The New Kid: a Noah Beck Fanfiction *completed*

2

Noah and I walked into Spanish together, and Señora Garcia immediately paired us up. "This will be your partner for the semester, so I hope that you two are amigos."
I chuckled lightly as we sat at a pair of desks near the back of the room. "Did you take Spanish at your old school?" I asked, taking a notebook out of my backpack.
"No, I didn't," Noah replied, laughing. "I don't know how I ended up in here."
I laughed. "Don't worry. I'll help you out."

Señora Garcia began class just then. "Tengo un encuesta," she said, passing out papers.
"What did she just say?" Noah whispered to me.
I giggled. "She has a survey."
"Responderá a estas preguntas con sus compañeros."
I didn't wait for Noah to ask. "You will answer these questions with your partners."

"¿Cómo te llamas?" I asked him. "That means  'what is your name?' You respond with 'me llamo...'"
"Okay. Me llamo Noah Beck. ¿Cómo te llamas?"
"¡Bien! Me llamo Grace Johnson. When is your birthday? ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?"
"Mi cumpleaños es," he began, flipping through a Spanish dictionary, "el cuatro de mayo?"
"May fourth?" I asked, causing Noah to nod. "That's good. Mi cumpleaños es el trece de enero, or January thirteenth."
We continued answering questions back and forth, and Noah was doing a better job than he thought. "Are you sure that you never took Spanish?"
He nodded. "Positivo."

The bell rang, and we headed out of class together. "Last class of the day. What have you got?" he asked, pulling his own schedule out of his backpack.
"Econ," I replied, looking at him expectantly.
He sighed. "I have government. Is that near econ? I have no idea where I'm going."
I took his schedule from him, laughing. "It's right next door. I'll take you."

As we made it to the door of his classroom, he stopped me. "Grace? Thank you for being so nice to me today. I really appreciate it."
I shrugged. "It's what I would want someone to do for me." I turned to walk away, and he called out to me again.
"Do you want to hang out sometime?"
The butterflies returned. "For sure," I replied, disappearing into the classroom.

Nessa was sitting near the back of the room, facing away from the door. "Hello, is this seat taken?" I asked, walking up behind her.
"No, you can sit there," she said, turning to look at me. "Grace! I feel like I haven't seen you all day!"
I laughed. "That's because you haven't. Where were you and Josh at lunch?"
Her face flushed and she began to stammer. "Um, I, we-"
"You don't have to tell me. I didn't know that you were in this class, though. I thought you took it over the summer."
Nessa rolled her eyes. "I did. Unfortunately for me, and luckily for you, I didn't pass."

Mr. Miller walked into the room, and everyone grew quiet. He had a reputation for being a tough teacher, and I was worried about how I was going to pass the class.
"Good afternoon, students. I know that this is the last class of the day, and you are all probably a little antsy. We will likely be pretty laid back for the semester. If you tell any of my other classes though, I'll double the workload. I'm trusting you guys here." I let out a sigh of relief. I really couldn't afford to fail this class. If I didn't pass, I wouldn't graduate. "Go ahead and grab a syllabus, and that's it for the rest of the class today. Tomorrow, we'll take a pretest, but like all pretests, it's not a part of your grade."

I turned to look at Nessa. "Does this mean that I might pass?"
She laughed. "You and me both, Gracie."
I began filling her in on the events of lunch. "The new kid, Noah Beck, made friends with Griffin, so he sits with us at lunch now."
"Wait, that's the hot one, right?" she asked.
"Why does everyone keep saying that?" I laughed.
"Well, is it true?" I felt my face flush. "I'll take that as a yes."
"We have calculus and Spanish together, and he asked if I wanted to hang out some time right before I got here."
Nessa looked shocked. "So, he asked you out?"
"No, he didn't ask me out. We're just becoming friends. People hang out when they're trying to become friends. You're definitely reading way too far into it," I replied.
"If your overly lengthy response is any indication, I would say that you have a crush on him."
My mouth dropped open. "I- I- no. It's- no. No, I couldn't possibly."
Nessa laughed. "Keep telling yourself that, sweetie. What are you doing after school?"
"Volleyball. Then, Griff will probably pick me up and drag me to Dixie's, where I'll probably just chill with Charli and do homework. Why?"
"I figured that you would be jumping to hang out with Mr. Beck," she replied, shrugging.

The bell rang, and I met Noah in the hall. "Hey. Are you headed to soccer tryouts?"
He nodded. "Yeah. That's the one thing that I definitely know where I'm going. What time do you get out of volleyball practice tonight?"
My heart skipped a beat. "Um, six. Why?"
"You wanna hang out after? I could really use your help on that Spanish homework."
"Um, sure," I stammered. I never made rash decisions like this, but something about Noah made me feel like I could be reckless.

I met up with Griffin at our lockers. "Hey, you don't have to worry about picking me up after volleyball," I said, spinning my combination.
"I guess it's a good thing that I drove today then, huh?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Noah and I are gonna hang out at his house after I get out of volleyball and he gets out of soccer tryouts." I had hoped that saying it nonchalantly would draw Griffin's attention away from the words, but I could never be that lucky.
"Noah? Like new kid Noah? Like the kid that I just brought to lunch today Noah?"
"Yeah, Griff. What's the big deal?" I asked, slamming my locker shut.
Griffin threw his hands up in surrender. "You're right. Do whatever you want."