Chapter 3

High school was like nothing I imagined. The hall was crowded with teenagers of all sorts; tall, short, cheerful, grumpy, nerdy, good looking, stylish, plain and the average teenagers. There were small groups of friends scattered here and there and the hall was extremely noisy. Andre led me to the principal's office and I tried to ignore the stares and murmurs of some teens we walked past.

"It's always like this on Thursdays, so much excitement for Friday and the weekend," Andre told me.

Andre knocked on the door of the principal's office and opened it without waiting for a response. There was a girl in the office talking to a man seated in a swivel chair behind the desk whom I guessed was the principal. He was fairly good looking and seemed to be in his forties. He acknowledged us and asked for a minute as he rounded up his discussion with the girl before dismissing her. When she turned to leave, we made eye contact and I was captivated by her curious olive eyes and youthful beauty. I smiled awkwardly at her but she didn't return the gesture. I noticed however, that she and Andre greeted each other cordially.

"Paige," the man called when she got to the door, causing her to stop in her tracks and glance at him. "I need to have a copy of the manuscript before you publish it."

"Sure." She nodded and left the office.

"Andre! This must be your cousin, the one your mother told me about. Welcome to Sydney Prep. What's your name, son?"

"Chad."

"And your second name?"

"Wolfe."

The man gave me a weird look. "Your name is Chad Wolfe?"

"Yes."

"Okay." He handed me a piece of paper. "This is the schedule of your classes and extracurricular activities. Andre would take you to your locker and also show you round the school so you can get accustomed to the school environment. I hope you like it here, and if you have any questions or issues, don't hesitate to come to me."

"Thank you."

"By the way Andre, how's your mother doing?"

"She's good."

"Tell her she should be rest assured I'll look after Chad."

"Sure thing."

"And I hope she takes her meds and has enough rest like she was asked to?"

Andre rolled his eyes. "That's none of your business, but yeah, she does. Can we leave now?"

"Of course. Here are your uniforms, Chad." I collected the package from the man and thanked him.

Andre quickly walked out of the office and I followed him.

"Your principal is such a nice man," I remarked as Andre led me to my locker.

"He is, but he's being super nice to us cause he likes my mom."

I laughed as we stopped by a row of lockers close to the stairs, Andre stood in front of the first locker and showed me how to open and lock it.

"This is your locker," he said. "It used to belong to a former student so Principal Thomas said you could have it."

"So, what am I supposed to do with this locker?" I asked.

"You can use it for storing personal items you may need at school, textbooks, notebooks and stuff like that."

He took my schedule from me and went through it. "This is great, we have all our classes together, we even have gym class together."

"Cool."

A boy and a girl walked up to us and hugged Andre. The boy had curly brown hair while the girl had long sandy blond hair which fell past her shoulders. They seemed like really close friends from the way they greeted each other.

"Alright guys, this is my cousin, the one I told you about. And Chad, these are my best friends, Carl and Bella."

"Nice to meet you, man," Carl said and I nodded in response.

"Your cousin is so hot," Bella commented.

"Thanks, that's why he's my cousin," Andre replied cockily. "Alright, I need to take our new student to the boys' locker room so he can change into his uniform. See you guys later."

On our way to the locker room, Paige walked past with a boy with whom she was deep in conversation with so she didn't see me. I stared after her until she was out of sight and didn't realize Andre was way ahead of me before he yelled my name. I jogged up to him and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"Don't tell me you like her already. You just got here."

"It's hard not to like her, I mean, look at her."

"You don't want to get involved with her, she's a journalist. She's not just a student journalist, she's a popular budding journalist in the city and she's quite popular on social media too. Remember you want to keep your identity a secret?"

"That won't be a problem."

"With Paige, that's a big problem. She could uncover your secret after spending barely twenty four hours with you, she's that good at her job."

"But she's really pretty though."

"You keep missing the point."

"She's your friend, right?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I was hoping you could introduce us, just like the way you introduced me to your best friends."

