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  Chapter 2

  Thursday morning brought with it thunder and rain. It was the kind of weather that seemed to make everything and everyone dull and gloomy, and concentration on schoolwork so much harder and more boring.

  For Amber, the day started with her alarm clock failing to go off, and her having to rush to get ready so she didn’t miss the bus. Then, when she got outside, because she was running, she caught her toe on a crack in the garden path, and ended up spiralling into the air. Thankfully, she somehow managed to turn to that she landed on the rain-softened grass instead of the cold hard pavement. But, because it had been raining, the grass was very wet and muddy, so when she jumped onto the departing bus, it looked very much like she had wet herself.

  “What happened to you?” asked Hannah when she threw herself down on the seat beside her.

  “It was raining.”

  “I can see that,” Hannah said, looking at Amber’s hair, which had been darkened to an auburn colour by the wet. Amber looked at Hannah, who also looked rather rain-soaked and cold.

  When they got to the form room, Eva was sitting in the corner with two other girls, who were also blonde.

  “How come you’re dry?” Amber asked indignantly when she caught sight of her.

  “It’s called an umbrella,” Eva replied, looking her up and down sardonically. The two girls sitting with her laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?” Amber asked one of them. “You’re wet too.” She turned around and went back to sit with Hannah. It is true that rainy weather makes people less tolerant, Amber, apparently, included.

  The whole day was a bore, with the lessons seeming to take forever to end, and the teachers’ voices seeming to drone on longer than ever. Amber found she had very little tolerance for Eva or Darren, whose jokes were becoming less and less funny by the day. He thought he was amazing, but Amber hated how all he did was make fun of people until they felt really bad about themselves, and she thought, he had no right to make fun of people. He wasn’t exactly a male model himself, and she doubted he managed to get much over a ‘C’ on his report card.

  At lunch, Amber found herself tuning out to what he was saying, and just letting her eyes wander around the hall. She froze when she locked onto a pair of sapphire-blue eyes, underneath a mess of midnight-black hair.

  “Why are you staring at Matthew Pryer?” Hannah murmured so that no one else could hear.

  “I’m not staring at him. He’s staring at me.”

  “Whatever you say,” she said unbelievingly.

  Amber turned to give her friend a dirty look, and when she turned back, Matthew Pryer was gone. Not gone as in, he had turned back to his friends and was in deep conversation, but was actually out of site, and could not be seen anywhere else in the room. She raised her head slightly above those around her so she could get a better view of the room, but nowhere could she see the boy with the black hair. It wasn’t possible- no one could move that quickly-but he must have left.

  The worst part of the day was English, which was the last lesson of the day. The last lessons always seemed long anyway, but on a day like this, it actually felt like time was standing still. In Amber’s mind, outside the classroom were cyclists frozen mid-pedal and kids playing jump rope floating in midair.

  Mrs Dole walked into the room quickly and picked up one of the pens and started writing on the board at the front of the class: Romeo and Juliet, it read, Act 3, Scene 2.

  “Ok class,” said Mrs Dole, whose short black hair whipped around as she turned from the board t face them. “So today we’re doing Act three, Scene two of Romeo and Juliet, can anyone tell me what key event happens in this scene?”

  The class looked at each other helplessly.

  “No one? That’s very disa-“

  “Romeo kills Tybalt,” said a boy’s voice from the back of the class. Amber twisted in her seat and saw that everyone else was looking at Matthew Pryer. As she looked at him, he suddenly turned his head to look straight at her, his blue eyes boring into hers. She felt colour rising in her cheeks and quickly turned back to face the front.

  “Well done Matthew,” said Mrs Dole. “Seen as you seem to know the scene so well, you can be partnered up with Amber. I’m sure you know she’s new and hasn’t studied Romeo and Juliet before.”

  Amber turned back to Matthew, whose eyes were wide and expression was unimpressed. She gave him and disliking look, but didn’t think he caught it.

  “So the rest of you can get yourself into pairs. Mr Pryer at the front here please.”

  Matthew Pryer stood up lazily, swung his rucksack over one shoulder and trudged down to the empty seat, which had been vacated by Hannah when she went to sit with Darren.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Matthew nodded slightly. It might have been a nod, or maybe he just moved his head, it was hard to tell. He didn’t show any sign of recognition.

  “What page did Mrs Dole say it was?” asked Amber, picking up the book.

  He didn’t respond at all this time.

  “Sorry, do you know what page we’re meant to be looking at?” she said again.

  Once more, he did not respond. He looked down into his lap, so Amber couldn’t see his liquid blue eyes. Before she could get too annoyed at Matthew’s rudeness, however, Mrs Dole called the class back to attention.

