Keystone Outcasts

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe smiles and takes out her timetable, "I have stage three, I'm bad at maths, hate it." She comments with a short laugh, she taps against the table, licking her lips and staring at the paper. She smiles at Mel and then looks at the other guys.


Joshua laughs lightly at Lee, "I'm in stage two, been moved up I guess. No more stage 3 for me." He laughs again looking at his paper and going quiet. He looks around and glances at the new girl, Chloe. He then glances at Robbie and smiles,

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"Means I'm alone then." Robbie says and shrugs his shoulders. He'd probably just spend all of his time in maths sat at the back of the classroom with his head in the clouds, as usual.


Lee grins, holding up his hand as a sort of wave and leaning forwards so that Chloe could see past Melanie and see him. "Means you got maths with me! Hi!" He was always eager to meet new people, especially ones that could potentially be Outcasts. They were always the best kinds of people who were nice enough, had the same sort of ideas.


Mel looks over at Joshua and offers him a hand behind Lee's back for him to high five, "Join the stage two crew." She jokes, and grins at him.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe smiles and waves, "Hey." She says to him, a small grin forming slowly. She was happy to have made some sort of friends, at least she wasn't alone still.


Joshua high fives Mel and grins, "Gotta be better than learning to count in stage three." He joking looking at Lee and laughing lightly.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

Lee looks from Chloe, smiling slightly, to Josh, he smacks him over the head playfully, making sure not to hurt him too much. "Watch your tongue boy," He says, putting his hands on the table, "Do not betray your stage three past."


Melanie laughs at the two of them, then turns to Chloe, "Lee'll bring you to where we hang out at break after maths, if you want to tag along that is. You seem like you belong with us, or well... You haven't run away from us screaming quite yet."


Robbie looks at them all, having fun and joking, and a small smile plays on his lips as he turns his attention back to his notebook, writing out some more of the work. He looks up and spots the teacher, looking at the group at the back and shaking his head. He turns to look at Lee and Josh, "guys, unless you want Surrini to give you a detention on the first day of school, calm down."

 

[CrystalSmith]

Josh rubs his head, "Hey! I'm only saying, counting got boring after awhile." He says with a small laugh, looking at Mel and then glancing at Robbie and nods, writing some more words.


Chloe grins, "Well no one else around here wants to put up with the new kid, so I might as well." She says, before looking at Robbie and then glancing at teacher and writing some more words and sighs. She brings a hand through her hair, maybe this was a fresh start, all she had to do was forget about what happened, right? She lets her mind wonder, looking around again, a small smile on her face.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"New kid, yeah... Why did you move here?" Melanie asks, considering she was the one sat next to Chloe she felt she was the one who was more able to talk to her. Lee didn't want to lean across Melanie and talk, so he decided he would talk to her in maths or something. Melanie writes down one word in real English language, just 'bored'.


The teacher gets the classes attention, standing at the front. "We only have a little while of class left, and today was just a starter lesson, tomorrow, or whenever I next see you for English, we will really start. We're going to be studying Of Mice and Men." People in the class groan, "I know I know, you studied it last year, but we're doing it again considering that most of you failed." He looks over at Melanie as he says this, then back around the room. "Tomorrow I will hand out copies of the book, and we will begin reading it again. Carry on now."


Lee groans and puts his pen down, he couldn't be bothered to continue on with the work that they were doing. He hated it, and he hated Of Mice and Men too.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe looks at Melanie, hesitating and staring into space thinking of something to say. She didn't want to say the truth, she found it hard to talk about, "I.. My mum just wanted to move I guess." She murmurs looking around, it was clear that this wasn't the reason but she wasn't ready to talk about it, not even to her own mother never mind other people, she goes quiet looking at the desk. Chloe listens to the teacher and groans, "The one book that I studied in Canada and passed already." She mutters to herself, placing her pen back in her bag and then her notebook, not caring that the lesson wasn't completely over.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"Oh, okay then," Melanie says, getting the feeling that Chloe didn't really want to talk about it. Being a good liar herself, she knew when other people were lying, and Chloe was making it sort of obvious. She didn't blame her for not wanting to talk about it though, why would she when she'd only just met the group? Melanie shuts her own notebook and puts it in her bag, clicking her pen annoyingly.


