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[indent][indent]A gaggle of excited, screeching girls greeted Ella and Courtney in the main hallway as soon as the two best friends set foot on the building. With their matching cheerful demeanors, it was obvious that these were none other than the members of the King’s Academy cheerleading squad led by Antonella. After a round of exchanging hugs, brief summaries of their summer vacations and making plans to catch up properly over lunch, the brunette excused herself. She’d been notified the day before that the new student she’d volunteered to guide around the school would be waiting for her at the office, which was where she was headed.

Upon opening the office door, her brown eyes fell on a tall, broad-shouldered young man with exotic Polynesian features, long locks of black hair cascading down past his shoulders. With how lost he was looking in this environment, it was safe to assume that this was the guy who would be under Ella’s wing for the day.

[color=B3095B]“Hi there!”[/color] Antonella said cheerfully, extending a dainty hand to the male while shooting him her award-winning smile. [color=B3095B]“My name is Ella, and I’ll be in charge of showing around our campus today!”[/color]

[color=lightseagreen]“Aces!”[/color] Kai jumped to his feet almost as soon as he saw Ella announce who she was. 

His bag was hoisted over his shoulder and he shot the brown girl an eager smile. He had been kept waiting for at least twenty minutes. And in that time, a lot of things came to his mind, though none of them seem to stick. He had tried to pass the time and it obviously worked because he was now in the presence of someone who, by the looks of it, had more than enough energy for the both of them.

[color=lightseagreen]“Why is this place so large, Shirley? It’s like canvasing a field of a dozen arses of roos.”[/color]

Completely taken aback by being called the wrong name, his slang and overall strange choice of words, Ella stared at him for a few long seconds before disregarding what she didn't understand and answering what she did. [color=B3095B]“Our campus [i]is[/i] indeed quite large, yes. But you’ll best used to it pretty quickly, since for us seniors only a handful of them are of importance. Now, if you would please follow me…”[/color] she instructed softly, motioning for the new student to follow her out of the office to start the tour.

As if on cue, Kai followed her out of the office and into the ever-expansive halls that were full of male and female blokes that Kai wasn’t sure who they were or how they could dress so strangely. The way they talked was completely foreign to him. The way that they laughed. How was it that people on the same planet that Kai lived could be so alien to him? Kai was starting to think this was going to be tough to get used to.

[color=lightseagreen][sub]“She’ll be apples. She’ll be apples.”[/sub][/color] Kai chanted to himself quietly, looking up to the cheery Shirley as she pointed at the different doors they passed while listing the subject taught and by which professor on each one. [color=lightseagreen]“How far does this hallway go anyway?”[/color]

[color=B3095B]“A long way down, actually! If you follow it through those doors, you reach the junior high building, and [i]then[/i] the elementary school building.”[/color] Ella told him, pointing at a set of closed blue doors where, from the glass panels, younger-looking students could be seen mingling or going about their daily lives. [color=B3095B]“For security issues, high school students are never to cross those doors unless they have a note of authorization from a faculty member. And since us high school students truly have no business to do over there, we won’t be touring that particular area. So we’ll be making a right here so I can show you the sports areas.”[/color]

[color=lightseagreen]“I hear ya, Shirley. Ya don’t want to cross a flank and get ya arse kicked by an angry roo, ya get me?”[/color] Kai, though he probably sounded completely crazy, completely understood what his guide, if not somewhat pleasing to the eyes, was saying. To further emphasize this, he nodded a few times, humming his understanding. 

[color=B3095B]“Uh- yeah, totes!” [/color] Ella replied, nodding as if she’d completely understood what he’d said and deciding to not correct him on calling her by the wrong name. It wasn't an ugly one in her opinion, so it didn't cause her any sort of annoyance. Who knows? Maybe she [i]did [/i] look like a Shirley, and he was the only one to see her for who she really was.

After showing him the indoor volleyball and basketball courts, wrestling and cheerleading rooms, their tour took them to the outer campus. Under the warm sun, Ella and Kai walked past the the tennis courts, followed by quick visits to the football, soccer, rugby baseball and softball fields. They were soon indoors again, where she showed him by the art wing, the library and auditorium before, finally, there was only one place left to visit.

[color=B3095B]“Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I took you for a swimmer since the moment I saw you. So I thought I’d leave the best for last...”[/color] she told him sweetly, giving him a smile as they crossed the doors that led to the top-notch, pristine indoor swimming pool. 

There were no words to describe what Kai was feeling in that very moment they reached the gymnasium and he saw the indoor pool. Everything about it was perfect: from the way it was made, to how deep it was and just how crystal clear the water was. Kai was so immersed into this moment, he was walking around the pool, leaving Ella on the other side of the room before she would even realize it. Though he was quite far away from her, Kai’s sudden shriek of excitement was loud enough for the very delighted Ella to hear and, when he looked over towards where she was, Kai gave her a big thumbs up. Grinning, she gave him a [i]double[/i] thumbs up back.

And then his next action proved to be a surprising one. He put his bag down to the side and took off his shirt and shoes and pants, leaving a pair of green swimming trunks where one would think boxer shorts would be. In the next moment, he took a step back, and right before he jumped, he shouted [color=lightseagreen]“Cowabunga!”[/color] before he had done a cannonball into the pool, splashing the area he was just standing.

When Kai pulled his pants down, Antonella had quickly shut her eyes and pointedly looked away in the opposite direction as to protect her virgin eyes from any unwanted perverse sights. Even with his shouting of that word cliché movie surfers would say, it wasn’t until she heard the loud splash that she finally opened her eyes and found herself staring at her new classmate smack-dab in the middle of the pool. 

