The remainder of the morning was uneventful for William much to his approval. There were three class periods after homeroom, each in different buildings; on in the C building, the next in the G building in the westmost end of the school, and the final in the A building, in the front of the school near the administration building. Though Will still hadn’t become acquainted with the layout of the buildings, his pace as he walked from classroom to classroom was a bit faster. He didn’t want to be late for another class, the last thing he wanted was to be the center of attention again if only for a moment, for any reason. Again, he could have asked any of the various individuals crowding the halls in between periods for directions, but he didn’t.

With his earbuds on and his CD player playing tracks on his mix CD in random order, Will navigated through the halls. Will managed to find himself in the back of the classrooms for each of the classes, and luckily sat next to students who weren’t as eager as Rob was to make conversation with him. During 3rd period, Mrs. Fleming, a Freshman English teacher, did call on Will to answer a question about something related to literature comprehension. Even if Will did know the answer, he had no desire to answer, so instead he shrugged his shoulders without a sound.  

    Ignoring his peers, and being ignored by them proved easier in time during and between classes, but Will would find being alone during Lunch impossible now. He still wasn’t familiar at all with the layout of the school, so even if there was somewhere he could be alone for the following forty-five minutes, he didn’t know where it was. A thought did come into his mind though.

Will remembered a manga that he bought a year or so ago at the base exchange his parents would visit on a weekly basis. They didn’t sell too many of those so he bought it out of sheer interest. This fairly obscure manga, the tile of which Will couldn’t even remember, told the story of five teenagers who piloted giant robots, standard fare in the medium. When the team wasn’t fighting aliens, monsters, other giant robots, or alien monsters IN giant robots, they lived normal lives as normal Japanese high school students. One of the members of the team of pilots, the pilot of the mech that was far more powerful than the others, and whose name Will had the hardest time pronouncing,  was a shy girl who had no friends in school. She ate lunch alone all of the time, not even with any other member of the team that she would regularly entrust her life to during battle. To be alone she was known for taking her lunch and eating it in a toilet stall in the girls’ bathroom.  

Will wasn’t about to go that far to isolate himself. A society that can afford to give giant robots to teeangers could definitely afford to have much cleaner toilets than the ones at Washington. On top of that, Will could hear his stomach growling even through the music blaring through his earbuds. As usual, Will skipped breakfast. He never bought into the “theory” that it was the most important meal of the day. In fact, he found breakfast to be overrated. So Will had to at least walk through the cafeteria to the lunch line.

Will grabbed one of the green plastic trays, still slightly damped from the rinse cycle, and a plastic fork, knife, and straw, bundled with a napkin in a plastic wrapper, and took his place in a line of students, sandwiched in between a taller girl who stalled the line as she decided what color gelatin she wanted, and a taller, muscular student in a varsity jacket. He was rushed along in the line as something that could probably constitute as food was hastily thrown on his tray by one of the lunch ladies. The only thing that Will could recognize were the peas, some of which were more brown than they were green. At the end of the line, Will grabbed a carton of milk from out of the plastic container filled with ice. It was the last carton of chocolate milk and the student behind Will in the line was not happy to see it in his hands.

“HEY!” the large, athletic, boy exclaimed in a burly voice as he placed his giant hand on Will’s shoulder.

Will took out one of his earbuds and turned his head to the side to address him. “Yeah?”   

“Is that the last chocolate?”

Will didn’t answer. Observing the boy’s muscular build, his giant size, and intimidating posture, he concluding that the easiest course of action would be to hand over the chocolate milk to him. So he did. Will didn’t even like chocolate milk, or milk at all for that matter but he had only the money his cafeteria account, the 10 dollars that may or may not had gotten him through the week. So he couldn’t a get a soda from one of the machines. The boy showed grabbed the milk from Will’s hand and showed his appreciation in a manner fitting those in his social circle. He shoved Will to the side and proceeded to the front of the line, shoving others smaller than he as well, meeting up with others bearing his physical resemblance.

“You’re welcome?” Will asked.

Will made it to the cashier at the end of the line and handed her his student ID card. She swiped it through a card reader attached to the side of a computer monitor without so much as looking at the screen. She grabbed the printed receipt and handed put it randomly on Will’s tray, her focus still on the line of students behind him and nothing else. “NEXT!” she yelled in voice that clearly indicated she had smoked one too many cigarettes in her life. Will walked away from the line, and towards the tables. Without separating the receipt from the mush it was placed upon, Will glanced at it reading the words, “Remaining balance $7.60.” Will was by no means a mathematician but he knew that at this rate, by the end of the week, he’d be bringing a bag lunch to school and that he’d have to wake up earlier than he’d ever want to to make it.

