Riley was just thirteen-years-old. He had a messy mop of brown hair that hung over his pale face and bright-blue eyes. Just like the other children in his new school, Riley wore a pair of grey shoes, dark trousers that looked slightly too big for him and a black jumper which was worn over both his white shirt and gold tie.
Riley was a new student to St. Bernadine’s Secondary School. He was not surprised when he attended the school; his parents were obsessed with their jobs and would always want to move closer to their workplace. Riley had lost count of the times he had moved house and school; when he would try, his head would spin and would make him forget what he wanted to do in the first place.
In no time, Riley found himself staring at the entrance; gazing at the blue door. He peered through its unclear windows, wondering what might lay on the other side. But everything was blurry, he could only see the shadows of a few moving children, nothing more.
A clatter came from somewhere in the distance, inside one of the other countless classrooms. Soon afterwards Riley heard the sounds of footsteps moving towards him. He quickly grabbed the door handle and opened the door. As he looked into the classroom and saw the students within, he breathed a sigh of relief. Nothing was as he expected.
The students were not using the classroom as a football pitch and they were not at a raging war with each other using pencils. Instead, they were completely the opposite. They were acting like the normal year eight students they should be. Most of the girls were sitting in groups, gossiping loudly about the other students, whilst most of the boys were swarming around the computers, amazed at the latest set of games.
Still standing outside the classroom, Riley frowned. He was uncertain whether to enter or not.
“Riley?” someone said behind him, wrecking his train of thoughts. “Are you just going to stand there, blocking the entrance?”
Riley turned around. The voice that had called him belonged to Alice Sinclair, a girl that he had hardly noticed in his time at St. Bernadine’s school. Alice looked up at him, pushing her slightly messy, dark brown hair out of her dark turquoise eyes. Instead of the grey trousers Riley wore, she wore a grey skirt and scruffy, white tights. Although her hair was always in need of a comb and a hairband, she never looked out of place with the rest of the girls.
“Oh sorry … I was just thinking of something.” Riley said, as he shuffled forward into the classroom, followed by Alice and several others.
The classroom was a rather big, square room and its walls painted in a bright-creamy colour. Windows were lined up in a neat fashion all along one side of the room while posters of all sorts of things hung as though they were thrown onto the walls instead of being carefully placed. A filthy whiteboard was glued to the wall farthest from the door with remnants of the last lesson was still written on it. Apparently, the previous class were learning about the similarities between fictional and non-fictional stories. Exercise-books were piled on top of each other on the teacher’s desk, and all the grey chairs were neatly tucked under tables, except for a few which were used by the students.
“Hi, New Boy!” a girl cried cheerfully.
Riley frowned. Since the first day of his arrival to the school, he was given the nickname ‘New Boy’ by most of the students. He was a new boy, but he had already spent over three weeks in St. Bernadine‘s Secondary School. Surely that meant that he was a proper student now? He sighed and rolled his eyes.
“My name’s Lilly LeVille,” she said in her soft and squeaky voice.
Lilly had a pair of emerald eyes that were gleaming. She wore a grey skirt that hung down to her knees and white socks that were spotless. Unlike Alice, her hair was tied up with a hairband so her long, strawberry-blond hair fell neatly in a ponytail. Riley could not tell whether or not she was wearing lipstick, because her lips were red as rubies.
“Hi guys,” said Alice Sinclair, as she waved her hands towards them.
The two both greeted Alice back; Lilly hugged as tight as she could while Riley just gave a weak smile.
“Alice, did you just say his name?” Connor Yerlan yelled, his curly, blond hair bouncing as he arrived in front of them. His face was rather red and his many freckles were darker than usual, gathering around his large nose.
“What?” she asked in a tired tone.
“I heard you say his real name!” Connor rose his finger, pointing right towards her nose. “You know the rules, Alice! You’re not allowed to call a new student by his real name until they have attended this school for at least a month! You’ve got to call him ‘New Boy’!”
Riley laughed. He finally understand why everyone in the school had been calling him ‘new boy’.
“Oh grow up, Connor!” Alice muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes.
“Hey! I didn’t make the rules!”
Riley felt a surge of curiosity rush out of his mouth. “Who did then?”
But before Connor could answer, Alice had interrupted. “It was actually a boy in year ten,” she said, feeling more and more ridiculous as she spoke. “It was just his idea of a stupid joke, but Connor believed it was real. He told everyone, and now the whole school think it’s some ‘rule’!”
