Rowan by Flo (book recommendations website TXT) 📖

The first day at a new school rarely ends well for me. I always seem to find myself in the wrong place at just the wrong moment- last time I was wandering past the wannabe “cool kids” while they were smoking round the back of the school right

when the headmistress looked out her window, and let’s face it, you see an oddly dressed youth with a Mohawk and a skateboard, you’re going to assume that they’re in on it. The time before that, some douche bag tripped me up, and I in turn managed to trip my maths teacher up with my stumble. I explained what had happened but again, nobody trusts the kid with the Mohawk. And the time before that…well, that one was fair enough, I started that fight. But you get the picture.
This time however, my hopes were high, maybe not shoulder high but a good old waist height, perhaps even up to my kidneys. I was starting at Darwin Academy, which was my old buddy Shawn Whiteley’s school, therefore my hopes were hoping that he’d be able to stop me making all my usual mistakes. He saved my skin so many times in primary school, you would not believe. Though I genuinely was a delinquent in those days- hiding the PVA and the glitter from the teacher, hoarding all those treasured erasers that were supposed to be shared with my classmates, not to mention starting a food fight just about every single lunch time. Nasty stuff.
After making my way through the school gates and into the building itself, I managed to get what I judged to be at least halfway to my form room before I was officially lost. Rather than have an awkward conversation with a stranger and receive dodgy directions for my trouble, I decided to meander the halls until I reached my destination. Fortunately the teacher was waiting for me outside, or I would’ve missed it.
“So you’re-” she consulted a sheet before continuing, “Rowan Alyn, aren’t you?”
“Alwyn.” I corrected her, surprised she had got it wrong. I mean, it’s not exactly a complicated surname, and she was reading it off a piece of paper.
“Sorry, I haven’t had any coffee for days, I’m struggling to concentrate.” she confided. “Well, come on in then, I’ll introduce you to the class, sort out the seating plan, and if you need anything you can come and see me whenever you want. Oh, I’m Miss Farrow, before I forget.”
I followed her into the room. She was quite young for a teacher, with dyed blonde hair, too much make up around her pale green eyes, and she was just a little too skinny to look healthy.
The class had already found their seats, so the idea of a seating plan quickly blew out the window. Miss Farrow pointed out my seat, next to an unhappy looking girl whose face was half-concealed beneath a shoulder length bird’s nest of spiky auburn hair, but put her hand on my shoulder to hold me at the front of the class a little while longer. I fought the urge to shrug it off.
“Quiet!” she shouted, and was obeyed immediately, surprising me as I had already formed the impression that she was the sort of teacher students walk all over. “This is Rowan, one of the new pupils. I want you all to do as much as you can to help her settle in.” She paused for a moment while I cringed visibly and half the class sniggered at her words. “You can sit down. Now, let’s go around the class, and each of you can say your name and something about yourself. Start at the back.” Evidently, this was her first time meeting most of them too.
I only actually remembered four names by the time it was my turn: Maxwell, a curly haired, watery eyed ginger; a dark haired, brown eyed girl called Adrien, and a blonde guy named Dexter who had eyes like Miss Farrow’s, the pair of whom were chewed off four times for messing around in the two minutes that had passed; and Joanna, a brunette whose fact about herself was that she was the smartest girl in the year. Though after that comment, I wasn’t so sure. I marked her down on my ‘people to stay away from until I find a chainsaw’ list.
“What about you, Rowan?” the teacher asked.
“Well, I guess you know my name,” I said uncomfortably, “and I guess I like skateboarding.” A couple more people sniggered, but I ignored them, glad I didn’t have to say anything else. The class turned expectantly to the girl sitting next to me, or at least, the three or four people still listening did.
“Uh, I’m Lydia. And-”
"And she's a lesbian." called Maxwell the ginger from across the classroom, getting a laugh out of almost everyone in the room. Another surprise- he looked like too much of a dweeb to start picking on somebody else. I’d have to work on my split second character judgements. Thankfully, instead of bursting into tears or something, Lydia just scowled and the unpleasant atmosphere quickly passed, followed by the school bell going off.
"Right, that's the end of registration. Class dismissed."
Lydia stood up quickly, eager to leave, and as she did so her hair shifted, revealing a relatively fresh bruise that obscured a large part of the left side of her face and had swollen her eye half shut.
"What happened to your face?" I blurted, too shocked to stop myself. She looked down at me, and I felt decidedly uncomfortable, like she was looking right through my eyes, into my soul, and didn't like what she could see.
"Make an educated guess, and stay away from me."
I raised an eyebrow at her and held her gaze until she turned away, my usual reaction when I piss people off. I let her push past me before I hurriedly grabbed my timetable out of my bag and tried to decide who was least likely to mislead me if I asked for directions. Settling on Adrien and Dexter, because they were the last people left in the room whose names I could remember, and the only ones who didn’t laugh at Maxwell’s comment, I made my way over to them.
"Sorry, can you tell me where English three is?" I asked, sounding nervous even to my own ears.
"It's kind of up and across and down and then left and forward a bit. I think." answered Adrien, helpfully. Dexter elbowed her, and I got the feeling she wasn't necessarily being unkind.
"Just ignore her. She's socially inept from playing too many video games. I'm in there next, I'll take you."
"Thanks." I said uncertainly, wishing Shawn was in my class.
"No problem. See you later, Adrien."
"If you can cope with being away from me long enough." she teased, and left the classroom at a much more relaxed pace than most of the others, while I waited for Dexter to pack his bag.

