Ivy Academy, Chapter Two

As stated in Chapter 1, IA is a Work In Progress and the very definition of unedited. The story takes a very vaguely romantic turn in this, but I promise, this is not a romance novel at all. What so ever. In the slightest.

Chapter Two

Though he wasn’t sure how the presence of Amy St. Christopher would affect this, Evan hated his classes. He hated his teachers, as was usual, and he hated his classmates. Really, the only bright side to Ivy Academy was Fred.
         
Fred wasn’t a janitor and he wasn’t a staff member and he wasn’t a teacher. He really didn’t have an official place at IA, that Evan was aware of. He was a handy-man figure, always filling in whatever role he was useful for. He lived in a shed on the edge of the grounds, nestled cosily with the woods. He had some pretty high tech shit going on, and access to the school computer system. Fred knew everything about the school and students, and though he didn’t always share it with Evan, he had a soft spot for the delinquent.
         
He was a funny looking man, for sure. At one time, he had been in great shape, and never lost the body, but it was hidden by his threadbare t-shirts and pants that were always faded out. His hair was scruffy and laced with gray and silver, and his glasses were strong enough to give Ray Charles sight. He wasn’t short nor was he tall, but very close to Evan’s height, in fact.
         
His cottage had one room, one bed, one dresser, one desk, one fridge, one computer, but hundreds of wires and files and folders and disks. He had a little electric stove and a large wire rack that held the dry and canned foods. Evan had never bothered to ask how he and found himself on the campus of IA, and Fred had never bothered to tell him.
         
Fred wasn’t home when Evan decided to stop by to visit and start off the new school year with the traditional grape soda and roast beef and horseradish sandwich, so Evan decided to sit on the step and watch the rest of the students finish out their day. As the second day of school, it was the day when students signed up for the clubs and activities they hoped to partake in. For Evan, it was just another day to do nothing. He kept his eyes peeled for Amy St. Christopher. Would she, like all the other students, be milling around campus enjoying the Activities Fair? Or would she prove to be the individual soul he presumed her to be?
         
And then, he spotted her. No one else had a coat quite like that. She was working her way from the main building to the Geek Corner- what Evan called the small cluster of tables on the far edge of the grounds, reserved for the less-than-cool clubs offered at IA. She meandered from the Latin Club table to the Tech Club table, to the Chess Club table. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Was it too much to ask Fate for a non-cliché, not-nerdy genius? Was it part of the geeky genes, or part of being brilliant- you thus had to be a total dork? 
         
Evan frowned, watching her move to the final table in the Geek Corner. Hm…it would have to do.






If Evan thought he was completely inconspicuous as he moved from the porch Fred DiCaprio’s shed to my- yes, my- corner of the Activities Fair, everyone in the vicinity disagreed. I’d known from the moment I’d laid eyes on him that he was not at all the type of person to join a club…let alone an academic or nerdy club. Evan wasn’t cool, as the American teenage populous saw it. But he was certainly his own person, which was worse than being a nerd. Being a nerd instantly grouped you with other nerds; being your own person left you on your own.
         
But whatever he was thinking walking toward the Shakespeare club table, I did not know. Cada and Renata both thought the Shakespeare club would be a fun thing for all three of us to do together- we all liked Shakespeare, and we did more than just read. There were presentations and science projects and writing and linguistics and all sorts of other aspects involved. And I was intrigued. And, also, I wanted desperately to try and form a true friendship between myself and my dorm mates. I didn’t know at the time if forcing a relationship was the way to go, but I couldn’t see any other plan.
         
Poor Evan. He thought he was so slick, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to read a flyer on the Ivy Academy Renaissance Faire. I leaned over the sign up lists, searching for Cada and Renata and scribbling my own name and information. He was wearing a bandana again. I wondered if that was his thing- the way my coat was my thing and Renata’s lip ring was her thing and Cada’s glasses were her thing. Everyone has things.
         
That day, Evan’s thing was a black bandana with lime green skulls separating his forehead from his spikes of brown hair. Perhaps the polite thing to do was to throw him a bone. “You like Shakespeare?”
         
He was shocked to hear me speak, let alone to him. “What? Shakespeare? Love him. Brilliant. Just a step down from Poe.”
         
“Edgar Allen Poe?”
         
“Yep.”
         
I didn’t believe that he had ever heard a Poe poem other than The Raven, if he had actually read any Poe at all. My dubiousness must have been written across my face, because for a faint second he looked self doubting, and then cleared his throat. “Conqueror Worm, Annabelle Lee, El Dorado, For Annie, The Cask of the Amontillado, the Tell Tale Heart, Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and Pendulum, Masque of the Red Death…,”
         
“Okay!” I cut him short, trying to mask my shock with annoyance. “I believe you! Now what do you know about Shakespeare?”
         
