Chapter 7 – Is it her?

A bit of a wait for this one as my current writing schedule slipped, however I am back on the writing kick and currently pushing through Chapter 12.  For those of you new to the game, check the top right for the link to the Main Page of  “Max Damage” where you will find all of the previously published chapters. Enjoy.

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Max woke to the sound of his Dad knocking on his door and jumped out of bed, well at least that had been the plan, in fact his progress out of bed was somewhat less of a jump and more of a struggle as he suddenly realized that his muscles were still recovering from the try-outs the previous night. Max remembered that he had forgotten to warm down after the exhausting skills and physical trials and was now suffering the consequences. He knew that he needed to perform a basic warm down, his brother had explained it to him not long after he had begun training under Coach Carter. Apparently the Coach’s brother was on the training staff of one of the Football teams up in the Merseyside area and as such he was up-to-speed on all the new fitness regimes that the clubs brought in to get the best out of their players.

“Oh well” thought Max, I’ll have to do some streches to warm myself up today he thought.

As he stood in his room perfoming the warm-up exercises that Chris had shown him, his eyes wandered around his room taking in the familiar surroundings, the posters on the walls, the shelves in the corner where his small collection of books and other oddities were stored and then to the window outside. As his gaze went out his window it inevitably fell onto the house next door and almost instantly on the window that mirrored his own.

“Sarah” his mind thought and he was unsure as to why she stuck in his mind quite as much as she did. From his view point he could clearly see that her curtains were firmly closed and as he moved through the various stretches, his eyes would wander from the window opposite and then suddenly be drawn back as if some movement had caught his attention.

5 minutes later and with muscles no longer complaining quite as much he took one last look out the window and then entered the bathroom for a quick shower before dressing. When he came back into his room he immediately spotted that the curtains opposite now stood open but even though he spent another 5 minutes looking for any sign of movement in the room he saw nothing. Eventually he finished dressing and headed down to breakfast. Breakfast in the house tended to be a do-it-yourself affair with the 4 of them rushing in and out grabbing a bite to eat or a drink and then getting on with their day, however today seemed to be an unusual occurance as the whole family ended up sitting down together. The conversation over breakfast was somewhat rushed as none of them had a great amount of time to spare, but even so the subject of conversation was still Max successfully making the reserves team. Chris updated his parents on the schedule for the reserves training that now affected Max as well as him. Thankfully the training was only one evening a week for the reserves on their own then either a light or full training session with the first team on a Saturday morning depending on whether there was a match that afternoon. Max and Chris eventually left the house a few minutes later than they normally should and started to jog towards the school thankfully by the time that they met up with Adam they were back on time and wandered into the main school building just as the warning bell rang.

Adam and Chris walked into the classroom and took their seats and waited for Mrs Hawkins to arrive for registration as his classmates wandered into the room, many of them asked about the tryouts from the previous day and all were happy to hear that Max had made it into the reserves. The discussion moved onto football in general and given the diverse team support among the group, it inevitably became rather heated and in the end somewhat loud, so much so that when Mrs Hawkins walked in, she slammed the classroom door to get their attention.

“That is enough, I could hear you from down the corridor. This is not the kind of behaviour I expect when I arrive at my class and you know it. I don’t mind you talking but shouting is not acceptable, I’m not going to say anything more about this, however if there is a repeat incident then I may have to take steps.”

She looked round the room, her eyes alighting on various faces who’s voices she had picked up from the din and made sure that they knew that she knew.

“Ok, now we only have one announcement today, there is a new student joining the school today in Mrs Dawsons class, Sarah Hardcastle is her name and she will obviously be in some of the classes you are in. I trust you will make her welcome.”

Max sat at his desk, his mouth dry, “Sarah Hardcastle” he thought, “It has to be her”, he couldn’t remember if her mother had mentioned her surname but surely it was too much of a coincidence if another Sarah happened to join the school. He wondered whether they would have any classes together or if he would see her in the halls.

As the bell rang to send them to first period, Max stood up and turned to Adam, “I think the new girl lives next door to me.”

“Huh”, said Adam, “what new girl?”

“The one Mrs Hawkins told us about in the announcements”

“Oh” he answered, obviously dis-interested and Max let the subject drop as they joined the throng in the corridors.

Max was constantly looking around to try and see if he could see Sarah, and it seemed that everywhere he looked he could see flashes of blonde hair and yet when he was able to get a clear look, each and every time, it was not her. When the two boys finally made it to the English class, Adam had picked up on Max’s mood and was just about to question him, but as they walked in the door, Mr Bransbury was already quietening the class down so he didn’t have a chance to ask him and the two of them reached their seats and sat down.

Max spent most of the class thinking about Sarah and as such missed much of the work covered, thankfully for him Mr Bransbury did not pick on him when it came time to ask questions, although it did drag Max back to reality and he managed to pay attention and at least managed a basic understanding of what they were being taught. By the time the class had ended Max had managed to put Sarah out of his mind and was no longer quite so distracted, Adam had forgotten about his earlier distracted behaviour and the inevitbable questioning never occured. They walked out of the classroom and headed down the hallway chatting away normally, but as they rounded the corner and headed towards their Maths classroom Max stopped suddenly as he caught sight of a flash of blonde hair disappearing into the classroom ahead of them. Adam didn’t notice the blonde hair, in fact it was a couple of seconds before he even realised that Max had stopped, the 2 boys behind Max also did not notice him stop and by the time Adam turned round all three were on the floor in a heap of tangled arms and legs. Adam rushed back and helped all 3 boys up, Max apologising for stopping and thankfully the two younger boys, not wanting to make trouble with senior students begrudingly accepted the apology and went on their way, muttering under their breath.

As the bell rang to indicate the start of the next class the two of them rushed the last few meters and in the door and went to take their seats, Max was already scanning the room as he went in, looking for that blonde hair he had seen, hoping it was Sarah. It seemed to him that he had been scanning the room for hours looking at every person maybe hundreds of times and then as if he had missed her on every one of those passes across the room, his eyes finally found her. Sat at the back of the room she was just pulling books out of her bag, the blonde hair that had caused him to stop in the corridor was cascading down over her shoulders covering the majority of her face, however as she finished delving into her bag her familiar face came up and those blue eyes met his and she smiled in recognition. Max, caught staring at her, felt himself blush and he quickly made his way to his seat a couple of rows in front of her, where a questioning look from Adam went un-answered, in fact completely unnoticed by Max.

He sat there, breath held, eyes glued to the board, unable to look behind him to see what Sarah was doing, he actually though he could feel her eyes on him, probably wondering why he had been staring at her. Eventually he let loose a breath and slowly focused back on the subject whilst trying to put the thought that Sarah was in the same room to the back of his mind. He was distracted through the whole of the class, thankfully though he did manage to answer the problem when Mrs Trehearn picked on him to come up to the board. When he walked back to his seat, he received another smile from Sarah and this time he did manage not to blush although his feet seemed to have a mind of their own and he struggled to avoid tripping over before he made it to the safety of his seat.

When the bell finally rang to end the class, Max was not really sure whether to be relieved or fearful about the fact that he might have another chance to talk to Sarah, he did know that he had no idea how to open the conversation, after all two nights ago he couldn’t even get his name out without a superhuman effort. In the end a chance to worry about that awkward moment never came up as Sarah appeared beside him and thankfully began the conversation.

“Hi Max” she began brightly.