"Morning, sunshine." A moronically-grinning Shawn materialised next to me. I rolled my eyes.
"You took your sweet time coming to find me. I've already got lost a hundred times."
"You know, there's a map of the school in your planner.” he said somewhat condescendingly, flicking his dark, wavy hair out of an equally dark, yet less wavy pair of eyes. “Anyway, how are you finding it so far?"
"Total craphole. But a slight improvement on St whatever-it-was." I answered honestly.
"Is that the place that kicked you out after two weeks?" he asked, snaking an arm around the waist of a pretty redhead that had just appeared at his side.
"Two days. But you know what I'm like with places that strict. It was their fault for being religious. Who's this?" I had only ever known Shawn to have one girlfriend in the past, and it had ended in tears. Mostly his.
"I'm Allie. Shawn's girlfriend

. We've been going out for a month now. Who are you?" she answered in his place, shooting me a look that told me she thought I was up to something.
"Rowan. We’re friends from primary school. I'm new here." I told her.
"Oh yeah, I can tell. You might want to consider a wardrobe change. Honestly, a Doctor Who t-shirt? I don't know where you came from, but that's social suicide here." Allie snootily informed me.
"I came from Gallifrey. Though they don’t really understand it over there, either.” I said, concealing my ire. She turned to Shawn, pointedly mouthing the words “what the hell is her problem?”, and I put all my willpower into not kicking her in the face.
“Nice to meet you too.” I muttered as I ran a hand through my Mohawk, already disgusted by Shawn's taste in females. "Well, I'm gonna try and find my next lesson. Should fill up the rest of my break. I'll leave you to it."
They walked away hand in hand, Allie appearing triumphant, and Shawn throwing an apologetic glance my way.
I had history next, which was awkward, because when I eventually arrived at the imaginatively named History b, I discovered that Lydia was in the same class as me. She caught my eye and gave me the finger, at which point I realised I'd been staring. I winked back, and found a seat on the opposite side of the room, hoping that if I didn't reciprocate her hostility then at the very least she might stop flipping me off one day.
"Mind if I sit here?" It was Shawn again. I almost gagged when I noticed the smear of lipstick on his cheek.
"As long as your girlfriend isn’t going to put out a contract on me if she finds out."
"Sorry about that, she's just a little…insecure. But she's a good person. And no, I'm not just saying that because she has boobs." he added upon receiving the look I was giving him.
"How come you didn't tell me about her?" If they really had been going out for a month, it seemed a little strange.
"I dunno, I guess I just wanted to see how it went. Plus there was the danger that you'd mercilessly take the piss. But mostly, I wanted to make sure we were going somewhere before announcing it and stuff." he looked like he was going to say something else, but our teacher came in, and thankfully he stopped talking, sparing me the inevitable soppy relationship crap.
"I'm Mr Toadstone, for those of you who don't know me. I can't be bothered to do introductions, so let's just get straight into the Ancien regime, shall we?"
Why I decided to take AS level history, I'll never know.

"How was school?" my uncle asked. I'd always called him Gandalf, for reasons I forget. I'd also forgotten his real name, if I'd ever actually known it, but I don't think he cared. I had just moved in with him- my dad got diagnosed with terminal something or other a couple of years back, and a month ago, when he lost his mobility, Gandalf had to step in, because I wouldn't have been able to stay home to look after him and go to school at the same time. So now my uncle was looking after him, while he worked from home. Given the amount of care my father needed, I was surprised that he’d come to meet me. Then I realised what it meant.
"I haven't been suspended yet, if that's what you mean." I said, trying to act normal while my heart started beating out of control. He led me to the car in uncomfortable silence.