The Mystery Next Door

The Mystery Next Door- Chapter 1

Chapter 1

            “Hey Chloe, come in,” I tell my best friend of six years after she arrives at my house. This is our high school ritual. She comes over an hour before school starts and we talk and eat breakfast. “What are we having for breakfast this morning, waitress?”

            She opens my refrigerator and laughs, “Hmm, maybe we’ll have…” she pulls out the three things in my fridge and sets then on the counter, “a hearty breakfast of bacon, milk, and a grapefruit.”

            I pass her the bread and say, “Now we have all of the food groups. Let’s eat.”

            She cooks the bacon, and I cut the grapefruit in half, setting it on a plate with bread on it. I then pour us each a glass of milk and put the plates on the counter. She sits down with the bacon and we begin eating.

            “So did you here about the new English teacher? I heard he’s handsome,” she tells me as she takes a bite out of the bacon.

            I raise an eyebrow at her, “Handsome? What happened to ‘sexy as hell,’ like how you described the guy who worked with you at the daycare?”

            Chloe rolls her eyes, “Please, I was an immature little girl over the summer. Now I’m a beautiful young woman. And all of the handsome young men at our school will all come to me. You know they will.”

            I laugh at the fact that she insinuates such a huge change over the course of two and a half months. I go to retort, but I hear loud rock music coming from my neighbor’s house and I go to the back door to investigate. I see Felix back out of his garage while head-banging to some heavy metal music. His father is screaming at him from the garage, and his mother is crying her eyes out. Before he takes off down the road, he flips them the bird. I stand astounded at what had just happened, and stare at his parents until I see his father’s head begin to turn towards me. Then I hide behind a tree and wait for them to go inside.

            I sit back down at the table and continue eating, although after seeing that display, I had lost my appetite.

*          *          *

            “CHLOE! ALICIA! OVER HERE!” Chloe’s boyfriend Wally calls us over to our group of friends.

            I nearly run to meet my friends, going two and a half months without seeing them was difficult, not to mention boring. I jumped into my best guy friend Kyle’s arms. I breathed him in; I love the refreshing smell of his Axe body spray. Although he’s gay, he is very muscular and is usually on the school’s football and soccer teams. He holds me in his arms for a few minutes, and then whispers, “Okay Ally, I think you should probably get down. It’s been a little long.”

            I reply, “Wait… Okay.” Then I get down and wrap his arm around me.

            Everyone exchanges schedules and sees how many classes you have with each person. I had two classes with Chloe, one class with Wally, seven classes with Kyle (YAY!), and three classes with our two other friends, Mike and Jasmine. When the first bell rings, we all go off to find our lockers and our first class.

            Kyle and I having basically the same schedule was always a great thing for us because our last names were very close in the dictionary (Coleman and Cooper), so we sat next to each other and spent virtually no time apart. We walk to our lockers and practice opening them then we walk to first period biology and take our seats.

            I wanted to talk to Kyle, but he is automatically swarmed by the other jocks; he’s very popular. I focus on the board and daydream about how my day will go, and what hot guys I’ll meet. The first image that pops into my mind when I start thinking about hot guys is my ex, Dave. I shake the thought off and remind myself that I’m the one who broke up with him.

As soon as I start to think about my turn offs I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see Felix. He smirks and says, “I thought it was you. Can I see your schedule? To make sure this is the only class we have together.”

I pass him my schedule and he looks at it then passes it back. “Well?” I ask him, anxious to know how many classes we don’t have together.

“Eight. How do you have all eight classes with your next door neighbor? What are the odds?” he slumps slightly in his desk.

Really? I’m the one who has to deal with your cavalier ass all day, and you’re upset? Really? I thought. Then I say, “Well I should introduce you to,” then I yell, “KYLE!”

Kyle pushes through the crowd and asks, “Who’s the goth kid?” Upon hearing the word goth, all of the jocks that were with Kyle turned and looked with angry expressions. Kyle makes some type of hand gesture and they all leave the room. I knew they couldn’t all be in AP bio.

Felix says, “I’m not goth. And my name is Felix. And it would appear that I have eight classes with your girlfriend.”

I laugh as soon as Felix finishes his statement. Whenever someone mentions sexuality to Kyle, he pretends to be a flamboyant gay. Kyle takes a girly stance and rubs his hand on Felix’s chest. “Well,” he says in a Beverly Hills accent, “she is my girl friend, but I like men. Men that have seven classes with me and dress in black and have black hair and black eyes. Does it sound like I have a type?” he rakes his eyes over Felix, takes a step towards him, and begins to move his hand down his chest. Felix steps back and trips over a chair. He falls to the ground, and Kyle leans over to help him. “Hey, I’m Kyle. I’m gay, but you’re not my type, sorry honey. I’m not flamboyant either. I just always have to do that.”

Felix laughs, seemingly still alarmed by Kyle’s earlier display. He replies, “Oh, okay. So we have seven classes together?”

The bell rings before Kyle can answer, and we all take our seats. Mr. Bates, our science teacher, walks in. He’s a typical biology teacher: around fifty years old, bald with a thick mustache and a waistline that prevents him from walking down the aisles. He immediately asks for a volunteer to pass out papers, and Kyle gladly volunteers. He passes out a paper that says what we need for the course and then a permission slip for sex ed, which is taught to us through biology in the eleventh grade.

After he tells us his pet peeves and classroom rules, he lets us loose to do whatever we want. I sit in Kyle’s lap and let him rock me back and forth. We sit like that until the bell rings, then Kyle picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

I shriek, “What are you doing? Put me down!” then I begin pounding my fists into his back. He passes me my back pack, and I grab it in one hand and continue hitting him with the other hand.

He slaps my butt lightly and says, “Be quiet, Cooper, or else I’ll slap harder, and in public.” He sets me down, “After you.”

I walk into the classroom and Chloe hops up and runs over to Kyle and me. “Hey guys! My social studies class was so boring.  Watch out for Mrs. Hopkins. She absolutely terrifies me.”

She sits down, reserving three seats in the back row for us. I take the one to the right and watch as students walk in one by one. Please don’t let him be here. Please don’t let him be here. I pray. I stare at the doorway until the bell rings then I allow myself to relax.

I listen to Ms. Marshall talk about what we’d be learning this year in AP Calculus, and doodle on the back of a sheet of paper she gave us. Before I even know what I’m doing, there’s a heart on my paper with the letters d and a in the middle. I nearly rip a hole in my paper with all the erasing. After ten minutes of class, the door opens. I look, and nearly start crying when I see who it is.