Fractured (Unreel series Book 1)

by Sanna Wolf-Watz

  Thomas shook his head. His friends were all insane. He watched as Denise pointed in his direction, while the other girl kept her gaze locked on Denise like she couldn’t even be bothered to look at him.

  “I don’t think she’s wearing any. Iceman? Do you think she’s wearing makeup?”

  “How would I know?” Thomas asked irritably.

  “You’re right, she’s too far away to be sure. I should walk over to get a better look at her.”

  “What? Why would you…”

  He cut off when the door opened and their teacher stepped in with an apologetic smile on her lips.

  “Hi, everyone, I’m sorry I’m late. I was having trouble finding my way here, this place is like a maze!”

  “It’s supposed to be,” Wayne said from behind Thomas, but he wasn’t paying attention. The girl had turned towards the teacher and for the briefest time their gazes met. He felt like he’d won a fight. With a grin he turned back to the teacher.

  “Is it?” the woman asked, surprised.

  “This used to be a prison up until the 80’s. Hasn’t changed that much.”

  Their teacher blinked. “A prison?”

  “Yeah, it was built in the 1940’s,” Thomas said.

  “You’d think someone teaching history would have already known that,” Jock whispered in his ear.

  “A prison? Wow, that’s fascinating. I only arrived a week ago so I have a lot to learn about the local history,” the teacher said with another smile. “I’m looking forward to learning together with all of you. For those who didn’t pay attention at the Principal’s speech earlier today, my name is Ms Wilkins.”

  She wrote her name on the whiteboard in capital letters.

  ”I’ve worked in New York before, but I got tired of the cold winters. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all.”

  “You chose Kansas over New York?” Jock asked.

  Ms Wilkins kept smiling, but her eyes looked sad. “It was time for a change. A big one. Anyway, we…”

  “For how long did you live in New York?” Mia Henderson asked from the front.

  “All my life. But now I’m here,” she added when more students opened their mouths to ask questions. “We need to get on with the roll call. If you would all please take out your name tags.”

  Thomas had already placed the sign in front of himself. He looked over to the new girl. It irked him that he didn’t know her name. She was digging through her bag before putting up her name tag with a relieved sigh when she finally found it.

  He smirked and shifted to the right and stretched in an attempt to read her name tag from the back.He couldn’t make out a lot, but he was pretty sure that it ended with the letter ‘A’. Like most names for girls did. He shifted irritably. She managed to annoy him even while quiet and with her back turned.

  The teacher looked up from a list she’d been consulting and cleared her throat. She looked around the room as if she was searching for something. Her gaze finally stopped on the tag in front of the new girl. Thomas grinned widely as he saw the her stiffen. He’d enjoy this.

  Sofia hadn't wanted to believe her eyes when she stepped into classroom B5 for her first history class of the semester. She'd quickly looked away from the blond douche bag, but she heard his friend say something and then the rest of the class had laughed. She'd wanted to sink through the floor.

  Instead she'd kept her head high and focused on finding a free seat. As soon as she’d sat down someone poked her in the back with a pencil.

  She’d turned around, prepared to smack that someone when she recognized Denise smiling widely at her.

  “Hi,” Sofia said.

  “I didn’t know you were taking this class.”

  “Me neither. I haven’t memorized my schedule yet, I’m taking it one class at a time.”

  “Hand over your schedule and let me have a look,” Denise said.

  Sofia did as she asked. Denise hummed to herself as she compared it to her own.

  “We have a lot of classes together. Which is great because you’re going to need time to tell me how you know Thomas Jefferson.”

  Sofia blinked in confusion. She must have misheard.

  “Sorry, who?”

  “Thomas Jefferson, like that old President you know.”

  “Someone named their son Thomas Jefferson?”

  “Yeah, well, American history is important to his dad.”

  “I'd say,” Sofia said. “Er… and I know this person?”

  “Obviously. Why else would Wayne call you his friend?”

  “Who?”

  Denise tilted her head as if she was trying to decide if Sofia was a few short of a whole deck or just temporarily confused.

  “You don’t know them?”

  “I don’t know anyone here. Except for you,” Sofia said truthfully and cringed. “That sounded pathetic.”

  Denise ignored that and pointed her finger over her shoulder. “Behind me, the blond guy next to the tall one with dark hair. That’s Jefferson.”

  Sofia didn’t need to look to know who she was talking about.

  “That’s the guy who ran into me.”

  Denise’s brown eyes went wide. “That’s the jerk? Jefferson?”

  “Yeah,” Sofia said, still determined not to look at him.

  “Jefferson? A jerk?”

  “Why are you sounding like you don’t believe me?”

  “I believe you,” Denise said quickly. “It’s just that Jefferson is such a… a… goody two-shoes. He’s on the student board, he’s captain of the baseball team and he’s got straight A’s. That doesn’t make him a good person, of course, but he doesn’t usually go around pushing people to the ground.”

  “I don’t think he meant to push me,” Sofia said again, not sure why she was making excuses for him, “but he did and then he was a… a jerk about it.”

  Denise grinned. “Did you call him a jerk to his face? Please, tell me you did.”

