Phoenix [Completed]

Chapter 2 - Mel

Chapter 2 - Mel

As good as she seemed on her first day, Natalie didn't make our popular crowd. Apart from sitting with us in lessons, she didn't want to stay in our company.

She stuck to the nerds; the smartypants, of the class. And not the cool nerds either. The teacher's pet, know-it-all kind. Does that describe it enough? So that didn't get her high on the social ladder...

To sum her up; when you look at Natalie Addams, don't judge the book by it's cover. Don't get me wrong! I mean, she was nice, and kind, and she looked cool, but she didn't want to be popular. With the boys in particular. Or so we thought at that time.

So, we didn't expect to see her with a boy, in the park, playing basketball. The three boys and I walked into the park, on the dark day and walked past her.

Without turning around, she threw the ball at the basket, and scored.

"Hey." she said. We didn't know if she was talking to us at first, but then realised she was.

"Hey." we said. "What are you doing here?" I asked her, but not in a rude way. Just out of curiosity.

"I'm meant to be trying out my new uniform, but I couldn't be bothered." she said as threw the ball at the board again.

"Hey! Just because your mum said so, doesn't mean you have to. And, seriously, would you rather be in your new uniform, than play basketball, with me?" the boy said as he passed the ball to her.

"Well, now that I think about it..." Natalie pretended to think about it with a smile as he gave her a playful push. They laughed and when she scored another 3 pointer, she turned to us. "Sorry, this is Dylan. Dylan, this is Mel, Sam, Matt and Nick." she pointed to us. "Want to play anyone?" she looked at us. Nick and I shook our heads, but Matt and Sam nodded.

They threw their jackets onto the floor and they formed a square. "Two against two on two baskets?" Nat smiled mischievously. The two boys shared a look.

"Why not?" they said in unison. Natalie and Dylan smiled at each other and Nat started to dribble. She got to the other side and scored another three pointer.

Sam and Matt watched her score with amazement and didn't even realise when Nat passed the ball to Dylan and went to the other side.

They played a pretty exciting match, especially when Sam or Matt had the ball and it was funny to watch as Nat teased them with the ball. She dribbled with her back to them, right in front of one of the boys as they tried to steal the ball, but she never lost the ball once she had hold of it.

She didn't stop smiling, and when the Londoners were in a frightful lead, Nick went into our (Sam and Matt) team. Thinking this was unfair, I quickly

hopped into the Londoner's team. The three other boys gave out teasing shouts of "Traitor!" but I just stuck my tongue out with a smile as Nat and Dylan laughed at our quick argument.

"Welcome to the team Mel!" Nat said as Dylan passed her the ball and she whizzed passed the three other boys. She scored again, this time from the side. When I passed her the ball later on, she snatched it in when she caught it, and as Nick tried to get it, she did a little dance and threw the ball to me again. Sam was right in front of me, but I caught it on his right side.

Sam didn't feel like playing fair though. He leaned in, kissed me on the cheek and snatched the ball from my hands. I

opened my mouth in protest, but I could only scoff. He smiled teasingly and passed the ball to Matt, who Nat was marking by then.

He caught it and I saw him wink at her. She shook her head with a smile, and when Matt passed, she intercepted it with her hand.

"Sucker." she sung as she passed. She sidestepped to the basket and when I passed her the ball again, she managed to score, even with Matt trying to snatch the ball. When we got tired, we sat on the bench for a break. We were panting and Nat couldn't help but smile.

"Hey, Nat, what school are you going to?" Nick asked suddenly.

"I bet you're going to St Mary's." Sam said, quite sadly. Nat looked at him like he was mental.

"Seriously, is that what everyone thinks?" she asked.

"Well, yeah. I mean, you hung out with the nerds..." Matt admitted. Nat just chuckled.

"I couldn't exactly ask you to accept me, could I." it wasn't a question she said as she stared into the distance.

"So, where are you going?" I asked her curiously.

"Well-" she started but a car's horn cut her off. "Shoot! Is it that time already?" she looked to Dylan. He checked his phone (BlackBerry) and let out a groan.

"Sorry, guys. It was great meeting you. Great game." he said as he got up and picked up his bag. He threw it over one

shoulder and Nat got up too.

"Yeah, sorry. See ya." she said as she picked up her own bag. It was a shoulder bag, and it was black and grey base colour with green, straight lines (sometimes bending in a 90 degree angle...) running across it. I liked it, which says something...

She gave us a quick wave and we smiled back. Did I mention that she was dressed so that it fit her style perfectly? Black

skinny jeans, not jeggings, with a green top, black converse (of course) that went up to the middle of her calves. She didn't have a hat on when she was playing, but I saw her put on a black baseball cap and pull her high ponytail through the back.

As usual, she had her big, black glasses on and, as usual, she did not look one bit nerdy. Honestly. She looked good, even with boy eyes, as my three friends were all too quick to point out when the car disappeared around the bend.

"Is it me, or did she look better than in July?" Nick said. I laughed as they kept on commenting about how good she looked.

As a girl, it was quite uncomfortable for me, but I let them do it. It's not often they do this, so I might as well.

Anyway, it was interesting to see how boys behave when they talk about girls. There were a lot of repeats of "hot" and they made their minds up to discuss the rest at school with the other boys on the first day of school. That was actually nice of them.

We got along great, that wasn't the problem. It's that girls have girl conversations sometimes, just like boys. I'm not saying it doesn't work! It does. Just with some drawbacks...

Anyway, when we got over the fact that Nat changed, we walked home, and tried to guess what school she was going to. Without much success...