Eden Academy: The Last Echo

[calamosis]

Adrian watched the girl being talked at--not to--by the third guy who had gotten in. The fourth of their party didn't seem too interested either. He raised an eyebrow to himself; these people might not be entirely horrible to be around. First good news yet. That, and getting a bedroom to himself. Hopefully it wouldn't have as thin walls as his place back home....

He twisted towards the window once more, keeping an ear out for any 'helpful' information. He closed his eyes, thinking of the school. Maybe they would teach something that challenged him.... A higher course of math than he was used to, maybe. Or different vocabulary; something completely out there that no one would know. A different language.... He was getting ahead of himself, but Adrian couldn't care less. He was honestly starting to look forward to this.

[Miss Fortune]

Leila looked up after feeling the car cushion lower next to her. She ignored it, waiting for the car to start. She hid a frown behind her orange, and blond highlighted bangs; her knees were starting to hurt her from being cramped up for so long. She looked up at the moment she heard someone speak. Not knowing who the voice was talking to, she glanced to her other side. The guy with the rubix cube didn't open his mouth to speak. The guy who introduced himself as Jack was a young African American boy with a friendly smile.

"Leila Valenci," she said, awkwardly extending her hand towards Jack. Even though she was hardly a people person, being rude in such close quarters would not be the best move.

The let a black kid in? she thought, waiting for Jack to shake her hand. It wasn't as if she was racist, she was just not used to many black kids joining schools like this. She only knew a couple of kids from underprivileged homes that managed to attend St. Vincent's Academy back in New York City. They were not well liked by the snobs and rich kids who only got in to the school by their parents' money, but they were a bright bunch, attempting to fit in with bunch of preppy white kids. She had felt a tinge of guilt, and smiled towards the guy, trying to hide her retainer. The car door closed when the last of their little group piled into the car with them.

[Evladimira183]

7:30
Holly opened her mouth wide to release a large yawn into the world. It had been the umpteenth time she'd yawned, with little to no sleep on this damn airplane. She'd never been on an airplane before, and while she'd seen lots of people excited and chatting away, making friends with each other when they're barely known anyone, Holly herself was bored. She didn't know if electronics were permitted in the plane, but she presumed that electronics using wi-fi or such would be unallowed, so to try and sneak by that rule, she had her iPod hidden under her sleeve, music quietly sounding in her ears to fill in the background noise, and help her blank out other people's voices. Damn, she thought, how much are these people going to talk? I hope nobody comes and bugs me. If she was asked about the headphones and their coming from, she'd turn the music off but leave the earphones in, even if there wasn't a sound in them. People knew then to leave you alone, they did, if they saw you wouldn't hear them anyway. A sly trick to try and get them to leave her alone, for she was grieving, missing her kitten, Khloe, already. The little kitten had been left in the care of her parents, but Holly had no idea how long she would last in this new "boarding school". Her parents had thought it would be a good idea, but would Holly have agreed with them? She turned her music up a bit, and closed her eyes for a while.

9:15
The sound of music steadily grew louder, and Holly awoke with a start. She'd fallen asleep! Since she was in a window seat near the rear end of the plane, she looked out of it, searching for refuge from her tire and boredome. Suddenly, a grin crossed her face, though she was careful to hide it from as many people as she could. Despite being apprehensive, she was looking forward to the new life at school, leaving her old life behind her.

