He Was There All Along...

Raymond shook his head. “When are you gonna learn, Isabella?” Bella elbowed Ray in the ribs. “It’s Bella, you twerp!” Joyce Pursue turned around from the seat ahead of them. “Aw, what a cute little couple!” she teased. Joyce was the most popular girl in seventh grade, and also the most conceited. Bella rolled her eyes. “When are ya gonna realize we are just friends?” she asked. Joyce laughed. “When pigs fly! You two will end up falling in love! Oh, also work on your grammar, ‘ya’ and ‘gonna’ aren’t words.” Bella glared, but didn’t say anything back. She just slouched and stared out the window.
Ten minutes later, they bus pulled up to the school. Bella and Ray rushed out of the bus and to homeroom. As they ran, they bumped into Mr. Ratter, who was their principal. They fell to the ground in unison. Mr. Ratter snorted. “You two race to homeroom everyday. When are you going to grow up?” he snapped. Bella and Ray exchanged glances, then together shouted, “When dogs learn to talk!” They both took off, racing down the hall. “Detention, both of you!” Mr. Ratter called out, but they didn’t care. They were having way too much fun.
They trotted side by side, stepping at the same time. Bella and Ray turned the corner, and Ray shouted, “There it is!” referring to Room 19, their homeroom class. Ray skidded down the hall on his slick shoes, and ended up crashing into the door. He fell on his back in front of Lillah, a stuck up friend of Joyce’s. She stuck up her nose and said, “Look what the janitor forgot to pick up!” Her prissy friends all giggled at her comment. Bella ran up and growled. “Leave him alone, you-” she started, but Lillah cut her off. “Oh, and here is his even filthier girlfriend!” she exclaimed. Her friends began jumping up and down. Bella opened her mouth to say something, but their teacher came out first. “Come in, ladies and gentlemen,” she said.
Lillah and her friends took their seats by the window, while the jocks sat at the back, the nerds in the middle, and the other social groups at the front. (This included Ray and Bella.) “Welcome back to school, did everyone have a good winter break?” Mrs. Thebes asked. “Yes!” everybody said at once. Mrs. Thebes did roll call, and smiled when she found out everyone was there. “Now, go on to your next class students!” Ray and Bella walked outside and hugged. “See you in two more periods,” Bella said. “Yeah, see ya!” Ray said. He turned and ran down the hall, and ended up crashing into a group of girls. Bella shook her head. “Dork!” she called out to him!
Bella walked to math class, her least favorite. She wished she was a math whiz like Ray, who happened to be top in his class. He had math fourth period. She walked into Mr. Talco’s class and sat down. When everyone was there, he said, “Pop quiz!” and handed out tests. Half of the kids sighed, while the other half slept. Bella stared at her test, which was about algebra. She bit the end of her pencil, a very bad habit of hers. She slowly marked question one as A, and continued on to the next.
At 8:30 the bell rang. Bella had just finished her test, and she walked up to Mr. Talco’s desk to hand in the paper. She then walked across the hall to social studies and took her seat at the front of the room, next to the class clown. She looked over at him, only to see he had two pencils jammed up his nose. Bella looked away and tried to hold in her puke. She let out a sigh of relief when her teacher, Ms. Phelps yelled at him. Ms. Phelps pulled down a map of Egypt. “We’ll be studying this fine country for the next three weeks. To see what you already know, here is a little practice test!” The entire class moaned, but she ignored them. Bella hated social studies almost as much as math! “At least Ray will be in my next class,” she thought.
After the bell rang, Bella ran out of class to the end of the hall. This was her favorite class-art. Bella was an amazing artist, and had one first in the district art show two years in a row. Ray on the other hand was the boy who always glues himself to things on accident. He was very clumsy. She ran to the back table and took her spot between Ray and Rosie, a shy bookworm who loved drawing horses. Bella smiled at Ray as she sat down, and when he returned it, snickers were heard across the room. Unfortunately, Joyce and Lillah were in her class, too. “Why does everyone think we are dating?” Ray said aloud to no one in particular. “Maybe because you guys are always…together?” Rosie suggested. Bella and Ray turned there heads. “Rosie, you can talk?” Ray asked, his eyes wide. Bella rolled hers and said, “Of course she can! She just doesn’t like talking to idiots like you!” she teased. Ray slouched in his chair and started playing with his belt. Rosie continued. “I mean, you guys are so close, and the way you tease each other, it’s almost…flirtatious!” Ray looked up with a “What is she talking about?” expression. He stared at her as if she was insane, then went back to playing with his belt.
