Tree Hugger

Making Friends

"Ready for your first day honey?" Alana's mother called from the kitchen.

"Almost!" Alana responded.

After about a minute, the young lady was rushing down the staircase, taking her lunch, kissing her mother and father on the cheek, and was out the door. This was Alana's first day at her new school, her family had just moved to this town from New York. The constant rush of the big city was too much for them, so they decided to move to the quite country town of Hellena Valley.

After a short walk, Alana had reached the school, and was entering it for the first time. "Hello, how may I help you?" an old, but pleasant lady said from behind a desk in the main office.

"Hi, my name's Alana, this is my first day" Alana responded, her nerves evident in her voice.

"Ah yes, just one moment please".

The lady went and checked some paperwork that was under the desk, while she did that, Alana looked around at the photo's on the wall.

There were a few images of students with academic achievement, but most photo's were of the schools athletes. In the reflection of the glass covering the photos, Alana noticed herself. She was not tall by any means, she was about average size. She had freckles on her nose and her hair was long, wavy, and blonde. Rather pretty, but not enough to really be noticed by anyone. She turned her gaze back to the actual photos, and Alana saw a boy about her age who had his photo up there many times, Lachlan Harrison. He had photo's from year seven up to year ten, and Alana guessed that he would probably be up there again for year eleven this year. Before she got a chance to look at his achievement, the office lady called her over.

"So Alana, your year eleven subject choices are Mathematics, Biology, Earth and Environmental Studies, Advanced English, Music, and Geography, is that correct?" the lady asked her.

"Yes, that sounds right" Alana responded.

"Well everything seems ok, three subjects about how the earth works? You must really love nature!" the lady chuckled, "follow me please".

The lady was right, Alana did love nature, probably more than anyone. She had a sort of...gift, when it came to the Earth. She could make plants grow rapidly, she could summon winds, call the rain, and basically control the environment. It was a talent that she had possessed ever since she could remember. But she never let her parents know, she didn't want them to think she was a freak.

After a brief tour of the school, the bell rang to signify the start of the first class. Alana used the timetable that the lady from the office had given her to find her first class, biology. She stood behind a lab bench while she waited for the rest of the class to enter the room, and choose a bench. There were three people on each table, but Alana stood alone, until two boys came in laughing between themselves. After a quick glance around the room, they stood next to Alana at her lab bench.

"Hi, I'm Lachlan!" one of the boys said, "I haven't seen you before! Are you new? I love new people! New people are so great! That's why I love them because they are great! Don't you agree new people are great?".

Alana just stood there for a moment trying to take in everything that he had said.

"Um...what did you say again?" she responded after a while.

"What my friend here is trying to say, is that he is very happy to meet you" the other boy said, thankfully at a normal pace, "My name's Kyle by the way".

"Hi" Alana said quickly, she was still extremely nervous of the new school.

"You seem nervous. Are you nervous? I don't think you should be! We are very friendly people, and like we said we love new people! And your a new person, that makes us love you! And I think you really should rela-" Lachlan sped before being cut of by a man who stood at the front of the room.

"Enough babbling Lachlan" the man said, he was obviously a teacher, and had experienced the constant flow of words from this guy.

The lesson went smoothly, and after a while, Lachlan seemed to calm down and speak at an understandable pace. Whenever he answered a question, he was correct, and it soon became clear that he was definitely intelligent. When the lesson ended, Alana went off to her other subjects and found the two boys in all of them.

"Are you guys following me?" Alana joked.

"We could ask you the same question" Kyle retorted.

"Hmmm, maybe we should just check her stalker list?" Lachlan said before snatching Alana's timetable from her desk, "Just as I suspected! She is in all...wait, no...5 of our classes!".

"Oh, that is the sort of thing a stalker would do" Kyle said, nodding.

"I'm not a stalker!" she told them, pretending to be hurt, "I guess we're just lucky".

"Aw, we don't do music" Lachlan said, handing her back the bit of paper, "What music thingy do you play?".

"I'm a singer" Alana told them.

"Oh! Sing us a song!" Lachlan bubbled.

"Maybe later, now shush!" Alana whispered, redirecting her attention back to her work.

Throughout the day she learnt quite a lot about her new friends. Lachlan was a runner (hence all the photo's in the office), who was the youngest in a family of four older brothers and one older sister. He seemed happy to share information about his personal life, but Alana still felt that there was something that he wasn't telling her. Kyle was an only child who was an outed homosexual and soccer player, his family's Italian, but he never had an accent. Alana told them about herself, but left the bit about her power out. She had also noticed more about the guys appearances (I mean, how could she stop herself?). Lachlan was average size, but sported incredibly strong legs and a defined jawline, he had dark black hair, a light skin tone, and was very tall. Kyle on the other hand was very skinny, but extremely muscly, he had olive skin, brown hair, and was even taller than Lachlan. Kyle also had an extremely defined six-pack that Alana noticed whenever his shirt lifted.

When the day ended Alana began to walk home. Before long, she noticed Kyle and Lachlan run up beside her.

"Are you sure you guys aren't following me?!" Alana said surprised at their appearance.

"We live this way" Lachlan told her, "Where do you live?".

When she told them her address Kyle shouted, "Hey! That's the house next to mine!".

"Oh, I know where that is then! Come on, let's have a race!" Lachlan yelled before bolting off.

Kyle followed him laughing. Alana adjusted her bag strap, and ran off after them.

Kyle was fast, but Lachlan was incredibly fast. Alana was by no means a good runner, but she didn't like loosing. With a sly wave of her hand, and strong gust of wind propelled her forward. She still wasn't faster than the boys, but she was hot on the heels of Kyle. When Kyle and Alana reached their houses, they found Lachlan waiting there, he hadn't even broken a sweat.

"Wow you guys are slow. Oh well, see you both tomorrow!" Lachlan shouted, before bolting off again.

"Show off" Kyle mumbled after the two of them had caught their breath.

"How is he so fast?" Alana puffed.

"Um, he's just..."Kyle started before getting flustered and saying, "I need to go inside now, bye".

Alana watched him look back before closing his front door. There was defiantly something odd about those two, but then again, who was she to judge. When she walked into her own house, she was greeted by her mother.

"Hey! You made some friends!" her mother told her, like it was the greatest thing in the world.

"Yeah" Alana responded briefly.

"That tanned guy was cute" her mother said, winking to her.

"Gay" Alana said smiling.

"Damn, always the good looking ones" her mother said disappointed, before perking up, "What about the one who kept running?".

Alana chuckled to herself, "Not my speed".