Hate Me Closer (Phan)

Chapter Three

The classroom was quite small, but there were only fifteen students in Dan's set, so it didn't need to be that much bigger. The walls were a sickly orange, with maps of Rome blue-tacked to the plaster. The desks were arranged in rows, with a whiteboard at the front and three large windows pressed into the outside wall. Dan couldn't help but stare out of them, watching the birds on the freshly cut grass.

Dan was surprised by the silence of the students as they were sat down, patiently watching Mrs Blackwell as she organised a pile of purple exercise books. In his old school, there wouldn't be a moment of silence until the teacher screamed for them to sit down, throwing their books out to them for the year. Dan didn't even think he could blame it on the smaller class size; the students were better behaved like that.

Mrs Blackwell ran a finger over the class, counting the heads of the students until she stared at the time, then to a register printed onto a folded piece of paper. At that moment, a flustered-looking boy, with his bag half flung over his shoulder and his uniform spotlessly arranged down to the creases on his collar, stood in the doorway of the classroom.

He shyly grinned, "Class 1A?" he asked, looking at the door again, with the number assigned to the room printed in metal positioned in the centre.

"That's right." Mrs Blackwell smiled, "Come take a seat."

"Phil." another boy, sitting at the back of the classroom with his feet crossed on the wooden chair, called out.

"That's the boy who got lost on Saturday." Dan tilted his head towards Chris, who was sat beside him.

"Thought I recognised him," he muttered, taking a book from Mrs Blackwell as she passed them around the class.

"Now, I have to apologise that your first lesson is Latin, but I promise you Maths would be worse." she smiled, and Dan smiled back, "Now, you'll be glad to find out that you don't need to speak it, you just need to read and write it. And, well, you can drop it at the end of this year. If you want to get into Oxbridge, though, it's a good one to have. But even so, take the advice from me, it's easier in your end of year examinations if you pay attention from day one." she scrunched her nose at the class, "I don't know why I say that, no one ever does." she turned to the board, beginning to write out the first of Dan's Latin knowledge.

***

"An Adidas bag?" a boy mocked Dan from behind as they trod along the hallways to their second period, "Are you from a state school?"

"Yeah." Dan mumbled, turning away.

"So am I, Dickhead," Chris defended, "but who's the ones with the scholarships, huh?"

"I'm still in top set." the boy whined.

"Still not a scholarship." Chris rolled his eyes, smiling at Dan whose cheeks were burning red.

Dan stared at the two boys ahead of them, knowing Phil's name, but not his supposed friend who walked by his side and invited him to sit beside him in class. He saw the brown curls in a mop on the nameless boy's head, and when he turned around to inspect the small confrontation, his overtly green eyes. He seemed to be having a one-sided conversation with Phil, who didn't seem like the talkative type.

"So," Chris began to ask, "what's your worst memory from your last school?"

"Right," Dan thought, "I fell off my chair into a bin because I swung on it too much." he laughed, "It wouldn't have been bad if I didn't have gum in my hair after."

"Ew." Chris grimaced, "Not as bad as eating with a teacher at lunch because you had hayfever so bad it looked like you were crying."

"Oh, no..." Dan sighed sympathetically, grinning as he shook his head.

"C20, here's our Biology classroom." Chris pointed out, leading the two of them to the back seats of the room. At least the walls weren't orange, instead a light cream, but the building still looked better from the outside.

"I'm Mr James," the teacher began, "Make my life hell, I'll make yours hell. Make my classes enjoyable, I'll make them enjoyable for you. Got it? Here's your books." he was a tall figure, probably in his forties, with round, silver glasses pushed up on his nose, framing his sharp features.

"He's hot." Chris shrugged, smirking towards Dan with his eyebrows raised, but the older boy ignored his comment, fiddling with the end of his tie as he lost interest in the subject already.

Dan was noticeable in a crowd. He wasn't significantly tall, or short, in fact, he was a completely average height. But, while the boys' white shirts were extensively ironed, to be hung in their cupboards on arrival, with their black school trousers were perfectly pressed and tailored, Dan's wasn't quite so neat. He wore his shirt half-untucked, black socks instead of grey, his tie already had a crease down the middle, and his navy blazer hung off the ends of his fingers. He slouched when he walked and his arms hung about three inches too long for the rest of his body, "You'll grow into them." his mother repeated countless times, but Dan started to believe he wasn't going to grow.

He caught the back of Phil's head, noticing how much taller he was than everyone else in the class. Although, for the lanky boy who would walk regularly between classes with his bag accidentally unzipped, height wouldn't be his advantage, it would just be another thing to make him awkwardly stand out.

"How long's break, next?" Chris asked Dan halfway through Biology.

"Uh, thirty minutes. Why?" Dan responded, staring mindlessly out of the window, despite being on the other side of the classroom.

"Do you think we go back to Hepburn?"

"I'm not sure. Probably? There's not much space for four-hundred kids in the corridors." Dan eyed Chris, "What did you forget?"

"Calculator for Maths..." they giggled.

"You two, what are your names?" Mr James asked.

"Dan," Dan replied.

"Chris," Chris replied.

"Don't make me learn them for the wrong reasons. Keep your mouths shut, it's only twenty minutes until break."

"I still think he's hot," Chris murmured.

Mr James wrote on the whiteboard as he sighed, "Thank you, but that doesn't give you brownie points."