The Heart Beats in its Cage (A Strokes fan fiction)

Homeroom

After the embarrassment that Danny and Heather put me through, I thought to myself that anything that happens the rest of today won't be as bad.  I mean, what can be more embarrassing than getting humiliated in front of your life long crush?

Danny, Heather, and I went into the school's main office together. The lady at the desk was an elegant woman with a sweet face. She looked to be about in her 60's. She had long red nails, matching pearl earrings/necklace combo, and red lipstick. She seemed really busy, answering phone calls and writing down memos. We stood there for what seemed like ten minutes before she even noticed we were there. She seemed so busy that we didn't want to bother her.

"Hi girls, what can I help you with? Wait a second, let me guess. You guys are freshmen correct?" She said in a sweet voice. We nodded.

"And you have no idea where to go, right?" We nodded once again.

"Ugh, I'm terribly sorry dears. I took a vacation and they hired a temp to do all of my work. She was a dimwit, let me tell you guys." She told us the last part quiet, raising a hand to her mouth as if telling us a secret. "She was supposed to mail a letter out to all of the new students containing their new schedules. I had to make hundreds of phone calls letting all of the new kiddos know about the assembly today at 8:00 am welcoming the incoming freshmen." She sighed and asked us our full names then began shuffling through paperwork.

"Ah, here it is. Okay, so thank goodness you girls are here early. Just head over to the auditorium and have a seat. Just go straight through these doors and turn left. Keep going all the way left and turn the corner another left. There should be a big poster with 'Welcome New Students' on it. You can't miss it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make an announcement right now."

We thanked her and were relieved that we still had fifteen minutes left to go. There were a few other kids in the office standing behind us, no doubt in the same position that we were. We noticed that they followed us out trying to figure out where to go too.

We followed the lady's directions and eventually came upon the huge poster that by the looks of it, was probably done by some student. It was a bright red poster, with 'Welcome Freshman to Lincoln High!' in blue and white brush strokes, and had rainbow of hand prints surrounding the borders of the poster.

The auditorium was huge inside, and looked really old. All of the seats were made of aged wood and looked like they had been there for a few decades. There were three sections of seats on the bottom floor. The one in the middle was where -what I'm assuming are the freshman- were sitting. A bunch of kids in the front row looked very young, and scared out of their minds. We sat in the middle, because we weren't "bad" enough to sit in the back, but we weren't exactly going to sit in the front row either. As we sat down the lights dimmed, and a huge white screen rolled down. A man with a gray suit and red tie walked up to the stage with a microphone.

"Good morning new students! My name is Mr. Wilson, and I would like to welcome you to your freshman year here at Lincoln High School!"

A few of us clapped, but I swore I could hear crickets at that exact moment. High schoolers. He kept on talking, but I couldn't hear a word of it because for one, he had a voice that could lull anyone off to sleep. Secondly, Danny and Heather kept whispering loudly to each other.

"What are you guys on about?" I asked them. Danny pointed behind me, there were two very cute boys smiling and waving over at us. We waved back and smiled as well.

"High school isn't too bad. I think I'm going to like it." Danny whispered to me.

The bell rung and the principal finished off his speech with, "Good luck to you all! I hope you have a good time here at Lincoln High! And remember, if you have any questions or any problems here with the older kids, please do not hesitate to come to me. As I said, good luck!"

"That was a beautiful speech. 'If you have any problems here with the older kids, do not hesitate to come to me' yeah right ya doof." Heather said as she laughed. "Which homeroom did you guys get?"

There was an enormous white poster with all of the freshman names on it, and next to our names there were classroom numbers along with the names of what I assume are our new homeroom teachers. We looked up our names, and were ecstatic to find that we all had the same one. We looked at each with the biggest grin from ear to ear. We marched over to our homeroom class arm in arm. There was a paper taped to the door that said, 'ran to get your class schedules from the office, please wait outside the door'. We leaned against the lockers in the hallway outside of the classroom. The whole class were whispering to each other, a few "hi my name is" were exchanged.

Across the hallway a teacher opened his door suddenly, and was telling someone to go stand outside in the hall very angrily. Everyone got quiet and were staring in that direction.

"Get out of my class Casablancas, and stand in the hallway until I come out here and tell you to come back inside!" Casablancas? Could it be? Sure enough, it was.

He was walking out into the hallway smiling, telling the teacher to chill out and take a joke. "I will not chill out. Now stay here, and you better not roam around the school either or Wilson will hear about this!"

"It's the first day of school teach, lighten up will ya? Speaking of lightening up, have you got a lighter I can borrow?" Julian said as he put a smoke into his mouth.

The teacher yanked it out and walked back into the classroom. Julian looked up at our class, who were all staring at him. He made a confused face and said, "What the fuck are you kids staring at?" 

Everyone turned to themselves quickly, and resumed to their conversations. I guess he scared them. "You guys wouldn't happen to have a light, would ya?" He said. A few kids shook their heads. "Shit."

He sunk into the floor, having one leg extended out, the other with his knee up. Heather and Danny turned their backs to him, starting up a conversation about some band Danny discovered. I wasn't paying much attention to them. I was looking over at Jules. Why is he so damn good-looking? Suddenly, he looked over in my direction, and had a mischievous smile. I looked around me to see who he was smiling at. He tilted his head up at me as if to say what's up, and pointed at me. He was smiling at... me? My stomach did somersaults. I couldn't help but blush, and smile back. At that exact moment our homeroom teacher arrived.

"Right, hello class my name is Mr. Teller. I will be your homeroom teacher for your entire high school career. So I really do hope we all get along." He said raising his eyebrows at us. He had a bit of scruffiness, as if he hadn't shaved in days. His eyes were a piercing shade of blue. He had neat blonde hair brushed back into a 40's style. But, perhaps best of all, he had an English accent. Indeed this was the most gorgeous teacher any of us had ever encountered.

All the girls sat in their desks gazing at him. He called us up, one by one, to give us our class schedule. The bell rang. "I wish you all good luck on your first day." said Mr. Teller.

Danny and Heather waved goodbye at him as we left the classroom and smiled flirtatiously. "You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. He's a teacher you ho bags!" I said laughing.

"Did you look at him? He was gorgeous!" Danny said.

We stood outside the classroom studying our schedules. The only classes we didn't all have together were gym class, music, art, and math class with Danny.

"Hey at least we've got a couple of classes together! Plus homeroom." I assured them. We were all sad because this meant we would actually have to separate. I began to look around the hallway, trying to catch a glimpse of Julian. But he had disappeared already.

I started walking towards my music class. I kept hoping that I wouldn't get lost, irrational anxiety I guess. This school isn't so big that I would get too lost, but it's foreign territory to me.

"Hey it's my ex-girlfriend! Hey, you! The girl that walks around yelling out that she doesn't love me." I turned around. I hadn't even noticed that I had walked right past him in my anxious state.

"Wait up Lu." He was grabbing a folder and a pencil out of his locker. He shut his locker closed, put his pencil behind his ear, and started walking towards me. 

Oh no... 

My heart started beating so rapidly I thought it would burst. I stood there like a deer in headlights, just staring up at him approaching me. I probably look like a spaz. 

BE COOL LU, BE COOL, I thought to myself.