CHAPTER 3- Part 1

A few weeks had gone by, it seemed everyone I'm class had already gotten familiar with each other, the usual silence which echoed throughout the classroom during the first few days of school was now replaced by the indistinguishable sounds of chatter by the class members. It seemed everyone had already found their own clique of friends to hang out with, and I wasn't an exception, I had Damian, Irry, and Chris from Class 1-C, I also met a few other acquaintances along the road. Someone walked up to my desk.

"Nate, I haven't gotten your history report yet, I wanna hand them in to our teacher today." Her voice demanding, it was none other than Lyra, our elected class representative.

"Oh yes, I remember, I'm still finishing it up right now, but I'll be done before the end of our lunch break, rest assured." I said with assurance, however, the bell had other plans, it rang with no hesitation at all immediately after my statement.

"See?, that's the bell for our next class, time waits for no one, Nate." Lyra said.

"Alright then, I'll hand it in before the last bell rings." I said with a sheepish smile on my face.

"You had better, I don't want Mr Offspring breathing down my neck." She said before returning to her seating area. Mr Offspring was the name of our history teacher, he was a very strict man, meticulous in his work too, nobody would ever want to face his wrath, that was why I was even using my lunch break to finish up my report.

In some other unrelated news, apparently Alice so happened to have her desk next to mine in class, not like she wanted to though, and so those past few weeks, Alice never spoke to me once, for any reason, even if she needed something she'd ask other people sitting around her. The seniors that bullied her the other day were suspended so I didn't need to worry about that, and neither did she, then again the fact that they were suspended didn't mean they were told to leave the dorms, apparently in this school the only reason a student would leave the dorms is due to expulsion. But today the strangest thing happened; Alice didn't show up at school, and apparently no one in class knew the reason why either. I started getting worried that something might have happened to her, I knew I wasn't really in any position to worry, especially since I and Alice weren't really on the best terms, but I couldn't help myself. Then I walked up to Lyra's desk.

"Uhm... Lyra, could you help me with something?" I asked her.

"Is it about the history assignment?" She sounded a little pissed, I guessed it was because she was expecting some sort of favour from her, and she was right to think that, but it wasn't related to the history assignment.

"It's not about that, but I do have a favour to ask of you." I said, lowering the tone of my voice.

"Oh, well what is it?" The pissed expression on her face changed to concern once she noticed the change of tone.

"I need you to tell our next teacher that I'll be absent for the rest of the day." I said.

"What? Why?" She seemed reluctant to comply.

"Please just help me, there's something important I need to do right now. Please Lyra." Lyra was thinking about it for a few moments, she didn't speak for a while until finally....

"And this important thing can't wait till after school?" She asked.

"If it could I wouldn't have to ask you for this, so you see how urgent it is." I answered, my face probably displaying desperation.

"Alright fine, just this once, but wait a minute..." Lyra agreed and wanted to say something else, but I had already dashed out of the classroom.

"Thanks alot, Lyra, you're the best!" I said as I ran out of the classroom in a haste.

I already knew what room Alice was in because we had already used her place for one of our study sessions on an occasion where the library was in use by the school's staff members. Normally, students cannot enter the other gender's dormitory unless given permission by a school authority, that's why I had to go during school hours, so no one would see me.

There were janitors who stayed around the corridors in the dorms, but they couldn't care less if anyone walked into the dorms, as long as they didn't litter the place. I walked up the stairs to her room, I didn't really know what to expect, I just hoped that she was there, because of not, that would have meant something happened to her.

I got to her room, room number 72, I was more than anxious to knock, my heart pounding like a bongo drum, I thought. "Even if Alice was here safe and sound I'd be the last person she'd wanna meet." I stood in front of her door, staring at the smooth plain wooden furnishing, then a sound emerged from behind the door. It was a scream. The moment I heard it a reacted without hesitation, it was like that was the driving force I needed for my gears to move. I started knocking, anxiously waiting for a response, different thoughts flew through my head at that moment. Finally, the door was unlocked, a mixture of suprise and relief set in, it was Alice, and it didn't seem like she was in any kind of danger either.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" The dull, lazy expression on her face churned up into irritation the moment she set her eyes on me.

