Half of Chapter 11

“Who was that?” Blake asked, holding the door open for Seth.
Sasha looked a little shaken. “I don’t know.”
Jenn walked into the room and saw everyone a little freaked out. “Uh…is everyone okay?” her eyes met Seth’s.
One of his eyebrows dipped. “Yeah, some strange guy just came and verbally assaulted your mom,” he said, shaking his head. “No big deal.”
Blake gripped Seth’s shoulder. “Uh…Saush, what’s for dinner?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.
Seth tensed and held Jenn’s gaze. “Who was that?” Jenn asked Sasha.
Sasha looked at Seth uneasily. “Um…it was someone who said he worked for Seth’s dad.”
Seth frowned. “Wait, where does he work?”
“He didn’t say.”
Blake rocked back and forth on his feet. “Can…can we discuss this over dinner? I’m bushed.”
They all looked at him. His blue eyes were wide and scared. “Okay,” Sasha said. “I made some lasagna and it’s in the oven. It’s not quite ready,” she looked at Blake. “Can I talk to you in private?”
Seth and Jenn exchanged glances. “Sure,” Blake said.
The kids were left in the living room alone as Jenn’s parents walked down the hallway towards the family room.
Seth shifted his feet. “I thought he was dead,” he said, sounding disappointed, going over to the stairs to put his new clothes in ‘his room’.
Jenn followed. “Why did you think that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Well, for one, he left seven years ago and didn’t come back,” he said, stopping at the top of the stairs and waiting for Jenn. “Two, he never sent us letters or anything. We never heard from him.”
Jenn stopped and stood by him at the top.
Seth was a good four inches taller than her, and her eyes were about level to his chin. Jenn looked up at his dark face and he peered down at her through a few strands of his black hair.
“When’s your birthday?” she asked suddenly, eyes questioning.
His chin moved back a half inch in surprise. “What?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “When is your birthday?”
One of his eyebrows dipped. “November eleventh,” he said. “Uh…yours?”
“January fifteenth,” her brow furrowed and she was silent for a minute. “What year?” she asked.
“Ninety-three,” he said. “Why?”
She wrinkled her nose. “You’re older than me.”
Seth laughed, his face breaking it’s normal impassive state. “Of all the things you could worry about, it’s me being older,” he chuckled.
Jenn rolled her eyes. “How old were you when your dad left?” she continued.
He stopped laughing and just looked at her. “Six.”
“Huh,” Jenn concluded.
She didn’t say any more about the subject. Seth held his bag a little higher. “I’ve got to go put these away,” he started walking towards his room, Jenn following.
“So,” she persisted, “that would give your dad plenty of time to…I dunno…like, start things over, you know? Like maybe you have half siblings in Britain, or something, and your dad mentioned you, and they decided they wanted to meet you.”
They got to his door and he turned the handle and stopped. “What are you getting at?” he asked, a little irritated.
She shrugged. “I dunno, I thought that maybe you have a better life outside all of this. Like, maybe you really do have somewhere to go. Maybe your dad wants you back.”
Seth opened the door and walked to ‘his’ dresser. “I don’t think so. I mean, you don’t just show up after seven years and demand custody of your kid that you don’t really know.”
Jenn sat on his bed and fingered his guitar. “Maybe you do.”
He frowned and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. “Are you trying to get rid of me or something?” he questioned.
She looked up and smiled at him. “No,” she said, “I'm just giving you hope.”
Seth scowled. “Hope?”
“Yeah. Someone obviously wants you, and I think you should try and find them.”

Part TWO of Chapter Eight!