  “So,” she said. “Today’s going to be a fun lesson. I thought we could do some drama, so you’ll all be acting out this scene with the fight between Romeo and Tybalt.”

  There was a general whisper of excitement around the class at not having to do a proper lesson. Of course, Amber did not join in this whisper, because if she tried to talk to Matthew Pryer, he would pretend she didn’t exist.

  “I’ll give you about fifty minutes to rehearse, and then we’ll perform them after that. Off you go.”

  There was an instant surge of noise as each partner turned to the other to plan out their performance. Amber and Matthew, of course, were the exception. It wasn’t that she didn’t try, it was just that he would not talk to her no matter what she did.

  “What page is it?” she asked one more time, and when he didn’t answer, she had to turn to the girl behind them, whose name she couldn’t even remember, to ask for the page number.

  Amber opened both books to Act three, Scene two and handed one to Matthew, who took the book without giving her a sideways glance.

  “So you seem to know a lot about this, what do you think we should do?”

  Again, he said nothing.

  “Are you going to talk to me, or are you just going to sit there like the idiot you are?” she snapped.

  It was the final straw when he still didn’t acknowledge her.

  “What did I do to you? I have been perfectly civil and you’ve been acting all weird. I haven’t done anything to you and you’re just being horrible. If we fail because of you, I swear, I’m not taking any of the blame. This is all on you.”

  Matthew Pryer nodded.

  “You still aren’t talking, what the-“ she started, but Matthew raised his head and looked deep into her eyes. For that moment, she was lost in a deep pool of bottomless blue. Then he looked away again and she snapped back to being herself. Amber refused to try to talk to Matthew Pryer any more, deciding that if he wasn’t going to talk to her, she sure as hell wasn’t going to waste her breath trying to talk to him. She’d get more out of a goldfish.

  It was an awkward and bitter fifty minutes, sitting, twiddling thumbs and fiddling with bits of paper, in total silence while the rest of the room buzzed with voices.

  When the fifty minutes was up and Mrs Dole called the class back to their seats, no progress had been made at all with Matthew Pryer. Unfortunately, as she thought they would be best prepared, it was them that were picked on by Mrs Dole to go first.

  Amber opened her mouth to say that they hadn’t done anything because Matthew wouldn’t speak a word to her, but he cut in with his own version of events.

  “
Mrs Dole,” he said. “I was bringing Amber up to date with the story so far, so we didn’t get to do any of the lines.”

  “So you’ve done none of the work I set you?” the woman asked sharply.

  “No, no,” said Matthew, sensing danger. “We have the actual fight, we just don’t know the lines well enough to perform them.”

  “Well can we see your fight then please,” Mrs Dole said.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Matthew threw Amber a ‘You’re welcome’ look. She returned her own ‘You’re welcome’ look; he should be grateful she hadn’t told Mrs Dole what he’d really been doing all lesson.

  And so Amber and Matthew walked to the front of the room, mimed drawing swords, and began to improvise a fight scene.

  Amber found it strangely fun, pretending to injure Matthew. She thought she was meant to be playing Romeo, and he was meant to be Tybalt, because he seemed to be pretending to get hit most, and when she had read over the scene herself, it was Tybalt who had been killed.

  It was actually working out pretty well. Matthew seemed to move perfectly with her, like he knew every movement she was going to make, which meant he could choose when to pretend to block it and when to pretend to be hit. Maybe because it was going so well, they let their guards down for a minute, because one moment they were fake fighting and entertaining the class, and the next, Amber’s clenched fist was sailing past Matthew’s blocking arm towards his face, and her reactions weren’t quick enough to stop herself. Before she knew it, her hand had made contact with Matthew Pryer’s nose with a sickening crunch. The whole class was silent.

  “Oh my God,” she gushed quickly. “I’m so sorry.”

  If Matthew Pryer hadn’t been talking to her earlier, he definitely wasn’t going to be talking to her now. He just looked at her with wide eyes. From his nose came a few drops of ruby blood. He leant back his head and pinched it in the centre to try to stop the bleeding.

  “Mrs Dole, shall I take him do get something to wipe up his nose?” Amber asked. But when she turned back to Matthew, all she saw was his disappearing back as he walked out the door. The whole classroom was looking at her; she wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Mrs Dole looked at her questioningly for a moment, before saying, “Next.”

  Amber went back to her seat, which unfortunately was at the front of the room, so it was easy for people to stair at her. It wasn’t her fault she’d punched him, she thought, maybe if he’d spoken to her during the lesson it wouldn’t have happened. In some place deep down, Amber almost felt a glint of satisfaction; she knew she shouldn’t, but it was there.