He smiled and scribbled his name beneath mine on the sign up sheet. “I guess you’ll find out.”
         
The girl who sat behind the table grinned at me, elbowing her fellow Shakespeare club member, a boy with a long face and a mop of blond hair. “Looks like someone is being club crushed.” She was a senior, but apparently, a genuinely friendly one.
         
I tried not to laugh. “Is that what it’s called?”
         
She nodded. “Good luck, girlie. He looks like a tough egg to crack.”
         
With a shrug, I took a schedule that she held out to me. “I guess so.”
         
Returning her smile, I walked across the grounds back to the school, barely looking at the other club tables. Though I didn’t know why, I was beginning to like IA very, very much.






There were several seniors in my classes who should have never graduated kindergarten.
         
Not to say they weren’t smart, it’s just that they were so…stupid. I hated my classes, every single one but Latin. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy the work; I just hated the people. But in Latin, I had Cada…and someone else.
         
Okay, I admit it- when I was five I had a crush on Stephen Hawking. But afterward, I stopped caring about crushes and the male population and all that crap. But something about the boy I sat next to in Latin made me question my strong objection to infatuations.
         
His name was Marc.
         
Marc was a junior, and every day he greeted me with his bright blue eyes and wide white smile. His hair was a curly brown halo around his head and his body was chiseled in a way that made Michelangelo’s David look like a human noodle. He borrowed a Latin text book every day from the stack of books in front of the room instead of bringing his own, and he always smelled faintly of apples and cinnamon.
         
Not that I noticed.
         
Cada, in her immature, girlish way, accused me of having a crush on him one day. And I, in my very mature, adult way, blushed and giggled. But I maintain that I did not have a crush on him. I just found him pleasant to look at. And wonderful smelling. And every time I saw him or sat next to him my stomach twisted up and did a jig. But that does not mean I had a crush on him, of course.
         
On the third day of the second week of school, Marc slid into the desk next to me (as usual) and smiled at me (as usual) and said he was happy to see me that day (NOT usual).
         
I was stunned. “…Why?”
         
He laughed. “I’ve had a horrible day, and you always make me laugh.”          
         
That was news to me. But the idea of it still made me blush, and I busied myself with starting the Latin assignment on the board. Marc was ridiculously good at Latin, compared to some other people. I mean, I was top in my class (as was usual), but it was nice to be sitting between two people who didn’t need my help constantly- Cada kicked Latin ass, as she put it after our first test.
         
Smiling to myself, I finished the worksheet easily; it was on the first conjugation, but I was already well into the third. Cada reached over to my desk, and flipped my paper over so she couldn’t see the answers even if she wanted to. I smiled. I had refused to give people my answers in class my entire academic career; to have someone refuse to even ask was sweet relief.
         
Something about IA fit me like a ten-year-old sock; cozy and comfortable and snug and light. I was beginning to find my place, I think; beginning to find a place where I was free to be myself. Not that I still didn’t get that sick feeling in my stomach every time one of my professors called my name, a split second of utter nausea as I waited to be exploited in front of a whole class room of hateful, jealous enviers. It wasn’t as if I was popular, or even well-liked by the masses. In fact, if anyone knew who I was or wanted to know, most didn’t acknowledge it. But I was okay; I’d had more friends than ever in my life- Cada, and Renata. And I was beginning to consider Marc a friend, though part of that was wishful thinking. I even had a stalker- the bold, bull-shitting Evan.
         
“When does this class end?” Marc whispered, cutting my internal, feel-good monologue short.
         
I pretended to check my planner, though I had memorized every bell schedule IA had- that day, we switched at 11:43. I told him so, and he smiled; electricity shot through my spine. I forced myself to smile back, and then he turned to talk to Gina Mamina, a drop-dead gorgeous, shit-for-brains senior on his other side.
         
Two fingers tapped on my shoulder; Cada pointed out the door way. I craned my neck. To my great surprised, there stood Evan, with a boy I’d never seen before in my life. Evan waved, and the boy did some strange sort of greeting dance, and then pushed Evan down the hall way. Cada giggled beneath her hand. “Amy, I had no idea you had so many admirers.”
         
I shrugged, cracking open my Latin text book to do some extra studying. From the corner of my eye, I glanced at Marc. If he noticed, he wasn’t letting on, because his eyes didn’t look up from his worksheet as he checked his answers. But I tried to convince myself that beneath his calm expression was raging jealousy. 
         
The bell rang ten minutes later.