Miss Lynch came in a few minutes later. She smacked a large binder on her desk, which was never a good sign. Miss Lynch was beautiful, smart, and sweet, but when she got angry, you’d better watch out. She looked around the room. “Today, we will be drawing things we hate! Whether it be bugs, an animal, or even a person, pick one thing and jot it down!” Bella watched as Rosie started to draw a spider on a web. She picked up her pencil and started to draw the Pretty Committee, what Joyce called her group of friends. When she looked over at Ray, she wrinkled her brow. “What is that?” she asked. On his paper was the ugliest girl she had ever seen. Ray grinned. “It’s you! You’re ugly, annoying, and bossy, and I hate you. So, I put you on my paper!” Bella made sure Miss Lynch wasn’t watching, and then smacked him on the head. “Jerk!” she whispered. “This is exactly why people think you guys are into each other!” Rosie giggled! Bella and Ray looked at each other, then at Rosie. They knew she was right, but it was so fun to fight. After some deep thought, Ray said, “I’d rather have people think we are dating then stop fighting!” he said cheerfully. “Agreed!” Bella said.

Chapter 2-
At 10:30 the bell rang. Everyone turned in their drawings and left the room. Ray headed right to left to math class, while Bella headed left for P.E. Ray sat down in the middle of the room with the nerds. If he didn’t know the answer, he could just sneak a peek at their papers. Mr. Talco smiled when he saw Ray. “Ready for some more challenging work, star pupil?” he asked. Ray nodded. He secretly hated math, even if he was awesome at it. He turned his head to stare out the window. Outside was the race track. Girl’s P.E. would be coming out soon, and at the thought of that he smiled. “Girls are better than problems,” he thought. They came running out as he got up to get a math book. He waved as Bella ran by. She smiled, then took off. Bella was the fastest girl in the group, and the fastest girl in the seventh grade. Ray stood awhile longer to look at everyone run by. Ray sighed, because what he wanted was a girl. Not just any girl, but the perfect girl for him.
“Raymond stop checking out the girls!” Mr. Talco boomed. Ray trudged over to his seat and plunged into it. “Come on Mr. Talco, didn’t you check out girls when you were our age?” Mr. Talco sighed. “Raymond, don’t ask silly questions!” A boy sitting behind Ray said, “That’s a yes, Ray!” They class roared. Mr. Talco handed the boy a detention slip. “I will not tolerate this behavior in class, Sylvester!” The boy glared. “It’s Sly, teach,” he growled. “And it’s Mr. Talco!” the math teacher snapped. Now, open your books to chapter 4, page 68.
Bella quickly changed back into her regular clothes. She hated changing in front of the other girls, it felt so weird to her, even if they were the same gender. When she sat down on the bench to tie her shoes, one of Lillah’s ex-friends came up to her. “Are you like, dating Ray Roland or something?” Bella sighed. She was used to it, but she still loathed the conversation. “No, Sandra, we are nothing but friends, and we will always be nothing but friends.” Sandra nodded. “Okay, okay, don’t have to get all moody!” She turned to walk away, but then stopped at the end of the lockers. “It’s just that, you guys are such a cute couple!” When Bella snorted, she laughed and walked away. The bell rang, and Bella was glad. She raced out of the locker room to the cafeteria. She and Ray got lucky, they shared fifth period. After Bella got her lunch, she walked to the outside lunch spot to her usual table. Ray was making a sandwich monster. “Geek!” she joked. Ray looked up and glared. “Whatever, zit face!” he yelled. Bella pulled out her pocket mirror. “There’s not a single zit on my face!” she laughed. “So?” he shrugged.
