Ah the beginning of yet another school year, more people, more teachers, more homework and even more responsibilities.

It couldn't be that hard to remain level headed though, should it?

Nah I've coped pretty damn well with my high school life, I'd found the spot exactly in the middle of the spectrum.

I'm not overly popular or confident but I'm not hated or considered a weird kid so I think I'll be fine for one more year.

My grades are good and I know I won't have any effort getting into a good college and I've got a lot of friends.
Things are as perfect as they could possibly get for me.

Now I just need to get a date to the end of year prom and everything's good, I wouldn't mind going to a few more parties either.

Currently I was on the bus with my best friend London who was babbling nonstop about a guy she'd met on summer break.
He'd been some blonde guy who she met at a record store, at least he had a real liking for music then.

She was telling me that if I got a boyfriend we could double date and I settled with mumbling a response, I didn't want the pressure of that on my mind.

So basically it takes my friend about one month to get a boyfriend and it takes me four years and five bottles of mixer to tell the guy I've had a crush on since freshman year that I like him.
Only to be turned down.

That was encouraging.

I think I'll just avoid guys as much as possible for a month or two to get over the heart hurt.

On the bright side I could look forward to attending some of my favourite classes today, home economics and English literature, advanced of course because out of me and my brother I was the one who got the brains.

There's another thing on my list of problems, my brother's in my math class which means nothing will get done.
He'll sit next to me of course, he always does, that's how it works when you have a twin, non identical though.

We had a good relationship and thankfully didn't have the quarrelling siblings kind of thing going on, we were friends and would hang out at school.

We must have sorted all our problems out in the womb.

Mind you we can have our issues at times, more often than not it'll end with him getting me in a headlock and nuggying me until I agreed to whatever.

He'd usually do it to make me agree to doing his homework or returning the television remote.
I had my ways of getting what I wanted too (threatening to show some very embarrassing photos to his lady friends) but was too nice to put them into effect.

The only person who had no problem teasing him was London and she knew how to get to him better than anyone else.
It's like she was another sister to him and to me as well.

She was at our house enough to be considered a family member and I could be at her house just as often.

We basically took turns living at each other's place, I'd stay with her for a week, she'd stay with me for a week, we had a good friendship.

"-And we'll be going out next week." London finished with a smile spreading across her face, her eyes lighting up.

"Cool." I replied, standing up and hitching my backpack up as the bus slowed to a stop outside school.

"Now we just need to find you a boyfriend." She said copying me and picking up her backpack, her eyes scanning the area around us as if she was gonna find a guy I'd be interested in.

"So what classes have you got today?" We chatted, heading off the bus and towards the same lockers we'd had last year.

"Home ec, English lit, science and history." I told her and she grinned before saying she had home economics as well.

"What time's your class at? Mine's last period." She asked and I opened my locker, hung my backpack up then retrieved my books.

"Uh, first." At least I got to start off the morning with some cooking, I was hungry and good in the kitchen but it also meant I wouldn't be in the same class as London, dammit.

Since we'd gone through the beginning of the year assembly yesterday London and I didn't get to spend any time together and almost immediately had to say goodbye before heading off to our classes.

I walked quietly through the hall, wondering where my twin brother was. The last time I'd seen him he'd been at the back of the bus laughing with his mates.
I knew he wasn't in my first class but there was a chance he could be in English lit, after all it was his only good subject, thanks to my tutoring.

Feeling excited at the thought of my first class for the year I had to pause outside the room and take a deep breath.

Alright, let's do this.

I opened the door and walked in, the heads of everyone in the room swivelling to look at me.

"Hey guys." I waved to them and a few waved back but most returned to what they'd been doing without a second thought.

I walked over to an empty kitchen booth and sat down on one of the chairs, waiting for the teacher to make his or her appearance.

A few minutes passed, the final bell going, still no teacher.
I picked up a pen and started scribbling on the back of my notebook, the door opened and everyone looked up.

It was just another student, shoulder length black hair, skinny jeans and converse sneakers, like most of the kids in this school.