9:45
Standing up, she stretched her legs: it had been a long flight and although she was tired, she couldn't have gone to sleep in case someone came and bugged her. The plane had been landed now for fifteen minutes and they were just lining up the different stairs to whichever door. Holly wasn't really sure which side the exit would be, but she'd just follow the crowd and hope they wouldn't be falling into some deep ocean somewhere. There goes the imagination again!, she thought. Stretching her arms up to reach her back, she could see someone dozing. "how can you just sleep so deep like that..?" she said aloud, but quietly, to herself. Her mother had warned her about that,talking to herself. People would think badly of her, she had said. Not that Holly cared what other people thought of her, so long as they weren't doing bad things to her. The man she was watching woke up and looked towards where she was, so she quickly looked away. Mother had warned her of that too - don't stare or look at people for too long, they'll think badly of you. She didn't really see how it mattered if others thought badly of her, though...She did see two people outside of the plane, though. Had they fallen out? The doors weren't open yet.
No...They must be some kind of welcoming committee. "Oh, whatever..." she said to herself, a little too loud. Someone walking past her stared at her, then sniggered to their friend. Holly just rolled her eyes. So long as it doesn't affect or hurt anyone, I'll do what I want. I just have to accept the consequences and it'll be fine anyway! She sighed and sat back down, waiting for the doors to open. She mght have to work things differently here, because she didn't want to stick out here like she had done at her old school. It was when she stuck out that they started getting cocky and overconfident in how badly they could treat her, and she felt that these kids surrounding her would do the same if she stuck out too badly. Besides, nobody here had hurt her, so why should she treat them badly anyway? She closed her eyes and settled off for a few minutes' snooze.

[Zero]

9:45
The plane was beginning to descend from the sky at this point, Azalia was nervous, she wasn't really accustomed to going to new places. She had grown accustomed to being alone, rarely getting to know people outside of her family. Not to mention everything had been paid for, she had always been poor and though she didn't really mind what people thought about her because of it this change did affect her, made her more nervous about it.

Azalia waited for everyone else to exit the plane before she even stood up, her face turned to the left staring out of one of the windows her fingers taping her right thigh over and over. She had been awake the entire flight and most of the time she was looking right out the window, the world one of the things that she found most interesting. Every nook and cranny beautiful from the sky to the trees, it was all amazing in her eyes.

10:00
Everyone had now exited the plane and the flight attendant came by her seat, "Ma'am, you need to get off the plane now" she said with a warm smile and she reached up getting Azalia's carry-on bag. She took the bag from the flight attendant and nodded as she scurried off the plane to where everyone else was.

She listened to the apparent leaders of the group, the woman called Maria seemed more like staff. She gave out instructions and Azalia just sat back and listened, a little separated from the group because it felt more casual this way. Once everyone split up she just stayed in place, she would follow who she was told to follow without many questions and chances were she wouldn't talk at all until spoken to.

As she waited for what they were going to do she reached into her bag and pulled out some gum, tossing it into her mouth and beginning to chew. She would have played an instrument or something, heck even run into the woods, but she knew that this was an important thing. She had to stay and get all the information about this new place she was in, besides she didn't want to get so much attention from these new people. She just sat in the back and looked around now a slight blissful smile on her face now that she was off of the plane and out in the open air again, the beautiful world.

[enaz]

Jack took Leila's hand and put it to his lips, and said "Nice to meet you I am honored to be in the presence of such a beautiful women," Jack then straightened up in his seat so everyone could have more room to get comfortable since the ride was a tight squeeze. Jack stared Leila in the eye and could tell she was shocked to see him. This wasn't Jack's first time at a school like this, but people automatically assumed he had worked hard to get there, but he never did. Jack was still going to be nice to Leila though. He then reached into his pocket pulling out his ipod and started listening to some Japanese pop which he loved, and he offered a headphone to Leila.

[calamosis]

Listening to the exchange, Adrian barely held in a snort. The girl, Leila apparently, just seemed so uptight to him; in his eyes, it was amazing she hadn't shoved him away screaming. In fact, considering his experiance with people like her, it was a feat to not hear her complain about everything. Rich girls..... Well, another good bit of news. The two beside him weren't killing each other yet, so that was definitely a good sign,

But, wait.... Look at that! All the others even had music systems! And the guy who had asked about the car shop; he had a game system! He was taking it apart, yes, but Adrian easily recognized it. He used to borrow one from a acquaintance occasionally, before their parents got enough money to move away.

Adrian tried to hide his disappointment; he was sure he'd be an outcast, now. No one would bother to befriend a 'poor kid', no matter how he persisted. He would either be pitied or ignored, niether of which he was looking forward to. Oh, well.... At least the courses would be good, right...? Adrian could only pray that this was so.

[Koti~]

Devin slowly finished taking apart the entire game boy, carefully placing it in the zip lock back. Once having done that, he leaned against the back of the seat, looking out the window at the passing town. He was literally bored out of mind, he had ignored most of the conversation that had gone on through.

