School Story - 006

The next class after interval, is my first period of Science. Third year high schoolers in New Zealand are required to take six subjects, however there is only five periods a day, so I didn't have Science yesterday.

Shortly after I walked into the science lab, a voice called out to me.

"Your new, right? You were in my PE class yesterday. Why weren't you here this morning?"

"I overslept."

The other student, a boy, laughed, "fair enough. Do you want to sit with my friends? My name's Josh Smalling."

"Yeah, sure. Thanks. I'm Alexander A… Alexander Giovanna."

"Nice to meet you."

Josh led me over to a table group with two other boys. They introduced themselves as Luke and Chase. Apparently the three of them know each other quite well. They all play sport for the school. Josh and Luke play football, and Chase basketball. They're what I guess you'd call jocks. Overly aggressive, macho, alpha males. Not the kind of people I would usually choose to hang out with. It isn't that I dislike people like them, but we just don't mix well, I've found in the past.

"I saw you talking with Arthur Davies at interval. Do you know him?"

Josh speaks to me. I hadn't realised that he knew Arthur, or that he had been there when we were talking during interval.

"No, not really. He just happened to be in two of my classes yesterday."

"I see. If I were you, I wouldn't talk to him anymore."

"Why's that?"

"Well… how do I say this… he's just quite a strange guy."

"Well… how do I say this… is that a real reason to not talk to him?"

I shouldn't have done that. That was stupid and childish of me to talk back to him like that, but I just couldn't help it. Like I said, guys like him and me just don't mix well.

"I'm trying to do you a favour here," Josh responded, a little aggression showing in his tone of voice, "look, I'm just saying it would be best for you not to get involved with Arthur. He doesn't have that many friends around because, well he just has a habit of annoying people."

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"I don't know… there's just something about the way he acts that just puts people off. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly it is… but anyway, I wouldn't hang out with him if I was you. It won't win you any friends."

"Well like I said, I don't really know him."

"Then we don't have a problem," Josh smiled. It kind of made me want to punch him in the face.

In regard to Arthur Davies, I guess this is fine. I barely know him, I just talked to him today because he was nice enough to help me out yesterday, and I was a little curious. I wasn't going to become friends with him.

Of course, I'm not going to let this Josh decide who I am and am not going to talk to, but for now, there's no reason not to just do as he says. Arthur isn't my friend. We're barely even acquaintances.

In any case, it might be for the best if things just came to an end here. Yeah, the two of us can just go our separate ways now. Arthur didn't seem to want my help or anything, so I guess there's nothing I can do but leave him alone. Since it seems like he wants to be left alone. Nothing more to be done about it.

And even though that's the conclusion I came to at that point, it seemed like for some reason I was being steered towards Arthur.

My two afternoon classes were the two classes that I'd had Monday morning. That is to say, the two classes that I share with Arthur Davies, History and English. I didn't sit beside him in either class since he'd made it clear that he'd rather not talk to me. But after the bell rang at the end of English and the school day, and I began making my way towards the bus stop, I realised that he was walking just five metres ahead of me.

I scratched my head. Of course, this is just coincidence, not fate or something forcing me to talk to him. We had our last class together, and it isn't like we're the only two students walking in this direction. It's just a coincidence. There's nothing more to it.

And although, yes, of course it is just a coincidence, I couldn't help but think that maybe there was something else at play. Like the universe was pulling my strings, making sure that I talked to Arthur Davies again.