He looked around for a moment, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, checked it and looked around again.
Must be new.

His eyes passed over each of the kids, eventually settling on me and pausing for a moment before slowly walking to the back of the room.

I knew mine was the only free booth left but I really didn't want to work with anyone.
Please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me, please don't sit next to me.

"Hi."

Fuck.

"Hey." I replied, managing a simple conversation briefly then looking closer at his face.

His eyes are very nice, a pretty hazel brown, almost like chocolate.

He walked around and sat on the chair next to me, putting a pile of books along with a bunch of keys on the bench.

My eyes didn't take long to take in just about every sight on him, his skin was slightly olive, making him possibly Italian or something along those lines.

Tattoos were on his fingers and the backs of his hands, a lot, two sets on his knuckles spelling out some words, not sure what exactly.

A spider web, half a heart, some more tattoos ran up, disappearing under the sleeve of his jacket.
This guy had a lot of ink.

He turned to look at me, smiled for a moment then turned his head to watch the front of the room as if the teacher might show up at any moment.

A hand went up to his neck, pulling something out from under his shirt and playing with it, it was a necklace with a charm on a leather string.
It might have been a coin.

The room continued to stay quiet except for the hushed murmurs of teenagers chatting their little hearts out.

About a minute passed before the guy next to me stood up, putting his hands on the bench.

"Come on guys, really?!" He said loudly, almost yelling but attracting the attention of the entire room, including me although he already had it.

"Do I seriously look like I go here?!" Okay the new kid's having a minor spazz out, this'll undoubtably be on YouTube later.

The guy stood up, grabbing his books from the bench and walking to the front of the room before putting them down on the teachers table.

"I'm Mr. Iero. You can call me that or maybe once we get to know each other you can call me Frankie. I'll be your home economics teacher for this year." He beamed brightly at the classroom who was now sitting like complete dunces, me included.

That guy was our teacher?

He walked over to the whiteboard, picking up a marker and writing his name messily at the top.

Mr. Frank Iero
He was the teacher, seriously?
This wasn't just some prank was it?

"Yes I know what you're all thinking and I am for real and it's not a joke although you will be hearing plenty of them throughout the year." I was still trying to close my mouth, I was having a perv on him moments ago, the teacher.

"Today we'll get right into things and start of with making something really simple. Pancakes, you all like those right?" It was interesting to see him get straight to the point instead of blathering on for half an hour like last years teacher.

"Mr. Iero." Someone raised their hand, calling out his name to get attention.

"Yep?"

"Aren't you gonna try to get our names first?" The chick asking looked confused, the usual routine for new teachers was to ask questions and get answers.

"Nope, I think I'll learn on the go. I'm horrible at remembering names by the way so don't be surprised if you get called 'kid' a lot. Anything else?" No one had anything else to say so he clapped his hands together.

"Alrighty-then. Get your aprons and come sit down again while I write the stuff on the board." He was either really the teacher or an incredibly good liar.

I'm going with the teacher option.

I stood up, walking to the closet with everyone else to fetch the aprons, tugging down my dark red shirt and thinking purely of food.

Once everyone moved I grabbed a slightly stained, dark blue apron and pulled it over my head before tying it up at the back
This was going to be so exciting, especially since the teacher seemed way more energetic that I was used to.

"Now I'm a vegetarian so we won't be cooking with meat at all and most of the food we'll be making will be heathy so no bitching." He said dropping the marker before spinning to face us and putting his hands on his hips.

"Alright, recipes on the board. You guys know where the pantry and fridges are. Retrieve your ingredients and bring them back to your kitchens. I'll tell you all what to do from there." He gave everyone one more grin before going to the teachers table, sitting on it and picking up his mobile.

I was still trying to get over the fact that he was our teacher, he looked way too good looking for something like this.
He must have just gotten out of college.

Everyone stood up to get the things on the board, me included and we headed into the kitchen.

He'd listed a whole bunch of (optional) fruits and I made the assumption I was gonna put them in or on the pancakes.

Instantly knowing my favourite things I grabbed some apples and cherries along with the dry and wet ingredients I'd need.

