Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ When Dreams Fade ❯ What's under the hood? ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

I was greeted at the door by a purple ball of fuzz weighing about 100 pounds crashing into me and knocking me to the ground. “Hi!” the fuzzball cried, throwing its arms (fuzzballs have arms?) around me in a hug. “Oh my God, I missed you so much! What classes do you have?”

“Hana.” I sat up, pushed her off of me, and cracked my neck. Then I checked to make sure that I had no permanent physical damage. I didn’t. I looked at her. Yes, she was a fuzzball. My eyes hadn’t deceived me. Hana was wearing a very fuzzy purple sweater and a matching headband. She was also wearing fuzzy purple boots and purple pants. “What are you wearing?” I asked.

She laughed and helped me up. “I like purple.” She pulled me toward our friends, Nikolas and Erik. “Alana’s here, guys!”

“Hey,” they both said. Nikolas had apparently engaged himself in a book and was refusing to look up. Hana frowned and stamped her feet. She stormed over to him and yanked the book away. “Niko, you’re going to look at Alana and say hi the right way this time! Do it!”

“Hi,” he repeated, turning toward me. “Can I have my book back now?” he asked Hana.

“No. What’s so fascinating about this, anyway?” She gasped. “Is it…” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “…Porn?”

“What the hell? No!” Nikolas jumped up in an attempt to grab the book from Hana, but she evaded him.

While they were busy fighting over the book, I sat down next to Erik. “Hey,” I said. He grunted in response. “Are you sleepy or something?” I asked.

“Sorta,” he replied, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his face. “I kind of don’t feel well.”

Hana suddenly dropped the book on Nikolas’s foot.

“Ow!” he cried. Hana rushed over to Erik and knelt beside him, practically in his lap. She started sniffing him.

“Uh…Hana, what exactly are you--?” I asked, but she held up a hand to stop me.

“Erik, you smell funny,” she finally determined. “You need a shower or something.”

“Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” Erik mumbled.

Nikolas hobbled over to us and sat down, putting his book in his backpack. “Erik, you didn’t sleep at all last night, did you?”

Erik grunted again in response and buried his face further in his hood. “Shut up.”
“Why didn’t you sleep, Erik?” Hana asked, peering under the hood. “Do you have insomnia?”

“No,” Erik replied simply. “Let’s just drop it.”

“His brother had a party last night. It lasted all night and Erik couldn’t sleep,” Nikolas replied.

“A wild party?” Hana asked. “Drugs and stuff?”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Look, I’m not in the greatest mood right now.” Erik sighed and took out his class schedule from his backpack. “So what do you guys have?”

“Um…English, statistics, history, choir, chemistry, physics, calculus, and psychology,” Nikolas said.

“I have drama, art, English, choir, history, chemistry, psychology, and statistics,” Hana said.

“English, art, history, choir, psychology, chemistry, calculus, and biology,” I replied.

“Yeah…I’ve got guitar, history, English, choir, psychology, sociology, statistics, and biology.” Looks like the only class we all have together is choir. Again.” Erik laughed softly.

“Hehehe…” Hana giggled at the mere mention of choir.

“So, did you get anywhere stalking Mr. Dran over the summer? Did you find his house?” Erik asked.

“No.” Hana pouted slightly. “I chased him a few miles on the last day of school, but I lost him around a tight curve. I will find it, though. And when I do…he will find me in his kitchen. Making cookies.”

“…Cookies?” Nikolas asked.

“I like cookies,” Hana replied with a shrug. “He does too. So what’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Nikolas said, smiling.

The bell rang. Nikolas and I waved goodbye to Hana and Erik as we headed toward English class. “So…can I copy off of you this year?” Nikolas asked me.

“I’ll tell you what,” I replied. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll write your essays for you…if you let me copy off of you in calculus.”

“Deal,” he said, grinning. “I don’t know what help I’ll be if we’re in completely different assigned seats, though.”

“We’ll deal with that,” I said, as we reached the classroom.

At 10:30 the bell rang for fourth period. The rest of the day had gone by extremely slowly, despite the fact that those classes were shared with some of my best friends. As Nikolas and I reached the choir room, I heard sounds that could only be associated with choir class. The class was out of control once again. I looked at Nikolas and sighed. “Come on, Niko. Let’s see how many more gray hairs Mr. Dran has acquired.”

We walked into the classroom. Hana was already sitting down, glaring at the freshmen. “I hate freshmen,” she mumbled.

“You were one, once,” Nikolas reminded her. She shook her head.

“No. Not like…them.” She pointed at a random freshman boy who looked extremely frightened. “Yeah, you. You’re just like all the others…smelly, vile, and, um…yeah. Stuff.” She grumbled, still glaring at him.

“I think he’s scared of you,” Erik mumbled. He was still wearing the hood of the sweatshirt over his face.

“Hey, take off the hood, Erik,” Nikolas said, pulling on the hood. Erik pulled it down harder.

“No, I like it this way. Leave it.” He turned away. “Why don’t you go bowling for freshmen?”

Nikolas and I laughed, but Hana’s eyes widened. “That’s a great idea!” She ran forward and tackled one of the freshmen boys to the ground…just as Mr. Dran walked in.

“Hana, get off of the freshman,” he ordered her nonchalantly as he walked toward his desk.

Hana dutifully jumped off the boy’s back and ran toward Mr. Dran. “I missed you.”

“I made sure of that, yes,” Mr. Dran replied.

“Huh?” Hana frowned. Then her eyes widened. “You…you left me on purpose at that turn! You knew I was following you?”

“Yeah. You made it kind of obvious. You were wearing an ‘I love Mr. Dran’ shirt.”

“Oh. Right.” Hana laughed. “So what are you going to teach us today?”

“Probably nothing,” he replied. “It’s impossible to teach this class. Nobody listens.”

“I’ll listen! I’ll listen intently and I’ll worship you forever and ever.”

Mr. Dran stared at her for a moment. “Right.” He reached into his desk and pulled out a pen. “I’m going to try to take attendance.”

I dragged Hana away from him at that point. “Okay, Hana, let the man work.”

“Aww…” Hana sighed and followed me. “Erik, why are you hiding behind your hood?” she asked.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he said. Hana frowned.

“You’re hiding something. A bad hair cut?”
Nikolas studied him carefully. “Erik, what’s under the hood?”

“My face. Now shut up.” He tried to kick Nikolas, but Nikolas grabbed his feet. Hana grabbed his arms.

“Alana, lift the hood,” Hana ordered me.

“Please, no!” Erik cried out suddenly. Everyone in the room stopped talking and turned to stare at us. I didn’t do it.

“Let him go, guys,” I said. “He apparently doesn’t want us to know.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled.

We should have checked under the hood. Either way, we got our answer the next day.