What You Needed

Chapter 2

Once the woman opens the door to my new class I immediately notice a young man with brown matted hip length dreadlocks standing at the front. He's wearing a white t- shirt with a black cross on it, these weird patterned colourful trousers that finish just before his ankles and flipflops. He's lecturing the rest of the class about some sort of environmentally friendly paint that's meant to protect wildlife in Africa before he notices me and the Lady in front.

"Hey miss, how are ya?" His voice sounds like a typical surfer dude and I can't tell if he's putting it on or not.

"Fine Mr Lancaster, this is one of your new students, Billie Edwards." She says, eying up and down his strange outfit.

He looks over to me and reaches out his arms for a hug, awkwardly I return the gesture as he pats on my back.

"Hey Billie, welcome to my humble home." He says, while proudly looking around the class filled with all sorts of strange artwork and sculptures. "Call me Mr L."

I'm really shy around new people. Especially when they are so confident like this, so I just nod at him, smiling.

"Hey everyone, say hello to Billie." The whole class just stare at me before a creepy synchronised 'hello' falls out of their dull mouths. These people don't look like your typical art students, in fact they all look pretty normal.

"Billie's gonna be here for a while so you guys gotta get used to her." I feel slightly insulted by Mr L but I decide to ignore it.

"Well, take a seat then Billie, there's two empty spaces over there." The woman says, directing me to the back of the class.

I feel everyone's eyes on me as I walk over to my seat, dodging everyone's bags scattered across the floor. The last thing I need to do is trip over in front of everyone on my first day. Once I put my rucksack down on the floor. Mr L comes over and hands me a large note pad that I think is my art book.

"Thanks." I say taking the book from his hands.

"Don't lose this, it is the ultimate key to expressing yourself, so treat it with respect. It should be like your bible from here and now on. " He says, looking lost in his own weird thoughts.

"Right, Okay." I reply, while flicking through the pages in the book.

"You'll see I've written some tips in the back for how to get started and stuff, I know it seems dumb but it really does help." He seems like a really nice person, once you get passed the whole hippie act.

About half way through the lesson, the class is silent. Everyone is focused on their projects including me, but nothing is coming to my mind. I begin to think about earlier and the boy with the spray paint and how he made it look so easy to just paint something. Even though I can't stand spray painters, I wonder what his inspiration was, what made him leave his house at 8am and start painting on some wall. His painting was strange, I can't remember it exactly what it was but the colours were so dull and blue. The only thing that was vibrant was the letter 'H' in red. But even that was still hidden away in the corner.

I shake myself from my thoughts as I hear the door swing open and heavy footsteps follow behind it. I look in shock up to see it is the same boy I saw this morning. Weirdly, the same one I was just thinking about. Why is he here? He really didn't look like the type to actually attend art classes. I stare at him with confusion as Mr L walks up to him.

"Dude, seriously? There's only like twenty minutes left. You may as well of not even showed up. " Mr L says to the boy, standing in front of the whole class.

"Oh just be grateful I showed up, you hippie." He says to Mr L, uninterested.

Everyone giggles slightly including me from the boys remark.