With tray in hand, Will stood and observed the cafeteria in search for an empty table. Right in front of them stood longer tables on both side him. Each of these “tables” was composed of three rectangular tables joined together. Each set of tables looked as if it could seat about 10 to fifteen people.

One of these sets was occupied by athletes. From their physical stature, it was safe to say that most of them were members of the football team. There were the much larger guys who were probably part of the varsity team. And then then there were the smaller guys who probably were in the JV squad. Of course some of the varsity guys were picking on the JV members at the table. Will wasn’t sure if this was some kind of initiation process or just the strong dominating the weak like animals in the jungle. Will also caught a glimpse of the football player who he gave his chocolate milk to in line. His teammates sitting around him laughed like a pack of hyenas as he squashed the very carton of chocolate milk on his forehead. Will couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but he was positive that there was nothing but praise being showered at the milk soaked athlete for his amazing display of physical prowess.

Unlike the cafeteria in Will’s middle school, which tables were filled in accordance to classes, the tables here was filled by members of particular social circles.  On the other side of the table filled by the football players and other athletes, was a table filled by older students, seniors by the look of it. Will didn’t get too big of a glance at them; he didn’t want any of them looking back at him and wondering what his problem was. But what he did observe, was other than gender, there wasn’t much difference between the students that filled this table. Overall, they had nice hair, wore seemingly expensive clothes, and the movement of their lips insinuated that they were having conversations about the most important things like who’s wearing what and who’s dating who. Others were pre-occupied on their cell phones but would raise their heads when whatever conversation was being held began pertaining to them. The other two longer tables were occupied by a random assortment of students. There were still groups of students that sat together but the groups were much smaller, leaving empty seats.

Will walked towards the other end of the cafeteria, near the entrance he came in from and the dish washing station where students were supposed to leave their trays when they were done. In this area, there were small, circular tables. Like the previous two larger tables they were occupied by collected members of different social groups. It took some time, but Will was able to find a completely empty table, in the middle of the area. With his tray high above his head, he squoze through the occupied tables, constantly excusing himself and trying his hardest not to spill any of the contents of his tray onto himself or anyone else. After some time, he took his seat at the empty table. He placed his tray down on the table and took note of the disorganized mess that made it up now. Pieces of each food item mixed with each other making Will’s lunch even more undesirable than before. With his fork, Will attempted to reorganize the food into something recognizable. For several minutes, he stared down at his tray; he didn’t look up from it once until a voice called out to him.

“This seat free?” a boy asked Will.
    Still down looking at his tray, Will responded, “Take it.”
    “Cool,” said the boy. Will thought for sure that the boy standing on the other side of the table across from him would take the chair and leave. Instead, he placed his tray, full of food, and something wrapped in a bunch of napkins, down on the table. Then he placed his red mesh backpack around the back of his seat, and then sat down. Will now looked up to see who this boy was now sitting at the same table he was.

The boy was about a bit taller than Will, if only by an inch or two, and a bit skinnier. He was wearing a black beanie, covering a small portion of his medium length, black hair. There were a few pimples on his face, but there were only noticeable you looked at them hard enough. There was a bit of blackish peach fuzz on his chin and under his nose. He wore a black buttoned up shirt that was unbuttoned, revealing a red t-shirt with the words “Skunk Label” printed in white on top of two disconnected, black bars, one for each of the two words.

The boy unwrapped his fork from it’s plastic wrapping and started poking and jabbing at the food on his tray with. “Aw dude, what the hell is this stuff?” he asked. Will pointed at the peas on the boy’s tray with his fork in hand. “I think those may be peas.” “And I think I’ll pass,” he replied with a disgusted look as he pushed the tray to the side. “It’s William right?” He asked without provocation.

“People just call me Will.” He answered. “How’d you know?”

“I thought that was you but I wasn’t sure.”

“Huh?” Will asked confused. He was positive he had never held a conversation with this individual whatsoever before now. “Do I know you?”

“Well not personally. But dude, we’ve got Algebra with Patterson second period. Not surprised you didn’t recognize me though. You looked like you was in another world the whole time. I don’t think had your head up once the whole time. Did you even see that super hot chick that sat in front of you?!”

