The Knight is Still Young

Chapter 26

The next morning was one filled with apprehension, today RC3 was going to pose as Tesler's friend in order to contact Durant and despite Michael giving his solemn oath that he wouldn't try to kill Durant on the spot Bonnie and Devon had refused to let him go, not even to watch in case something went wrong.

'So I tKe it that all of this has stopped you from worrying about a certain young, blue eyed brunette?' Bonnie asked.

'Are you kidding, I'm the cool Dad, the relaxed Dad, I'm not worried. I know that she will be perfectly fine and since I'm not going anywhere I'll have plenty of time to take you out to lunch Miss Barstow.' He offered.

'Of course Mr Knight.' She nodded.

'Great.'

'However we still have a few hours before lunch and I still have some things to work on.' Then she went to the Semi, leaving Michael to his own devices. Being the "relaxed Dad" that he was he decided to call his daughter to see how she was.

'Ash?' He asked into his comlink.

'Dad?' Her voice came back.

'Yeah, it's me sweetie. How are you?'

'I'm good, what about you? How's everything over there?'

'All good, we are getting closer to catching the bad guy.'

'Great! Oh no, here comes Hailey, I'd better get going or she'll start asking questions, bye Dad.'

'Bye.' He replied.

Ashlyn had just finished pretending to tie up her shoe laces when Hailey walked in carrying her school bag full of not just her books, but Ashlyn's too. Of course she had tried to get out of it a couple of times before she put them in her bag, but she seemed to be somewhat ok with it now.

'You ready for your first day at Whitewater Prep?' She asked.

'Um, I guess so.'

'Well you'd better be because I'm not going to babysit you all day.' She said and she walked out the front door.

Ashlyn growled, that girl was as mean as they come and she wasn't going to be treated like dirt again. She didn't say anything as Mathew came in and they joined Hailey out the front of the house, but as they were walking Ashlyn got that creepy feeling that they were being watched and she tried to hurry them up.

'Come on guys, why are we walking so slowly?' She asked.

'You know Ash, I didn't think you'd be so anxious to get to school.' Mathew smirked.

'Well, the sooner we get there the sooner we can go home.'

She was relieved when they got to inside the gates and breathed a sigh of relief, however her feeling of relief dissolved when she saw the school. It was huge and it loomed over her like she pictured a school out of a scary movie.

'What do you think?' Mathew asked.

'I-I never pictured it to look anything like this.'

'Yeah, a lot of people say that.' He smiled. 'Come on, we'll show you around.'

'Um, I think you can show her around by yourself because I have to go and see Natasha and Isabel.' Hailey said then she walked in ahead of us and disappears.

'Come on Ash.' Mathew gently grabbed her arm and pulled her through the front door and into the halls of the school.

She looked around at all the students and teachers that were crowded into the hall. They walked around the corridors and up several flights of stairs until they reached a brightly decorated classroom, Ashlyn was shocked. The inside of the school was so different from the outside, everywhere she looked there was art, pictures, paintings, posters and examples of writing.

'Is this our classroom?' She asked amazed.

'Yep and that's our teacher: Mr Cole.' He indicated to the man that had been writing on the white board. He then turned around and smiled at the children, he had slightly curly blonde hair and hazel eyes.

'Hello Mathew, who's this?'

'Hi Mr Cole, this is my sister Ashlyn.'

'Nice to meet you Ashlyn, but I thought Hailey was your only sister Mathew.'

'Well, Ashlyn moved in with us yesterday so technically she's my stepsister, but I just call her my sister.'

'Fair enough, welcome to 3C Ashlyn.' He smiled warmly. 'I'll let you sit by your brother in the second row, come and take a seat while we wait for everyone else to arrive.' So the two of them sat down in their seats, there six rows of four, the two of them were in the second row and Ashlyn was in the middle to the right and Mathew was in in the middle to the left.

'Where does Hailey sit?' She asked.

'Over there.' He pointed to the last seat on the left in the front row.

'I see.'

Soon the rest of the class came in and took their seats, Ashlyn was happy to find out that a girl with long black hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion sat next to her.

'Hi, I'm Ruth Anderson.'  She smiled.

'Nice to meet you, I'm Ashlyn Rider.'

'Oh, I never knew that Hailey had a sister.'  She said surprised.

'I'm Mathew and Hailey's new stepsister.'

'Wow, anyway it's great to have someone new in Whitewater Prep.'

'Settle down everyone.'  Mr Cole said trying to calm the excited class, soon everyone was quiet and he continued speaking.  'Good morning 3C.'

'Good morning Mr Cole.'  They chimed happily.

'Now today we are going to welcome a new student, everyone say hello to Miss Ashlyn Rider.'

'Hello Ashlyn.'  They smiled as Mr Cole encouraged her to stand up and give the class a small wave before sitting back down again.

'As Ashlyn is new here, I want all of you to make her feel welcome.  On to today's announcement, I know your all been looking forward to today and what is happening, so without further delay when I give the word you may all grab a pen and sing up for whatever sport you want to enrol in for the term, remember that the most you can pick is two.  Now go choose your sports.'  Instantly everyone was out of their chairs and over at the sign-up sheets that had been stuck to the board with magnets.

Ashlyn looked at what sports were there, there was basketball, netball, cricket, soccer, football and field hokey out of all of them the only one that interested her was netball, but it seemed to be the most popular with the girls and she didn't like her chances of getting a place on the sheet.  Then she spotted one more sheet down the end, no one had written their name up on it and when she went over to examine it further she was surprised to see:

'AAArts school of Martial Arts, run by Amber Karr.'  She read quietly to herself.  'Sounds cool.'  So she wrote her name down and returned to her desk.  It would make sense that she would put her name down for martial arts since Michael was almost constantly getting into fights and with her luck she would no doubt need to defend herself.

'Has everyone got a sport?'  Mr Cole asked, then he looked over the sheets and noticed that there were a few names that weren't up there.  'Ruth, James, Luis, Fabiana and Nick your names aren't up here.  Come and choose a sport.'  The kids did as they were told and surprisingly they all put their names down for martial arts.  At least now Ashlyn would have some other people from school there with her.

'I noticed your name on the martial arts sheet so I put myself thee too.'  Ruth whispered when she got back to her seat.  'Besides, I'm not really into any of the others.'

'Me neither.'

Class went pretty quickly after that and before they knew it recess and the middle classes were over and it was lunch time.