Chapter 1: Welcome to River High
Zelda stared at the large red brick building that loomed in front of her. She had her long black hair put into a french braid and she wore a short suede skirt with a black spaghetti strap shirt. She took an unsure step forward and finally got up the courage to walk into the school. As she walked by a group of boys she heard a series of cat calls. She looked back and saw a small group of boys following her at a distance. "Hey, fresh meat!" Since she was new at the school, everyone must have thought she was a freshmen. Before she knew it, she was cornered by the boys. One was leaning casually against the wall. "Hey girl, this is a rough place, you could get hurt if you don`t got the right friends here." She stared at the boy who was talking and playing with her hair absently. He was tall and muscular with black wispy hair and blue eyes that were unnatural looking somehow. They must have had contacts on them. He was quite dreamy but as soon as he spoke all his charm drained away. She batted his hand away from her hair, making him grin.
She looked around the group of boys nervously and didn`t even notice it when one of them raised his hand and brought it down on her books, making them fall to the ground. The group laughed and walked away as she bent down and began to pick up her books. As she reached out to pick up a wire bound notebook, a foot slammed on her hand making her wince. She looked up to see a girl with an almost nonexistent skirt and a low cut shirt. "Leave my boyfriend alone wench!"
Zelda sighed as the girl walked away and continued picking up her books. This wouldn`t have happened if her parents had gotten her a backpack at a store instead of through the mail. Her backpack had been put on back order. She saw a boy approaching and she sighed. He was about the same build as the other guy but he had ash blond hair that fell in slight wisps across his face. His eyes were a sparkly green. He stopped in front of her. "You need help?"
She stopped picking up her books and looked up at him with a scowl. "If you`re here to make fun of me or bully me then take a number and shove it up the main frame!"
He took a nervous breath in and shot her a lop sided grin as if she hadn`t just insulted him. "Wow, and here I was expecting a gentle flower."
She sighed with guilt as he bent down and picked up a handful of paper for her. "Look, I`m sorry, it`s just that I`ve been cornered by guys and then threatened by a girlfriend to one of those guys and school hasn`t even started yet!"
He nodded with slight understanding as he helped her put all her books and papers into a pile. "I see, well, it gets better I think. You look a little old to be a freshman."
She stood up and shuffled with her papers and books until they were in a neat pile. "Yeah, I moved here and I`m going into the eleventh grade."
He nodded sightly and smiled. "Well, I have to go and beat up the guys who cornered you, but if you need anything, like a friend, I`ll be around. I`m in the twelfth grade, so we`ll cross paths I`m sure." She nodded and he smiled. "See you around then."
Zelda smiled and ran up to her home room. After that was her first class, psychology level two. The teacher was a tall and elegant looking woman who had the word "mirror" written on the board. As soon as the bell rang she took role and then smiled. "Well, hello class. My name is Mrs. Gibenson and I am here to teach you psychology. Now in this class we will be studying mental disorders. You will need a notebook, a pencil, and a psychology textbook, which I will be handing out."
When Zelda got her textbook she looked at the table of contents. "Multiple Personality Disorder, Schizophrenia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, social disorders, control disorders, depression, eating disorders, kleptomania, hysteria, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, emotional disorders, phobias, multiple disorder patiants..." The list went on and on to include almost every disorder possible. She could tell this would be an intrusting class. She had always been intrusted in the human mind. It was a fascinating thing to her.
The teacher smiled and walked to the board. "Now, I know that today you will be hounded with 'get to know' activities and so I`ll start right away with the coarse. We are first going to be studying MPD, or multiple personality disorder. I have the word mirror written up here, I need some words to associate with it." Truth, reflection, and appearance were the words that people came up with. The teacher turned to the class. "Now imagine your mind as a mirror, and it is a small mirror because you are young, and still developing. Something happens to you that is too much for you to handle and so the mirror shatters into different people. After that, each challenge is combated by breaking a piece of the mirror off and letting that piece handle the challenge. That is how MPD is formed. Your homework tonight is to write a paragraph or a page about what you think this would be like, also read pages 8-12 of your textbook. After that we will research it throughly." As Zelda was walking to her next class, algebra, she saw the boy from that mourning. He smiled at her and gave a small wave. She was thinking that maybe this would be an intrusting year.
At lunch he walked up and sat at her table. He picked up one of the school hamburgers and looked at it as though it were diseased then he poked it with a fork as though he were making sure it was still dead. "You know, I have theories of how they make these things."
She laughed slightly. "I have theories on a lot of things." He raised his eyebrows in intrust and so she began to spout out her 'blue mass' theory and her 'infinity' theory.
