Extraordinarily Unordinary - Sian Webster (books to get back into reading .txt) 📗

my tie. After I found it and put it on, I grabbed my navy blue wool cardigan from the end of my bed and threw it on over the top. I may have been early autumn at the time, but even in summer England wasn’t that warm.

I dragged my school bag out from under my bed where I had thrown it the Friday before and unzipped it noisily, allowing the school books it contained to spill out onto the floor. I dug through the pockets until I found where I had left my planner, and, checking my timetable, I swapped around my books before standing up, swinging the bag over my shoulder and prancing down the stairs to the kitchen.

Mum caught me as I missed the bottom step. “Good morning,” I smiled, kissing her on the cheek after regaining my balance. As I made my way to the fridge I did the same to Dad as I passed him, noticing the bold headline on the newspaper he was reading.

“Crop circles?” I asked. “Aliens? Really? I’m pretty sure it’s probably just drunken people with lawn mowers.”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Scientists seem to think otherwise – they found materials from space around the edges of the crop circles.”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously drunken scientists too. There’s no such thing as aliens, Dad.”

He smirked mischievously, almost as if he knew something that I didn’t. “You never know, Casey,” he muttered, “you never know.”

I smirked back at him, before noticing the clock in the corner of my eye. “Shit!” I exclaimed, picking my bag up off the floor near Dad’s chair and running to the front door.

“Hey! Watch the language, missy!” Mum chided.

“I’m late for the bus!” I yelled.

“Have a good day, honey!” I heard Dad call as I shut the front door behind me.

I sprinted down the road to the bus stop, nearly collapsing on the ground when I got there. I looked around the group of about twenty school kids waiting for the bus, searching for my school’s uniform. I took a sigh of relief when I noticed my friend Hannah standing to one side of the group. I pushed through the crowd of people and tapped her on the shoulder.

She jumped slightly and turned around, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug. “Casey! I didn’t think you were coming! I was tempted to run down to your house and murder you if you didn’t turn up in a few minutes!”

I laughed, breaking her grip around my neck. “Well, it’s lucky I came then, huh?”

“I wouldn’t have really murdered you though, because then I’d be a loner on the bus every day, and I’d have all the boys hitting on me every day because you wouldn’t be there to tell them to piss off,” she explained, “and yeah, that would really suck.”

Hannah was probably the most gorgeous girl in the world, yet she honestly had no idea. She was ever o modest and never had a clue why packs of boys would try to subtly follow her everywhere. She was so nice to them all and then wondered why she got asked out all the time. She saw herself as nothing special, and because of that she’d never said yes to any of them. I was pretty sure she’d never had a real boyfriend, but I was also pretty sure she wouldn’t get one until she was confident they were the right person for her.

That day she wore her curly blonde hair out, leaving it to cascade down her shoulders in loose ringlets. Her bright blue eyes were highlighted with a thin line of black liquid eyeliner, and her already long lashes were lengthened with mascara. That was all the make-up she wore, but it made her look like a model nonetheless. All the girls in school were so incredibly jealous of her natural beauty, and all the popular girls were constantly trying to convince her to hang out with them instead, but she never did. She was so loyal, yet she was so awkward around people she didn’t know, so she just stayed with the people she was comfortable around.

“You’d be so lost without me, wouldn’t you Hannah?” I asked with a smirk on my face.

“As much as I hate to admit it, yes, yes I would be.” She said, her smirk mimicking mine.

The bus rounded the corner then, barely skidding to a stop beside us. The door clanked open noisily and the students surrounding us started filing in. I walked up the steps on the bus wobbly as it was shaking because of everyone rushing to get the backseats, and handed the driver a pound fifty before making my way to an empty seat near the middle of the bus. I sat down and shoved my bag by my feet as I noticed the boy sitting in the seat in front of me staring intently at Hannah and, I’ll put it this way; he wasn’t exactly admiring her eyes.

“Oi,” I said, whacking him over the back of the head with my hand. “Put your eyes back in your head you miserable twat.”

The boy sitting in front of me turned around in shock, his eyes wide. For a second we took one another in. He had chocolate brown, messy hair which he was fussing with as is bright blue eyes looked me up and down. His eyes were framed by thick, black rectangular frames. He had a cute baby face and all the girls sitting behind me on the bus practically swooned when he turned to face me.