"I came to check up on you. You were absent from school today and I wanted to make sure nothing happened to you." I explained, I was a bit nervous while I spoke, but nevertheless, I spoke.

"Why?!, did I ask you to check on me? Or do you think I'm some child who needs to be supervised 24/7 ?" Her words bitter and unconcerned.

"No, I just thought...I mean..." I started to feel a little bit dumb, assuming she was in trouble just because she was absent from school for a day, her face didn't look too bright either, so when I thought of it, she probably must have just had a cold or something. I had no idea what else to say at that moment, I felt like a complete idiot.

"Dumbass. Did you even look at the time before coming?" She asked me.

"Well sure I did, it was after noon when I left class." I responded. I was a little confused as to why she asked me that, it wasn't school over yet so no one should have been coming into the dorms anytime soon.

"Did you forget that Mr Clearwater said he wouldn't be available to teach our class chemistry today? And his class is the last one we have for today, Thursday!" I began to see where she was going with this, the fact that his class was our last class of the day, coupled with his absence only meant one thing; students from our class were most likely going to start returning to the dorms any time soon. Just at that moment, we heard voices of some girls coming from the stairs... and I was still in their dormitory without permission!

"Oh crap!" I was in panic, I had no idea what to do at that moment.

"Damn it! Those sound like my friends!" Alice whispered. "They may come in here to check on me. This is why I wanted you to leave!" She said in a low tone as she pointed her index finger at me like she was scolding me. The two girls eventually made it all the way up the stairs, but to our relief, found no one in the corridor. Alice had already instinctively dragged me into her room and shut the door, I lost balance and fell but that was the least of her concerns, she was more focused on what she was going to tell them once they walk in. A simple solution would have been to lock the door, but if somehow someone saw me leaving her room later on that would have only complicated the situation. Alice stood in front of the door, staring at the plain wooden furnishing as I had done before, her feet were rooted to the ground by fear, anxiety and panic were etched on her face. I was was in panic as well, my mind couldn't even move fast enough to follow up with the situation, I was in a girl's room, with the girl who was absent from school, during school hours, alone! What would people think?! If someone opened that door, we would never hear the last of it from the school press the next day.

A few seconds passed, and both me and Alice hoped that the girls had just gone to their rooms, at some point I even started believing they had... until there was a knock on the door, a voice followed.

"Alice, are you in here?" The rather familiar voice called out, the voice was familiar because it belonged to Irry. Alice didn't say a word, and neither did I. I looked at the expression on her face, I had never seen her this scared since the incident with the third years, she was breathing so heavily too, she tried to stay calm but it was evident that she was scared. We both just stayed where we were, hoping for them to leave.

"Are you sure you didn't see her at all today?" The voice of the other girl spoke.

"Yeah I'm sure, besides, did you see her in class today?" Irry rhetorically asked the girl back. Then she spoke back at Alice's door. "Alice, can I come in?" The moment she asked that question I felt like I was about to have a heart attack, Alice's mouth opened in shock, like as if she wanted to scream but controlled herself. She took a few steps back from the door, she didn't know what to do from that point. I tried looking around, I was looking for anything I could use as hiding spot, a closet, a wardrobe, anything at all, but there was nothing in the room that I could use to accommodate even half my size, I thought of hiding under her bed, but the bed frame was constructed to touch the ground on all sides, so that was a bust.

Then the really scary part happened.

"Alice, I and Dorcas are coming in." Irry said as she began to turn the doorknob. Alice didn't move, her eyes widened in fear, I guess she was frozen in shock. Was this the end of my social life here in school? Was this the end of Alice's social life? Even if Irry didn't utter a word to anyone, the other girl who I don't think was as close to Alice, could have told people about this. I didn't want any bad rumours about Alice spreading because of my nosiness, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. The door knob turned, slowly, I and Alice watched it, like a ticking time bomb that we couldn't deactivate. What were we going to do!