Chapter 10 Attending the Same High School
“Yeah, I finished all the middle school curriculum on my own,” Nathan said calmly.
“So you’ll be starting high school next year?” Chloe didn’t doubt for a second that he would pass the assessment.
“I should be.”
“Oh my gosh, you’re going to high school at thirteen? What if those older kids pick on you? I heard some of those magnet programs make you commute across districts,” Chloe said, her brow furrowing.
At her words, Nathan’s grip tightened imperceptibly on his pen. Dark memories flashed through his mind—torn assignments, soda deliberately spilled into his backpack, the cold silence of being entirely isolated, the freezing, filthy outdoor bathroom.
He glanced up at her, a flicker of uncertainty in his dark eyes. “They probably won’t.”
“How do you know they won’t? You’re smart and you’re tiny—you’re the perfect target! What if they get jealous? Do you think every high school is as friendly as ours?” Chloe widened her eyes, deliberately trying to scare him. “Jealousy makes people crazy!”
Nathan thought about it for a second. “Well, if they bully me, I’ll just report it to the counselor.”
“Right.” Chloe sighed, slumping her shoulders dramatically. “My private tutor is abandoning me. How heartbreaking.”
Nathan slowly flipped a page in his book. Seeing how genuinely dejected Chloe looked, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “You don’t want me to leave?”
“Of course not! Why would I want you to leave?” Chloe looked down at him, her wide eyes full of absolute sincerity. “I want to go to school with you forever. Even through college!”
Hearing that, a warm, inexplicable feeling bloomed in Nathan’s chest.
She was his very first friend. And the truth was, he genuinely loved spending time with her.
Since he was trying to skip the rest of eighth grade, Nathan had to pass a formal academic assessment before the high school would accept him.
One weekend, while he was studying at his desk by the window, he suddenly heard shouting coming from the street below.
“Nathan! Nathan!”
He peered out the glass. Chloe and two other classmates were standing on the pavement. When they spotted him in the window, they started waving frantically. “Come down, buddy!”
“Okay!” Nathan shouted back. He grabbed a thick hoodie, pulled it over his head, and ran downstairs.
His mother didn’t try to stop him from going out. In fact, Susan looked thrilled. She practically shoved a few dollar bills into his pocket for snacks before ushering him out the door.
When Nathan got downstairs, he saw that the other kids were all carrying skateboards.
Chloe waved him over. “Come on! I’m taking you to a cool spot!”
Nathan obediently hopped onto the back of her board. They skated for a few blocks until they reached an elevated, vacant lot in one of the older neighbourhoods.
Before they had even reached the top of the incline, Lisa’s voice echoed down. “Chloe, hurry up! Everything’s ready!”
“Coming!” Chloe kicked her board up, grabbed it, and sprinted up the slope with her friends.
Nathan hurried after them. When he reached the top of the gentle hill, he saw a narrow stretch of asphalt completely coated in a thick, smooth sheet of ice.
“We came out and watered it last night!” Lisa announced proudly, her cheeks flushed with cold. “Look at it! It froze solid this morning!”
The temperature had been below freezing for days. Finding a sloped driveway, flooding it with a hose overnight, and turning it into a makeshift ice slide was the neighbourhood kids’ ultimate winter pastime.
“Grab the sleds!” Chloe yelled.
Her friends charged into an abandoned, half-collapsed garage nearby and dragged out several massive, heavy tractor tires.
Chloe hauled one over and waved excitedly at Nathan. “Come on, let’s go!”
“How does it work?” Nathan asked, staring at the massive rubber ring. He had never been to a makeshift spot like this before.
Before Chloe could explain, he watched two of his classmates throw themselves belly-first onto a tire, scream at the top of their lungs, and launch themselves down the icy slope, leaving a trail of wild, echoing laughter behind them.
“Let’s go!” Chloe grabbed his sleeve and tugged him forward.
Nathan dug his heels in slightly. “Isn’t it going to tip over?”
“Hey! Stop worrying, you’ll be fine!” Chloe forced him to sit in the center of the tire, grabbed the edges, and shoved him hard down the ice before jumping on behind him.
The heavy tire spun wildly as it picked up speed, the biting winter wind rushing past them. Even Nathan, who was usually so unnervingly composed, couldn’t hold back a startled shout.
“Whoa!”
They flew down the ice, spinning dizzily, before violently crashing into the classmates who had gone down before them at the bottom of the hill.
Before Nathan could even process what had happened, Chloe shrieked with laughter, lost her grip, and tumbled straight into him, sending them both rolling into a chaotic, tangled heap of limbs in the snow.
Everyone was doubled over, gasping for breath and laughing hysterically.
Chloe pushed her hair out of her face, grinning down at him. “Fun?”
Nathan looked up at her flushed, beaming face. He couldn’t help it—he started laughing too. He nodded. “Awesome.”
The kids dragged the heavy tires back up the edge of the slope and launched themselves down again and again, screaming the whole way down. In an era before every neighbourhood had a polished local park, this reckless, icy chaos was the greatest game in the world.