[color=B3095B]“Oh. My. God.”[/color] was all Ella could mutter, brown eyes wide with shock as she watched Kai swim a few laps. [color=B3095B]“Um, you’re really not supposed to do that!”[/color] she called out to him, walking in the direction he’d been earlier. [color=B3095B]“The only times you can use the pool is if you’re- [i]eek[/i]!”[/color]

Once again, Ella’s signature shriek of panic could be heard resonating across the deserted room as she slipped on the puddle of water that Kai had splashed with his dive and fell headfirst into the pool. As she scrambled to swim back to the surface, she quickly tried to make sense of what exactly had gotten into her that she was so clumsy lately, and raised a silent prayer that the streak wouldn’t follow her to cheer practice that afternoon. When she finally reached the surface, Ella took in long, gasping breaths of air before turning to face Kai. She stared at him, truly dumbfounded by this chain of events. And suddenly burst out laughing.

[color=lightseagreen]”That’s the spirit, Shirley!”[/color] 

Kai’s voice rang high as he swam closer to Ella by going under the water, coming up and to a full stop a few feet away from her, floating. His mouth was wide with an ear-to-ear grin. When he came up, his hair had whipped all the way back, revealing the entirety of his rectangular forehead and, what was even more obvious, was his brown eyes and Polynesian features. It was obvious that his Maori features were dominant over the Chinese blood that ran through his lean body.

[color=lightseagreen]“This water feels great, donnit? So warm yet completely cool,”[/color] Kai said to a smiling Ella, getting lost in his own head, though it was only a moment later that his eyes fell back on her. It was then when he noticed something that caught his attention. [color=lightseagreen]“Your OctaGoo is running down your face, Shirley.”[/color] Kai informed her, laughing.

[color=B3095B]‘OctaGoo’?[/color] the young woman repeated, frowning in confusion for a moment. She wiped her under the eye to see what in the world Kai was talking about now, and her frown turned into giggles when she realized what he meant. [color=B3095B]“That’s just my mascara, silly!”[/color] she informed him, that bright smile of hers never once leaving her face.

[color=lightseagreen]“What a weird thing to call OctaGoo,”[/color] Kai scratched his head, trying to decipher why these western mates referred to OctaGoo as mascara. 

As he and Ella were floating in the water, laughing without a care in the world, they would soon be caught red-handed. Amid his and her laughing, they both were handed a reality check as someone would interrupt their good times. “And just what is going on here?” A male voice said causing Ella to freeze and quickly turn in the direction of the voice. Meanwhile, it was only when Kai heard and looked up that he saw who it was. Well, he didn’t know who this person [i]really was[/i], but it was safe to assume he was a Caucasian man. Kai knew his genetics, and the guy looked to be of Irish ethnicity. At least, that would be the young man’s educational guess.

[color=lightseagreen]“Just enjoying the water, mate,”[/color] Kai responded cheerfully to the man. He didn’t seem very receptive to Kai’s lax attitude. 

On the other hand, Ella was scrambling to get out of the water; a task that was being unnecessarily difficult because of the extra weight her soaked uniform was putting on her figure. 

[color=B3095B]“Oh my God, Coach Sutherland, I am so, so sorry!”[/color] she stammered, a nervous edge to her voice. The young woman knew how badly hers and Kai’s compromising position must look to an outsider with no context, so she tried to clarify the situation before things go any more awkward than they already were. [color=B3095B]“You see, he’s a new student here, and I was showing him around campus when he just went ‘Cowabunga!’ and, like, just straight out [i]jumped right into the middle of the pool[/i], and really there was nothing I could do about it, so I went to tell him he wasn’t allowed to do that, and then I just slipped-”[/color]

Her panicked ramble was instantly silenced by the coach raising his left hand: his universal sign for silence. By this point, she was standing a few steps away from the edge of the pool, shaking like a leaf.

Kai was simply observing the nervous Shirley as she seemed to frantically explain the situation, but that didn’t amuse Coach Sutherland. This confused him. Why did she seem nervous when this guy showed up? Why was he disapproving of them swimming? As he thought about these questions for another moment, Kai noticed that the Shirley was on the verge of falling into the pool again. To avoid this, he rushed to the steps and pushed his hand against her wet back

[b]“This doesn’t excuse your ignorance to go come and get a faculty member, [i]Antonella[/i],”[/b] Coach Sutherland stated, obviously livid and disappointed in her. As he was about to say something else, no doubt just as angry, he was suddenly welcomed by a forcibly-pushed Ella sliding across the floor, skipping a step. This would prove to be a dire mistake because, as she would trip over her own foot, her head collided with the Coach’s head. As a result  — and to Ella’s horror — his nose started to bleed. 

Kai got out of the pool just in time to see what his unintentional actions had done. [color=lightseagreen]“[b]Crikey![/b] Sorry ‘bout that, mate.”[/color]

Coach Sutherland waited for the panicking Ella to get up, then he did the same, brushing off the dust and having an anger fit over his now-wet clothes. He glared at both Kai and Ella. [b]“Well congratulations, Antonella and — what’s your name, young man?”[/b]

[color=lightseagreen]“Kai, mate. Kai Parata.”[/color]

[b]“Well, Kai Parata, I hope you had fun because you and Antonella here just landed yourselves two spots in today’s first detention after school today.”[/b] Coach Sutherland said, sighing heavily.

[color=lightseagreen]“Aces!”[/color]

[color=B3095B]“[i]What[/i]?!”[/color] Ella instantly cried out in protest, nearly in tears at the craziness of this whole situation. [color=B3095B]“But I didn’t do anything, Coach. And the girls and I have cheer practice after school!”[/color]

Unaffected by her waterworks, Coach Sutherland would simply say, [b]“I’m sure they’ll survive a day without you!”[/b] over his shoulder before walking away, leaving behind a crying Ella and a very confused Kai.[/indent][/indent][/color]