Will didn’t respond.

“Eh nevermind. I’m Nathan. Everyone just calls me Nathan.”

Nathan didn’t extend his hand out to Will for a handshake or any other gesture of greeting like Krystal or Rob did. It was safe to say his hand wasn’t going to reach across the table as well as his voice did. “But dude, that girl that sits in front of you? She is TOO fine! What curly blonde hair, those legs in that skirt and not to mention that sweet set of..”

Nathan could’ve gone all lunch period about this particular girl but Will felt inclined to interrupt. “What’s in the napkins?” He asked referring to the small object near Nathan wrapped in in the plain white napkins. “OH CRAP! I FORGOT!” Nathan shouted. “She’s gonna kill me dude!” he said with a nervous smile on his face.  Will didn’t ask Nathan who he was referring to but he was sure it wasn’t the girl Nathan spent the last few minutes describing in adoration. “I was supposed to give this muffin to Ashley. You haven’t seen her anywhere in the cafeteria have ya?”

Will shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea who Ashley was. Earlier, when he was looking around for a table to sit at, he noticed several girls who looked like they had the name Ashley. “You have no idea who I’m talking about do you?” Nathan asked. Will shook his head silently. “Well, she’s about our size, more your height than mines. In fact she’s got the same brown skin as you too but I think you might be a bit darker. She’s got a dark brown bobbed haircut that goes down to about halfway past her neck. A nice looking girl in modest but for my tastes, she’s lacking in the….” Before Nathan could finish, Will interrupted. “Haven’t seen anyone like that.” “Nah, I didn’t think she’d be in the cafeteria. She asked me to bring her a muffin but she didn’t tell me where’d she be.”

Nathan reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a small, gray cellular phone. He looked down at the monochromatic screen and said, “nope, not even a call or text message.” Nathan started tapping away at the keys on the phone, saying the words aloud as he typed, “Where…..are….you? I’ve….got…..muffin.”

Nathan placed the phone on the table and stared at it waiting for a response. Meanwhile, Will grabbed the plain white slice of bread on his tray and, still feeling hungry, started eating it faster than he should have. He began to hiccup profusely. Nathan couldn’t help but notice, Will’s hiccups as they became louder and more frequent. He also noticed that Will didn’t have anything to drink to quell the hiccups. “Here, dude take this,” he said pushing his unopened carton of 2% milk over to Will. “Thanks,” Will said after a set of hiccups.

He attempted to open the carton on the but to no avail. He took the straw that came with the fork and napkin in a plastic wrapper, and jabbed it into the carton. He drank the entire carton of milk within seconds, curing his hiccups. “If she isn’t in the cafeteria during lunchtime, where could she be?” Will asked. He wasn’t actually curious about Ashley’s whereabouts, he was still scouting places he could be to himself during lunch. “Hmm,” Nathan answered reluctantly. “Not sure dude, I’m not too familiar with the lay of the land yet. But ya know, when we were in middle school, she’d duck out to the library during lunch. She’d be on one of the computers doing God know’s what.”

Just then, then a vibration rocked the table, followed by a set of beeping noises. It came from Nathan’s cell phone, that he placed on the table when he gave Will his milk carton. Nathan picked up the phone and read the message on the screen, “In the library. Hurry up. So hungry!” Nathan looked back to Will. “Eh, the more things change right?” Nathan asked not completing the phrase.

Nathan stood up from his chair and put his backpack on. He then put his cellphone back in his pocket and then grabbed the napkin wrapped muffin. “Later dude.” Nathan said. He didn’t push his chair back into the table and he left his still full tray on the side of the table. Will was finally alone and he assured himself that nobody else would be joining him at the table. Just then, students from several different tables in all areas of the cafeteria started getting up. With trays in hand, they walked towards the dishwashing area and formed a line to bus their trays in the assembly line that sent them to the back area.

Will took a look at the clock at the top of the wall directly in front of him above a series of soda machines.  The clock read 1:20; in five minutes, the bell would ring for the next period. The line at the bussing station was getting larger; if Will joined it now, he’d be late for his next class for sure. So he got up from his seat, put back on his earbuds and turned on his CD player, put back on his solid black backpack and proceeded to exit the cafeteria. He would leave his tray on the table just as Nathan did before.

Next Chapter: Chapter Three