Fierce Electricity [COMPLETED]

Chapter One - Why Me?

Dedicated to KatRocks247 as we both have a thing for hot villians! :)

CHAPTER ONE: Why Me?

“I’ve got to see Harris in his office at lunchtime,” I told Alanna as we packed away our books at the end of a particularly dull English lesson.

“Harris? What does he want?”

I shook my head, at a loss.

“Evie, you’ve not been smoking in the loos again, have you?” She frowned, trying to look disapproving. Her attempt would have been more successful if she hadn’t recently changed her hair colour (yet again) to bright purple. Oh, and if her eyebrow, nose and lip piercings hadn’t made her look more like a punk than a prefect. “Or got caught snogging boys when you should be in lessons?”

I gave her a sarcastic smile. “Lana, you really should warn people when you’re trying to be funny. Like, come in wearing a red nose and big shoes. Maybe bring a custard pie.”

She returned my fake smile with a genuine one of her own. “I’m funny every day. Nonstop comedy. It’s not my fault if you’ve no sense of humour.” As we swung our rucksacks on and headed for the door, she dropped her grin. “Seriously, though, I wonder what he wants. ‘Cause knowing Old Harris, it’s not going to be anything good.”

Over an hour later, I walked up to Harris’ office with Alanna’s prophesy of doom echoing in my head. When I saw who else was waiting outside his closed door, however, I relaxed a little.

“Hi, Adam.” I shuffled up to one of the boys standing in the reception area. “You got called here as well?”

Adam looked at me from beneath a mass of dark hair that trailed all the way down his neck in frizzy strands. He spent too much time on his computer to waste precious seconds by looking in a mirror – or getting a haircut. “Yeah. You know why?”

“No idea. Doesn’t seem like we’re in trouble, though.”

Around us were assembled the biggest geeks and boffins of our year – in other words, all those who, like me, worked hard and tried to get the best possible grades. Not that I counted myself as being a geek. True, I was a sickeningly model student, but there was more to my life than just schoolwork. A lot more.

The office door swung open and Harris appeared. “Ah good, you’re all here. Do come in.” Our little group trooped inside and stood uneasily, twitching, while Harris closed the door firmly behind us. “Good morning one and all,” he announced briskly. “I’ve called you here this morning to give you some news.”

He strode over to his desk and perched on the edge. Tall, skinny and balding, he looked like a classic head teacher with his grey suit, grey tie and slightly-crumpled, too-dirty-to-be-white shirt. Alanna and I had a long-running joke that he lived in the school, sleeping in his office cupboard and switching off over the holidays like some sort of robot, only to reactivate when term started again.

“You ten have been specially selected to be part of our new mentoring program,” he continued, glancing around at us. “All of you are A grade students, the top of your classes. We’ve decided that, as part of your education here, you would benefit from using your knowledge to teach others.”

That sounded ominous. Surely we wouldn’t be replacing the teachers…

“So, we’ve assigned each of you to another student in Year 11, one who could use some support.”

Oh no, this was even worse.

“Rather than attending citizenship lessons, you will take your allocated student and spend the hour with them instead, helping them with their work. You may use the library or one of the study rooms.”