He looked them over, not seeing much of interest, other than the girl with the laptop bag on her shoulder. He looked at the strap, thinking of what she might have in there. Different laptops ran through his head while he looked, his fingers itching to hold it and take it apart, to gut it and see what it ran on.

"Do you have a laptop?" Devin asked the girl pointedly. He was interested at the possiblitily of getting his hand on some new age tech, never being able to afford a laptop of his own. He knew they ran faster, yet came with a lower battery life, and wanted to check it out.

[Miss Fortune]

"What? WhaLeila's eyes widen, and her cheeks felt flushed. Had that guy really kissed her hand? The most attention she was used to was a handshake, Italian cheek kisses where the people's lips never met flesh, and the occasional shoulder pat or head nod from her father. She nodded her head, and withdrew her hand. She exhaled deeply through her nose, regaining her composure.

"Uh, no thanks, Jack?" She refused the headphones/earbud. She was anything but a normal student, lucky to even have a laptop that acted like a PDA and home-school teacher all in one. Dad is like Hitler when it comes to electronics, she thought, remembering when she brought home a friend's iPod.

* * * * * *

t is this?" The earbuds were snatched forcefully from her ears with a pop that hurt her ears.

Leila looked up to see her father clutching the cords with one hand, and the rest of the iPod clattering to the ground. Her father grew even more annoyed with her silence. Leila, rubbing her ears dropped her hands to her lap.

"It's an iPod, an electronic device that plays music, and-" Her father's flushed cheeks stopped her mid-sentence. He had been drinking from the smell of his breath. More than wine this time. He wasn't much of a drunk, but when he had his friend's over, he broke out the champagne and scotch, or made Cosmopolitans.

"I thought I told you not to bring this trash into my home."

"You did, Papa, I'm sorry."

He gritted his teeth. "Your 'friend' won't be getting this back." He bent over, and picked up the fallen iPod, and disappeared out of the kitchen. She sat there in the kitchen chair with the fluorescent light beating down on her homework papers. She heard her father before she seen him. She heard doors slamming, then his heavy footsteps. He entered the kitchen with the iPod and hammer, and slammed the iPod down on the table.

"This," he said, pointing to the iPod, "is what happens when you disobey my rules." She shut her eyes, flinching every time the hammer smashed against the iPod. "You'll be paying your friend back for breaking her music player," he said, leaving the hammer next to the shattered iPod, and left the room.

* * * * * *

She snapped out of her memories when she heard the word 'laptop'. She instinctively looked down at her laptop bag, then towards one of the guys that talked to her. It was the guy (Devin) on the other side of Jack. "Uh, yeah. It's a Toshiba Satellite Notebook. Why?"

[Koti~]

Devin's mind went into overdrive when she mentioned what type of laptop she had with her. He could already imagine the mother board setup and the extra bus of ram for faster run time.

"May I see it?" Devin asked, tapping his fingers against his knee. He already had the builders itch running through his fingers already. He wanted to get his fingers onto the laptop and start taking it apart in his mind, the wiring and circuit boards laid out in front of him like a perfect blueprint for the original design. He was hoping that his tapping fingers didn't give him away. He knew he could return it in perfect shape, every piece working just as it was supposed to be

[calamosis]

Adrian looked over in curiosity. What in heaven's name was this guy thinking? He looked like he was gonna tackle Leila just to get to her laptop! Crazy. He watched interestedly now, wanting to see her respone (not to mention, but it was funnier than some of his dad's perverted jokes to see her flush like that earlier), as he now knew this girl wasn't a cookie-cutout like he had first thought.

But what would happen, now? This guy (sence Jack was the name of the third in their party, this guy must've been one of the other names called; Devin) obviously wanted something to do with her laptop; and judging by the game system he had been working with, Adrian was pretty sure he knew what it was.

Hmm. If she did hand it over, would this Devin guy be able to take it apart and put it back together by the time it took to arrive at the academy? Maybe.... But probably not. So Adrian just watched, yet again as silent as he had ever been in this group, waiting for something to happen (other than scenery going by in an endless cycle around them) amongst his peers.