“Are you lost?” Flashman’s voice broke through Seth’s silent panic.
He looked up. Yes. “No,” he clamied.
But he really was. He was confused at the whole structure of the building; it all looked alike. One pod was just like the other. The Language Arts room was always beside the Social Studies room, which was across from the Math room, which was always beside the Health room, which was always vertical from the Science room. In. Every. Pod.
Well, no, except for the one pod that was above the Gym, and the Band room, across from the stage. And, except for the library, above the front office and entryway.
Flashman took Seth’s schedule away from him and looked at it. “Oh, the Art room’s behind the stage on the second floor. Yours is the one on the right, 2D. 3D is on the left,” he smiled helpfully.
But Seth didn’t find it all that encouraging. He was still lost. Where were the stairs, again?
“How ‘bout I walk you?” Flashman offered. “That’s my next class, too.”
Great. “Cool,” Seth managed.
Flashman lead the way up a set of back stairs in a seventh grade pod. Then they took a left down a hallway, and took the second door on the same side.
“New student!” Flashman called, moving a girl much shorter than him out of his way. “Make room!”
They moved to a table in back with four stools, all vacant. “Nobody sits here. Or there, or there,” he said, motioning with a long hand. “I gotta grab my project, so…just sit somewhere.”
Seth sat.
Class started a minute later, after Flashman had sat down a couple stools away from him. An artsy looking teacher with black glasses, looking very ‘Tina Fey’ waltzed freely through the class door fluidly. “Good morning, class,” she sang. “Today we will continue working on our self portraits.”
Flashman raised his hand. “Ms. Teacher, we have a new student.”
“Flashman! Way in the back – Good morning to you,” she said, acknowledging his presence. “Yeah, um, Seth, was it?”
Flashman smiled. “That’s the kid,” he laughed once, hitting Seth on the back lightly.
The teacher walked down the isle between the rows of tables. Kids were working diligently and monotonous. The teacher had a clipboard in her hand and looked as if she was taking roll. She flipped the page on front over the clip, and appeared to search the content of it. “Ah, here we are, Seth Shepherds?”
“Yes Ma’am,” Seth answered, inwardly rolling his eyes. That would be, what? The sixth time today?
The teacher smiled and held out her hand to shake. He took it. “Seth, then. I’m Ms. Colfer. Have you ever taken an art class before, Seth?”
“Yeah…at my old elementary school,” his tried to smile, and failed.
Ms. Colfer withdrew her hand. “Okay, I’m just going to start you off with drawing yourself. I have mirror over here that you can use. Do you think you can do that?”
Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose.”
“You suppose,” Ms. Colfer echoed walking over to another table and grabbing supplies for him. “You don’t know. Oh! The sadness! The horror! You poor, pathetic young man!”
She dropped the stuff on his workspace. “There you go, Mr. Shepherds.”
“Drama queen,” Flashman muttered.

Half of Chapter 8

8.

Lunch was crowded. There were people at every table, and were no empty spots, so Seth observed. It was a large room, and sound echoed even though there were blocks to prevent that sort of thing.
He went through the lunch line, and paid for a sandwich and milk with the money Sasha had given him that morning.
When he was out, he looked around for Jenn. Maybe she was around somewhere, saving him a spot with her friends. When he didn’t see her, his energy dropped. He wandered aimlessly around the cafeteria hoping he’d see her. Then, “Seth!”
He turned to see Sam and Jenn sitting at a table with a bunch of other kids that he didn’t know. “Hey,” he said.
Jenn scooted over on the bench and patted the seat next to her. “You can sit here,” she said.
He sat where he was told, and conversation started up again. “Is the science test hard?” a boy asked.
Another guy spoke up, “Not if you know the patterns in the Periodic Table. Like, um, atomic number, mass, and a ton of crap like that,” he said, and then pointed at Seth. “Who’s he?” he asked. “Jenn, is he another one of your ‘friends’?”
She looked hard at the boy. “Really, Flashman?” she said sternly.
The kid watched her for a second, and then his eyebrows went up and his mouth opened.
“Oh! Right, right, right,” the boy, Flashman, said, nodding. He was tall, maybe five-foot-five, five-foot-seven, or so, and had big brown eyes behind thick designer glasses. He wore a nice brand of sweater-vest with a collared shirt. His brown hair was cut evenly around his face, skater-style, and brushed to the side.
Jenn took a bite of her pizza. “This nut-ball’s Alex Flashman,” she pointed to the glasses-kid, addressing Seth, then to the other boy who’d asked the original question, “And that’s Chase Witthers. Flashman’s our best computer hack, and Chase provides funds.”
Seth watched her warily behind his dark hair. He spoke quietly, “For what?”
Chase spoke up, “Different things.”
“Revenge, getting even with teachers…,” Flashman counted off his fingers. “Grading systems…”
Jenn laughed once, elbowing Sam. Seth stayed silent as he chewed his sandwich.
“Attention, Eighth Graders!” someone on the mike up front fumed.
“Oh, God, here we go,” Flashman groaned, leaning back on the bench.
“Would you please check the lost and found for any lost items? We are donating all clothing items left over the weekend. I repeat. We are donating all the clothing items left over the weekend. Thank you.”
Everyone exchanged looks until Chase finally broke the silence and laughed. Then the bell rang.

...after much consiteration, i decided to make a second half to chapter 7...so...here it is!

