Alice Gamble
My new folder was clutched tightly to my chest as I attempted to navigate the school corridors on the first day of term. Same school I’d been to for the last five years, and yet I still felt as though I was in unchartered territory with no compass for guidance. This was partially because I was now a member of the sixth form, and this meant being in a wholly different part of the school, but it was mostly because my two best friends had left to join the ‘real world’. So, with freshly ironed clothes, brand new stationary, and unrushed-flick-and-all eyeliner, I cautiously walked the corridor with my head buried in the map page of my planner (not that it was much use).
It was, perhaps, because of the head-buried-state that I walked in to the door. I stumbled back, confused and with a throbbing head. My folder flew out of my hands and smacked on to the floor, a few stray papers from the induction day littering the corridor. I continued to back away, and felt a strong hand grip my elbow and steady me, followed by the sound of laughter next to my ear. I spun around indignantly, but my face cracked into a grin when I saw Charlie standing there,
“Nice to see you haven’t changed Gamble” he said good naturedly, propping me up,
“Fuck off Charlie!” I laughed, bending down to pick up my folder, “and errrmmm, y’know, thanks for catching me…” He smirked,
“No problemo” He assured me, scooping the fallen papers from the floor and proceeding to take the folder from me and slot them back into place. I couldn’t help but stare as his blonde hair flopped dangerously close to the folder when he bent his head. He glanced up at me, and it just brushed the lashes of his ocean coloured eyes. He swiped it away in a distantly-annoyed way.
Then came the awkward silence. The kind of silence where you both know you’re thinking the same thing, and you’re standing close enough to act upon that thing, but neither of you is brave enough to move. We were stuck, as though in a trance, just looking at each other, taking in the minor differences in a person’s appearance over six weeks.
I broke the spell. I coughed, and glanced down at my feet, noting that he too was wearing converse shoes,
“Your voice got deeper.” I ventured, he snort laughed,
“My voice broke in year ten”
“I know. But it got even deeper.” I insisted.
“You shrunk” he retorted,
“No! You grew!” We both laughed, and I had a flash of remembering the day we met, when we were eleven and starting secondary school and our tutor group had to line up in order of height, I was third tallest in the class and he was fourth, which meant we sat next to each other all that year. By the next year we’d swapped places in the line, and by the next I was somewhere in the middle and he was second. I remembered what a competition those height lines were.
“Where are you going?” he asked me,
“Umm, philosophy, but I don’t know where H11 is.”
“I’ve got ICT in H10, I’ll walk you.” He offered, and so we walked.
Charlie Freed
I was a little out of breath when I reached the sixth form corridor, I’d got up late (too used to summer holiday lie-ins no doubt!) and had run to school. But, miraculously, it seemed as though I had made it with even time enough not to have to rush too much to first lesson. So, there I was, slowly making my way down the corridor and playing the name-game, an invention of mine for my own entertainment. I’ll look at a stranger, see what they’re wearing and the way in which they walk, and guess their name. I’d already passed a Fred (over weight, Harry Potter glasses, and cheesy smile), and a Fiona (tall, tied back hair and in a rush), when I saw her. She had long hair that walked the margin between blonde and brunette, and cascaded a little messily down her back and across her shoulders. She walked in short bursts of power, followed by slower lulls where her head would be bent over something. I imagined her face would be beautiful, in an unconventional way, like an abstract master piece; completely perfect but misunderstood and misinterpreted by the majority. Her name would be something old fashioned, but quirky and timeless…Olive? Ava? Elizabeth?
She walked into a door. That’s when I realised it was Alice Gamble. I ran forward to catch her, a laugh already forming on my lips. She spun around to face me and I was struck, by how accurate I was with my guessing. I’d never considered Alice in the same way I consider strangers in my game, after you’ve known someone for five years you don’t tend to really stop and consider them, but now I did. Alice had change a lot from the pre-pubescent eleven year old with the wonky glasses I met so long ago. Now she stoodbefore me with structured cheek bones unobscured by baby fat as they once had been, her freckles, which had once covered the majority of her face, were now faint and far between (although I was glad for the fact they hadn’t disappeared completely), her wild emerald eyes where lined with thick black, as though she’d drawn around them with a marker pen, but even so they hinted at youthfulness. The only other clues that she hadn’t fully escaped never-land just yet was the toothy child-like grin she presented me with, and the pink flush of her cheeks.
We joked with one another a little and I walked her to class, but the whole time I kept getting distracted by those eyes. Eyes I’d seen five days a week for the last three years, so familiar and comforting and consistent, and yet all of a sudden I couldn’t bring myself to look straight at them for fear of blushing. At the door of H10, we departed ways, and I watched her walk through the doorway of her classroom until the last stray strand of hair had disappeared from view, and thought that, really, no name suited her better than the one she’d been given; Alice.
I turned to enter my own classroom, but felt my phone vibrate. I dug around in my pocket, entered the pass code, and looked at the text, “Good luck on your first day babe, love you! Xxx”. It was Belle, my girlfriend of five weeks. We’d met at the start of summer and had instantly clicked, she went to a different school, but we were in love so we’d make it work anyway. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, my heart sunk when I read the text, and when I thought about having to tell Alice about Belle, my heart was quick to rise hard, fast and sickeningly to try and choke me…
“You too sweetie, love you more! Xxx” I pressed reply.
Points: 7061
Reviews: 277
Donate