My Best Friend's Brother

Humilithon

It was finally the first day of high school.

Aria was both excited and dreading it. She and Malcolm had the chance of being in the same classes again but she wasn’t a big fan of school. Malcolm had been going on for the past week about how it was a chance for him to leave behind his Krelboyne status and become popular.

Aria stood in front of the school waiting for Reese and Malcolm. Hal and Lois had the unfortunate luck of being volunteers for the first week of school, Aria was sure it would be something the two boys would complain about. Aria caught sight of them talking to Mr. Herkabe, Malcolm’s old teacher.

She rushed over to catch the end of the man’s greetings. “Ah, the golden boy has returned. Release the doves.”

“Hi, Mr. Herkabe.” Malcolm grumbled before turning to his best friend. “Hey, Aria.”

“Hey, guys.” 

“And you must be Reese.” Mr. Herkabe said to the other boy, “I have been thoroughly briefed on you, and if you do one thing wrong, I’m going to go medieval on your permanent record.”

“Ask yourself, ‘Whatever happened to the old Dean of Discipline?’” Reese gave the man a smug smile. Aria smiled as she thought about the crazy things Reese has done, Mr. Herkabe was going to have his hands full.

“Mr. Herkabe!” They heard Lois shout.

Malcolm grabbed Aria’s wrist as he and his brother ran off to avoid their mother. Reese separated from them after they grabbed their schedules leaving it to be just Aria and Malcolm.

“Orientation: North Hall, two-six.” Malcolm read off his paper.

“Where the hell is that?” Aria said as she looked over her own schedule. “These maps are totally useless.”

They continued to walk for a moment before Malcolm stopped another student. “Is this the North Quad?”

“Oh, man.” The boy chuckled as he shook his head before walking away.

“We should’ve asked Reese.” muttered Aria.

“Malcolm! Aria!” They heard. Looking to their right they saw Cynthia and the other Krelboynes. “Hey, sillies, we’re over here!”

Malcolm reluctantly made his way to the group with Aria close behind him. Aria sent Cynthia a smile seeing as the girls had gotten closer over the summer.

“Have you looked at these Rorschach tests they’re calling maps?” Lloyd asked them in a tone of anger.

“Yeah, they’re confusing, but do you guys think you could talk a little softer?” Malcolm glanced around at the students that stared at them.

“I’m ready. . . to cry.” Stevie exclaimed.

“They’re not to scale! How do they expect anyone to use a map that’s not to scale?!”

“Guys.” Malcolm said quietly as he continued to look around embarrassed. Aria didn’t pay much attention as she looked around for the other girls.

“Come on, this is exciting. I mean, I’m so disoriented. Keep me away from heavy machinery.” Cynthia laughed. Aria found her bandmates standing together, all seemingly looking for her.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later.” Aria smiled before waving goodbye and making her way through the crowd to her friends.

As she got closer to her friends she bumped into someone knocking their books out of their hands and causing her to drop her schedule. She quickly apologized as she helped them as she had them the last book she looked up and was pleasantly surprised to find an attractive boy in front of her.