After he had listened to it he smiled. "You have too much time on your hands you know that?" She smiled and he grinned. "Well, I think they have a huge vat of tomatoes in the kitchen here and everyday while classes are in session the lunch ladies stomp on them to make ketchup. The hamburgers are failed science experiments."
Zelda laughed at that. He seemed to have as crazy of a mind as she did. "Well, a theory worth looking into. I wonder if the lunch ladies are from mars."
He shook his head. "No, Pluto, that`s why the food is always cold." She laughed again and he held out his hand. "My name is Dante by the way."
She smiled and shook his hand. "My name is Griselda but if you call me that people will be coming up with theoryies on your death. My family calls me Zelda."
He cocked an eyebrow. "You know, normally people say 'my friends', not 'my family'. Something happen to 'my friends'?"
She sighed and leaned back in her seat. "Well, actually I`ve always been an outcast. People my age find me boring."
He regarded her with surprise. "Boring? You`re as exciting as studying the molecular structure of an ant!" She laughed again as the bell rang and he stood up. "Well Zelda the elda, I`ll be seeing you around."
At her next class there was a boy from the group that mourning who had cornered her. As she was walking out of the classroom she was shoved forward suddenly into a corner. When she turned to continue walking she saw that he had her pressed against the wall with one arm on either side of her. "Going somewhere doll?"
She began to tremble and press herself deeper into the corner. She didn`t like situation where she couldn`t move. Finally she found her voice. In her mind though, she was imagining a few things to do with plyers and a hammer. "Umm, could you let me go, please?"
He laughed at her and leaned closer to her with his eyes narrowed into slits. "Never." With that he pushed off and began to walk down the hall to his next class. She began to tremble and finally curled up on the floor.
"Zelda?" She looked up at the voice to see Dante standing over her. A knight in shining armor in a manner of speaking. "Zelda you alright?" When she didn`t say anything he sighed and leaned over to her, putting his arms around her and rocking her slightly. "It`s alright, he won`t hurt you, calm down."
She began to get nervous suddenly and so tried to push away from him but he held her tight. She imagined her saying that she was scared, and him saying everything was alright before planting her lips with a passionate kiss. She came to reality and tried to wriggle out of his grasp. "Let me go."
He glanced at her but held tight. "It`s alright Zelda, I`m not one of them." She nodded slightly and stopped fighting against him, settling to sobbing against his chest with his heartbeat close to her ear. When she had calmed down he pulled her back and looked at her with a smirk. "Welcome to River High huh?"
She laughed weakly and leaned forward, holding onto him. "Dante, I`m scared, that guy is so big."
He smiled at her after running a few fingers through her hair. "That`s alright, I`ll protect you, I`ve got twenty pounds on him."
After school she called home and asked her parents if she could bring a guest home. They agreed and so Dante rode on the bus back to her house. When they walked in the house she introduced her parents and Kelly. Her mother gave him a hug. "She told me everything that happened today, I`m glad she has a friend like you."
She was glad about it too, no one ever picked on her when Dante was around. He was like a secret service body guard. That night they went camping with Kelly. As the three year old pranced around the yard with a wooden sword held high, Dante and Zelda talked. "So, you must be pretty smart to come up with all those theories."
She smiled as she stared up at the stars. Was it flattery? Probably not. "Not really, I just always have my nose in a book. When I was little I thought that I could learn everything in the world there was to know."
He looked at Kelly racing across the field and then at Zelda. "And now?"
Zelda sighed, remembering jeering kids as she walked in the halls with her nose in a book. Prophets were always despised, but she was no prophet. "I grew up, my expertise is in theory making, even if I don`t know much about the things I`m making theories on. Basically I know a little bit about everything."
He smiled warmly at her and caught Kelly as she charged at him. The child began to giggle and kick playfully as he tickled her. When he finally let her go she was hiccuping from laughing so much. He turned to Zelda. "Umm, I was wondering if we could be.....more......than friends."
Zelda stared at him long and hard before looking away. "Wow, there was only one person to ever ask me that before. He..um....hurt me when I said 'yes'." She looked at him sadly recalling that day. He had taken her on a walk through some woods. If not for the hikers that were walking nearby, he would have done what he willed to her. "Dante, I love you like a brother, and never anything more. I`m glad I found someone like you who will protect me and talk to me, but I don`t want to ruin our friendship with dating."
She waited anxiously as he assimilated this information. Finally he smiled at her. "That`s fine, I understand. I love you as more than a sister, but I can wait for you."
She sighed and lay on her back, staring up at the stars. That was true love. "Thank you Dante, that means a lot to me."