Young

This morning, Mary and Frank had a new friend walking with them: Lily. She hadn’t met Frank yet but a quick introduction had them talking like there was no tomorrow. The three got along very well.

“Oh wait, no, I do recognise you!” Frank exclaimed with a look of realisation. “You’re friends with that late boy, erm— the one with the glasses?”To Mary, this seemed to be quite a stupid question. She’d spotted plenty of boys yesterday with glasses and their year was the only one in school yesterday so the boys must’ve been their age.

“Well, yeah. I am friends with a boy with glasses but…late boy? I’m— I’m not sure,” Lily answered. Not even Mary knew what he meant by “late boy”.

“There was a kid with glasses yesterday who turned up to form way later than everyone else. He had another boy with him though with sorta… curly hair and a blue tie I think. Oh! The one with glasses was wearing red. I definitely remember that.” Oh yeah. Maybe this was starting to match James… that was his name, right?

“Hm? Oh, James and Ben I think. Yeah, James is a good friend of mine but I’ve hardly kno-“

“Ah! Benjy! That was his name…oh! Sorry, carry on.” Frank looked down and messed with his tie and blazer.

“Yeah, shut up Frank,” Mary laughed patting him on the shoulder. Lily smiled too but she looked mildly guilty about something.

“You alright Lil?” Mary asked trying to swallow her laughter. Lily looked up and nodded. “You can carry on talking about James. Frank’s quiet now.” Lily smiled but shook her head anyway.

“It’s fine. There wasn’t much to say about him.” Mary threw a look at Frank who only glanced up at her briefly with a smile creeping on his face. Mary couldn’t help it and burst out into laughter again.

“Ah, sorry Lily,” Frank sputtered out, covering his mouth to avoid spitting. Lily shook her head trying to suppress a smile herself but it clearly wan’t working. Mary had been told before that she had an effect like that. Her joy was contagious and wherever she went, good times were likely to follow.

“Maybe you two are a perfect match,” Frank said wiping a tear from his eye and fiddling one last time with his tie.

“Hey?”

“Well, you always shut up when you’re interrupted,” he said nodding towards Mary, “and so did you.” He nodded to Lily.

“Interrupting isn’t a good thing Frankie-Boy,” Mary huffed and knocked his shoulder as she leant forward to grab Lily’s hand. “Come on Lil, let’s get away from this man!” She shouted the last part. She jogged a little to create a distance between the two girls and Frank as she pulled Lily with her. A giggle slipped from Lily’s lips as she tried to keep up.

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Frank had caught up with them in the end and the trio had managed to get to school with plenty of time to spare. Marlene was already standing underneath a tree with a group of older students underneath the one next to her.

“I’ll be off then,” Frank said with a salute as he promptly turned and left to meet some others he’d pent the day with yesterday.

“Marlene~!” Mary shouted as she pulled Marlene into a tight hug cradling her head. “Oh, Marlene! I’ve missed you!”

“It’s not even been a whole day.” Mary pulled away.

“So?”

“So why are you acting like I’ve come back from war.” Mary’s jaw dropped and Lily chuckled.

“God Marlene! Just don’t let a girl miss her girlfriend!”

“Girlfriend?” Lily squealed in disbelief.

“No, no, no,” Marlene waved her hands about as Mary covered her mouth and span around in circles. “We are not girlfriends. We are not dating. We’ve not even known each other for a day, Lily. Why would we be dating?”

“So you don’t love me?” Mary asked with an expression of mock offence in her face as she batted her eyelashes.

“Wha-“

“Marlene! You traitor!” Lily scolded shaking her head. “I can’t believe you’ve done this!” Mary giggled again and pulled Marlene back into a tight hug.

“Oh, Marlie!” she sang and she pulled one of her legs up behind her.

“I’m no traitor, I’m just not crushing for your little love bird here!” Marlene almost spat the words out and she tried to shake Mary off her but to no avail.

James and Peter arrived next and Mary didn’t even hesitate to tell them the story of how Marlene broke up with her after not even a day. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see both Marlene and Lily smiling at each other along with the older students who seemed to be pointing and sniggering to each other about Mary’s performance but it didn’t matter. James and Peter seemed perfectly engaged with her storytelling. She was talking to them and nobody else. Anyone else’s opinion on the matter was useless.

