New Student Kevin Warren

In Alfie's viewpoint....

Today is Tuesday. I need to go to school today.

Today I woke up in the morning and saw Jay's face went pale.

He must have been thinking about that day.

After that day, after I was noticed when talking to Jay. Everything changed. Or more accurately, everything got worse. Before, I didn't have any friends at school or anyone who I was familiar with, but at the very least there were classmates willing to greet me and say hi.......even though they were only strangers.

But now, I am completely a social outcast.

Now, even strangers avoid me.

I don't feel lonely.

Loneliness is painful.

But if you stop thinking you are lonely, you don't feel pain.

No matter if it was school or home, it was always terrible. But as long as you don't care, you feel like you can still keep going. You can go to school. And you can stay at home alone.

But today....

When Jay asked me whether I wanted to go to school.

It was the first time.......

.........first time that I wanted to skip school.

As I scrambled myself into my mind palace, I went across the street, I was walking and thinking at the same time, looking down on the road.

All of a sudden, I froze.

"Huh?!" I cried out.

There was a snake-shaped shadow on the ground. It was moving along the road at thunder speed.

The snake shadow moved very quickly and, in a flash, it disappeared in my sight.

That dark shadow snake is what we call a ghost. Since the day when Jay appeared in my bedroom, I seemed to have the ability to see ghosts. I saw many kinds of ghosts, some were small like a baseball, some were in human-forms, some were animals like that shadow snake. At first, I was pretty shocked to see these scary creatures, but luckily to me, ghosts don't attack humans, they are basically harmless, or at least I never see them do any harm. Well, even though they don't bring any harm, the fact of having the ability to see ghosts seriously affects my daily life. But I don't really care. You see, if I couldn't see ghosts, then I wouldn't be able to meet Jay and I wouldn't be able to have someone to play with me. As long Jay is here, I can bear these small costs.

Thinking about this, I felt my footsteps were lighter, the stones in my heart soon became small round pebbles. I hurried along to school and sat down on my seat in the classroom quietly, reading a book. The classroom was as noisy as usual, but it never disturbed me reading. Nearby, there was a group of classmates having a conversation.

"James, your pen is so beautiful. Can I see?" a girl asked as she stared at a remarkable black fountain pen with silver laces on a desk.

"Sure." James said, he gave the pen to the girl and continued, "This pen is called the Waldmann Xetra Vienna Black Fountain Pen, it is different from normal fountain pen as it is very expensive and valuable."

"Where you got such an amazing pen?" another girl wondered.

"I got it from my dad, he is a pen collector." said James, a huge smile grew on his face.

"Pen collector? Can you tell me more about it?" A girl questioned. Two boys nearby noticed them and joined in.

"What you guys are talking about?" One of the boy asked.

"We are talking about this fountain pen." said a girl, showing the pen to the others. One boy was very interested in it while a short black-haired thin boy rolled his eyes and complained. I recognized that thin boy, it was the guy who spread my rumors with a notebook. If I remembered correctly, he should belong to a newspaper club. Only newspaper club members always carried notebooks with them.

"It's only an ordinary pen....why you guys are so attracted to it?" The thin boy complained.

"Then do you have this kind of pen, Paul? If you don't, please speak appropriately according to the occasion!" The girl scolded.

A short while later, a female class teacher came inside, followed by a dark brown scruffy hair boy with light yellow eyes, if you observed him closely, he was wearing a black rubber bracelet on his left hand.

The teacher raised her voice and said, "Everyone, listen up! Today, we will have a new student come to our class. His name is Kevin Warren. Kevin, please introduce yourself."

"Hello. My name is Kevin Warren, because of family reasons, I moved to this town. I hope I can get along with everyone in this class." said the boy confidently, from his voice, I determined he was an energetic and active person.

"Kevin, you can sit behind Alfie." said the teacher as she pointed to a seat for Kevin and called my name, "Alfie. Kevin doesn't know much about the school, can you go around and introduce the school to him later?" I nodded my head and agreed. Well, I can't say 'no'.

"Nice to meet you, Kevin."

"Nice to meet you, Alfie." Kevin lent his hand to me.

"What's wrong? Why you show me your hand?"

"Huh? You don't know what is a handshake? People shake hands to greet each other when they meet at the first time."

"Is it? I don't know that."

"Ha-ha. You're interesting!"

"Hey, you two! It's lesson time. Stop talking and pay attention!" The teacher scolded.

After a few hours, it was finally lunchtime. I tidied up my desk and turned around, I was about to say something to Kevin but James interrupted me.

"Hey, you guys. Do you see my black fountain pen? I lost my pen." he asked. I nodded my head horizontally. So did Kevin.

"Is it? Well, if you see a fountain pen, give it back to me, OK?" He requested and left us, with his mouth bubbling some words, "Argh! Where is my pen? If dad knows that I lost it, he will definitely scold me." James looked around and saw Paul was near the door and asked him, "Hey, Paul. Have you seen my fountain pen? If you know something, you better tell me." Ignoring both James and Paul, I told Kevin to wait for a moment as I needed to go to the washroom. Just after I left, a long-haired girl went near Kevin and stated.