Unbelievable, Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Best Fit

Tuesday. I had expended my day’s grace as a newcomer, and found that now I was ‘old news’, my Biology classmates had expectations that I would contribute in class discussions, join in with group activities like experiments and, added to that, accompany them to lunch, engaging in proper conversation. They grilled me on where I had come from and why, why I had joined the school four whole months into sixth form, re-starting all my courses, and what I thought of my new teachers. I kept my responses as minimal as possible, but it started the second I appeared in the morning.

I tried to remember the list of five names. Some had not been so friendly, but they too were curious, and after I had fended off all initial enquiries, faded away to their respective groups. I was left with just the five: Eric, Tienna, Josh, Shannon and Tom. They were a varied bunch, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that, en masse, they had decided I needed ‘looking after.’ They may well have been right, and I was grateful in an unwilling fashion. I answered the questions I was prepared to answer, and explained my presence with a rather grey lie: ‘I had to come and live with my Grandmother because my family broke up’, and wouldn’t be pressed further on the matter.

After break: English Literature. More people.

‘Hi, I’m Elyssa,’ a raven-haired, pale-skinned girl with startlingly dark, wide eyes who could only be described as ‘stunning’ crashed her sodden bag and coat down onto the table beside me. She shoved her baggy sleeves up her painfully thin wrists, back from her hands, revealing a myriad of leather bracelets that thronged both arms, and shook the water from her shoulder-length hair.

‘Don’t let the bastards know too much,’ she announced, collapsing heavily onto the chair beside me. She sprawled like an overgrown spider, filling her space utterly and completely with presence. Her skinny legs, clad in tight drainpipe jeans, snaked down into oversized leather cowboy boots. Her hugely oversized woollen jumper draped around her, hiding her stick-like figure, reaching halfway down her thighs. Everything was black. She picked at her chipped black nail varnish as the others dribbled into the classroom.

I noticed that Elyssa’s presence seemed to insulate me from the others; most of them steered well clear of where we were sitting, at the back of the classroom, and I took welcome shelter in her shadow. Only one other dared intrude upon our row; a tall, pale boy. He too was beautiful, extraordinarily so. His dark eyes glittered from underneath his overgrown blond fringe, and he said not one word to either of us, simply eased himself into the chair beside Elyssa. My protection was complete. Elyssa failed to introduce us, and expected nothing from me as I sat, waiting for the class to start.

I watched the teacher distribute paper. The opening task was a simple one; note down five ways in which the film differed from the written text. I scrawled my name, smiling slightly to myself as the ink formed into perfectly regular letters. The date behaved in a similar fashion, and I flexed my wrist before scribbling my five comments, noting plot changes, character alterations, the time spent on portraying certain sections of the differing narratives; the way the monster’s story was handled. I sympathised. Outsiders both; at least I wasn’t hideously deformed.

Next, the teacher picked out various students to choose and read out one of their answers. She picked me third, and grudgingly I read aloud what I had written:

‘What is interesting is the degree in which the different texts portray Victor’s creation as monstrous; the film allows the reader to follow the ‘monster’ as a silent witness, whereas the book has him recounting his story directly to his creator, so we are trapped, if you like, within his viewpoint of events that occur. In the novel, Victor is allowed a greater insight into the monster’s perspective, since he listens as the ‘monster’ recounts his tale personally; in the film, Victor only judges his creation on his actions, disallowing him a proper defence.’

She was pleased with my observation; I think it assuaged any fears she had about my catching up for the time being at least.

Elyssa appraised me as I settled back against the comfort of the chair:

‘Nice one; I’m impressed. Intelligent and individual.’

I caught the blond boy staring at me from behind his fringe, and he lowered his eyes. I wanted to know his name, but was all too aware of feeling intruded upon after the grilling in Biology, and had no intention of becoming the intruder figure to another. He and Elyssa were clearly outsiders themselves within the greater student body, and I instantly felt an affinity with them; they demanded nothing from me and offered me nothing of themselves.

The lesson ended far too soon; I had come to regard the peaceful undulations of reading and writing tasks as a sort of sanctuary, and now reality crashed back in, uninvited, crossing my conscience with momentary panic; the promised lunch with my Biology classmates. Packing my bag, I tried to slink away, but Elyssa grabbed my arm, or at least the material of my new jacket, bought for me by Maggie while I was at school yesterday; she had noticed that I was somewhat badly dressed and her stylish nature disapproved.