By the time they went in, Charity and Edmund hadn’t turned up so they left without them and passed through the gate. Mary certainly didn’t expect the older years to be this much taller than them. Sure, she’d expected a height difference but not one of this scale. The more she looked around at them the more nervous she felt, so she opted to ignore the people around her a focus on her friends instead.

Mary and Lily waved goodbye to Frank and James as they made their way to form via the outside path. Mary and Lily could’ve gone with them but Lily had wanted to go the inside way. She didn’t want Peter to be by himself.

“D’you like your form Petey?” Mary asked for the third time. The corridors were seemingly louder than she thought they could be so she had to lean closer and shout in order for her friends to hear her. Peter heard this time and shrugged his shoulders.

“It was pretty alright yes’day. I didn’t really talk to anyone though.” Mary was going to respond with, “Oh,” but she decided that it was too little input. Peter probably wouldn’t hear her anyway.

Before they knew it, it was time to split ways and Peter slipped into a classroom whilst Mary and Lily waved him goodbye.

“This is actually quite…” Lily thought aloud, “exciting?”

“Exciting? This?” Mary tried to suppress a laugh. She was feeling quite giggly today. Maybe it was just nerves. Lily shrugged and her face flushed a little.

“Well— its just— y’know its all just quite new and—“

“Yeah, yeah. I get what you mean. Sorry…” she trailed. Whoopsie!

Their form room wasn’t too far from Peter’s and Mary was pretty sure they were in the same English class. This would be fun.

For now though, Mary and Lily had to focus on the problem of getting into their form room. Mary caught a glimpse of Charity’s hair bouncing with her steps a little bit behind them and they were approaching quite quickly. There were other people behind them too but to get into their form room, they’d have to make their way across the corridor and people were walking towards them as well. Oh dear.

“How are we going to do this?” Lily said. Mary was pretty sure she was shouting but it still sounded like a nervous grumble.

Lots of the older students (especially the boys) were running through the corridor in the opposite direction to the two girls. There wouldn’t much of a space in time where their path was guaranteed to be clear. Oh goodness. There wasn’t much time left to think of a plan and—

Oh. There was one way Mary knew for sure. Lily might not be too keen though.

Without a second thought, Mary grabbed onto Lily’s wrist and simultaneously slammed into her shoulder just as they got in line with the door and Lily began to slow. Mary sent them stumbling across the corridor and Lily into the doorframe just where they needed to be.

“Good morning sir!” Mary laughed with a bright smile across her face as Lily pulled herself up and rubbed her shoulder after shaking her wrist free from Mary’s grasp.

“Ah— good morning girls. Come on, sit down,” he said. He sounded mildly irritated by Mary’s loud voice. Maybe he was just a bit tired and hadn’t fully woken up yet. Maybe he was just a boring old git.

Lily didn’t give her much of a chance to decided as she barged past with a faint smiled dancing on her lips.

“Gosh, Mary! That was horribly painful,” Lily hissed as she untucked both of their chairs and patted Mary’s. Mary sat.

“Sorry… you were dawdling and I was only trying to help us both. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” A giggle echoed in her voice as she tried to whisper to avoid the two getting in trouble. Mr Paxton was a bit of an arse yesterday with people talking.

Slowly, the form room began to fill with more people who had had to fight tooth and nail against the older years to cross the corridor into the form room before getting trampled on of barged out of the way.

Mary and Lily got to watch it all.

Nothing interesting happened during form time and Mr Paxton really just waffled in about everything he had said yesterday that the form already knew. Instead of listening, Mary and Lily opted to go over the map they’d been given and try to memorise the layout based on their starting point of Mr Paxton’s classroom.

“Wait,” Lily began. She leant closer to the table and map under the disguise of getting her water bottle out of her bag. Mary glanced up so as to make sure Mr Paxton wouldn’t spot their lack of attention but he wasn’t even facing them. They were safe.

“What’s wrong?”

“The willow tree… that area isn’t marked on the map!”

“Oh, fantastic. We get to keep it to ourselves then.” Mary covered her mouth to hide a yawn. Form time was definitely going to be her least favourite part of each day.

“No, no. I mean, not even the corridor to get to it from the back is on here.” Mary lifted her map up a little bit and leant it on her pencil case. Lily was right. The back entrance opposite the longer corridor wasn’t marked on there. A blank space in the oddly miserable grey colour took its place.