  “You punched Matthew Pryer?” asked Darren when he caught up with her and Hannah after the lesson. Darren had gone to the bathroom, and missed the whole thing. He must have thought it was quite strange when he walked back into the room and the whole class was completely silent.

  “It wasn’t deliberate,” said Amber. “It all happened before I realised what was going on.”

  “Are you sure it was an accident?” asked Darren.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Amber said with a hint of anger.

  “Well, he did give you a bloody nose that day in art, and the two of you didn’t seem to be getting on too well when we were meant to be practising-“

  “I told you, he wouldn’t talk to me,” said Amber through gritted teeth. It was things like this that made her dislike Darren so much.

  “I can not believe I missed that,” he said longingly.

  “Look, I have to go to the library to return a book from English, so I’ll see you later,” said Amber longingly. Hannah gave her an understanding look-she’d been on the receiving end of Darren as well-and with that, she turned on her heel and walked up the steps towards the library.

  She hadn’t really planned on going to the library; there was no book to return, but she thought it would be wise in case Darren was waiting for her in the car park to continue the conversation. When she got through the doors, she saw the library was completely empty. She went to the window overlooking the car par and sure enough, there was Darren sitting on the wall, talking to a boy in the year above.

  Amber sighed and took a seat in one of the red cushioned chairs. She didn’t like libraries, she didn’t like books; a big collection in one room made her itch.

  Then, as she sat in the chair, out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. She twisted around and saw a head of jet-black hair walking back out the door.

  “Hey,” she said loudly. She hoped she was right in thinking this was Matthew Pryer, otherwise she was going to look really stupid.

  The person kept walking.

  “Hey, you,” Amber, said, louder again. She followed him out the door and into the hallway a bit.

  The figure continued with his quick pace.

  “Matthew Pryer!”

  The boy stopped, dropped his shoulders, and turned around slowly.

  “Yes?” he sighed.

  “What is your problem?” Amber started. “I have tried and tried to talk to you and work with you, why are you treating me like I don’t exist? Does it make you feel cool to ignore people, because all it really does is make you a rude, ignorant idiot.” Amber stopped and took deep, calming breaths.

  “You done?” asked Matthew.

  “For now.”

  “I’m sorry I was rude to you, please forgive me.”

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “No,” he said. He looked deep into Amber’s own dark eyes. “I don’t think we should be friends. I don’t even think you should try to talk to me again, and it would be unwise if we were to work together in class.”

  For some reason, Amber felt this compulsion not to speak, like what Matthew Pryer was saying was absolutely correct and true, but she couldn’t understand why she felt like this. The other part of her brain, the part that controlled the logic of her mind, was telling her that he was being an idiot as usual, and she ought to give him another bloody nose.

  “If that’s your way of asking me to leave you alone, believe me, I won’t find it hard,” she said coolly.

  “That’s probably best,” he replied.

  “Yes, because my life will be so much better when I don’t have to deal with you on a daily basis, so go, leave me alone.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  With that, Matthew Pryer turned around and walked down the stairs, while Amber stood there unable to explain what had just happened.

  Amber barely made it to the bus. Hannah had had to ask the bus driver to wait because she hadn’t arrived yet, which she knew must have been a pretty awkward conversation.

  “So, he basically told you he didn’t want to speak to you ever again?” she asked when Amber had explained the entire conversation.

  “Yup.”

  “Why? What did you do to him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m actually glad anyway, because he seems like the kind of person who is unbearable unless you end up giving them an ‘accidental’ punch regularly.”

  “So, you’re just going to ignore him?” Hannah asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Why do you say that like you don’t think I can?”

  “Come on Amber, I’ve seen you looking at him. Every time in the lunch hall you’re just staring at his table.”

  “I’m trying to get him to stop looking at me. Believe me, this is a completely do-able task.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that,” said Hannah, and before she could elaborate any further, they were at Amber’s stop.

  “See you tomorrow,” she said grumpily.

  “Aw, are you upset because you won’t get to talk to Matty anymore?” Hannah said teasingly.

  “No actually,” Amber came back with. “I’m upset my friend thinks I’m unable to do something I think is important.”

  Amber turned and walked out of the bus, leaving Hannah with a guilty expression on her face. She did feel guilty, but Hannah would get over it and in some ways she deserve
d it.

  “Hello,” said a voice from behind her as she walked up the street to her house.

  Amber jumped half a mile while hundreds of visions of murderers and ghosts ran through her head. As it turned out, it was only Will.

