The Ninja, The Artist, and a new place *major edits*

Chapter one: Leo, The ninja

I was sitting at my normal table, usually I sat by myself, but today I was being accompanied by one of my few sort of friends Jacob. We were having a conversation about one of our new teachers, Mr. Flyer. New school year, new teachers, a few new students too. The cafeteria is fairly big. That's because all the sixth and seventh graders eat together. Shaped like a huge dome with a bland yellow color and dark blue trim, it kind of felt like you were inside a giant snow globe without the snow.

Suddenly Jacob paused, tilted slightly to his right, and looked over my shoulder as a look of horror and fear started spreading across his face. Before I could even turn around I was being lifted off my chair into the air by the back of my shirt.

"Where's my lunch money runt?" said a gruff voice behind me. Oh crap, I thought, Caleb.

       "I spent it." I said, trying to play it cool. "You know, on my lunch. Seeing as it my lunch money and all."

Not many people were paying too much attention, this happened a lot in our cafeteria, but we did have a lot of the sixth grader's attention. Poor kids. Middle school is a scary enough thing on its own, and this little scene probably wasn't making them feel any better. Most of them had paused eating and were looking at us.

Caleb was one of those bullies you thought you would only see in the movies. He is huge, twice the size he probably should be for his age, sounds like an idiot, and he even scared the lunch ladies. He has jet black hair, styled like someone dumped tar on his head, and a pudgy nose, with a stocky frame and terrible fashion sense. He wore the same shirt almost every day, and the color was a terrible brown-green-red hybrid color that looked like someone had thrown up on him and he just never decided to clean it up. But I bravely continued.

"If you had told me that you needed some lunch money to get yourself some food, I might have brought you some." He grunted and dropped me. I landed on my ankle and it twisted under me as I fell on my butt. I got up with much effort, my ankle throbbing.

"I could bring some tomorrow, seeing as your clearly not smart enough to remember to bring some of yo-" I never got to finish, because he sucker punched me in the gut and I collapsed on the cafeteria floor, gaping like a dead fish. Or almost dead fish anyway. Do you know what it feels like, being punched in the stomach? Cause it hurts, like, a lot. You can't breathe, and even though you were presumably only punched in the gut, everything hurts. All you can do is lay there, gasping, your lungs searching for air and coming up empty.

Looking down at my foot to make sure it was facing the right way, I saw Caleb's gray brown boot flying towards my stomach and braced for impact. But I felt nothing. I opened my eyes and saw his other boot fly past me and then felt an earth quake. Okay, it wasn't an earth quake, but it may as well have been. There was a huge thump and the ground shook beneath me, and suddenly I was sliding across the floor. It felt nice for about two seconds, then my shoulder hit a table leg. "Ow," I muttered. Then I was being lifted off the ground and placed on a bench.

"Put your hands behind your head" Said a voice next to me.

"Jazz, ice pack." Almost immediately I felt something cold on the shoulder. I tried to turn my head to see who was talking, but then the first voice said sternly,

"No, just stay put for a sec and enjoy the show." I turned back towards the center of the cafeteria and saw Caleb laying in the middle of the floor with a bloody nose, and a girl bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet above him in sparring stance.

She was about the same height as me with long black hair that, even in a high pony tail, was past her waist. She looked Punjabi to me, I glanced over and saw her purple flip flops a few feet away. Caleb got up and swung at the girl. She leapt out of the way easily and attacked him with the grace of and speed of a cat, side stepping and bringing his fist behind him, holding it between his shoulder blades. He whimpered and fell to his knees, she held him fast, pulling him tighter.