Connor shrugged and stared awkwardly at the floor.
Riley laughed and slouched against the wall, only to realise Athena Key, a girl, had been sitting beside him at her desk the whole time.
Athena’s brown hair was tied into a neat plait, each strand of hair smoothed together with military precision. Her green eyes were focused on her classmates through her ridiculously large glasses. She pulled a red notebook out of her bag and secretly slid it inside her exercise book, before beginning to write furiously in it, almost tearing the pages as she scribbled as fast as she could. She was so absorbed in her writing, that she didn’t even notice Eugene Blood standing over her.
“What are you doing?” he said, scratching his flaming red hair with a pencil.
Athena gasped and closed the notebook with a snap. “That’s none of your business! What on earth are you doing, sneaking up on me like some sort of criminal?” She looked up at him, and saw his dark eyes staring down at her, like deep black holes. His clothes were torn and tattered which was probably because he was always fighting.
“What are you trying to say, you --?”
“Just leave me alone, Eugene!” Athena clasped her notebook to her chest and sighed deeply.
Alice bit her lip as she listened to the argument. She had always hated any form of conflict; it made her feel anxious and restless, especially when it was happening close to her, as it was now.
Eugene clenched his fists, scowling as his arms trembled uncontrollably. The urge to attack her rushed through his veins, blazing in his chest like heartburn. But instead, he chose to stutter out: “Why don’t you glue your face to the wall? It would really help us if you did. I mean, your face is really hideous. No wonder why you spend your time reading --” Eugene smirked as he saw the reaction on her face.
“I reckon you can’t even spell the word ‘hideous’! You can‘t even achieve the average human social life! Do you know why, Eugene? It’s because no one likes you!” Athena swiftly shoved her books into her bag and rose from her seat, feeling uneasy as the rest of the students stared at her until she left the classroom. Riley noticed tears pour down onto her cheeks as she rushed past him.
“What are you freaks looking at?” Eugene roared, glaring at Riley and many others.
The other children immediately resumed their conversations, whispering and muttering as Eugene stood by Athena’s desk, still fighting to contain his rage.
Alice, however, strode towards him, nearly falling as she stepped over Riley’s foot. “Eugene, I really think you should go and apologise to --”
“Just shut up!”
Alice returned irritably to Connor and Riley, and muttered “He’s so horrid!”
Riley scowled darkly at Eugene and watched him struggle to drag a boy off from a computer.
“Why can’t he just be nice to --”
Riley stopped in mid sentence. He twitched and his head spun faster than a meerkat spotting danger on guard. Hidden beneath all the sounds that came from the classroom, Riley could hear screaming. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. The faint shrieks that reached his ears were each slightly louder than the last. Riley was certain the screams were coming children, but why would they scream?
“Hey! New Boy, what’s the matter?” Connor asked, waving his hands frantically in front of Riley’s face.
But Riley could not hear him. The screams worsened, blaring in his ears like a radio at full blast which he could not turn down. Riley screwed up his eyes and covered his ears with his hands. Although he tried his best to ignore the screaming, it still somehow managed to drill their way into his ears. He could feel the deafening cries burning through his skin and penetrating into his head. He could hear the shrill shrieks of children weeping and sobbing, echoing inside his mind. Their agonising cries petrified Riley, making him unable to even mutter a word. Riley fought the pain of the screams and turned around, staring at the other students. Why aren’t they covering their ears? Can’t they hear it? Are they deaf? Riley could not try to answer these questions, but he did not have time to think about it. The more he struggled to keep himself calm, the louder the screams became.
“STOP IT!”
It had become to much for Riley to bear.
“STOP IT! STOP IT NOW!”
The entire class was now silent. Everyone stared nervously at Riley, unable to look away.
“Stop what?”
“THE SCREAMING! STOP THE SCREAMING!”
Connor raised his eyebrow and shuffled forward to Riley when Alice gave him an encouraging push.
Riley was shattered once he heard the words that were forced out of Connor’s mouth: “New Boy, no one is screaming.”
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Co-Written By ThienThienThien and SwottieLottie. If there are any grammar, punctuation or spelling mistakes, please feel free to point them out. By the way, We're from England, so just ignore any 'realise' and 'recognise' spellings, because that's how we British spell it!
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