“Hey, I’m Ham.” Said the boy standing in front of me, holding out his hand for me to shake. I look at him weirdly, thinking that I must’ve heard him wrong. It’s my first day at my new school. My family had to move because of reasons I will discuss later. We are standing out in front of the school, on the tan pavement. The sun is blinding my eyes, shining brightly in the vast blue sky with clouds here and there. It’s so hot that my clothes are already sticking to me and I just got here.
I take his hand. “I’m sorry, did I hear you wrong?” I ask. “Did you say that your name is Ham? Like as in the meat from pigs?”
He nods. “Yeah.” He laughs. “My parents must have been stoned when my mother gave birth to me. My mum tells me that my name means Hot. And that is supposedly why they named me that. Again, I say that they were so stoned.” I nod, agreeing. We fall in step, walking towards the huge school in front of us. “You should meet my friend. His name his worse. Well, I mean that meaning.”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
He glances at me, I see his hazel eyes out of the corner of his eyes. “You’ll see when you meet him.” He says, letting the suspense hang in the air. Ham has spiky short dark brown hair that is almost black and nice round, hazel eyes. He wears a black hoody over a white t-shirt with a picture of a character from a tv show. The title reads Doctor Who?
We reach the cafeteria and Ham (hehe) holds the door open for me saying “After you, my Lady” which makes me laugh. I walk into the room which is really big, like the school itself. I see peppy girls in yoga pants and t-shirts flirting with stocky guys wearing lacrosse jerseys with the school colours on them. There are tons of kids seated at tables eating breakfast varying in bagels, Pop Tarts and cereal.
Ham leads me over to a guy with curly golden locks that go to his neck chatting with other guys and some girls. He looks like he just laid out on the beach and has startling blue eyes. He wears a grey t-shirt and bright blue jeans that hang low on his hips and black converse high-tops. He glances over at us and smiles a grin that shows lots of his pearly white teeth.
Ham takes a seat next to him and I sit by Ham and a girl with dark red hair. “Hey kid.” Ham says, ruffling the top of the blonde kid’s hair. “Say hi to my new friend-what was your name again?” He asks, looking at me.
“Avril.” I say, blushing because I was too stunned by Ham’s name to give him mine.
“Avril, cool name. I’m Frasier.” He says.
“That’s not an embarrassing name at all.” I blurt and smack myself inwardly. “What I meant is, Ham here tells me that your name was worse than his.” I said.
He chuckles. “Yeah, it means Strawberry. What guy do you know with the name of Strawberry? ‘Hey Strawberry, wanna go play some Call of Duty?’ Yeah.. uh.. no. I don’t think you do.” He says. “So where ya from, Avril? You don’t sound from around here. What with the American accent and all.”
“Oh. Yeah, you noticed. California.” I say. Did I mentioned I moved to Great Britain? London? No? Oh, well, I did.
“Cool, never met anyone from America. Just me and my jolly old town here. You know?” He says. I stare at him and he continues. “So, you guys wanna meet up later? After school?” He asks.
“I’m down.” Ham says.
They both look at me, dependently. “Yeah, sure. Where?” I ask.
“Here, what’s your phone number? I’ll give ya a call. That okay?” Frasier asks. I nod and rip out a sheet of notebook paper, writing my number on it. I hand it over to Frasier. He looks it over and slips it into his pocket. The bell rings at that moment and we all get up. Kids are rushing out of the cafeteria but we just take out time since Hot and Strawberry are going to show me around. I inspect my neatly printed schedule. My first class is Honors Algebra.
Hot and Strawberry leaned in towards me to gaze at my sheet of paper. Ham smirks. “You’re in smart maths, eh?”
I speculate his expression. “Yeah? So? Problem?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nope, not at all. Looks like the three of us have the same class together.” He says. I am dumbfounded for some odd reason. My new friends end up actually being class mates. Cool. I guess. “So, we should probably hurry then since we are in the same class. Don’t want the teacher starting off thinking I have a bad rep.”
We stream through the hallways, pushing kids out of our way who shove us back, and dash into the room just before the bell rings. We take seats by the door, I in the middle, Ham to my right and Strawberry to my left.
“Okaayy... Class, I’m Ms....” The teacher says. She’s pretty odd looking. Even for a math teacher. Er no, I think I am thinking about Science. Anyway, there is no denying she’s weird. I mean, Even for just a science teacher. She looks kookier than that. She has ice blonde hair, blue (yes, I said blue) highlights that vary in different shades. Cold green eyes that pierce the students and a frail skinny body where her sky blue dress lies limp. It’s like being in a dream at this school. The names, the teachers, the- “Avril Skye.”
Her voice interrupts my thoughts, she has to repeat my name a couple of times before I actually acknowledge that she was talking to me. And the fact that Ham elbowed me. And Frasier kicked me. And I realized that I was drooling on myself. No, just kidding, that part never happened. I don’t drool.
“Avril Skye.” She repeats. I raise my hand. She looks at me with that harrowing gaze and raises one eyebrow.
“That would be me.” I said. “Here.” She sighed a very loud sigh like she was annoyed with me. I wanted to scream YES, I KNOW! IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! I HATE IT TOO. NOT MY FAULT FOR DOZING OFF. Or rather it is but I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE EITHER. I’M NEW, CUT ME SOME SLACK. AND SO WHAT IF I’M AMERICAN?
The rest of the day just rushes by as I go through my schedule. Turns out Ham has 3rd and 5th period with me. And Frasier has 2nd, 5th, and 6th period with me. When the bell rings, I amble out of the room and to my locker. I do not want to be knocked down by kids rushing to the bus to have the back seats. Been there, done that. I grab my jacket, books, and bag and search for my mum’s car. I find it and after that it’s a silent ride home.
