Changes

The boys walked into the classroom as the second bell went to indicate that all students should now no longer be loitering in the yard or in corridors and should instead be in their designated form rooms. Mr Hughes was standing at the front of the class introducing himself to the students who had never had him before, but stopped and screwed his face up in disappointment at the sight of the twins.

“Ah, tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb, I was beginning to think I had been relieved of the burden of trying to handle you this year… cutting it a bit fine, aren’t we lads… can we at least try and start this year getting here on time?” He remarked with a mocking smile at the two boys before turning to two pretty girls sitting in the front row, right in front of his desk, “Sarah, Jenny, can you move to the back for me? These two hooligans need constant supervision…”

Luke was almost offended as they took the now empty seats but the sight of the bare blue wall at the front of the class, void of a whiteboard after their mischief the year before, he smirked, a response that was caught by the eagle eyed teacher before them.

“I’m warning you now, Fletcher, if you or Harrison so much as put a toe out of line this year I’ll have you both separated until you leave next year!” He hissed. It was the same threat that he made at the beginning of every year, but something about the way his voice had crept up in pitch and his eyebrows had made a run for his hairline told Luke that he really meant it this time.

“Sir, this is the fifth year you’ve been our form tutor and Harrison is still not my name … It’s Harold if you’re determined to be all formal, although personally, I'd prefer Harry.” His brother spoke calmly but firmly with a small sarcastic smile, earning a few sniggers from the other students. Mr. Hughes wide face turned a pinkish colour as he took a deep breath and went back to dealing with his papers.

Luke slumped back in his seat raising his eyes to the heavens in frustration. He just wanted to have fun, he didn’t mean to cause trouble, he usually just hadn’t thought far enough ahead to consider the consequences most of the time. The threat of being separated from Harry in form was enough to make him want to try to behave though. Being the quieter of the two, sometimes he felt as though people only really hung out with him or spoke to him because Harry was there.

He looked at his curly haired partner in crime who was turning around to speak to the boys sat behind them and envied his naturally friendly demeanour. It must be the dimples, he thought to himself. They just made him look so much kinder when he smiled than the awkwardly false look his own smile gave him. Harry must have felt his brother looking at him because he glanced at him out the corner of his eye and then turned his body so that Luke wasn’t excluded from the circle any longer.

“This is my twin, Luke.” Harry said gesturing in his direction and two pairs of eyes began flickering between the two boys. Luke tried hard not to roll his eyes at their obvious confusion at how different they looked, he didn’t understand why when someone said twins, people always thought identical.

“You’re twins?” The pudgy boy with blonde hair asked after a few seconds, cocking an eyebrow up so high it almost disappeared. His blue eyes reflected suspicion, clearly not wanting to be the guy who fell for the seemingly obvious prank on the first day.

“Yeah.” Luke said flatly, bored of the conversation he had had a million times over his life. He always felt as though people questioned it more because of how great they thought Harry seemed in comparison.

“Our birthday is tomorrow actually, party at ours if you fancy it?” Harry added brightly, trying to glaze over his brother’s bad attitude. The boys both grinned and nodded enthusiastically as Harry handed them his phone to put their numbers in. Luke didn’t say anything else and just turned toward the front of the classroom, for the first time in his life he actually wanted Mr Hughes to start rambling on at them.

“Why do you have to be like that?” Harry muttered irritated, as he turned around to face the front as well. Luke leant back and shrugged, pretending he didn’t know what his brother was talking about. This reaction earnt an eye roll from Harry but he didn’t attempt to get any further with his brother.

They were best friends, but he knew that he would never get it. Anytime that he had even almostimplied that he didn’t match up to his brother, Harry would get all defensive and tell him that it was a load of shit. Luke rolled his eyes to himself at his brother’s delusion that because they were twins they were equal… they just weren’t, no matter how much he tried to will it to be the case. He had always known that his mother favoured Harry, as did most of their family members apart from their father and his parents, but since he travelled a lot, Luke was often left to feel second rate in comparison to his brother. It had taken him a long time to realise that it wasn’t Harry’s fault people liked him better and to get over that little bit of resentment he had once harboured.

Mr Hughes fussed around for another few minutes, sorting out the stuff that he had to hand out before he shushed the class and tried to hold their attention. He held up a small notebook with a red cover and the school’s insignia emblazoned on the front.

“Okay, planners are coming round first, write your name on the inside, if you lose it at any point it’s five pounds for a new one and you will get a detention if you don’t replace it.” He looked over at Luke with a sharp stare, “You have been warned.” He said slowly.

He only ever spoke to Luke like that, like he was stupid and didn’t understand.

Two planners were banged down onto the desk. Harry took one and slid the other across to his brother and they followed the simple direction, placing their names neatly on the inside cover. After a few seconds, the portly teacher was back at the front of the class, this time holding up papers that had a table on.

“Timetables! I want you to spend the next ten minutes copying these neatly into the timetable page in your planners so that you don’t have an excuse to be late…” Again his beady eyes glanced at Luke and went wide as a warning. Luke kept his face straight despite the frustration that was already building inside him. Instead he just turned to look out the window at the empty school yard, trying to breathe and keep himself calm. Harry nudged him in the arm after a few seconds and handed him a timetable that had his full name neatly printed at the top: Timetable, Lucas Robert Fletcher, Year 12, 2017.

After they had both copied them out into the timetable page, they each handed the other their timetable to compare and see what lessons and frees they would share.

“We don’t have a single free together…” Harry said disappointedly as he slid Luke’s timetable back to him, “I’m in History when you’re on a free… I wonder what frees Liv’ll be on.” He added casually.

Luke looked at the timetables and didn’t know how he felt.

Part of him was gutted that he wouldn’t be spending as much time with his brother has he had over the course of their time at school, but at the same time he was kind of glad that for once he would get to hang out with their friends on his own without being overshadowed.

Twenty minutes later the bell went for first period of the year. After deciding where to tell Liv to meet them for lunch, they separated and walked in their different directions.

He stepped into the maths classroom and was relieved to see one of his and Harry’s good friends, sitting on one of the tables talking to a new guy he had never seen before at the table behind.

“Alright Lee.” He said as he plonked his bag down next to the desk. Liam looked at him and a massive grin spread across his face as he punched Luke lightly on the shoulder.

“Yes lad! We got the fun Fletcher!” He laughed, pleased to see his friend and then gestured toward the boy with fair hair who he had been talking to, “This is Ashton, he’s from Australia, he just moved here like two weeks ago!” Luke nodded at the boy who reciprocated the gesture. They conversed for a few minutes, including Luke extending an invitation to the new boy for the twins’ birthday party this weekend before the teacher came in to take the lesson. The hour passed by quickly and Luke found himself thinking how good it actually was to be back at school and back with his friends.

Notes

Chapter 2 - going to try and update this as regularly as possible!

Let me know what you think!

Lois xx