there goes my hero , danny

[jasey rae archer]

The cafeteria was an... well, it was an interesting place to be. Because you never know when a food fight would erupt out of nowhere. It was like visiting an island with a volcano, sitting down and not knowing when said volcano would suddenly burst. It would be a surprise; not a very pleasant surprise mind you, but still one all the same. Which is probably why little Jasey Rae tried to avoid the cafeteria as much as was possible when she was at school - no matter how hungry she got. Though today, unfortunately; she had decided to skip breakfast this morning and had gone without eating for the past five hours (give or take ten/twenty minutes), so, naturally, come lunchtime she was starting to feel just a little peckish. When the bell rang to signal the end of the morning classes, Jasey was one of the first people out of her seats and dashing towards the door to leave.

Anyone who was anyone at the Manhattan School of the Arts; knew that the meals served up in the cafeteria were on a strict 'first come, first serve' basis, so, if she didn't get there pretty quickly she would end up with yesterday's left over meal. Ducking around people, under flying arms and narrowly avoiding having a locker door slammed in her face, Jasey dived sideways into the strange cafeteria and grabbed a tray. Quickly walking to the small queue, she placed her tray down on the side and grabbed a bottle of the water. The smell from the food was both delicious and nauseating at the same time - she wondered how that was even possible as she moved down the line, looking at where there was on offer. There was pizza, pasta, salad and whatever that lumpy brown thing was. Jasey grabbed a slice of the pizza and some of the salad, along with the ice cream and an apple. She wasn't a big girl; but she had a healthy appetite. Paying for her items, the sophomore moved to her usual table, right at the very back of the cafeteria and sat down in the corner chair.

Once she was settled in her chair, Jasey picked up the slice of pizza and just stared at it for a few moments before taking a tiny bite of it and putting it back on the plate. Picking up the napkin, she wiped her fingers and then placed both hands under the chair and scooted closer to the table. Would anyone interesting decide to come into the cafeteria today? Probably not, there was hardly any new people around the school these days. Jasey sighed and picked up a piece of the celery in her salad bowl, chewing on the end of it as she looked up and over at the door..

[daniel grey]

Today was his first day of school. Yeah, sure, it was his own fault for not being at school on the day he was supposed to officially start, but he was here now, and he was nervous.

Large groups of people - especially people he didn't know - freaked him out pretty badly, and seeing as the only person he knew so far was his teacher, Matthew, he was pretty damn nervous. The thought of the teacher made him smirk slightly as he wandered down the hallway. It was full of throngs of people, all stood in groups with their friends and talking. Danny didn't really make an effort to go around people because it was way too crowded to actually get anywhere, so instead he just attempted to walk in the correct general direction, ricocheting off other people into the hallway along the way.

He skidded to a halt (or tried to, as he ended up being pushed the majority of the way in by a group of students behind him) at the cafeteria entrance. Unsure of where the hell he was supposed to be going, he just sorta followed the general flow of people and ended up being sheperded into the food queue. Although he wasn't really hungry, he figured that eating would help pass the time and so he just went along with it.

At the counter.. There wasn't much left. Just a.. Hazardous looking brown lumpy thing. He quirked an eyebrow.
"Uh. Got anything that isn't... That?" he pointed at the disgusting looking brown mess. The serving lady glared and said nothing.
"Oh, okay. I guess I'll have.." he pretended to deliberate over it. "...The gross brown thing."
The serving lady splatted a load onto his tray and he shrugged, leaving the queue.

Now. Where to sit.
He quickly looked around the cafeteria. Most of the tables were full, or almost full, and he began to regret coming in here. No way would he sit on a table full of strangers. He was considering leaving, when he noticed a youngish looking girl sat on her own near the back wall. He looked at her, looked at the door, looked back at her.. Then decided to stay. Shrugging, he wandered slowly over to her.

"Heyyy," he greeted, sliding into a seat near her. "No one's sitting here, right?" he quirked an eyebrow before continuing.
"Right, well, I'm new here, and I have a question. What the hell is this crap?" he pointed at the questionable food on his tray. Good thing he wasn't hungry, because there was no chance in hell he was eating that.

[jasey rae archer]

Jasey looked up as the door opened and one unfortunate soul entered the cafeteria, left with only the choice of the brown stuff that was being served to a few other people. It really was disgusting stuff and she hoped to God that there would never be a day where she had to eat that stuff; if there was a day like that, she would end up just not eating at all for the rest of the day. Just the sight of it was enough to make one sick; she didn't dare wonder about what it smelt.. or even tasted like. Ick, even thinking about what it smelt/tasted like was making the sophomore nauseas.

