Grey and Gold Eyes

Two: Katy

"Uh..." the girl in front of me mumbles. I noticed her walking down the hallway because of the way her hair is pulled up−messily with an old pencil, like she doesn't care about how she looks. I tried doing the same hairstyle on my own hair a while ago, but my thin hair would keep falling back down. My mother says my fine hair is beautiful, but to me it's just a pain because I'm limited to only a few hairstyles.

To ease the tension, I hold out my hand. "I'm Kate. You are?"

The girl stares at my hand curiously, but eventually holds out her own hand. "Primrose," she says. "Nice to meet you... I guess."

"Wow, I wish I had a name like that! I'm just stuck with boring old Kate."

"Nobody really calls me that," Primrose pulls back her hand and awkwardly puts her hands behind her back.

"What should I call you then?"

"My parents usually call me Rose, but..."

"Can I call you Rosie?"

She cracks a smile for the first time. "Sure. And what do I call you?"

Seeing as she gets her own new nickname, I decide to give myself one. "You can call me Katy."

After a few seconds of silence, she asks, "You're also a freshman, right? What section are you in?"

I actually don't know. "I'll check," I say as I head over to the bulletin board full of papers. I give out a small squeal when I see a section marked Primrose. "You're a section!"

Rosie looks confused before saying, "Oh. That. Well, I can't really do anything about that, can I?"

I don't know why she's acting as if it's a bad thing. "That's awesome! Don't you like that there's a class with your name?"

"Not really. Anyway, what section are you?"

I smile as I see my name under the Primrose section. "What's your last name?" I ask her. I want to know if by any chance, we are in the same section.

"May," she says.

I turn around and give her a big hug. "We're classmates!"

I link my arm with hers and march her over to the nearest classroom. I don't care that some people might be staring at us. I point out a label above the door that says PRIMROSE and pull her inside.

Inside, there are several rows of plastic desks painted a light green and are separated into groups of two. A whiteboard covers one half the wall at the front and a blackboard covers the other half. A teacher's table and plastic chair, painted the same green as the desks, sits in front.

The desks are mostly occupied, and I notice that there are small groups of three or four people chatting with each other while waiting for the teacher.

Rosie pulls me to almost the very back of the room, where a pair of empty desks sits. "Let's sit here."

Once we sit down and place our backpacks on the floor in front of us, I take the chance to look around the room more closely. At first glance I think our class is made up mostly of girls, which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing.

While waiting for the teacher to arrive, I notice a group of guys across the room that seems to be staring at Rosie and murmuring something I can't quite hear. Rosie doesn't seem to see them. She's in her own little bubble.

One of the guys catches my attention. His eyes are a striking grey, almost silver, with flecks of gold. The same eyes that Rosie has. I reach over to point him out to Rosie when the teacher arrives.

The teacher is in an employee's uniform−a grey blouse with red buttons and black pants. The grey matches our school uniform perfectly. The teacher, who I assume is our adviser, has a mad expression on her face. Though when she speaks up to introduce herself in a cheery voice, I realize that it's just her makeup that makes her look so angry. I think it has something to do with her eyebrows. I can just about hold in my laughter at her mismatched face and voice.

The teacher, who we learned was Ma'am Eileen, talks about what would be our schedule, subjects, and other school topics. To be honest, I kind of tune her out. Until she says that we would be having a getting-to-know each other activity. We would organize ourselves into pairs. At this, I grab Rosie's hand.

"Wait!" Ma'am Eileen says. "Before you pick your partner, here's the catch: Since there are exactly eighteen girls and eighteen boys in our class, your partner has to be a boy if you're a girl and a girl if you're a boy. Got it?"

The class lets out a groan as we each try to find a decent partner. I stand in my place, unmoving, since the only person I know in my class is Rosie. Surprisingly, the boy with the silver eyes I noticed earlier gets up and starts walking straight to us.

"Um, Rosie? Someone seems to have chosen one of us as his partner," I say, pointing out to her the boy who was getting closer to us by the second.

Before she can reply, the boy is standing in front of us, looking expectantly at Rosie. "Lucas," he says. "You are?"

"Primrose," Rosie says.

"Cool. Want to be partners?" says Lucas.

"Sure..." Rosie says, and turns to me. "Don't worry, Katy, you'll find a partner," she says as Lucas gently pulls her by her wrist to an empty pair of chairs. I can't help but notice that he didn't even glance at me.

I end up with Ethan as my partner. He's actually not bad. Handsome, actually, with his green eyes and ash-blonde hair.

What we have to do is introduce each other to the class. We would start by saying our partner's name, what school he or she was from, and any other details we wanted to share to the class.

"So what's your full name?" Ethan asks, with a pen and paper ready to write anything down.

"Kate Drianna C. Flores," I answer, getting some paper ready to write too. "You?"

"Owen Ethan S. Grey. School you're from?"

"Ashton National."

"OHS − Oceanview High School. Yes, I know 'high school' is in its name, but it also had middle school. And I actually think that's a pretty cool name for a school."

"Yeah, I guess. It makes mine seem boring."

"Any other details you'd like to add? Hobbies or anything?"

I think for a moment. "I love cats. Can we say that?"

"Sure," he says with a smile. "I don't know what mine can be, though."

"Duh. You have to tell them about your drawings!" a girl behind me says. "Believe me, he could be an artist," she tells me. "Show her your sketchpad, Ethan."

Ethan rummages around in his bag for a while and pulls out a small gray notebook. From the outside it looks plain, but once he flips open the cover, the pages come alive with color. Pages and pages of wonderful sketches of anything from a forest to a group of friends sitting on the ground meet my eyes. Everything looks so realistic. The colors are perfectly blended to show exactly what he wants you to see – sunlight on the leaves of a tree or reflecting on the surface of water. The lines so perfect that at first glance you'd think it's a photograph. Amazing.

"Wow." I let out a small sigh in awe. "That's amazing. We should definitely show this to the class."

"You think so?" he says.

"Yes. Now, let's fix up what we're going to say. Ma'am might make us speak anytime now."

I was right. In a few minutes, Ma'am Eileen started to shush us so that she could speak. "Alright, class. Who would like to start the show? Anyone?"

I see Lucas stick his hand in the air. Rosie tries to pull him down, whispering to him urgently. He keeps his hand up until the teacher calls on him. He gives Rosie a knowing look and stands up. "Lucas!" I hear Rosie say accusingly as she stands up reluctantly. As they walk to the front of the room, she shoves him playfully in the shoulder.