Andre shook his head. "We're not even that close. I only introduced you to Carl and Bella cause they were my best friends."

"Is that guy her boyfriend? The one that was with her."

"No, that's Jules, her partner or whatever."

We got to the locker room and he stopped. "You have been warned, Chad. I know that she's hot and all, but you have to stay away from her if you want your secret to remain a secret."

"Thanks for the advice, Andre," I drawled, knowing full well I wasn't going to take it.

"You can call me Dre, everyone calls me that, except my mom and teachers."

"Okay, Dre," I said as we entered the locker room.

My first day at high school was uneventful to say the least. Classes were just plain boring, we had to sit and listen to a teacher go on and on about a topic we desired to know nothing about while taking down notes and committing them to memory. I was thankful for Andre and his friends because they made it a little less uneventful.

During lunch, we bought food to eat because Andre vowed never to eat any food prepared by the school kitchen and refused to let me eat it too. We bought cheeseburgers and French fries. Andre and his friends stared in amazement as I ate five cheeseburgers and drank three bottles of water.

"Would you like more?" Andre asked as though he was scared I was going to say yes.

"I think I'm good."

"Man, he eats like a lion," I heard Bella whisper.

Andre snickered. "I guess he's just hungry, we all get a little hungry sometimes."

After lunch, we had more boring classes and I was so close to losing my cool. I kept comforting myself by reminding myself that I chose this life and would get used to it soon. Bella had even invited us to come watch her during cheerleading practice. Andre and Carl readily agreed and she went to the girls' locker room to get ready.

"What exactly are we going to watch?" I asked Andre.

"You'll see," he said as we went outside to sit on the bleachers.

Few minutes later, a group of girls dressed in short matching outfits hopped out to the field. They got in formation and started to chant a cheer as they danced and did some stunts like somersaults, backflips and cartwheels. One of them even jumped and did a flip in the air. Damn, they were pretty flexible.

"This is why our cheerleading squad is the best in the state! Go girls!" A guy screamed from behind us.

I glanced beside me and saw Paige sitting alone, a notepad in her hand. She was alternating between staring into the distance and writing things down.

"I'll be right back," I told Andre and went to sit beside her. She glanced at me.

"You're the new student," she noted.

"My name's Chad."

"I know."

How did she know my name? It was unlikely Andre told her cause he mentioned they weren't that close. Could it be that he was right about her being very good at her job?

"And you must be Paige."

She gave me a quizzical look.

"I heard the principal call your name earlier," I added.

"Alright Chad, what do you want?"

"I wanna be friends."

She laughed. "Tell me what you really want."

Before I could answer, Jules showed up from nowhere and whispered something in her ear. She smiled apologetically at me and stood up.

"I have to leave now. See you around?" she said and left. Jules glared at me briefly before following her. I went back to my seat and discovered that the cheer practice was over.

"What were you doing with Paige?" Andre asked me.

"I just wanted to say hi."

"Be careful. That's all I can say to you since you've clearly chosen not to heed my advice."

We went inside and waited for Bella to change out of her uniform so we could go home together. We stopped at Frozen, a mini restaurant that specialized in ice cream, frozen yogurt, smoothies and pastries. The whole place smelled heavenly and I couldn't get enough of the tantalizing aroma of the freshly baked pastries. I think I just found my second best place after Aunt Camille's house.

Andre introduced me to Carrie, the owner and manager of the place. She was a young lady with strawberry blond hair and light freckles. She was really nice and gave me a cup of frozen yogurt and some tarts, all on the house. It was my first time tasting frozen yogurt and in my opinion, it wasn't much different than ice cream.

I shared my tarts with the others as we got talking and bonding. I realized that Andre and his friends were really cool people, and according to Bella, they were the most popular trio in the school. When they were in middle school they used to be addressed as ABC which stood for Andre, Bella and Carl but as they got older, they felt the name was lame and stopped using it. I also told them a few things about myself, careful not to reveal too much information. When we were done, we said goodbye to Carrie and left.