  “No, I called him an idiot.”

  Denise laughed. “Oh, I bet he loved that. You know, I should have known something was off with him. He’s been dating Rachel for like a year and she’s evil.”

  Sofia smiled. “But pretty, right?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Guys are the same all over the world.”

  “True that.”

  They looked up at the sound of their teacher arriving and Sofia swiveled back on her seat to face forward. She couldn't keep from sneaking a peak at Thomas as she turned. He was frowning at her. Of course he was. For all she knew he might not have any other facial expression.

  Their new teacher seemed nice enough. Right up to the point when she zoned in on Sofia’s name tag and smiled.

  Sofia knew her cheeks were bright red and for the second time in fifteen minutes she wished for a hole in the ground that she could disappear into.

  Having to stand up and give a small presentation of herself in front of the gym class had been bad enough. She didn’t want to do it again. Ever. Certainly not in front of that guy.

  ”Another new person here I see, Miss Sofia Hansson from… Sweden. Wow, that is a faraway place. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself?”

  Sofia thought about running from the room. She didn’t think she could do it without toppling over so reluctantly got to her feet –as apparently was the custom in this country– and commanded herself not to blush. She looked at all the faces turned towards her, staring at her and swallowed hard.

  ”Hi, my name is Sofia Hansson. I moved here about two weeks ago. I look forward to getting to know you all.”

  She sat back quickly, but Ms Wilkins wouldn’t let her off the hook so easily. Teachers never did.

  ”Sweden, Europe?” Ms Wilkins asked inquisitorially and when Sofia nodded she went on. “What’s it like?”

  Sofia wasn’t sure how to answer that question. She cleared her throat and Ms Wilkins leaned forward, looking genuinely interested. To Sofia’s great dismay, the rest of the cla
ss was doing the same. Brilliant, she was the new class freak.

  “Well, it’s colder,” she said. “Er… Fewer people in general, fewer religious people in particular. Less cars, crimes, guns, drugs. Less everything, really. Except for trees. We’ve got lots of trees. And free healthcare and education. And people speak Swedish.”

  “Is it true everyone over there is a communist?” a girl with mousy brown hair asked.

  Sofia laughed, then stopped when she realized that no one else was laughing. They were all looking at her as though it had been a serious question. But it couldn’t have been, could it?

  “No, most of us aren’t,” she answered carefully.

  ”Why did you move to the US?”

  “I bet it was cause of the polar bears,” Denise said from behind her. Sofia looked over her shoulder to find Denise gazing solemnly at her.

  “The polar bears?” Ms. Wilkins asked.

  She looked from Sofia to Denise with a puzzled expression. Sofia stared at Denise. Where was she going with this?

  “Yeah, there are polar bears roaming the streets of Sweden at night. Everybody knows that,” Denise said, winking at Sofia.

  Denise turned to the class in general, “That’s why they’ve got so few inhabitants in Sweden. Only the fiercest survive, the rest get eaten.”

  “Wow,” someone said and to Sofia’s intense surprise her classmates turned to look at her with a newfound level of respect. She didn’t dare to look at Denise again. Instead she cleared her throat and went on with it.

  “Er...yeah. The polar bears were, naturally, a…er… contributing factor. They get fairly aggressive in the summer time, too warm you see?” She coughed. “Also, my mother got a job researching GMOs here. So we moved,” she said and shrugged in a gesture that was meant to convey that she didn’t care to talk about it so could they please move on already?

  Ms. Wilkins finally got the hint.

  ”How fascinating,” she said. “Lovely to have you here, away from the claws of the overheated polar bears!”

  Sofia saw the ends of Ms. Wilkins mouth twitch and realized she wasn’t the only one impressed with Denise’s imagination. Her teacher took a steadying breath.

  “Alright, let’s do the rest of the roll call and then I’ll outline the plan for this semester.”

  Sofia relaxed when the eyes of the class again turned towards Ms. Wilkins. She turned back to Denise.

  “Polar bears?” Sofia whispered, exasperated.

  Denise didn’t answer as she stared into her note book, her shoulders shaking.

  Thomas couldn’t concentrate. Normally he was fascinated by history and listened attentively throughout class. Not this time.

  He couldn’t sit still, instead he twisted this way and that in an attempt to see what the new girl was doing now. How dared she? How dared she mock him and the rest of the class like that? Polar bears! That was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard.

  The teacher went on and on about their curriculum. The classroom was too warm. It wasn’t normally this warm, was it?

  He turned his head again, caught sight of her face and turned back to the whiteboard immediately. He was able to answer a question directed at him, but when the class finally ended he couldn’t remember what it had been about.

  He watched Sofia get up from her desk and laugh with Denise as she packed up her stuff and they headed out together.

  He didn’t know Denise all that well, but she’d always seemed nice enough. She was on the girls’ basketball team and they’d been going to the same school since kindergarten, but he didn’t recall ever having a conversation with her. Now she glanced over her shoulder at him before turning back to whisper with Sofia. Both of them laughed.

  Thomas scowled. It was obviously a good thing that he’d never gotten to know Denise better.