10 minutes after I get home, I get a call from a weird number that starts with 20... and so on. I pick up. “Hello?”
“Heyyyyy babe.” I hear some guy say on the end of the line.
“Um. Excuse me?” I say.
“Hey, it’s Frasier- hold on a sec, gotta add Ham to the call.” There was a brief silence. “Ah, okay, there we go. Hello? Ham? Avril?”
“Yeah?” Ham and I say in unison.
“‘Kay, great. So-” Frasier is interrupted by yelling in the background of someone’s home. ‘HAM! GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM HAM! YOU ARE NOT LEAVING THIS HOUSE WITHOUT THAT DAMN ROOM CLEAN, HAM! NOW, HAM!’ And then I heard a child cry ‘Yeah, Hammy, what Mummy said!’
“Sorry ‘bout that guys, I gotta go. Where we meeting up?” Ham asks.
“Our favourite bench where we watch people go running. You know the place.” Frasier says. Ham mutters and ‘okay’ and hangs up. “I’ll come and pick ya up, darlin’? ‘Kay? Where do you live?” He asks. I gave him my address which I figured isn’t that smart but how else am I supposed to meet up with them? 32 minutes later, my doorbell rings. I slip on some shoes, grab my jacket and open the door.
I get some kind of white flowers handed to me as soon as the door opens. There in my doorway is a grinning Strawberry. “Pot mums. No necessarily British but I like the name so I got some for ya.” He held out his arm for me to slide mine through. When I do, we leave.
I yell over my shoulder to my mum that I am leaving and get no response which is her saying that she doesn’t care what the hell I do. We walk around and I take in the scenery. There wasn’t too much grass, but when I did see some; it was a lush green. Frasier plops down on a bench and pats his hand on the spot next to him, inclining me to sit.
“I put a note inside the pot for you. Maybe you’ll find it if you dig around in the dirt?” He said, nudging me. I poked around and found a folded piece of paper.
Eye Ham We Tart it.
It was written with what I assumed was a Sharpie, if they even have them here in Britain. I looked at Frasier, who was smiling. “I am so confused? What is this supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Just say it a couple times out loud. It’ll make much more sense.” He said.
“Okeydoke.. I Ham We Tart It. I Ham We Tart It. I Am We Tart It. I am retarded. I am retarded. I am re-” I look at him in shock, and he is dying to hold his laughter in. “Go ahead. Get it out of your system.” Before I can finish, he’s laughing. The knee-slapping, belly-clutching, red faced, out of breath laugh. Ham comes cruising around the corner and eyes us suspiciously.
“What?” He asks and I hand him the slip of paper. He looks confused. “I Ham We Tart It. I Ham We Tart It. I am retarded. I am retarded. I am retarded.” He realizes his mistake and blushes, sending Frasier to a choked laughter. He seriously looked like he was going to die. “Did you say this, too?” He asked. I nodded. “Ha-ha. Very funny, Strawberry.”
I glance over at Frasier. He looks like he’s dying. Wait a minute, I think he’s choking! I slap my hand on his back and tell him to get a grip on himself. He calms down for a moment, taking slow and easy breaths. I waited for a response from him, anything to assure that he was okay. “You two totally fell for that! I can’t believe you were stupid enough to do it. You, too, Hotty.”
“That was funny, I guess. You actually had to read it out loud?” I asked. He blushed again. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“See what I mean, Ham? And it’s not the first time that you’ve done that. That is what makes it really funny to me.” He said, laughing.
There was an awkward silence. “Well, um, I guess I should go get ready for tomorrow. And I have to do my homework. Walk me home?” Frasier is still laughing but nods his head. Ham agrees.
***
So I am here in Science, think how my life is so weird. My Science teacher has black hair, gray eyes that are so pale they are almost transparent, thin lips that are painted blood red and very, very skinny. She wears a dark red dress that has cobwebs on it and she also has cobwebs in her hair. Not awkward at all, right? And when she speaks, it’s like the wind blowing in my ears. She gives me the chills.
And it’s not just the teachers that freak me out, it’s my friends too. They have such strange names. Thinking about it, all of the kids here have strange names. The red headed girl’s name that sat next to me was Evielora Jaye. She had eyes so dark that they were black. I couldn’t find her pupils. Things were hazy as the day passed. Ham, Frasier and I can’t really hang out that much because it’s really rainy. Before I realized what happened, it’s been four months since I moved. It felt like yesterday that I was sitting on that bench laughing. My mum’s been thinking about changing my name to something that fits in with London. I don’t want to have a name like Ham or Strawberry.
I went home that day, coming in soaked because I forgot my umbrella. I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as I got home. When I woke up, everything was pitch black. I tried moving but I couldn’t. I floated out of the dark and looked down. I don’t know what I was supposed to be seeing but all I saw was grass and... gravestones? I wasn’t in London but rather in.. California. It was sunny. I walked home and found that my room was empty. The house was the the same but my room gone. I frowned. There were no pictures hanging up of me on the walls like usual. I was gone from existence. No trace of a memory I was even there.
This couldn’t be happening. I was not dead. I was not gone. I am still here. I was in London. This is just a bad dream. But, what if it wasn’t? What if the dream was Ham and Frasier? Something that I had made up? I closed my eyes.
And opened them. I heard rain hitting against the glass of my window. Two faces peered at me, closely. “Hey there, Sunshine. Bad dream?” Frasier said, Ham looking at him. I nod. “Don’t worry, I know just the thing that will cheer you up.” He said, a smile on he face and grabbed my hand.
