Nature's Law

One hour later and I was walking back down the crunchy gravel path, having quite gladly left Alice to another one of Mollie’s everlasting speeches about vampires, with whom she was obsessed. I had even got away without having to explain my panic attack, for how much longer I would be able to avoid the inevitable, I was unsure.
“Amalia!” someone shouted after me as I passed one of the many marble benches that adorned this path, not taking note to who was sat on them.
I paused and turned to see who had called me, arriving a few minutes later to the music rooms should ensure that I wouldn’t run into Weedy and another one of his speeches about proper use of a piano, and how I was doing with my coursework on the evolution of modern music styles. The shaggy headed figure of Scott came running towards me; he was throwing his black messenger bag over his shoulder as he shoved something into one of the front pockets, fumbling with the buckle as he hurried to close the pocket up again.
“Are you alright?” he asked when he stopped next to me, having finally secured the latch on the bag.
“Where does it look like I’m going?” I asked, taking a bite out of my apple, which had been grasped tightly in my hand until now.
“Well, wherever you are off to, I will be accompanying you. I don’t want you killing yourself, now.” From his tone, I got the impression he was only half joking.
“Why?” I asked, not having a clue where he was going with this.
He snatched the apple out of my hand and began to stroll away from me, appearing to take a massive bite out of it as he did so.
“Hey!” I shouted after him, jogging a little to catch up to him. “Give me my apple back, and answer the question! Why wouldn’t you want me killing myself? Not that I’m going to or anything...I’m curious though. How would my death effect how you live your life? You don’t know me, it’s not like I mean anything to you. We only met today” I babbled.
He chucked the apple back at me, and to my surprise there wasn't a bite taken out of it, apart from the one which I had caused. Instead there were two deep holes in it, they looked like pin pricks that had been magnified a couple of hundred times. They resembled a dog bite, but that was impossible. They must just have been Scott’s teeth marks from where he had gone to take a bite, but hadn’t.
But, if these were teeth marks, why were there only two?
“It doesn’t matter. You have no idea, Lia, no idea”
Well, that didn’t make any sense. I had plenty of ideas, many of them weren’t very good ones, but still.
I muttered something about needing to go to the toilet, and that I would see Scott in the music room before I ran off back to the hall to find Alice and Mollie.
I saw them sat at one of the bench tables; they were opposite each other and appeared to be having a debate about something. I slid into the seat next to Alice and shushed Mollie, who was in the middle of what I was sure was a well rehearsed debate on why vampires did exist.
“What do you make of this?” I asked, chucking my apple on the table in front of them. Conveniently, it rolled over so that the punctures were facing the glossy white ceiling.
“It’s an apple” stated Alice “What about it?”
“No, look here” I said, pointing out the puncture marks.
“What the hell got at your apple?” she asked, laughing.
I wasn't sure what to tell them, they were my best friends but something told me not to tell them that it could have been Scott.
“Not sure” I lied. Nerves were building inside of me, mainly because I was praying to myself that Alice wasn’t going to bring up my panic attack in front of Mollie, who would go on endlessly about it. I hardly ever told Mollie about my attacks, she was known for being a drama queen.
“Looks like a dog or something” she told me, before going back to writing out her French homework which was due in next lesson.
“No!” exclaimed Mollie “It’s a vampire!”
“They don’t exist” I scolded her, maybe a little too harshly seeing as she promptly turned around and resumed re-reading a book which I was sure that she had read a thousand times before, especially as the title was ‘Vampire Mythology’, it was kind of Mollie’s bible. She even called herself a ‘Vampist’ which I really didn’t understand.
I sat there silently; neither of my friends seemed particularly interested in my apple, which I thought was extraordinarily odd.
“Take a bite out of it” Alice told me after a few silent minutes of me staring perplexed at the apple, Mollie flicking pages avidly of her book, seeming amazed at its contents, even though I was quite sure she knew it off by heart and Alice’s Hello Kitty pen scrawling out a French passage about herself in black onto a crisp white page.
I looked at her, confusion written all over my face. She was still scrawling onto the paper and didn’t look up at me. I sighed and took a bit out of the apple.
I immediately spat my but back out again. It tasted repulsive, as if something had been injected into it to replace all of the juice, which had vanished, leaving it as dry as bone.
Mollie and Alice looked at me quizzically, disgust in Mollie’s eyes as she caught a look at the partially chewed piece of apple on the table.
“That’s just gross” stated Alice as Mollie screamed and jumped out of her seat jumping up and down and flailing her hands whilst repeating ‘Eww’ over and over again.
I didn’t respond to either of them, I just looked down, disgusted, at my apple.
“What?” asked Alice, noticing my glare.
“It tastes as though it’s been drained. All shrivelled up. And there’s something else there, replacing it. It tastes mechanical.” I told her, describing the disgusting apple as best I could.
It had tasted fine before Scott stole it and now....And now it just tasted disgusting.
Scott.
Scott must have done...something to my apple. But what?
I excused myself from the table and marched up to the music rooms, the apple tightly clasped in my hand.