He smirked. “Sorry, freckles. Haven’t you seen the view?”

“Freckles?” I asked incredulously. “How original.”

“I’m a very original person,” he winked.

“Hold on a second,” I said, a quizzical look making its way across my face. “A second ago you were staring at my friend like she was something to eat, and now you’re flirting with me? How does that even work?”

“I’m posing a psychological question.” He told me. “Which is better, a hot blonde with a swimmer’s body or a cute little freckled red head with gorgeous eyes and one hell of an attitude?”

Hannah finished up with the bus driver and started to walk over to me. She stopped when she noticed the boy talking to me, instead simply giving me a thumbs up and a wink and sitting a couple of rows in front of us. It was obvious to me she was listening to our ridiculous conversation, but the boy probably wouldn’t have noticed.

I decided to ignore the fact that he had just called me cute. “Since when is that psychological? Do you even know what psychological means?”

“Of course I do! It’s psychology, obviously.” He rolled his sparkly blue eyes at me.

“Well, do you even know what psychology means?” I pressed. “Because it doesn’t sound like it.”

He sighed deeply. “It’s the scientific study of the human mind and mental states, duh.”

“How long did it take you to memorise that one from the dictionary purely so you can wow pathetic girls with your charms?” I asked slyly.

“I’m gonna let you in on a secret,” He smirked. “I couldn’t possibly be a ladies’ man if I tried.”

“Really?” I asked, not believing a word. “You sure look like one. And I’m sure most of the girls on this bus would highly disagree.”

“I pretend to be, but usually when it comes to talking to girls, I choke up and forget how to speak. But you…” He paused, thinking, “You’re something different altogether.”

“Oh, how lovely.” I commented as the bus pulled up to the school bus stop. “What am I? Your good luck charm?”

“Only if you want to be, lovely.” He said, winking at me and making his way off the bus.
Almost against my will, my legs forced me to run after him. I grabbed his arm before he got any further away.

“What’s your name?” I asked, a curious smile playing around my lips.

He smirked, breaking my grip on his arm. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He went to walk off again, but I stopped him. “Yes, actually, I would.”

“Well, in that case,” a half smile appeared on his face and he held out his hand, “Matthew Rodgers, at your service.”

A giggle escaped my mouth – a very un-Casey-like giggle that I wasn’t very proud of – and I shook his hand. “Casey,” I smiled. “Casey Copsworth.”

He let go of my hand, a smirk on his face. “Casey Copsworth…” he mused, “sounds very fairy tale.”

“My life’s about as far from a fairy tale as it could get.” I told him.

“If you ever want someone to help make it one,” he said flirtatiously, taking my hand and kissing it, “just come and find me.” He let go of my hand almost as quickly as he had grabbed it and started walking away.

“You’ll have to brush up on your charms first, Mr Rodgers,” I called out to him.

He shook his head. “I don’t think the world’s quite ready for that yet.”

I didn’t think I was quite ready for that, either.

I turned around, a small blush appearing on my cheeks as I smiled at the ground and began walking to the spot where my friends and I sat. Someone remind me to look where I’m going when I walk – I walked straight into Hannah. Then again, she probably made sure I walked into her on purpose so she could hear about my conversation with the mysterious Matthew Rodgers.

“So,” She smirked, dragging out the “o” sound. “What’s the verdict?”

I laughed. “I’m not quite sure yet,”

She raised an eyebrow.

I felt all the blood rush to my cheeks and gave in. “He’s… somewhat decent,”

“Somewhat decent?!” She asked, almost incredulously. “You were the envy of every girl on that
bus! He’s obviously more than somewhat decent

,”

“Well, he’s only somewhat decent to me,” I smirked. “The whole reverie kinda shatters when he opens his mouth.”

She laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Do you want an example?” I asked her, raising my eyebrows.

“Obviously,” she giggled.

“The first thing he said to me was ‘Sorry, freckles’.”

“Freckles! Ha!” She started laughing so hard I thought she was going to be sick.

“Come on,” I said, laughing along with her, “let’s find the others.”