Lee looks at Melanie and bats the pen out of her hand, the constant clicking sound being very frustrating to him. Melanie drops the pen and curses him under her breath before leaning down and picking it up. She puts it in her pocket while Lee packs away his things. Most of the class were packing away too now, knowing that there was only two minutes till the bell rang.


Robbie shoved his book in his bag carelessly, and stood up. A lot of people had stood up and where hanging around their friends desks now. Robbie moves over to Melanie's desk and stands in front of it, leaning his leg against it while he waits for the bell to go. Melanie looks up at him, looking at his hat and at his shirt.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe forces a smile, standing up and holding her bag before slinging it over her shoulder. She looks around, bringing a hand through her hair and looks around slowly.


Joshua pack away his things and and stands with the others, standing beside Robbie. He looks around smiles over at Chloe who smiles back weakly. He stares, thinking that she seemed to fit in with them.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

The bell rings just then, and Melanie and Lee stand up. Robbie walks off, waving goodbye slightly, and heading to the stage 1 maths room. He hated math, he wished he was in one of his friends classes or something, that would make it at least slightly more bearable.


Melanie grabs Joshua by the hand and begins to pull him in the direction of stage 2 maths, she knew her way considering the fact that she'd always been in stage 2 maths. "Hows things at home?" She asks him while they walk, knowing that things weren't so great but asking anyway, she kept hold of his hand as they walked.


Lee looked at Chloe and licked his lips slightly before smiling. "Stage three maths then, I suppose." He grabs his bag with one hand and slings it over his shoulder, holding onto it with that hand. With his other hand he gestures over his shoulder, "Follow me, I know exactly where it is, considering." He turns and begins to walk, making sure that she was following him.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Joshua waves bye to Lee and Chloe before being dragged away towards stage two maths, with Melanie. He looks at Mel and smiles weakly, "Alright I guess, I try to stay out of the way," he murmurs quietly, finding it easier to open to Mel than the others.


Chloe smiles weakly at him, "Yeah." She comments, following closing behind him, not wanting to get lost. She hates maths but she guessed it'd be slightly better now she had someone to go with.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"You know that you can stay at mine if you want. I'm serious. It'd actually be nice having someone around who could take my mind off things. Or maybe we could all sleep at the den one night, that'd be nice wouldn't it?" She says, grinning. The den was an old abandoned house by the coast, which was only a ten minute walk away from where Melanie lived. She didn't know why the house was abandoned, but it had a great view off the cliff that it was on, and nobody went there except the four of them. "Maybe we should do it this Saturday, huh?"


"Where you from then? It's kinda obvious you ain't from Ireland. You sound like it takes a while for you to even figure out some of the words we say, cos of our accent." He says, grinning a little and walking slowly. The more time he wasted getting to lessons, well the happier he would be. He'd failed all of last years maths exams.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Joshua smiles, "yes, that'll be nice, the den Saturday. Change of scenery too," he says looking at her, he walks straight to the back of his new class, sitting in the corner, and sighing.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe looks at Lee and laughs, "I'm Canadian, I moved to France for a while before moving to Ireland though." She says with a small smile, "And yeah, your accents are nice though." She comments.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"That settles it then, I'll invite the others at break and we'll go to the den on Saturday. I hope Robbie can come, he needs to spend a weekend with us again, and plus, he's the one who can get us drinks." She says, shrugging her shoulders and sitting down next to him in the corner.


Lee grins at her, "Canada huh? Sounds great. What's it like? I heard that there's lots of moose there or something, and apparently its really cool, like, with all the maple syrup and stuff. So do you know French? What's it like there, too? You live in Paris?" They were nearing the maths rooms now, but he didn't want to go inside. Sighing, he realised if he skipped a class he'd just end up being put into extra maths after school, so he walked inside the classroom and sat at his seat in the middle of the room. He only ever sat at the back because that's what Melanie and Josh wanted. "Sorry for all the questions, I'm really interested."

 

[CrystalSmith]

Josh grins, "Yeah, it'll be fun as well, all of us together." He says looking around, waiting for class to start. He takes out his book and smiles.


