Alexander -- part 3 [i]

Here is the third installment of my story. Hope you all enjoy...

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The rest of the day seemed like a blur to me.

Having arrived almost fifteen minutes late for English and having forgotten my copy of "Romeo and Juliet", Mrs. O'Connor was not happy. After we entered, she drilled us for five minutes on the importance of punctuality and having the right equipment. Then she noticed Alexander.

"Oh! And who might you be, young man?" she asked.

"I'm Alexander ma'am," he replied angelically.

"Well Alexander, I hope that you have the right equipment?" she asked harshly.

"Yes, I think so ma'am," he said taking out his copy of 'Romeo and Juliet'. He showed it to her.

"Excellent, I glad to see someone has the right equipment," she said glaring daggers at me. I lowered my head so as to not look at her piercing grey eyes.

"Well, don't stand here like a pair of lemons. Sit down!"

"Sorry," I said giving Alexander a gentle shove in the direction of an empty desk, towards the back of the classroom. We sat. Whilst the exchange between Alexander, myself and the old trout O'Connor, the eyes of every member of my form were scrutinising Alexander. Hushed conversations were going on all over the room. Alexander kindly let me share his copy of the text, which appeared to be annotated fully and comprehensively.

"Wow," I whispered. "You've done loads more than we have."

"We did it last year," he replied turning the page. We were reading the dramatic ending of the play and I would normally have become absorbed by the intricacies and drama of the two lovers. The same could not be said for the rest of the form. They hated Shakespeare. Today, however my mind would not focus on the play as Alexander was sitting so close to me. I could hear his soft breathing and occasionally when we reached the end of a page, his hand would brush again mine. When this happened it felt as if electric shocks were jumping between our flesh. When Mrs. O'Connor asked me a question about the significance of something I looked blankly back at her. Alexander whispered something and I repeated it.

"Very good, Josh," she said.

"Thanks for that," I said as Mrs O'Connor started shouting at someone. It was Sharron and apparently she wasn't paying attention.

"That's Ok," Alexander said.

Whatever Sharron had done, it wasn't to Mrs. O'Connor's liking. She was really shouting at her. What Mrs. O'Connor didn't understand was that Sharron loved to argue and would do so at any given opportunity. Therefore, she shouted back which in turn caused Mrs. O'Connor to shout even louder.

Charlie, my best friend, took the opportunity to lean over, he was sitting at the table next to ours.

"Hey Josh, who's the new kid?" He asked. He wasn't know for his subtlety.

"This is Alexander," I said to Charlie. "He is starting today and Mr. Shelly told me to show him around and stuff."

"Oh, right then. Well hi," he said, this time to Alexander. He muttered some response that sounded like a greeting. He seemed all of a sudden to have gone shy again. He was looking down at the book on the table and seemed to be hunched up. He may have felt intimidated by Charlie. He was tall and broad. He could seem to be quite aggressive at times although I knew, to his annoyance that he was actually a rather gentle soul.

"Shy fella," Charlie whispered, I nodded.

"WHAT? Do you think this lesson is a waste of time?! Don't you think that I have better things to do with my valuable time than to teach girls like you? Ungrateful, disruptive annoying little brats?!" Shouted Mrs. O'Connor.

"Ha! Well if you don't want to be here, why don't you leave? It would be way better in here without you. No one wants to learn about stupid plays written by stupid people," replied Sharron shouting just as loud. Everyone laughed. A vein throbbed in Mrs. O'Connor's temple. They were both as bad as each other, I knew then that this argument was going to last a long time. I blotted out their screaming.

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Here is the first section of part 3.

These first few parts are meant to establish the characters and settings. The juicy bits come later. So if you can cope with this for now, you will be rewarded with the more exciting bits soon.

Love,

J xxx