fun" 

Maria looked around at Keith 

"No...thank you. I'd never have known some of those answers if it wasn't for you. I wouldn't say it was fun though, maths is never fun" 

Keith laughed 

"You live near me don't you?" 

Maria wasn't sure if she did or not 

"Um I'm not sure, I don't know where you live." 

He smiled at her again.

"Oakwood"

 Maria was surprised she hadn't seen him around.

"Oh yeah, that's just around the corner. "

"We just moved there a few months ago, used to live in Mountview but my parents wanted something close to my Nana"