• “No way, a foreign exchange student is going to stay at your house, that’s amazing,” on of my friends squealed. My poor desk was surrounded by girls. The never ending question drove me insane. I love that people are excited about a new student, but I need my space. I stood up from my desk and gave them all a stern look. I signaled them to their chairs, and sighed in relief. The only time anyone wants to talk to me is when I mention foreign anything. I liked the thought of being left alone and being invisible to everyone around me. As I fingered through my backpack I noticed my sketchbook was missing. No, no, no it has to be here. Oh man it has all my latest sketches for art class in it. I looked around my desk for it, but it was gone. It had vanished. I felt a slight tap on my shoulder.
    “Hey is this yours?” a brunette hair boy handed me a leather book. I skimmed through it.
    “Yes, thank you,” he walked away, “Hey wait…”
    “What do you want?” he seemed testy.
    “Where did you find it?”
    “In the hall, you know you’re pretty good,” I blushed. No one every said anything about my art like that. Well I’ve never let anyone other than my teacher see them, but that was besides the point, “Did you need something else?”
    “Uh…no not really. Here you can have this as a thank you,” I handed him one of mt loose leaf drawings. It was a picture of a very detailed mother cat and her six kittens, who’s eyes have not yet opened.
    “Um, thanks” he continued to walk away. I wonder who he was. He must be that new student, um… I think his name was Kaname. The bell rang and everyone ran to their desks. Ms. Howard walked in and stood at podium. She was a reasonably tall woman with blonde hair and green eyes. She is always found wearing long skirts and a blouse.
    “Everyone get to your seats so I may take attendance.” She started to call out names, marking down who may or may not be here.
    “Pssss, hey Leanne, you’re an arty person right?” a girl next to me whispered. I didn’t answer. There was no way in hell I was going to answer that. I didn’t want people to know about my talents. They probably ask for previews or see my sketchbook everyday I came to class. That’s not going to happen, no sir, never going to happen.
    “Now class I will be explaining your second semester projects. I will pair you up into teams of two. Each team will write report on a species of mammal. In the report it will explain: where it originated, its food of choice, the scientific name, when it was discovered, and two fun facts that are school appropriate. Then you will make a visual aid of you mammal.” She grabbed her clipboard with bright, neon, pink nails, “This project will be due one week from now.” I got bored after “In the report” so I stopped listening, well until she started naming of people. I hope I not pair with some loser or idiot who expects me to do all the work.
    “Team three: Jason and Kelly. Team four: Leanne and kaname. Team five…” hold the boat, I’m pair with kaname. Oh what a lovely coincidence. Another three minutes went by, and Ms. Howard was still naming off people. A lot of people had problem about me working with kaname. All the girls wanted to work with him. Yuck, fangirlism. Finally, ms. Howard was finished.
    “I’ll give you the rest of the day to work on your project, and then you’re on your own.” I grabbed my sketchbook, my notebook, and a pencil. I took my time walking over to his desk. I sat in the seat nest to him.
    “Hi again,” I tried to make conversation.
    “What Mammal do you want?” I was a little shocked. Does he have a one track mind or something?
    “Um… well everyone else is probably going to choose something simple, so what about a tiger?” I asked.
    “That works, I’ll handle the report and you handle the visual aid.” I sighed. He meant my drawing didn’t him. Great, just what I wanted. Then I thought of an Idea.
    “I’ll be right back,” I ran up to the teacher’s desk.
    “Hey Ms. Howard, Could I bring in a living visual aid? She nodded, and shooed me away. I kinda had a skip in my step. Well until I looked over and saw a few girls going through my sketchbook. Then it turned to a run.
    “What are you guys doing? Give that.” I snatched my book from them. They snickered.
    “I like the couples you drew, there so detailed,” they said sarcastically. I sat in the chair next to Kaname, and gave a faint depressed sigh. I didn’t think he could hear it but I was wrong.
    “Don’t worry about them, they’re just jealous,” he smiled, “you have more talent then most teenage girls.”
    “Ah…thanks (I think),” I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or insult, “oh, the visual aid is done.” I smiled. He looked a little shocked. My pride felt as if has made an accomplishment in life. It was amazing.
    “What is it?”
    “You’ll see,” I giggled, “Since your doing the report does that mean you…”
    “Yah we going study together,” that not what I was thinking, but it works I guess. Since that matter was over with, I decided to make sure that those girls didn’t harm my sketchbook. I was relived to see they were intact, and everything was accounted for. The pages of my book flew as looked for an empty page. I grabbed my pencil and began to draw. Most of my drawings are couples and animals, rarely single people and inanimate objects.
    “Do you have people model for some of those pictures?” I blushed. I didn’t realize he was looking over my shoulder. I thought of a quick cover up.
    “Why, did you want to model for me or something?”
    “Or something” I blushed even more, “maybe I was just asking.” I pressed my pencil to my book and broke. It was a good excuse to get away from him. I got up and walked over to my desk. I bent over to grab my pencil box, and opened it. I was happy I was wearing pants today and not a skirt. My hand snatched a metallic exacto-knife. I began to sharpen my pencil. Normally I would be sent home because I brought a knife to school but they know well enough I use it for pencils only. So it really is no big deal that I used an exacto-knife. Two seconds later and stack of books was in my face.
    “Here,” Kaname looked pissed. I accepted the books and thanked him (sarcastically).