“Scott!” I shouted as I entered the music rooms. He was sat on the piano stool, tapping out a simple tune.
“What?” he asked evidently confused.
“Care to explain what you did to my apple?” I asked angrily, chucking it at him.
“Urm...” he mumbled almost incoherently.
“Sorry? Didn’t catch that”
“I said I’m sorry! I went to take a bit of your apple. But, I didn’t. I swear”
I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not, but nevertheless I nodded my head and took a seat next to him just as someone slammed open the door.
“That’s it! Out!” Mr Havers shouted as he caught sight of me and Scott sat on the stool, which was designed for only one person, not two.
“Why?” we asked simultaneously
“I will not have you making such a racket in my music room!” he shouted
“But-” Scott began
“No buts! OUT!” he screeched at us both.
“That is not--” Scott tried again
“Mr Hartley! Out! Now!”
Scott remained sat down, where as I stood up hurriedly, swinging my bag over my shoulder. “Come on, it’s not worth it. We’ll come back later”
“You will not!” Mr Havers shouted.
“Right! That is it!” Scott shouted, finally getting a full sentence out
“Mr Goddamn Hartley, you will get out of my music room if you know what is good for you!” he shouted, his face turning bright red.
Scott smirked evilly “Is that so?” he jeered.
Mr Havers suddenly ran at Scott, tackling him to the ground and then Scott screamed, probably as loud as he could.
“ABUSE!”
That one word was all that it took for three teachers to come spilling into the room and pull Mr Havers to his feet, pulling him out of the room, as the Head came in and told Scott to come to his office at lunch so that he could write a statement.
Scott nodded solemnly and when it was just us two left in the room he muttered under his breath “Bye bye Weedy”.
I laughed as we made our way outside; separating as we went off to our next lessons. The line of steadily forming Year 7’s all stared at us as if we were from a different planet.
“Year 7” we both laughed under out breath

As we crossed over the playground towards the Maths rooms the unmistakable blonde figure of Jeanne came swaggering up to me, Marie on her left and Rachel on her right, both were looking at her in awe, waiting to see what they were to do and how they were to react. And even though Jeanne was way more reliant on their opinions than they were on hers, they seemed to be the underdogs, which was truly odd.
“Oi!” Jeanne greeted me, and Marie and Rachel copied her sarcastic tone as they greeted me in the same way; neither one caring that I was in fact two years older than them.
I groaned inwardly as I replied with a small nod of my head, signifying I recognised my name. I had long ago realised I needn’t bother wasting my breath in talking to Jeanne at school. Scott just stood there; staring down at them.
“So what are you doing, Loser?” she said, to chorus’ of giggles from both Marie and Rachel, both of whom were flicking their hair from side to side and fluttering their lashes. I guess they were trying to impress Scott, who, it must be said, was rather good looking. Okay, so he’s very good looking. With a cherry on the top. Not that I was ever going to let him know that though. He’d laugh at me and then I’d be dead at this school.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I muttered, pulling Scott away from them by the thin grey sleeve of his regulation school jumper. The last thing I wanted was for some other boy to be infected by my sister and her friends - wasn’t the rest of the male populations love enough for them? Obviously not, as Holly was now laughing ridiculously high-pitched as she ‘subtly’ laid her hand on Scott’s arm. I began to steer us away and towards the canteen.
“Anyway,” she continued “I need some money”
“What happened to the £10 Mum gave you not a week ago?” I asked as I began to walk away
“Isn’t it obvious? I spent it” Cue more laughter from Rachel and Marie, who both started making snide remarks about my hair, make-up, comeback. You name it and they would be making fun of it.
I sighed, not expecting a more detailed answer from her and reached into my bag to dig out some spare change. I wasn’t going to spend it anyway, so it couldn’t hurt. And I’d rather not get into another fight with my sister. Confrontation wasn’t my thing. At all.
Scott put his hand on my arm “What are you doing?” he asked me softly
“What does it look like she’s doing, you idiot?” Jeanne interjected “She’s handing over her money to moi,”
My hands scraped up some loose change from the bottom of my bag, along with some crumbs from who knows what, some scraps of paper and an old trolley token (How it got in my school bag, I will never know).
I dropped the coins into her hand, she looked down at them and then pushed past me, shoving them into her pocket, Marie and Rachel tottered to her side, their navy heels obviously weren’t as practical as they were stylish. What a shocker.

“Why did you give into her like that?” Scott demanded immediately after he was sure that they were out of earshot.
“It’s easier than arguing with her” I muttered under my breath; embarrassed about how I couldn’t even stand up to my fifteen year old sister.
“Students, please report to your third lesson. Thank You” The receptionist’s voice sounded through the PA. For some unknown reason they didn’t think that we were smart enough to decipher the difference between a fire bell and a class bell; stupid, I know.
“See you at lunch?” asked Scott as he began walking back towards the Science block, which was next to the Music rooms.
“Sure. I’ll be in the canteen with Alice and Mollie” I told him, as I began to head off across the tarmac, and as I looked back I saw him smiling at me. His incredibly different teeth looked even icier in the sunlight, crystal clear.
I waved slightly; it was more a flick of the wrist. Immediately after I was punching myself inside, how idiotic would that have looked?
Well, the past was the past. Something you can’t change, unfortunately. But, on the bright side, at least not everything leaves a scar.