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Chapter 4

Quinn stood outside the building, tapping her foot impatiently. It was still thundering, but she had decided to see if Adam was going to show up before going inside. Also, she wasn't exactly keen to go to litter duty that morning.

You couldn't leave until you had filled two full bags of litter, but she was unfortunate enough to go to a school where there were no trees, no trash cans and enough security cameras to prevent anyone from leaving anything within the building, so she'd be lucky to find a single wrapper. And the really infuriating thing was, Michaels probably knew it.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes, he arrived. He had apparently made no effort to stay out of the rain and his hair was soaking wet. His glasses were askew and he looked even more disheveled than usual somehow. He'd ignored her all day.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't show up!" She grinned.

"Th-Through there, right?" He stuttered, voice barely above a whisper, pointing at the main entrance. He looked as if he was about to be sick. "Sorry..." And he ran without waiting for a response.

"Hey, wait!" She called after him. He didn't turn back. For a moment, she wanted to follow him, but she decided not to. Maybe he needed to adjust by himself.

He'd always been bad when it came to new people. For the first few months she'd known him, he hadn't spoken out loud. He'd just showed her the things he'd made in complete silence. She hadn't even been sure if he'd had a name at first, but eventually he'd opened up to her, a few sentences at a time, and eight years on he barely felt any different to the other people in her town. If he could do that, he could learn to talk to the others.

That, however, would mean that first people would have to talk to him, and - as much as she hated to say it about someone she loved so much - he was very off-putting. He made odd, jerky movements, and often left spaces of dead silence when he worked, like he'd forgotten she was there. His pale face and dusty clothes always looked greying, like the saturation on his entire body had somehow been turned down. The only spot of colour on him was his eyes. She didn't usually pay attention to details like that, but with him it was really noticable. They were a sharp, unblinking, electric blue.

She, of course, was more than used to it. It was just the way he was. She didn't see anything wrong with him, but that didn't mean that everybody else would agree.

"Who was that?" said Jem, kicking his football at her. "We haven't seen him before, right?"

"Yeah..." She picked it up absentmindedly and threw it back to him. "He's... He's a friend."

"A good friend?" Jem said, tilting his head.

She grimaced. "Like a brother to me."

"Well, someone should probably check up on the guy. He looked like he was about to start crying."

"Well, that's normal," she said defensively. "It's a hard thing to do. He hasn't been around of people, but once you get to know him, he's awesome. He has an amazing mind."

"Oh, he duh-duh-does, does he?" Jem mimicked his stammer.

"Shut up," she said sharply, and he looked startled. "He's doing better than you would."

"Okay, Jesus." He put his football back into his bag. "I won't say any more about it." They walked a few more paces in awkward silence, before he broke it again. "Hey, did you hear about that old classroom?" he asked her. "It's off limits apparently."

Her heart started to beat faster. "What? The testing room?"

"Yeah. You hear about that?"

"Nope," she said quickly. "Just a guess."