‘Lunch?’ Elyssa offered.

I grimaced. ‘I said…I was talked into…’ I mumbled.

‘S’ok! See you later!’

And she bounded from the room with what I had now realised was her normal overbearing physical presence.

The tall, blond boy shadowed her down the corridor, unacknowledged. I turned to meet my fate.

Tienna’s dark visage was a direct contrast to Elyssa’s pinched white features. Tienna was her smile; her round, healthy cheeks; her large dark eyes; her braided hair, haloing her head. A different sort of guardian angel, another new overwhelming physical presence in my life: a different kind of beauty. She waited at the doorway to the dining hall, ready to guide me through the machinations of cafeteria lunch. Today, like Yesterday, I had brought jam sandwiches and fruit, made by my incredibly nurturing Maggie, stuffed into my bag. I would, like yesterday, barely touch it; my appetite had been practically non-existent of late. Tienna was having none of it.

‘Pie and chips, how could you resist?’ she cackled, handing me a laden plate. I protested the lack of greenness and she handed me a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. Maggie, petite and elegant, would have had fifty fits; nothing as unnatural as crisps was allowed past the threshold of her kitchen.

Eric, Josh, Shannon and Tom were sitting amongst a jovial crowd at a large table in the corner. Luckily, by the time we joined them, the table was already thrumming with conversation and I could sit, silently picking at the chips, trying not to look at the pie.

‘Are you going to eat that?’ Tom leaned over, hungrily. I noticed his own plate was already spotless.

‘No,’ I shook my head, grinning and shoving it over.

He grinned wolfishly, and started to shovel mouthfuls of chips down.

‘Pig!’ shouted Tienna. ‘Look at her; she needs to eat something, before she wastes away completely like Elyssa!’

‘Elyssa Strickland: Elyssa Stick-land!’ quipped a boy with dreads, laughing.

I flinched at the sound of my new ally’s name being bandied about in such a fashion. I had noticed the thinness; I had simply not commented or judged. Appearances were sensitive things; I should know. I blinked as my contact lenses shifted uncomfortably in my eyes, the bright fluorescent lights of the school buildings starting to give me a headache.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ the dreaded boy demanded.

‘She is called Neona and she is out of your league!’ called Tienna.

‘What kind of name is that?’ he mocked. ‘It’s not English!’

‘What’s your point?’ I asked, slightly riled, but resigned to such questions.

‘Well, you look English.’ He backtracked slightly.

‘Does ‘English’ have a look?’ I challenged. ‘We’ve always been a multicultural society, invaded by wave after wave of different races, and integrating them and their languages into what we term ‘English’ so easily. What is English to you?’

‘Definitely out of your league, Mika – pretty and too intelligent for you!’

Mika blushed. ‘Sorry, my name’s not exactly normal either, but then I don’t look normal…’ he trailed off, realising his guilt. ‘Ok, before you ask me to define ‘normal’, I’m just going to shut up and back off!’

‘It’s Greek; it means ‘New Moon’, and it’s a family thing, being named for the moon,’ I offered, in way of recompense for my harshness.

‘It’s very pretty; it suits you,’ he whispered, leaning over as he rose to leave the table.

‘But, hang on, your name means ‘New Moon’ too; it’s Japanese,’ I said softly, but he was already gone.

Maths came and went quickly, a few by now-familiar faces to accompany me. Tienna had appointed herself as my personal protector, and I was grateful to be able to hide behind her rather overwhelming personality; for now, it absolved me from having to develop and portray one of my own. The emptiness wouldn’t let me. For too long now, I had been merely drifting, sleep-walking through my life, rather than living it. Perhaps I would never be able to. Perhaps I had left the living part of me back there on the road, with the rest of them.

I refused all the offers of after-school sociability. No to the shops, no to the park, no to Tienna’s mother’s famous cookies, no to study group. I flicked my eyes over the departing students in the hope of finding Elyssa, but her dark hair and pale face were nowhere to be seen. There was something magnetic about her; unlike the others, she gave nothing away unnecessarily; she reminded me of myself, or rather, the new self I had become.