Heart Of Gold

3 - Aurelia.

3 - Aurelia.

"Aaron Edginton has The Eye," Nadia hisses to me as I am dragged along the corridor to our English Lit lesson after lunch. "Don't look at him."

Shaking my head at her, I simply fiddle with the loose threaded-button on my blazer. My best friend enjoys putting boys down and undermining them. I don't think I will ever see her with a boyfriend, but then again, I can't ever see me with one either. Just for different reasons which I can't think into right now too much.

English Literature is the part of the day I've been looking forward to since I woke up this morning. Now I've gotten through stupid Maths and stupid Physics this morning, I can settle down and listen to Mrs Downton go on and on about a book and I won't mind one bit and I won't have to strain my head to concentrate.

"Look at him!" Nadia forces me into a seat in the back of the room, flinging her bag on the floor and then snapping her gum. Strawberry, of course - Hubba Bubba. I can smell the sweet, almost-goneness of it.

I glance over to the front of the room to see that we do have Aaron Edgington in our class, with his blond hair and all. Flicking it left right and centre. Looking over at every girl.

"Definitely has The Eye," I mutter under my breath. Then I take out my pens and pencils, my ruler, my notebook. I am ready for a nice long lesson, one which I can lose myself in.

The Eye saying started out last year when we read Of Mice And Men, and learnt about Curley's wife and how she chased around after various men who were not Curley. All the men would say that she had the eye.

From then on, after conferring, Nadia and I would say that about anyone who had a girlfriend or boyfriend but was looking at others in interest.

"I told you not to look," Nadia giggles softly and then crosses her legs, staring out the window as if she never said anything.

Footsteps from the door behind me and the words "Empty your mouth into the rubbish bin, Nadia Patel," announce the teacher's arrival. She's a blonde of around forty and always wears formal black and white suits, dangerous high-heels, and a thick layer of melted foundation.

As Nadia gets up to walk over to the bin with her now-tasteless bubble gum, I catch a smile from my other side, from a pretty girl called Serena Dixon. She's alone a lot of the time and she's sort of quietly hopeful for friends.

Maybe the fact that she's the girlfriend of one of the most-loved boys in our year, Reuben Young, is why many people don't take a shine to her. Jealousy. He isn't in this class. But I've never had a problem with Serena and I don't understand why girls would never talk to her just because of how much they wish they were her.

After the register, Mrs Downton sits on her desk and starts to converse with the front row. Our school isn't like all those schools you read about or see in films. The loud, confident, excitable people sit at the front, such as Aaron Edginton. In fact, everyone on the front row is a boy, and a part of the football squad. People with a limited circle of friends sit at the back; the further back you go, the quieter you are in public, until the back row get forgotten about. Serena, Nadia and I make up the back row here.

"Sonnets," announces Mrs Downton. Serena flicks her auburn hair subtly, seen from the corner of my eye. "What are they?"

"Shakespeare wrote 'em," someone calls out.

The teacher's small eyes flick around the class, looking for the speaker. "Good. Good. But not just him. Anyone ever heard of Francesco Petrarch? Dante? John Maxwell? Elizabeth Barett Browning?"

A few nods, including one from me. And as Downton goes on to explain about Petrarchan sonnets and Elizabethan sonnets and octaves and sestets, Nadia slides a piece of paper across the desk to me as she chews on her Swarovski pink pen, with which she has written the words