Third period was science. Seth scanned the room, looking for an empty seat. There were four rows of three tables that fit two people. Way in the back, there was an empty seat next to Sam. He reluctantly walked over to it, and sat down without saying a word.
“Hi!” Sam said, chipper as always.
Seth held her gaze for a moment, the looked away to another direction, hand under his chin, observing all aspects of the room.
It was cold, he decided, but non-threatening. The school was well funded, and there were all kinds of objects that would not have been found at the school he went to downtown.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Sam said. “I think Jenn told me, but I forgot.”
He sighed and turned his head. “It’s Seth,” he said, and held out his hand.
Sam looked at it like fish bait. Didn’t people shake hands here? “I’m Sam,” she said.
He nodded, pulling his hand back, feeling stupid not knowing how people acted.
They sat in silence for a minute before Sam summoned up the courage to speak again.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Fourteen,” he answered automatically and immediately.
More silence. The teacher walked in and started writing something on the old-fashioned chalk-board in front. He watched, and his gaze flickered to the mirror that was secured to the ceiling above the teacher’s black desk. It looked that it could pivot so the students could see what the teacher was doing on his or her desk, similar to an overhead projector.
He shrank back into his chair, slouching, and his jaw touched the collar of his jacket.
“How long are you staying with Jenn’s family?” Sam asked, shifting in her own black plastic seat.
Seth peered at her through the dark strands of his hair that covered his face.
Sam shut up.
“Class!” the teacher barked from the front of the room; a man, shorter than average. Brown suit and green tie, black leather shoes that nocked on the tile floor of the room as he walked, piercing green eyes and dark brown hair, and goatee around his mouth. “We have a new student today. Seth Shepherds. Stand, would you please, sir?”
Seth remained in his seat, slouched, where he was.
“Mr. Shepherds?”
Seth said nothing.
“Right then,” the teacher said.
The teacher walked back to his desk and moved a red foam apple into alignment with the other things in his space. He straightened a pen and a pencil so they were perfect where they were, and made a short hm! noise, as if intensely satisfied with himself.
The class stayed silent.
“I am Mr. Geer,” he said loudly, eyes fixated on his desk.
The class remained quiet.
Mr. Geer walked around his it, his feet making the nock, nock, nock sound as he walked. He sneezed, and then sniffed. “I have a passion for science,” he said, speaking widely with his hands. “I could be teaching high school students, or even in universities,” Mr. Geer stopped for a dramatic effect, “But,” he continued, “I,” he walked down the isle between science tables, taking a step with every word, “Teach. You.”
He continued walking around the room. Nock, nock, nock…and then he stopped – right in front of Seth.
Nock.
“Have you got that, Mr. Shepherds?”
Seth held the man’s gaze for a minute before seriously answering, “Yes, sir,” to the horrible little man.
“Good man!” Mr. Geer said, his eyebrows drawing together. He addressed the class, “Everyone get out your Science spirals as we continue our lesson on atoms. You see, atoms–” he trailed off talking, his hands gesturing wildly as if trying to communicate the deaf.
He started drawing something on the chalk board. “Copy this down, boys and girls.”
Sam tore out a sheet of paper for Seth and handed it to him, and he joined everyone duplicating the model onto their papers. “He’s not very nice,” she muttered knowingly out of the side of her mouth.
Seth exhaled a single short laugh.
“Ms. Kyoko,” Mr. Geer warned, half turning around. “Mr. Shepherds is busy, and so should you be.”
Sam’s eyes narrowed, and she continued writing out the notes on the board.

...the other half of chapter 4

* * *

Their kitchen was huge, like the rest of the house. He searched the cabinets for cereal and settled for a bowl of Froot-o’s once he’d found the one percent milk.
He saw a paper on the table as he sat down, and pulled it over to his spot. He opened it to a random page and took a bite of cereal. He gagged. To sweet. He got up and went to the sink, pouring the stuff down the drain a turning the disposal on.
He heard Blake’s footsteps before he saw his new foster father. “Hey! Morning, Seth,” Blake said as he walked in.
Seth nodded. “Hey.”
Blake went to a cabinet and took out a granola bar that said Coffee Crumbles on the wrapper. “Want one?” he asked, holding up the box.
Seth shrugged and took one.
Blake had opened the wrapper of his and took a bite. “They’re pretty good,” he said. “Look, I have to take off to work. Sasha’s still in bed. Jenn…I don’t know where she is, actually. But, help yourself to the food…and, um…yeah. Ask Jenn if you need anything.”
“Okay,” Seth said, giving an effort to smile.
Blake smiled back. “Okay, see you later,” he said, waving, and walking out the door.
Seth heard the door slam, and then he was alone again. He wondered what he could do today. It was…Monday…but Jenn was taking the day off of school. Probably because he was there.
He finished his coffee bar and threw the wrapper away in the trash can in the corner by the door. He looked around. What to do?
“Hey, Seth.”
He turned around. Geez, these people were everywhere. “Hi,” he said to Jenn.
She was pulling a cereal box out of a cubbard. “I was gonna eat breakfast,” Jenn said. “Did you wanna do anything today?” she then asked, pouring it into a bowl.
Seth shrugged. “What’s there to do?”
Jenn got out a spoon and milk. “Um…I could show you around town?”
He sat down across from her at the table. It wasn’t like there was anything else to do. “Okay.”
Jenn grinned. “I think you’ll enjoy yourself,” she said.

