Pricked

3. Friends

Chapter 3: Friends

The second day of school was much the same as the first day. The only difference was the classes I was taking. As for the homework load, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. But I suppose the fact that I wasn't in any clubs or sports and didn't have any friends, kind of makes that statement count for hardly any true accuracy points. On Wednesday though, a lot more people came to school than before, making it a lot more crowded and overwhelming. When I stepped into my first period class, history, I realized that this was where all of the cheerleaders had been...and jocks. I sat in the far back while almost everybody else remained standing, chatting with their friends. Everything was so much louder now than my first day, everyone's words just turned into a jumble of white noise: meaningless and impossible to understand.

After a few minutes a girl wavy dark hair walked over to me. "Hi, you must be that new girl that people were talking about, I'm Rachel."

"Katherine."

"So, how long have you been in town? I haven't really seen you around."

"A couple months."

"Yeah? Where are you staying?"

"With Paul."

"Paul? You mean Paul Silver?" I nodded.

"Are you guys related or something?" I nodded. When I took on the name of Katherine, with it I adopted the Paul and Mary's last name: Silver.

"No way! How-" "Good morning class!" the teacher interrupted her as he walked in. She slid down into the seat next to me. She didn't say anything to me for the rest of class- I could tell that she was really studious and was interested in the subject matter. At the end of class though, as I was heading out the door, she came up to me again. "Hey, Katherine- right?"

"Yes?"

"Can I call you Kath or Katie or something? I mean, that's if it's okay with you."

"Sure," it would just be another name that I would have to get used to people calling me.

"So, Katie," she said, trying it out, "who do you hang out with in this junkyard? I mean, I know you can't have any friends nearly as awesome as me, but perhaps someone you think is a little cool.

I was embarrassed to say it, but I didn't see any way around it, "I haven't really found a group yet."

Her face lit up, "That's great!" she looped her arm through mine, "That means you can hang out with me! Come on, I'll show you the group."

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"Hey, hey, hey guys!" she spoke into a group of people, her arm still hanging onto mine, making me increasingly uncomfortable. "Guyyyz!" Still no one acknowledged her. "HEY!!!!", she yelled, probably drawing the attention of the entire cafeteria to us. Everyone from the table looked up at her smiling, now completely quiet. "That's better. Guys, this is Katherine. She's new and she is now officially apart of our gang."

A corrous of 'hey's, 'hi's, 'how's it going's, and 'what's up's greeted me. My face heated up under everyone's attention. I tried to reply, but found I couldn't speak and just nodded at them all. Seemingly satisfied, the other end of the table went back to talking, occasionally glancing back up at me.

"I'll introduce you to the guys over here; don't want to overwhelm you on the first day. This is Janae," she gestured at a short girl with curly brown-black hair. "That's Trey."

"Hey," said the dark boy sitting next to Janae...were they siblings?

"Those two are Charlie and Megan. They have all their classes together and I think that they are literally attached at the hip." The ginger ducked her head to hide a blush while the brown haired boy pulled her closer to him while the smile on his face grew bigger. They were lucky to be so happy together.

"And that's Rhyssa."

Rhyssa seemed familiar to me. She looked at me before sniffing the air. "You're the one that's been practicing under my mother." I blushed; that's where I knew her from. She had been at my training sessions with Morgana- that must be who she was referring to.

"She's training under your mother?" Rachel inquired, "Why didn't you tell me?" I shrugged as she pulled two chairs up to the table. "Here, you can sit next to me." I felt Rhyssa's eyes on me as I sat down, making me fidget around with discomfort.

"So, Katherine, where did you live before you came here?" Janae asked me. I felt their eyes upon me, waiting for my answer.

"Nowhere, really."

"Come on, you must have lived somewhere..." Rachel said.

As I searched for a way to get out of the question I heard someone speak up for me, "Drop it; she doesn't have to answer."

Rachel and Janae glanced at Rhyssa before grimly going back to their lunches. No one asked me any more questions for the rest of lunch. Obviously Rhyssa was someone that people respected and did not want to cross. Just by looking at her I knew that I did not want to be on her bad side either. There was something about her that reminded me of her mother, Morgana; a dangerous air that made it very clear that she could easily kill anyone who meant to harm her.

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I waved back at Rachel and her friends when I got into Mary's car. "So, how was your 3rd day of school?" Mary asked me after we pulled out of the lot. 

"I made some friends," I told her. She smiled down at me, "I'm so glad! But I'm sure that means you'll be busy -off with them- this weekend." I wasn't too sure; I mean, I just met them...Did I even have a right to consider them my friends? "Paul will be so happy for you."

That's right... I'd forgotten; friends are people that know your secrets. But those people didn't know mine, so they couldn't be my friends- right? I sighed. I was too inexperienced with this whole 'friend' thing. Goodness knows the closest friend I ever had was Trent- but that was when I was five. He was the closest I ever came to a human- he actually knew about my dad- but then he moved and I haven't heard from him since.

Benji, he's the one I was really close too. I raised him since he was born- bottle fed him and everything. Although a tiger is a strange animal to consider a friend, he was the only one that knew about me. "So, are you going to help me with dinner?" Mary's question broke me out of my reverie.

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Hey all, so this one came a lot sooner. I am going to upload some pictures to give a better idea of what these people look like but I am still searching the web- will let you all know when they're up and running! COMMENT!