Throughout the lunch break, Klaer has given me two times as many dirty looks than she normally does. Every time I glance her way she is glaring at me. Sometimes she looks like she is going to leave her group, saunter over and scratch me again. Clarke seems wary of how uneasy I am and continuously initiates conversations. 

"Aren't you glad our semester exams are over?" he speaks up, after Klaer threw us a piercing glower. 

"Of course, the stress is enough to kill a possum," I explain, Clarke tilts his head to one side and opens his mouth to say something, but must decide against it as it finds its way shut again, How are you going after exams?" I ask.

"I can focus a bit more on Badminton," he replies, "amongst... other things."

"I've had more time to draw," I agree, picking at the peeling paint on the bench we're sitting on. 

"You draw?"

"Mianna and I are learning manga."

"Wow," he sighs, "the day I can draw a stick figure is the day the oceans at Esperance are hung up to dry."

"The day I can hit a shuttlecock over the net is the day... wait?" my face drains of all colour, my stomach knots itself up into trillions of tangles, "Esperance?"

Gorgeous, with eyes the colour of the ocean down at Esperance.

"Yeah, down south? The sand squeaks under your feet and you can see right through the crystal emerald water..." he turns and looks into my eyes. He said that about my eyes! My eyes? My boring, damp, unnoticable eyes. My eyes aren't striking, they look dull and grey, but bluish on sunny days, I can't help smiling and feeling giddy. Clarke grins and slight dimples appear. 

The bell rings and fills the quad, a dreadful sound, our gaze is broken as we grab our bags. Clarke, Mianna, Darrin, Theo, Chris, Louis, Mick (Clarke's friends) all have Science together, but unfortunately, Klaer does too. It's the one lesson we all have together and it's ruined by just one individual. Is this really what life is?

Clarke's fingers graze the back of my hand I try to ignore the niggling sensation in my stomach. I can't forget the comment about Esperance, or the fact that maybe Mianna new something about Clarke that I didn't. We make our way to Science Lab 14B quietly and steal nervous glances at each other, every few seconds. As we wait in line outside SL14B Clarke finally speaks, making me jump in surprise.

His husky and modulated voice fills my ears, it's pleasant, "You have my number right?"

"Yeah," I squeak, "I think from last year when we did a geography presentation together."

The tips of his ears go pink again, "Oh, yeah. I remember that."

He laughs, "You've changed a lot in a year," he looks at my neck, my perturbing collarbone, I swallow. He raises his hand, as if he were going to run his finger across a dusty mantle, but lowers it and scratches his other wrist. 

I promptly change the subject, "I'll text you when I get home."

His eyes flicker back to mine and I smile reassuringly. I step a little closer so out forearms touch, he just nods. But the easiness shortly fades as he spots a certain individual making her way towards us, a dangerous fire in her wild black eyes.

"Klaer's coming, oh possum piss, hide me!" Clarke urges and steps behind me. It isn't much help because he's about a head and a half taller than me.

"Just look like we're having a conversation," I suggest, and turn around to face him. 

"We are having a conversation," he grins painfully, "anything to stop her talking to me. It's the last thing in the universe I want right now. The absolute last thing."

A wave of relief washes over me as I hear him say this, it almost sounds like he can't stand her, "Did she do something to you?" I ask as quietly as possible.

"She's constantly bugging me about this one thing," he explains, looking somewhere in the distance, quite possibly at the cloud that's shape like a kidney. His eyes glance back at Klaer and he sighs in relief, "good she's gone to the back of the line."

He doesn't stop talking to me, and I'm grateful, "You don't seem to tolerate her much either."

I touch the scratch on my cheek, it's developed an unpleasant scab,"She's not my favourite person in the world. So, no, I don't tolerate her much at all."

Our teacher hurries down the hallway to our classroom with stacks of paper upon paper in her arms, completely flustered. I become flustered to as I realise those papers mean two things (not to mention she's very late and my conversation with Clarke was taking an interesting turn):

1. We are getting assessments and grades back

2. We are getting new assignments or projects.

Neither is a good thing. They are both malicious.

"Okay two lines people! Give me to perfectly straight vertical lines down this corridor and if you make any decibel of noise from your orifices you will stay for five minutes after class!" Miss. Avon yells over the trivial noise.

