Metal Heart

Chapter Four

I entered my next class, and sat next to the boy who called himself James. I had a friend called James back in Robotron. His full name was James-Matthew-Benedict-Cuthbert-Bonquiqui-Elijah, but everyone just called him James for obvious reasons.

“Oh, hey!” James said to me, “You're the guy from earlier! You've got a good arm. You should join the team.”

I still did not understand what that meant, as my arm was no different to the arm of a human. Then again, I wasn't human. But nobody needed to know that, not yet. Actually, they never needed to-

“Are you gonna say something, or what?” James laughed.

“Oh! Right.” I replied, “What's up... dude?”

There was a brief moment of silence. Did I say something wrong? Was dude an offensive word? Had I just made the entire classroom hate me?

“Right...” James said.

“James and Rexer! Why are you talking during my lesson?” The teacher shouted.

“Why are you teaching during our conversation?” James replied.

“James Fletcher! You have detention!” The teacher yelled.

I didn't know what detention was, but it didn't sound good. Why would the teacher give him detention if it was a good thing? I still had no idea how Earth worked, but I knew that a teacher wouldn't be nice to you if you misbehaved.

“Try to pay attention, Rexer. It'll make my job easier.” The teacher sighed.

The class was easy. Then again, every class on Earth was easy. Not like it was on Robotron, where you had to learn things that were so complicated it would make an Earthling's head explode into pieces which would then burst into flames. Well, that's what I was told. \

At lunchtime, I was approached by James.

“Yo, dude. Why didn't you stick up for me?” He said.

“Was I supposed to?” I replied. On Robotron we didn't “stick up” for each other. On Robotron, it was every man for himself. Apart from in the rare circumstance that the planet was being attacked by giant Armadillos. That happened once, and I still hope that it will never happen again.

“Dude. Not cool. I've got detention now.” James sighed.

James walked away, and I got the feeling that I had just ruined any chances of a friendship. Never mind, I wasn't here to make friends. On Robotron, everyone was friends with everyone. We never had to “get to know each other”. Everyone was just automatically friends.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Suddenly, I saw Katrina. I walked over to her.

“Hey Rexer!” She exclaimed, “How are you?”

“I'm okay.” I replied.

“I saw you talking to James.” Katrina said, “Are you two friends?”

“Well...” I started saying.

“That doesn't sound good.” Katrina replied, “What happened?”

“Nothing.” I sighed.

“So, anyway, you won't believe what just happened to me!” Katrina squealed.

She started telling me what had happened...