  “Oh hi Will,” she said. “How’re you?”

  “Good. How’s school going?”

  “It’s ok,” Amber lied.

  “Ok, now tell me how it’s really going,” said Will.

  “It sucks, there’s this guy called Mathew Pryer, and he’s an absolute pain and he just acts like an idiot. We were meant to be working together in English today-he wouldn’t even speak to me! And then I tried to talk to him in the library and he was all like ‘I don’t think we should be friends,’” she put on a poor imitation of Matthew’s voice. “And I just said ‘Well, don’t worry, because I won’t find it hard to not be friends with you.” Amber stopped her rant and took more calming breaths.

  “So-“

  “Oh, and I gave him a bloody nose.

  “You gave him a bloody nose?” said Will with raised eyebrows.

  “It was an accident and he gave me one first!”

  “So you actually spoke to this guy?” asked Will.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You’re sure you spoke to him?” Amber thought it was a little weird that Will was putting such stress on whether she had spoken to Matthew Pryer. She could see some form of deep thought behind his emerald green eyes.

  “I think I would know who I’ve spoken to and whom I haven’t, why?” she asked.

  “No reason,” Will said, and dropped the subject. “Do you want to go and get a drink?”

  “Sorry, I can’t,” she said sincerely. “I have so much homework, it’s ridiculous.”

  “I could come and give you a hand,” Will offered.

  “That would be great, but I don’t want to force all my work onto you.”

  “Honestly, it’s no problem,” he said, looking into Amber’s eyes, which were so dark they were almost black.

  “Well, I suppose it would be good to have some help,” she consented thoughtfully. “But only if you’re sure it’s not a problem.”

  “It’s not, really.”

  And so Amber continued up the street with Will at her side. She was glad that he was going to help her with her work, but she knew that there were going to be a lot of times that she was going to look really stupid; she barely understood any of it.

  “The living room is through there, make yourself at home, do you want anything to drink?” she asked when they got into her little house.

  “A cup of tea would be good,” said Will.

  “You drink tea?” asked Amber

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I don’t know, I just didn’t have you pegged as a tea kind of guy.”

  “I think you’ll find there are a lot of things about me you would never be able to guess,” he said mysteriously.

  Amber smiled and shook her head as she walked into the kitchen. This is how she thought friends should behave: a joking, fun relationship, but at the end of the day where that person will help you with any problems you have, and make them seem better than they really are.

  Amber poured some hot water into a mug with a teabag and added some milk. She took the teabag back out and put it in the bin, then took the mug into Will, who was sitting on the floor flicking through Amber’s books. She could just see his blonde head protruding from her Maths book.

  “Making yourself at home I see,” she said, and handed Will the mug of tea.

  “You’re handwriting is awful,” he said thoughtfully, moving the book closer to his face as though trying to interpret a letter or number.

  “Gee, thanks,” Amber replied sarcastically.

  “Honestly, didn’t you ever do that thing at school where they give you those books with the different coloured lines for big letters and small letters?”

  “You’re really weird sometimes, you know that?” she said.

  “Part of my charm,” Will gave her a cheeky wink and picked up her English book. “So what is this work I’m meant to be helping you with?”

  “I have all my homework, and stuff to catch up on from before I arrived.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “How well do you know Shakespeare?” Amber asked.

  Thankfully, Will had studied Shakespeare before, which meant he was a big help on her Romeo and Juliet essay, which was meant to be in the next day. He also helped her with her Science, which was about environmental changes as a result of acidic substances in the atmosphere. Amber had been dreading that one.

  After hours of work, during which they devoured many packets of biscuits and crisps, between the two of them they had completed all of the work Amber had been set, including the additional stuff that wasn’t in until after the weekend.

  “Thank you so, so much,” she said. “I promise I’ll make it up to you someday.”

  “How about Saturday?” Will asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You and me, Saturday afternoon, going for a drink and a sandwich at the café. You can consider it your way of paying me back.”

  “Fair enough,” Amber agreed. “But I’ll still be there to help you if you ever get overloaded with work like I just did, I promise.”

  “Well thank you,” said Will.

  “Do you want to stay and watch some television or something?” she offered.

  “I can’t, I’m sorry,” he said. “I really would like to, but I’ve got to get back, I’ve got work to do too you know.”

  “Oh God, sorry, I didn’t think, you’d better be getting home. I don’t want to be getting you in trouble.”

  “Alright, so I’ll see you Saturday?”

  “Absolutely,” said Amber.

  She walked Will to the door and waved him off as he walked down the path and back down the street. She got the feeling her life here was going to be much better than her life before.