Chapitre 15: What are you Doing Here?

The next morning, Lucus and Ben got off the bus and met up with Allicia.

"What took you so long? I was waiting for you, but now it's almost late. I was getting ready to leave." she got close to their faces and pointed her finger in between Ben's eyes, and then went off to do the same to Lucus. It took everything in Lucus not to flinch. He stepped backwards putting his hands up tentatively in surrender.

"Ask Lucus." said Ben in an annoyed joking tone.

"Yeah, that was my fault. I overslept today." he smiled and gave a halfhearted laugh.

"What?!? But you never oversleep Mr. Perfect." Allicia paused and checked her watch. "Aww $#!^. We gotta go now. Two minutes 'till the bell. Talk to me on the way." she began walking at a quick pace leaving Ben and Lucus to scramble to catch up. The courtyard was big, so even if they were on school grounds, it did take quite some time getting across.

"So I got an ex-convict for a roommate. Oh my god, slow down. I'm getting a cramp" this only made Allicia walk faster. At this point Ben was still walking slowly. He seemed to have given up. "Ben hurry up!"

"I'm too tired to walk." he groaned and continued walking at a turtle pace.

"You napped the whole time we were on the bus! You can't be tired."

"Yes I can. I'm tired of…" he paused to think before answering. "Life."

"Have fun being late then!" Lucus forgot about his aching side and began jogging with Allicia.

They walked into class just as the bell rang. They were talking about Nick as they took their seats, when Lucus noticed a familiar voice. "YOU!" He shot up and pointed at a boy with black hair and red tips. "What are you doing here?" Nick was already hitting off with the other kids spectacularly. He had four or five kids crowded around his desk laughing and talking. He seemed to be popular. He caught a few snippets of kids talking about him from around the room.

"Wow, do you see the new kid?"

"Yeah, he's kinda cute, but doesn't he look young?"

"He skipped a grade."

"He's almost as good looking as Lucus."

"But this one can see. Haha!" Lucus ignored them and waited for Nate to answer. The people talking to Nate paused and looked at Lucus. Nate pointed at himself confused, before realizing his motion made no difference to Lucus.

"Me?" Nate kept his hand pointed at himself, forgetting it was there.

"No, the other kid at the end of my finger. What are you doing here? Aren't you too young? There is absolutely no way they let an ex-convict into this school." He wasn't mad. More like way too confused, surprised, and the fact that he mildly disliked Nate.

"I skipped a grade before I went to jail. They don't look at criminal history, but they did see my score. Congrats. Your top score remains unparalleled." he began clapping and a few confused kids began to clap with him. "Surpriiiiiiiise. You get to hear my soothing voice all day long." he opened his arms like he was going to give Lucus a big hug.

"Your voice makes me want to hang myself." Replied Lucus in a deadpan voice.

"Is this the kid you were talking about?" whispered Allicia into Lucus's ear and elbowed him.

"Take a wild guess." Ben walked into the room and had a slightly less audible reaction to noticing Nate.

"Well hello! Who, is this?" Nate got up and walked over to Allicia. "What's up girl? You're pretty nice looking, wanna go-" Lucus covered Nate's mouth before he could finish and Allicia stepped back in disgust.

For the rest of the day, Nate continued to be, well, himself. He flirted, bragged, teased, and the worst part was, he was already popular. Many of the girls found him cute in the way you would see a cute toddler, and his extreme energy made him plenty of friends within the first period. He frequently made jokes about the subject, and would yell out memes at very inappropriate times, such as when they were discussing the holocaust in history. Kids at their age, of course, just saw this as another magnificent joke. He wasn't anything extremely smart in comparison to the other kids. He was entirely average in that department. This in itself was surprising, however. Being so disruptive and cocky, along with being in jail would make one expect a lack of knowledge, but he was surprisingly smart. If anyone asked him about it, he would just shrug it off and reply with the same broken record player answer, "You gotta have some brains to pull off a heist like mine." He actually recorded it. He had it ready on his phone. Had taken it out the third time someone asked and recorded himself. At lunch, Lucus, Ben, and Allicia cornered Ben. He wasn't alone when they found him. He was already at a table filled with kids. They had to pull him out and bring him to an empty hallway. Ben was not happy about his lack of lunch time.

"What are you doing here?" No nonsense. Straight to the point. Lucus stood menacingly. He could be quite scary if he wanted to. He had an aura of "don't mess with me" surrounding him, and he looked even taller than usual.

"Same as you. To learn." Ben didn't seem scared, but his heart rate did go a bit faster than usual. Not a lie, though. Plenty of people lie. Especially when they underestimate you. As a result, Lucus could easily tell the difference between a lie and a truth. This was a truth. No poison daggers wafted in the air of Ben's bad breath.

"I already have to deal with you at home, not at school too. Stay out of my way." Ben didn't bat an eye, but once again, his heart rate sped up. Ben paused before answering.

"You mean the orphanage? Yeah. I'll stay out of your way. But I don't want to avoid you forever." Ben had an air of reason to him. To Lucus's surprise, he seemed way more mature than usual. No jokes. No cocky tone. He was being serious. "Can I go now?" He didn't wait for an answer. He left without saying anything more, and Lucus let him.