3 Chapter 3

"Hey Ava! Come sit with us." Jade shouted from her table.

I walked slowly to the table, enjoying the stares. I saw some girls whispering about me. As I got closer to the table the whispers became louder.

"Who's she?"

"Why would Jade ask anyone to sit at her table?"

"The new chick's hot."

At this point, I didn't seem to enjoy the whispers anymore. Who did they think they were.

"Do you guys have nothing better to do than whisper about me? Oh yeah, apparently I'm not supposed to be able to hear you. Newsflash, I'm not deaf." I said, glaring at everyone.

I sat down at the table with my lunch to see Jade clapping slowly at me.

"Nice." she complemented me.

I said my thanks and accepted that people wanted to whisper about me. Who was I to control what they wanted to say. Everyone at the table introduced themselves. I already knew Jade, but the only other person I knew was the boy from acting class.

"Beck."

"André."

"Cat."

I got confused at the last one. Cat? What kind of name was that?

"Like the animal?" I directed my question to the red headed girl.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asks accusingly, clearly hurt.

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry. I like cats." I apologized, my mouth twitched upward at the end.

"Me too! Hahaha." she said with joy painted across her face. Weird...

"Hey guys!" the ventriloquist guy said nervously slowly sitting down at his table.

"Who's the hot chick?" his puppet asked.

A genuine smile plastered across my face. I had a feeling I would like all these people.

•

The school day had ended surprisingly quickly. The lessons were fun and they were very interactive. It was nothing like my old school.

"Hey guys." I greeted my new friends from lunch.

"Oh hey there Ava. We all kinda noticed your locker is a bit... plain. You should decorate it." André told me. I looked at the plain blue locker, it's boring color sticking out like a sore thumb against the contrast of different lockers. Some had beaches painted against them, another had been painted multicolored.

I guess it was time for me to spice up locker.

•

My hands were full of different colors of dried paint. I stood back and looked at my work. I was quite proud of it.

I had decided to paint the Hogwarts castle from Harry Potter. The starry blue night made the silhouette of the castle stand out. In case it was not recognizable enough, a large man in a coat with hair practically covering his whole face was painted on the corner of my locker, which was supposed to be Hagrid.

I admired my work with pride. I had never painted something on a locker, or painted something for this amount of time actually. My muscles in my arms burned, pleading me to stop. I noticed my shirt and jeans had paint splattered all over. I groaned. Great, more things to wash off. I packed my art supplies in my bag and hoisted up to my back. I sighed in relief. That was another thing done.

I walked out of school in a daze. I was thinking about how my life was already way better then my old life.

•

Pushing open the doors, I walked into school again, my converse shoes clomping against the ground.

Hollywood Arts High School was no different. The only difference was that today there were people breakdancing on the stairs. Different people swarmed the halls, packed in their own friend groups. I walked over to my locker, and looked at the other lockers around. Why had I only now noticed that there was a locker full of baby bottle caps near mine? As I opened by locker, I heard a sniffing sound from behind me. As a natural reflex, I turned around and punched the person in the face. He got pushed back and tripped onto the floor. He lay on the ground, rubbing his jaw.

"What was that for?"

"For sniffing me. Don't come near me." I barked.

The poor kid scrambled up on his feet and ran the opposite direction. I saw Jade walk my direction. I told her what happened, and I heard her swear under her breath that she was going to kill 'Sinjin'. As though Jade was like a magnet, Beck walked over.

"I saw what happened." he said.

"And you didn't do anything." she smiled sickly sweetly. Sarcasm filled her voice. Beck rolled his eyes in response.

"I was busy." he retaliated.

"Busy sucking another girl's face off?" Jade accused him.

"What? No-" Beck tried defend himself, but ended up being cut off.

"You sure? Cause saw a girl flirting with you."

"We weren't-"

"I'm just going to walk away now..." I said, slowly backing away.

"No!" the couple yelled in unison.

I scampered back to them. I was kinda scared to be honest.

"Ava, tell Jade she's being unreasonable."

"Oh so you think I'm being unreasonable?"

"What I'm saying is that you should try to understand things from my point."

"Here's what I understand; you let another girl flirt with you."

"She was flirting with me! I didn't flirt back."

I rolled my eyes. Oh my lord. This was taking forever. I pushed the both of them together.

"Jade, think of it as the girl's fault. Beck, just stop talking. You're making things worse."

I pushed them even closer, to the point that there was almost no space in between.

"Forgive me?" Beck asked.

Jade didn't say anything. She pushed her lips onto his. I cringed in disgust and ran off. Well, at least I was out of there.

I thought about the last time I kissed someone. Great, what was this school doing to my head. I sighed.

"Hey, uh, you okay? I mean of course you don't have to tell me-" I heard a voice next to me, making me jump.

It was the ventriloquist kid, who I had learned his name was Robbie. I hadn't even noticed he was here. My mouth twitched upward.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just thinking." I smiled at his concern.

Robbie fidgeted on the spot. He was still holding the puppet, Rex.

"Man up dude. Don't mind him. He's always this weird." the puppet said.

"Hey!"

"It's true."

I shuffled away from the awkward scene. The bell rang, signaling that I should probably on my way to classes.

"Bye!" I shouted while running away from the weird scene, freaked out.