A Mule's Tale _ [On Hold]

CH 03 || Gourmand

A mule's Tale

"I'm okay, I'm okay. This will pass," Ava thought out loud in a mutter as she kept walking down the hallway with her schedule in her hand.

"You're starting this semester a little late so I'll ask the teachers to provide you all the help you would need." She kept replaying Mr Shawn's words in her head as she looked at the paper in her hand.

Her first class was English literature. She wasn't the typical academic high-flyer but she wasn't bad.

Not many students filled the hallway because they had classes of course. It didn't take her long to find her class. She opened the door to the class and froze when the teacher was already in.

"Good morning ma'am. Please may I come in?" She asked, smiling a bit.

"Yes, you may come in," the teacher watched as Ava walked into the class. "I see you're new. Mr Shawn told me of your coming. Please take a seat." The woman gestured towards the almost filled class.

Ava nodded, looking about the class for an empty seat before she started moving. She was nervous by the stares given to her by the students. Who knows what runs through their minds?

Finding a seat at the middle row, she immediately strode to have her seat. The chair itself was situated close between two people; a bright red head and a ginger boy. The red head was watching her uninterestingly while the ginger took away his gaze to face the teacher, his left hand supporting his chin.

Class went on smoothly but many students looked bored, some looking out of the window at what interested them. When the last bell rang, all the students paid no attention to the teacher as they stood up packing their things and running out of the class; Some as childish as ever to make airplane mock-sound as they bashed out of the class.

Ava looked at the teacher apologetically who was trying to get their attention but stopped in frustration.

"Hey," Ava heard someone greet so she turned to see the ginger boy behind her and noticed he had freckles on his face particularly around his nose.

His skin was pale with his eyes a lucid yellow but he managed to pull it off real well with his cute looks. He lacked much of the boyish features on his face but that didn't really matter since he was still catching up with adolescence.

"Hi," she replied with a welcoming smile.

"You've been sitting on gum the whole time," he pointed to the back of her skirt.

"What?" She asked in a trembling but strong tone.

"You have a gum glued to your skirt. The back of your skirt I mean," he pointed again.

She flinched her hair out of her sight trying to have a view of her bottom and there it was – A pink gum attached to her skirt, leaving a few web strings hanging from her bottom to the squashed one on the seat. She felt like pulverising in shame. 'First day - first shame'.

She reached for the gum with a red face - already hating the bully she hadn't even seen - and carefully tried to remove it but it didn't work out quite well as it drew without snapping, the direction Ava's hand went.

"Yuck!" She exclaimed, finally able to remove the bulk.

"The guy that sat behind you did it. He brews trouble." said the ginger guy.

"I'm Charles by the way. Charles Burks. What's yours?" He asked as they started making their way out of class.

"Ava. Just call me, Ava," she replied, her eyes following the line of students that walked the hallway.