Chapter 4 (well half of it anyway...)

“Hey Seth,” Sasha’s voice called from the doorway.
He looked up. “Oh, hey,” he said quietly.
Her hair was wet, and she was in her pajamas. Not wearing make-up made her look like a totally different person. She had white slippers on.
“Can I come in?” she asked, smiling wide with her mouthful of white, straight teeth.
Seth looked down at the bag he was unpacking on his bed. “Um, yeah, I guess,” he said, pulling out another shirt, folding it, and putting it on the shirt stack.
She came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “So, how are you liking your new room?” she asked, still grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Adjusting well?”
He nodded, folding a pair of jeans, not looking up. “’m okay.”
She said nothing, and he made a mental note to practice facial expressions in the mirror sometime soon.
She tapped her fingers on her fleece pajama leg, trying to think. “Uh…do you like the colors?” she asked.
He decided to look up and look around. “Yeah. I like…blue.”
She sighed quietly, but Seth heard. “That’s good.”
He looked at her and tried to smile. Her hand extended to touch him on the cheek, but he automatically flinched away, dropping the jacket he was folding from his hands. He took a step back.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Seth just stared.
“I should go,” Sasha said, giving a weak, smile. “Goodnight.”

The next morning, he woke in his new bed. The unfamiliar smell made him uncomforable. This always happened to him. He’d move somewhere new, and it had a different smell. The different feel of sheets, colors, and made him twitchy.
Seth had to get out of bed.
He pushed the sheets far enough down to get out of the tangle of blankets. He shook his black hair about his face like a dog, rubbed his eyes, and let out a soft groan. “Urm…”.
He walked to the bathroom, to his right, but the door was shut. Huh, he thought, and knocked.
A muffled “What?” came from behind it, “Oh, crap.” The door opened, and a turban-toweled, pajama’d Jenn with a toothbrush in her mouth stood in front of him. “Mm!” she squealed, and turned quickly to spit toothpaste out. “I’m so sorry, Seth, I forgot! Here, you can come in,” she said, opening the door.
He grabbed the toothbrush he’d put in the holder and squeezed his own toothpaste on it. He brushed and spit into the second sink, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Then he grabbed his little black plastic comb and straightened his bed-hair.
Jenn combed her own hair with a brush. “Sorry, Seth. I swear, I won’t do it again.”
He put the comb by the wall near the mirror. “No, it’s okay.”
“You sure? ‘Cause I could totally get up earlier.”
He shrugged, looking at his reflection. A tall, dark haired, brown eyed boy looked back at him.
Jenn struggled with the comb. “You’re not that bad looking.” She smiled, and laughed. "And your hair looks really anime."
Seth smirked. She was friendly. Which, he guessed, was good. He wouldn’t have to do a ton of talking around her.
“Hey, you got an iPod?” she asked suddenly, opening a drawer full of make-up and pulling out a tan bottle.
He shook his head. “No.”
“’Cause I have an old one, if you want it. It’s a Nano, if that’s okay,” she said, blotting some of the tan liquid out on her finger and putting it on her face.
“I wouldn’t know the difference,” he said just as his stomach growled.
Jenn looked at him. “You should go get some breakfast,” she said, looking back into her magic drawer.
“What’s there to eat?” he asked. Might as well.
Jenn held a green circle container with a little round pad with peach powder in it. She padded some on her face. “Ah…there’s a lot of stuff. Like cereal? There’s frozen waffles in the freezer. Pancake mix, if you know how to make ‘em…and there’s a skillet in the cabinet under the ‘island. Um…I think there’s bagels? I think they’re, like, blueberry or something. I dunno. Oh! And there’s two percent and one percent milk in the ‘fridge. Whatever you prefer…” her voice trailed off as she applied pink powder to her cheeks with a brush.
He nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
“Hey, anytime,” she said, looking back into the drawer.
As he left he could hear her singing to herself.
He decided he liked her. She was okay. Better than any of the foster siblings he’d had before, who treated him like crap. Jenn treated him like a brother.

* * *