We reluctantly do as we're told, as quickly as possible. It wasn't too hard as we were in roughly two lines to begin with. But some girls giggle and so they were yelled at and told to stay back. Clarke looks back at me, eyes flickering to Klaer down the back with a worried expression painted clear on his face. Something really must be bothering him and I need to find out exactly what it is in case I could help him.

"Alright Year 9s! I've got two projects to hand out which will need to be completed over the next few weeks. I'd appreciate it if you'd all sit down quietly and get settled so I can explain them to you!"

Our class files into the lab. I'm already fretting over the two projects, Science is easily the subject I struggle with the most. It's lethal, I just haven't got the heart for it and so the information barely sticks with me. I'm alright with my other classes, I'm getting around 85% in all of them, but only 55% in science. It's heart-wrenching to receive a test back which you thought you did well on, but no, you almost failed.

Clarke makes his way to his usual spot and gestures for me to come with him. Theo and Chris (who normally sit at Clarke's table with him and Darrin) sit behind Mianna, Darrin, Clarke and I (where Klaer normally sits), dragging Mick and Louis along with them.

Klaer is absolutely livid and drags her group of friends to sit right in front of us. She turns back to glare at us and Clarke looks sideways at me, raising a brow. I raise on in return and we laugh under our breaths, leaving Klaer even angrier in front of us (if that is possible).

Miss. Avon walks around the classroom slamming pieces of paper on our desks and death staring people who are talking. She notices the new 'seating arrangements' and smirks slightly. Miss. Avon is young and our school is her first teaching placement. She's definitely established favourites.

She's quite pleased that Klaer and her clique are sitting at the front.

I turn away and look down at the assignment pages in front of me. I shudder at the blurring words. 

"These projects will go towards next semester's grade considering we have just done our exams already for this semester. We're starting chemistry, moving away from your biology unit and briefly touching on last year's topics. Thus, leads us to your first assignment, which will be detecting gases..."

"Hydrogen, carbon and oxygen properties!" Clarke whispers so quietly only I can hear. A shiver runs down my spine and all the way to the cells on the tips of my toes, "I love this stuff!"

I shake my head vigorously, "I find it hard to remember."

His expression softens with sympathy and his fingers graze the back of my hand again, "I can help you if you'd like."

I turn to him, gazing into his endless brown eyes and nearly choking, "I'd really love that."

"Okay quiet down kids!" Miss. Avon calls over the noise of our class, "please take your time to read the second sheet out at home, we'll go through the first couple pages of our first assignment today, but's it's your responsibility to read the rest yourself."

I pick up the first sheet, realising that it's a booklet. Yay.

"As you can obviously see by reading the very first sentence on the very first page, that this is a group project and you'll do the actual experiment with the people you are sitting with on your exact tables right now. Just to make it easier on myself."

Clarke turns to me and smiles, I can tell he's happy. My body fills with eager anticipation but yet I don't want to embarrass myself in front of him, which I have the tendency to do. Mianna catches my eye and wiggles her eyebrows at me (or at least attempts to) as if to say, 'yes! I'm in a group with my lllllllooooovvvvvveeeeee!'. I wink in return. I watch as Clarke starts highlight key words and phrases on his sheet.

Did I mention he was the top of Year 9 Science?

Miss. Avon reads out the introductory sheet explaining the unclarified parts answering our questions. I half-listen and half-watch Clarke scribble down notes in columns and highlight. I feel the will to run my fingers over the curve of his long and sharp nose. And his jaw, that's somewhat angular and neat, the small cut on the edge of his chin and the small pimple on the top of his lip, barely noticeable in the contrast with his skin.

"Petria?"

Ms. Avon is right in front of me, causing me to jerk up and look straight at her.

"Yes? Miss?" I stutter.

"Would you mind terribly if you paid attention?"

I gulp, Klaer rolls her eyes at me, her clique following suit, "No m-miss..."

"Wonderful," she grimaces, "please read out the next paragraph."

She struts away, whoops, sorry, walks.

I have no idea what we're up to, Clarke points to the middle paragraph on the page and I nod thankfully. I begin to read out loud, feeling the stares of my classmates all around me, including the piercing look coming from Klaer, and sympathetic looks from Mianna, Darrin and Clarke.

"Water is a made up of two elements —hydrogen and oxygen. The characteristic properties of these elements are different from those of water. However, hydrogen and oxygen have some common properties. They are both colourless, odourless , and they both readily with other elements—making them 'reactive elements'. But in many ways, they are very different from each other."

Clarke's fingers graze over my hand again.