The fifth period P.E. class ran by then. Bella sighed. “I wish I had a boyfriend, one that likes to cuddle and be close, someone who will actually listen to me, someone who-” Ray started snoring, so Bella punched him on the arm. Hard. “Ow!” he shouted. He rubbed his arm. Well, I want a girlfriend, but I guess were are both stuck being single!” Bella sighed. “I want a perfect guy, but I don’t know where to look for him or who to look into!” She rested her chin in her hands. “I think everyone has that problem, Bell,” Ray said. They sighed in unison. “But the girls at our school are all pretty hot!” Bella kicked him under the table. Ray raised his eyebrows. “Hey, at least I don’t go ‘Omg, he is soooo hot! Oh, he’s so cute! I love him in that shirt!’ with my friends!” Bella grinned. “Hey, he is pretty cute in that shirt!” The bell rang and they both threw away their lunch. Together they walked to science
class.
Mrs. Branshe placed a science book on everyone’s desk. “Open up to chapter 2.3-The urinary system!” she yelled over the ruckus. Ray raised his hand. “Yes, Ray?” Mrs. Branshe was the only teacher who called him Ray, besides his coach, so she was his favorite teacher. “Is this the uh…apple juice system?” he questioned. Most of the class laughed. The teacher smiled. “Why, yes it is, Ray! Would you like to teach the class about this system, since you’ve been wanting to learn about this section since the beginning of the year?” Ray nodded, and Mrs. Branshe beckoned him towards her. She gave him her book, and told him to sit on her teaching stool. She walked over to his seat and sat next to Bella. “Okay,” Ray said. “The urinary system’s main function is to maintain the volume and composition of body fluids within normal limits. It produces, stores, and eliminates urine, also known to us as apple juice due to the Caroline and Morris incident!” Everyone bursted into laughter. Ray continued. “It helps us get rid of wastes, and if we didn’t have the system, I think we’d all blow up and die from containing too much apple juice!” This was followed by more laughs. Ray finished the chapter on the urinary system. “Okay, tomorrow you all will be having a test! Be sure to study apple juice!” he said. Mrs. Branshe patted him on the back. “Be sure to study, too. You’ll be having a test as well!” she said.
[size=7]Ray and Bella walked out of Room 13, then took their separate directions to seventh period. Bella walked to English while Ray ran to P.E. Ray slid into the locker room, which had been abandoned. He quickly changed into his school uniform, ran out the double doors and onto the track. Ray speeded past the other runners and finished the mile way before anyone else. Bella and Ray were the top runners and athletes for each gender in the school, which is another reason why they are mistaken for a couple. Mr. Gabon walked up to the group of boys. “It’s soccer time! Everyone split into two teams!” Boys ran around finding partners, then started playing. Fifteen minutes later, Ray tripped and skinned his knee. His coach called him over to the benches to fix him up. Ray’s friend Dylan was there, ice on his leg because he was kicked in the shin with soccer cleats. “How’s it going?” Dylan asked Ray as he sat down. “My knee hurts, so it’s going okay,” he said. Dylan nodded. “Same here.”
Bella quickly finished chapter on her biography of George Washington. She thought it was the most boring book in the world, yet her teacher thought it was the best. She looked at the board to see what questions she had to answer. She jotted down the answers to the ten questions, not particularly caring if they were wrong. She just wanted to read her favorite book for the rest of the period instead. Bella turned in her paper and returned to her seat. She opened her backpack and took out the novel, then was whisked away with it. About fifteen minutes later, she glanced at the clock-12:30. “Thank God chemistry class is next!” Bella thought, since she did so well in it.
Ray and Dylan were still on the benches, taking care of their wounds. The coach didn’t want them playing while they were in pain, so he said they should stay there for the next half hour and talk. They mainly talked about sports and girls, but then Dylan brought up a topic no one had ever asked him before. “Hey, can I ask you something, Ray?” he questioned. Ray looked up. “Yeah, sure, what is it?” he said. “Well, I was just wondering…How long have you and Bella known each other?” he cocked his head while speaking. “We met in kindergarten,” Ray said. Dylan’s eyes grew wide. “Whoa! But, how did you guys…You know, become best friends? I’ve always wondered that!” Ray smiled. He had always wanted to tell the tale about how they met, and why they became best friends. He finally had the chance! He took a deep breath and said, “It’s a very long story, so it might have to finish after school, too,” he explain. Dylan nodded. “Fine with me, you have my number,” Ray grinned. “It all started on the first day of September, a month of our first year of school had passed…”

Awesome! <3

Ty XD