"Thanks." Liam seems appropriately pleased with himself, but is careful to avoid 'smug'. 

"You did get impressively close, actually, although I guess it might not have looked like it. The other kid only hit me because I was distracted by managing to get you."

"There's probably an important life lesson in there, but I think learning that would make you a less interesting person. Might as well skip it. Have you thought about lacrosse?"

"I have not! Tell me about lacrosse?" he invites. "Assume I know nothing; we never played it at my last school."

David happily describes how lacrosse works.

Full contact, two teams, stick with mesh to catch and throw the small rubber ball from player to player as they alternate between trying to score on the other team's goalie and stick checking their opponents to keep them from winning.

"Sounds a little like hockey, I think. Both of them are seen as girls' sports in England, for some reason, so I've never played either."

He's paying enough attention to the dodgeball game, now down to the last few players, to move out of the way of the occasional stray ball, but is mostly listening to David. "Do you play lacrosse, then?"

"Me, Stiles, and Matt. It's sort of our thing." 

"Cool, maybe you could teach me sometime." 

And it looks like dodgeball has concluded. Liam doesn't particularly care which team won, since David's the only person in this class he's properly spoken to.

Liam's team won, possibly due to the way he drew David's attention so completely. They were the most compete ever players. Some of the other students are giving him confused glares. 

The gym teacher, on the other hand, claps him on the shoulder.

"Nice hustle. What's your name?"

Oh well. If any of them confront him, he can make up some explanation about having identified David as one of the more dangerous opponents or something.

"Thanks, sir. I'm Liam Pender." 

"I want to see you at tryouts. Are you a baseball or lacrosse guy? Who cares. Go to both."

He heads off, and everyone goes to the locker room to change.

...Alright then. He'll have to look up the rules of baseball, or ask David. And find out when tryouts are happening. 

He hopes tryouts and team practice times don't clash with theatre. That's the problem with extracurriculars; you can't always do all of them. 

While some students enjoy hitting each other with balls, others partake in the tradition of classic literature.

Rowan among them. She probably shouldn't sit next to Danny again...

How about that guy? Liam was talking to him at lunch, and they seemed to be getting on. That probably means he's friendly, right?

"Hi, I'm Rowan. I think you met Liam earlier? I'm his sister."

"Hey. I'm Matt. How are you liking it here so far?" 

The teacher begins passing out printed packets, apparently containing an excerpt of Walden. 

"Better than I expected, I think," Rowan replies thoughtfully. "AP classes seem to be difficult enough to be interesting, without being so hard that I can't keep up."

She takes a handout and starts reading, because that's just what you do when someone is offering you new reading material. 

"I didn't see you in any of my classes this morning; is English your only AP class?"

"That's pretty much the goal. Some people might go to college with just what they're expected to have, but some of us want more than that."

The excerpt is, as any excerpt from Walden would be, about escaping civilization and living in nature to find yourself. The teacher tells them that their job is to examine the use of imagery to support the author's central thesis. She reminds them of what imagery is, in case they've forgotten, and waits for them to be finished. It's only a few pages, so they're given five minutes.

Rowan checks whether they're allowed to annotate the extract, and makes notes using a different colour for each theme.

"The idea of just taking classes to fill a minimum requirement seems really strange to me. School is supposed to prepare us for the world, not just for college."

"Advanced classes aren't bad, but not every subject has them, and only AP classes are really stimulating." 

The teacher invites discussion. Does anyone have something to say?

Rowan does! She makes some intelligent points and seems to have a pretty good idea of what the author is doing, despite never having encountered his work before. (British schools: not so good on the American literature.) She's a little nervous, not wanting to dominate the discussion on her first day, but participates more in this class than she has all morning.

A few of the other students join in, Matt included. The teacher congratulates them all for the attempt, but seems most pleased with Rowan's analysis. 

For homework, they're to begin reading Hamlet.

That's nice. Rowan read it last year. She might go back and re-read the first act, though, just to make sure she remembers everything. 

Her next class is...Computer Science, apparently. 

Danny appears to be in that class as well. They can walk together.

"It looked like you and Matt were enjoying English."

"It's one of my favourite subjects," Rowan agrees. 

"So, what should I expect from Comp Sci?"

"The first few days will be basic stuff to make sure everyone knows how to use computers, but after that we'll dive into programming." 

They get to the computer lab early. Danny takes a seat in the front.

Rowan sits near Danny but not next to him.

Is there anyone else in this class she recognises?