Chloe laughs lightly, sitting beside him, "It's alright I guess and I learnt some French, not a lot I didn't go to school that year. And yeah I lived in Paris." She says slowly looking at him, "It's fine really. People are bound to be interested," she murmurs.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"Should we invite that Chloe?" She asks him, getting her pen and book out and clicking her pen repeatedly. She knew it annoyed a lot of people, but she liked to do it. To her, there was something therapeutic about it. The teacher walks into the room and stands at the front, turning on the interactive whiteboard and logging onto her laptop.


Lee looks at Chloe, "Well of course we are. It's not everyday that a pretty Canadian walks into an Irish school." He says, winking at her. He was flirty, he always was with new girls. Always trying to get laid. He usually got slapped by either the girl or Melanie. It was hilarious actually, sometimes people thought that he and Melanie were a thing. They were just good friends.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Joshua shrugs, "Dunno, maybe. It's up to everyone else." He answers, watching as she continuously clicks her pen. He didn't mind it, not finding it as annoying as what other did around him. He opens his book and starts to write the date slowly.


Chloe looks at him and laughs lightly, "Well I wouldn't go that far. Canadian, yes, pretty, well that depends on people type. I've kinda got my own category, it's called awesomely fucking hot." She says tapping the desk with her hands, she was trying to get certain thoughts from her mind, 'This is my new start, I can be myself here.' She thinks to herself, though knowing it was far from the truth.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"Alright, well I'll ask everyone about her and then see..." She says, as she too writes the date out. "I'll bring a portable speaker, we can plug our phones into it for music. I know the electricity doesn't work out there, on account of Lee buggering it up last time, so we'll have to bring a lot of candles. At least it makes it sort of creepy, yeah?"


Lee laughs, "Hmm... Yeah I guess you could say that. Awesomely fucking hot. Huh. Yeah that's a pretty good description of us both, actually." He laughs a little and gets his book out, before writing the date. The teacher walks into the classroom and groans, looking at Lee. It would be fair to say that Lee wasn't exactly liked by most of his teachers.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Joshua nods and laughs lightly, "Yeah, lots of candles. Don't forget the matches either." He says, starting to concentrate on the lesson, "Shame Lee messed up the electric, we could have watched a horror film up there," he adds glancing at her.


Chloe laughs at him, "Yeah, you keep wishing kiddo," she say, "We can't both be in the same category. How about we stuck you in average," she winks, before glancing at the teacher. She taps against the desk gently.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"I'll try to get someone we can trust to fix the electric, then come Halloween we can watch some creepy films, how bout that?" She asks. She really wanted to make Josh feel okay, with all that was going on in his life. She quietened down now, knowing that Josh probably wanted to concentrate on his maths, and began to answer some of the starter questions on the board.


"I-No! I am officially offended by that insult. I am so much more than average, I'm like... Highly attractive. Drool worthy. Don't tell me you don't even find me attractive," he complains, all his ideas of flirting with her down the drain by a joke that probably meant nothing. He was a little dumb like that. He looked over at the teacher, pouting slightly.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Josh nods, "yeah, that sounds good." He says looks at her before starting to answer the questions. He wanted to concentrate on his maths, needing to at least pass it.


Chloe laughs lightly, "Aw I'm sorry, hmm maybe slightly more than just average." She says with a small giggle, concentrating on the work that was set by the teacher. She glances at the boy, laughing lightly at his pout.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"Slightly? Come on Canada you're killing me here." He groans, putting his head in his hands and shaking his head slightly, feigning offence. "So mean to me." He tuts a little before the teacher starts yelling at him to shut up, going on about how he'll never get a job if he continued to talk through their lesson. The lecture lasted at least five minutes, and by the end of it, the rest of the class were sniggering, and Lee was wide eyed.

 

[CrystalSmith]

Chloe laughs, "Fine, fine. You can be categorised in attractive." She says holding her hands up in a surrendering motion, she then watches at the teacher snaps at him and the class sniggers. She looks at him, "The class are just jealous that you get to sit next to me, and my awesomely fucking hotness." She murmurs to him under her breath, smiling, clearly joking.

 

[buildingaspaceship]

"You and I are going to get on swell," he says, almost whisperingly, but the teacher hears him, and walks over to his desk. "Lee Evans. If you open your mouth one more time it will be straight to the principles office for you." He yells, slamming his hands down on the desk, before walking back over to the board and continuing with the lesson. Lee widens his eyes and looks at Chloe, feigning fright.