"Mr Dankworth is my soulmate." I told him with a wink "My one true love."

The round wide shoulders belonging to him relaxed but only slightly.

The four of us walked down the hallway and through the English block into the science corridor. Lana grabbed my arm and pulled me further ahead so that a few people from the busy crowd were between us and the two new students.

"He is so freaking scary." Lana whispered with widened eyes and a small, amused smile.

I did not need to ask who she was speaking about.

"Yeah." I agreed "He is."

Her curious voice grew even more hushed when she questioned "What is up with you and Stone?"

"I'm sorry." I told her genuinely even tough my tone was sharper than the blade of a butcher’s knife "I know that you were really excited about Brennan coming here but his friend gets me fired up."

She let out a small laugh.

"Can you believe what he said about my hair and height?" I mumbled, getting fired up even thinking about him.

"It is not like you did not hold your own." She pointed out, her tone turning playful "He seems to enjoy teasing you. The only time I have heard him speak is when he is speaking to you."

"What do you mean?"

"He never spoke after you left this morning for homeroom." Lana replied, glancing over her shoulder as she did so "I tried asking him something to be friendly and he ignored me. A few girls said hello to him, and he glared at them until they went away."

I burst out laughing as the image of an army of people running away from the large man made its way into my mind.

"It was terrifying." Lana added to the story.

"You should have just called him Lurch like I did." I said to her "That seemed to get him to talk."

Lana made a face like the very thought was unthinkable as she affirmed "Not everyone has a death wish like you."

I glanced over my shoulder and what I saw made me bite my lip from smiling again.

Stone did not have to move around to make his way through the swarm of people. He was large enough that everyone just moved out of his way automatically.

He had not seemed to have noticed that everyone was taking one look at him and moving out of his way. Some people were even fleeing. He appeared used to the looks of terror.

"The other periods leading up to English have gone too slow. I have learned nothing today except Oxygen has a valency of two and that Napoleon was once attacked by a bunch of bunnies." Lana complained as we turned into the lunch hall "The latter I learned from you."

As expected from a cliche high school everyone had their set tables. There were not any specific labels to the groups apart from the large huddle of footballer jocks at one big table.