As I headed back to the kitchen I could hear girls talking under their breaths, too quietly for Mr. Iero to hear them.

"Holy shit, he's so hot." One girl whispered and as much as I didn't want agree, I did.

It was kinda disappointing that he wasn't just another guy in the class, one who would sit next to me.
Life, there was always a catch.

I walked back to my booth, put the things on the bench and pushed my chair away.
He said he was going to tell us what to do once we had all of out ingredients but because I'd made pancakes at least a hundred times I got started without waiting.

With the assumption that we weren't meant to make tons I put the things into a bowl and started mixing them together.

As much as it may seem like it I'm not the kind of person who really liked pancakes to I planned to wrap them up and give them to London at lunch.

"Hey." I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw the teacher standing next to me.

"Oh hi, so you're the teacher huh?" I should have known it was too good to be true that I'd have a good looking boy sit next to me.

As they say, if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck.

"Yup, that's me, and you are?"

"Friday Ashcraft, I'm probably the most pretentious person in the whole room." I told him, continuing to mix the batter, people had just started to leave the giant pantry.

Mr. Iero laughed, a light giggling sound that didn't go with his role as a home ec teacher.

"Since you seem to know what you're doing you can just go ahead, you don't have to wait like everyone else." I nodded, added the chopped cherries and apples to the mix and got out my frying pan.

"I wasn't planning to listen to you in the first place." He laughed again, a grin on his face that went to his eyes, damn it he's hot.

"I think you and I are gonna get along." Well he seems like a smartarse and a half for a teacher, I like it though, it's interesting.

He turned around and walked back to the front of the room, the kids were standing in pairs, waiting for the next instructions.

"Okay so you've all probably made pancakes at some point in your lives. I want you to make a batter as written on the board then chop up to two different kinds of fruits you've selected." Already done, I thought, pouring the mixture into the heated pan.

I'm gonna be finished before everyone else, what am I supposed to, I could make something else I suppose.

"Once you've done that put the chopped fruit in the mix, stir it, obviously, then pour it into a heated pan." He sounded bored actually but walked around pointing out when people were doing something wrong.

"It may stick and if it does add a little bit of oil." Mr. Iero said to a guy who was having trouble flipping his pancake, the kid was without a doubt bad at cooking.

"See what Friday's doing? That's right." He came to a stop next to me, smiling when I tossed the pan up, flipping it with no effort at all.

I caught it and it landed perfectly, making me happy even if it didn't seem like much.

Smoke started to come from a booth, signalling that someone was burning something and Mr. Iero quickly ran over to stop them.

"Damn, not like that. Watch." He picked up the handle, looking pointedly at the girl to get her attention before going to flip that pancake just like I'd done.

The pan burst into flames.

"Fuck!" He yelled, dropping it and immediately backing away, flapping his hands of course.

Then the stove came alight.

I ran over along with everyone else to see what was going on, Mr. Iero was completely freaking out, he's an incredibly responsible teacher.

Noting that no one else was going to do it I ran to the cupboard, grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and ran back.

There's no fricken way a glass of water was going to solve this problem.

I pushed through the group of screaming people, counting the teacher, ripped the tab out of the extinguisher and squeezed the handle.

Foam covered the oven and stove, putting out the fire and calming everyone down.

"God you people are useless." I sighed, dropping the extinguisher on the floor with a clang.

Over half the class had their mobiles out while the rest calmed down their screaming, I was just feeling annoyed.

The home economics room could have burnt down because they were freaking out like complete morons or recording it on their stupid phones.

Sometimes I question the intelligence of my classmates and people in general.

Another thing I wanted to know about, what's with the teacher, did he even realise that it was his responsibility to put out the fire?

Judging by how he was laughing right now he didn't seem to care that he was in charge.
And I'm pretty sure it was his fault everything burst into flames right now, should he even be teaching home ec?

I'm kinda scared.

"Did you see that shit? There was flames, friggen everywhere!"

That was the voice of my senior class home economics teacher who may or may not have been tweeting just then.