  “Are you coming or are you going to sit there staring at the wall all day? She’s left now.”

  Thomas looked up at Jock whose lips were twitching as if he wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or smack him over the head.

  “I’m coming. And I don’t care that she’s left.”

  “You’d think he’d have noticed when she walked out since he’s been staring at her throughout class,” Wayne said from behind them.

  “I wasn’t staring at her. I was looking at the notes on the whiteboard.”

  “Yeah, right,” Wayne said with a snort.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “I don’t have a problem. I’m going to ask the new girl out,” he declared and walked ahead of them.

  “Is he insane?” Thomas asked as he and Jock made their way out into the hallway.

  “He definitely is,” Jock agreed. “She’ll never go out with him once I ask her to go out with me.”

  “What?”

  Jock winked at him.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “As a heart attack. Have fun in calculus,” Jock told him and hurried after Wayne.

  Thomas stared after him and wondered if he had somehow woken up in a parallel universe this morning. That would explain so much.

  4

  Friends

  Sofia was convinced that Thomas the Jerk had recruited his friends to make fun of her. First a giant with curly, light brown hair had cornered her and Denise on their way to their physics class and insisted on carrying her bag all the way there.

  Afterwards he’d snatched her cell phone, saved his number on it and told her that he was picking her up for a date on Friday.

  Now this guy – who looked like the poster boy for the expression ”tall, dark and handsome” – was insisting that she should let him drive her home after school. It would have been flattering if it wasn’t so obviously a prank.

  “Listen…” she paused, realizing she didn’t know his name.

  “Jock.”

  “Is that your name? I thought it was a stereotype.”

  He grinned and winked at her. “Both fit.”

  “Right,” she said, her thought processes slightly derailed by that smile. “Jock. Whatever this is that you guys think you’re doing, you can stop now. I get it, everyone wants to make fun of the new girl, haha. Move on.”

  He tilted his head. “You believe we’re making fun of you?”

  “Look, I get that Thomas is… miffed with me, but…”

  “Miffed?”

  “Isn’t that the word?”

  “Not one I’ve ever used.”

  “No? It might be British English. Or Canadian. I wish you guys would stick to the same expressions if you’re going to be using the same language,” she said irritably. “Anyway. It’s been fun, but it ends here.”

  “Why do you think we’re making fun of you?” Jock said with a grin so charming that Sofia had to focus on his right earlobe to be able to keep track of the conversation.

  “Because an hour ago your other friend typed his number into my cellphone under “hot stuff” and told me that he’ll be picking me up at seven on Friday.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I know, that’s what I was…”

  “You’re going out with me on Friday. Here, give me your phone, I’ll delete his number.”

  Sofia stared at him. He appeared to be serious. Well, as serious as someone who was perpetually smiling like that could be. She shook her head and walked off in the direction she hoped the canteen was. He quickly caught up to her.

  “Why are you running away?” he asked conversationally.

  “I’m not running away!”

  “You’re walking mighty fast.”

  “Denise,” Sofia said, turning to her friend who was keeping pace with them while trying, unsuccessfully, not to laugh. “Are all the guys in this school crazy?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “We’re not crazy. What’s crazy about asking a pretty girl out?”

  Sofia rolled her eyes and Denise stopped trying to hold back her laughter.

  “What’s so funny? Come on, Fia. Let me give
you my number.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Jock looked surprised. Almost like he couldn't believe that she’d turned him down. Then he smiled, his dark eyes twinkling. “Alright, I get it. You’re playing hard to get. That’s fine, I’m up for the challenge.”

  “That’s not what…”

  “But I’m still taking you home today. Give me that,” he said and grabbed hold of her bag.

  “I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own bag.”

  “Good to know,” he said with another grin as he flipped open her bag and found her phone.

  “Hey!”

  “You should get a password for this,” he said as he typed in his number. He slipped her phone back at the same time as she managed to pry her bag back from his hands.

  “Thank you for your suggestion,” Sofia ground out.

  “Let me carry your bag for you.”

  “Touch my stuff again and lose your hand,” Sofia snarled.

  Jock grinned wider. “Feisty. I like that. You should sit with us,” he added as they entered the canteen.

  “No, thank you.”

  Jock shook his head. “Hard to get. I’m going to enjoy the chase,” he told her and walked off.

  “I’m not playing!” Sofia called after him, fuming.

  “You’re my new hero,” Denise said when she finally stopped laughing. “You just said no to two of the most popular guys in school. Within, like, an hour of each other.”

  “It’s not like they were serious. Besides, I don’t like the company they’re keeping.”

  Denise shook her head. “They meant it. You’re fresh meat, everyone wants to get a bite.”

  Sofia shuddered. “Thank you for that both vivid and disgusting image.”

  Denise grinned maliciously. “It’s the truth. We don’t get a lot of new students here. Plus you’re pretty and exotic. Of course they’re interested.”

  “I’m not that pretty and I’m definitely not exotic.”

  “You’ve fought polar bears.”

  Sofia smacked Denise over the shoulder, but she just laughed and led the way to a table.