Adopted by Phan

Chapter 52

Jay's P.O.V.

I followed the principal outside the office and motioned to a teenage girl, a little older than me who came over to us. She nodded to me and said a quick hi to the principal. She was wearing a head covering, I didn't know the correct name for it so I didn't ask.

"Can you take Jay to the learning support classroom? She's new and doesn't know her way around yet." She turned to me. "This is Anais, she's a year older than you."

"Come on, learning support is on the other side of the school." I started to follow behind her, but she motioned for me to come forwards so I was walking beside her.

"You aren't from around here are you? I can tell." I nodded.

"I've been living in London since I was ten, but um I- I haven't been at school in a few years." She looked at me, her eyes wide.

"Wow! How come?" I averted my eyes, looking away.

"Oh, if you don't want to talk about it it's okay. That's the learning support building by the way." Anais pointed at a small side building, not attached to anything else like many of the other buildings.

"Do you have a phone? I can put my number in so if you get lost or something you can text me." I nodded, I had never made friends very easily so that was a first.

"Who's your teacher? I'll show you her office."

"Um Mrs... Livingstone. I think that's was the principal said."

"Oh awesome, she's really nice. I've talked to her a few times." I nodded, twisting my hands nervously. "You'll be okay, I reckon you'll get along fine." I smiled in thanks and then opened the door of the building, looking around for anyone in the building.

"Hello?" A door opened behind me and an older lady stepped out behind me.

"Are you Jay?" I nodded.

"I'm Mrs Livingstone, I'm your teacher for the rest of the year. Nice to meet you." She reached out to shake my hand and I reluctantly took it, feeling her firm grip.

Behind me a bell rung and startled me so much that I visibly jumped and Mrs Livingstone smiled gently. She rubbed my arm carefully, leading me over to what I assumed to be her office, motioning to the chair.

"I understand you're nervous and I know this must be so strange for you, I know you've only ever had one year at a proper school." I nodded, I could feel the goosebumps on my arms and to be honest, I was terrified. It was so strange, crowded and loud, even though there was only one other person in my room.

"Just relax, everything's okay." She purposely stayed away from me, her hand only touching my arm if anything.

It took a few minutes for me to calm down again and I shifted my gaze up sheepishly but Mrs Livingstone just smiled at me.

"It's okay, I've known a lot of others who were in the exact same position as you are now." I shrugged, glancing outside to see the students that were once there were all gone.

"Come on, the dance studio is in the hall and that's a little way away." We both stood up, my one crutch in hand and I followed her out of the building and in between several others. It took only two minutes before we reached what looked like a hall, and it was confirmed as soon as we walked in.

Mrs Livingstone lead me through a side door and then down a set of stairs, from which I could hear voices and loud music. I flinched, it was the modern pop music that I had heard many times being played by young teen girls and I really didn't like it much, it was loud, crude and weird.

As we made our way down the bottom of stairs, Mrs Livingstone going first. There was a group of around 20 students in the room, most of them dancing or jumping along to the beat and a teacher sitting on a chair supervising them. As soon as she saw us, she jumped to her feet.

"Hello! You must be Jay?" I drew back but nodded, gripping the crutch and bag strap.

"Come on down, I'll introduce you to the class." I carefully walked down the stairs and noticed all of the class were staring at me so I avoided looking at them, taking the seat that the teacher motioned too.

"I'm Miss Edmund, the dancing teacher and this is the class you'll be having dance with." I nodded, looking around. It was mostly girls but I could see several boys among the group.

Many of them smiled at me but some of them just stared at me curiously. There was one girl at the back of the class who was looking at me with wide eyes, and I knew at once that she knew who I was.

"Everyone, this is Jay and she's a new student. You're from New Zealand correct?" Shrugging, I shook my head.

"Kind of. I've lived here since I was ten." She nodded, motioning around to the class.

"Make yourself at home, we've still got another 45 minutes left of class. Right, everyone get back into it!" Everyone started to stand up and the music started to play again. Apparently everyone had positions already because they knew exactly where they were going.

Two run through's later everyone sat down in groups and started talking, the teacher going around them one at a time. Mrs Livingstone was standing in the corner of the room, watching everything and me on occasion but mostly she was just there to make sure nothing crazy happened.

I jumped as someone approached me from behind, a girl and two of her friends.

"Hi, um, we thought we might as well introduce ourselves because you're new, I'm Alexa and these are my friends Carmen and Ace." Carmen had long black hair down to her waist and bright blue eyes, which stared at me hopefully and Ace, who I assumed was a boy but I couldn't quite tell, had short brown hair in a similar style to my own.

"Thanks, I'm Jay but I think you already knew that." Alexa nodded.

"Ace said he knew you from somewhere, but he didn't know where from." I shrugged, hoping it didn't mean anything.

"I'm assuming you don't know your way around?" I shook my head but I motioned to Mrs Livingstone on the other side of the room.

"Mrs Livingstone is sticking with me for the first week in all of my classes, she's my teacher in all of the main classes. I'm just doing dance, history and art for the others." Carmen looked a little confused, glancing across at Alexa and Ace.

"Isn't Mrs Livingstone a special needs teacher?" I nodded.

"Oh! Oh my god, I'm sorry I didn't mean it like that!"

"It's okay, the only reason I'm with her is because I haven't been at school in a few years, I've got a lot of catching up to do."