“Hey! Can you little brats keep it down?!”
A furious voice suddenly boomed from the top of the hill. The homeowner, roused by the racket, had finally emerged onto his porch.
He took one look at the gleaming sheet of ice covering the street near his property and lost his temper completely. “Which one of you little hooligans froze my driveway again?! Don’t let me catch you!”
“Run!” the kids shrieked, instantly scattering like startled pigeons.
“Freeze right there!” the man roared, storming down the steps.
Chloe and Nathan were the closest to him.
Chloe spun on her heel and bolted. But Nathan, who was younger and entirely conditioned to obey shouting adults, actually froze in place.
Chloe glanced back, realised he wasn’t moving, swore under her breath, and ran back. She grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him hard into the narrow alleyway running down the side of the house.
The homeowner was relentless. Every single winter, the local kids flooded his slope, and no matter how many times he chased them off, they always came back. It drove him insane. Today, he was determined to catch at least one of them by the ear and deliver a scolding they would never forget.
Hearing the heavy crunch of the man’s boots closing in, Chloe dragged Nathan frantically through the winding, cluttered alley. When she spotted a tight, hidden corner beneath a pile of discarded gardening tools and old fencing planks, she shoved Nathan inside and dove in after him.
The space was impossibly cramped, barely big enough to conceal two small children.
They crouched face-to-face, their knees pressed together, their hands still locked in a desperate grip.
Chloe’s golden-brown hair was messy and tousled. She was panting softly, the white mist of her breath mingling with Nathan’s in the freezing air between them.
They stared at each other, both completely rigid, straining their ears to listen to the heavy footsteps crunching past their hiding spot.
They waited in suffocating silence for what felt like hours, until the angry muttering and the footsteps finally faded away down the street.
Chloe’s eyes darted toward the opening. “I think he’s gone,” she whispered.
Nathan gave a tiny nod.
Chloe carefully crawled out from beneath the planks, poking her head around the corner to make absolutely sure the coast was clear. Once she was certain, she tugged gently on Nathan’s sleeve. “Come out. It’s safe.”
Nathan shimmied out after her.
They stood in the alley, covered in dirt and snow, their coats completely dishevelled. They looked at each other, and the sheer ridiculous thrill of the escape finally caught up to them. They both broke into helpless, muffled laughter.
“Let’s go home,” Chloe said, brushing the snow off her jeans.
As they walked back through the neighbourhood, Nathan looked at the pavement and quietly said, “We could come back next time.”
It was the very first time in his life he had ever initiated plans with a friend. His heart was hammering with a strange mix of nerves and anticipation.
“Probably not this year,” Chloe sighed. “Once the weather warms up next week, the ice will melt. We’ll have to wait until next winter.”
“Then we’ll come play next winter,” Nathan said quickly.
“We can play, but we might not be able to come together.”
“Why not?”
“Our schedules won’t match up,” Chloe explained, resting her hands behind her head as she strolled. “I hear high school is really demanding. The weekends are packed with club activities and extra studying.”
“Really?”
“Yeah!” Chloe said matter-of-factly. “By the time I start high school, you’ll be in college. By the time I get to college, you’ll probably already have graduated and gotten a job. We’ll hardly ever see each other then.”
“Really?” Nathan asked again, his voice dropping slightly.
“Pretty much.”
They walked in single file. Chloe skipped happily ahead, while Nathan walked behind her, his head lowered, entirely lost in thought.
A week later, Nathan was still sitting in his usual seat in the eighth-grade classroom.
Chloe leaned over his desk, thoroughly confused. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to start high school this week? Did you fail the placement test?”
It was a ridiculous question. Nathan was the smartest person in the district.
“No.” Nathan kept his eyes glued to his textbook, turning a page a little too quickly. “My dad said it’s better to play it safe. Skipping grades too often isn’t good. He wants me to mature more socially and emotionally before I move up.”
“I think your dad is completely right! Skipping grades all the time is definitely bad for you!” Chloe practically jumped into the air, thrilled that her personal tutor wasn’t abandoning her.
“This is great! Just listen to your dad and stay here! Let’s go to high school together. We can apply to the same school, okay?” Chloe reached out and grabbed Nathan’s hand excitedly.
Nathan yanked his hand back instantly, the tips of his ears flushing a furious, burning red. “You need to get a higher spot on the honor roll before you start talking about going to the same high school as me.”
“Higher?” Chloe slumped forward, groaning dramatically. “But that’s so hard! You’re going to have to help me!”
She grabbed his sleeve and tugged. Hearing the commotion, the other classmates crowded around Nathan’s desk, joining in the chorus. “Yeah, genius! Help us out!”
“Hey, cut it out!” Nathan snapped, trying to wrench his arm free.
But even as he scolded them, his dark eyes were sparkling, and a small, helpless smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.
This group was actually pretty fun.
In fact, they were the most interesting people he had ever been around.
Sticking around here wouldn’t be so bad after all.