“Maybe it’s a staff room.” Mary shrugged looked at Lily.

“I think they would still mark down staff rooms. Y’know, just so you could know a place to find an adult if needed.” She had a point.

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By the end of form, everyone was raring to get away from Mr Paxton, Lily and Mary included. The two girls didn’t even get a chance to talk to Charity and Edmund as they were the first to scramble out of their chairs with their bags and run for the door with everyone following closely behind them.

“Like a stampede! What happened?” Peter asked with a laugh as he met Mary and Lily with wide eyes.

“Nothing. That’s what’s bad,” Lily said plainly. Peter shrugged and his smile weakened as they made their way down the corridor.

“What do we—“ Peter began. Lily seemed to know exactly what the answer was.

“English first. Second, I have science and you probably do to.” She was certainly quick to answer. Mary knew that she had English first but she hadn’t really bothered to check for second period until the end of first. Wow.

“When did you check? You never got out your timetable,” Mary asked with a hint of shock in her voice.

“Before I left the house this morning,” Lily answered quite plainly. She was acting as though memorising your timetable on day two was perfectly usual. Mary chose not comment again. It would probably come out wrong.

“Who’ve you got for English Petey?” Mary asked instead.

“Uhh…” Peter fumbled for his timetable in the inside pocket of his blazer. “F-F-L. I dunno who that is though.”

“Hm, so do I! Maybe we’ll sit together.” Peter smiled at her so genuinely. She was half joking with the last part but his eyes seemed to twinkle… she almost felt bad.

“Gosh, I do hope so. I haven’t actually made any other friends yet. Well, there is the B-Boy and Emma I guess… and there’s you and Charity’s friend. I think he would count,” Peter began to ramble. The more he talked, the more Mary hoped that she actually would be sat next to him. Peter was so kind. Like yesterday! He had those peach rings and he didn’t have to share them. He’d probably been told to, but his apology and now with the whole friends thing—

They arrived in the English department soon after and checked the doors for which one to wait outside of. Lily had waived them goodbye as she went to wait with James, Charity and Hestia. She met a girl with dark red hair and the two began to chat excitedly.

“Seems it’s just you and me now Petey!” Mary playfully prodded him with her elbow and he flinched back but smiled at her.

“Cut that!”

“Oh? Well—“

“Oh my goodness! It’s you!” a voice from behind them chirped. Turning to look, Mary and Peter saw someone familiar from yesterday. He had dark, curly hair and a blue tie which was secured to his shirt with some sort of paper clip thing. He had several rings on his fingers and a single earring in his right ear. To Mary, he looked pretty cool.

Mary glanced to Peter who smiled at him and waved shyly. The boy walked closer and clapped a hand into Peter’s back swinging him around into a loose hug before letting go again.

“Pete, I thought you said you hadn’t made any proper friends,” Mary said. She had tried to smile in a way that indicated she was joking but Peter didn’t seem to get the memo.

“Well,” he seemed to blush a little which made Mary giggle at him. The boy beside him looked between the two curiously. “I did say that I knew… uhh—“

“Did you forget my name Pete?” the boy asked. He didn’t sound annoyed but Peter’s eyes still widened as though he were about to be scolded.

“I think he did,” Mary said leaning closer to the two boys.

“His name’s Benjy.” Another voice that sounded like a yawn came from behind them and Benjy looked up and smiled. This time, Mary recognised the voice and span around with twinkling eyes.

“Marlene!” she gasped and reached forwards to pull her into a tight hug.

“No, no! Not again!” Marlene groaned. She was clearly trying to seem irritated and tough but it wasn’t working. She sounded just as happy to see Mary as Mary was to see her.

Before they could do anything else, a loud “ahem” sound was heard making all the kids turn to the door. Mary couldn’t see anything else with Benjy’s fat head in the way but everyone started slowly filing into the room so she and her friends followed suit.

“He said to line up at the back. Just thought you wouldn’t have heard being as you were too busy squealing over your girlfriend,” Benjy said with a sly grin on his face.

“Oh shut up! As though you don’t—“ Mary wasn’t given an opportunity to finish her sentence. Both Marlene and Benjy had hissed at her to close her mouth (or in Benjy’s words, “Shut that gob of yours!”) as they finally entered the classroom.