Shaking her head, Jasey went back to her celery, nibbling at the end of it whilst trying not to go off in her own little world, like she usually did. But she failed, rather expertly at that and ended up off in her own world; staring into space and nibbling at the piece of salad robotically. It was like there was really any there to talk to her or anything; she didn't have any friends - well, she had Ella, but Ella was a little more than just a friend. Mm, Ella. As Jasey wandered off into her own little world, images of Ella floated around in her mind, making her smile ever so faintly.


Since she wasn't within reality at the moment, Jasey didn't notice the guy from earlier walking towards her table, with the obvious intentions of sitting down with her because.. well, because there wasn't exactly anywhere else to sit. The rest of the tables were full, and no-one sat with Jasey.

When the boy spoke, the sophomore jumped, swivelling her head round in his direction and dropping her celery, a light gasp escaped her lips. He'd scared her, if that wasn't obvious. Blinking as the boy sat down, Jasey picked her piece of salad back up, off of the table and placed it on her tray, grabbing another piece from her bowl and nibbling on the end of it as he spoke. Shaking her head when he asked if anyone was sitting there.

The way he spoke was kind of.. forward. He seemed like a friendly person and if she had been in the mood to talk she probably would have told him to 'fuck off and leave her alone', but Jasey wasn't really a mean person and the possiblity of her saying that to anyone were very slim. He asked her what the stuff on his tray was and she shrugged, taking the celery out of her mouth and clearing her throat slightly to answer him.

"Looks like crap, to me. But, I think it's supposed to be some kind of stew." Looking down at her own tray, Jasey chewed the inside of her lip, removed the ice cream, salad bowl and apple from it then pushed her tray over to the boy; it still had the pizza on it and she knew that she wasn't going to eat the it. "Pizzaaaa?" She asked, raising her own eyebrow and going back to nibbling on the end of her celery stick.

[daniel grey]

Danny felt a slight pang of guilt when the girl jumped and dropped the.. Green vegetable-y looking food-object. He'd obviously made her jump; she must have been off daydreaming on a totally different planet.
"Sorry," he said quickly, glancing over his shoulder. It was a habit he often performed when nervous around people. And sober. It meant that he didn't have to look the person in the face.

Ah, well. At least this girl hadn't told him to 'get lost' yet. He wouldn't have been suprised if she had have done; people in highschools weren't always particularly nice. Especially not to people they didn't know.

The cafeteria was still full of people and he boredly wondered what the people sentenced to the brown mush did. Did anyone actually eat the dreaded stuff? Cautiously, he prodded at it with a fork, half expecting it to crawl off his plate and out the door. Luckily it remained inanimate.

"Uh.. Yeah," he frowned and put the fork back down. "Definitely crap. I've been put off of stew for life."
He frowned, wrinkled his noise and leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed.

'Pizzzaaa?' He grinned at her offering of food.
"Nah it's alright. Not that hungry anyway," he shrugged and slid the tray containing the brown lumpy stuff further along the table, away from them. Distance was good.

Vaguely, Danny wondered why she was sat alone. All the other tables in the cafeteria were full, yet this girl was sat.. On her own. Maybe she was new, like him? Or maybe she just wasn't a 'people person'.
'Ah, well. I'll piss off if she asks me to,' he thought nonchalantly to himself and shifted on the chair, kicking his backpack further under the table and keeping it between his feet so that he'd notice if some random moron decided to take a grab at it.

"Uh... Been here long?" he asked, simply trying to make conversation. He never knew what to say when first meeting people; it was always so god damn awkward. Danny glanced to the left. And then the right. And then back at the girl. And then at the table, unsure of what to do. This was kinda awkward.

Danny 'hmm'ed to himself. The cafeteria, which had been noisy a few moments ago, and quietened significantly; not in a good way. It was one of those hushes that occur when something bad is about to happen - when people have been planning to do something, and then just before doing it there is a momentary lull as they stop talking.

Wary, he looked sideways to see what it was that had caused people to lessen the noise. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an object getting closer and closer and then...

SPLAT.

A tray of the disgusting lumpy brown crap landed on their table face down - apparently they weren't the only people who thought the stuff looked terrible.
Although, thankfully, it hadn't hit either of them head-on, it had covered the surrounding area in splattered brown stuff. The cafeteria was silent for a brief moment before the noise surged to twice the level as before, someone somewhere shrieking 'FOOOOD FIIIGHT'.

"Gross!" Danny wiped the splattered stuff off of his face and attempted to wipe it off his arms. Frowning, he spun his head, looking for the thrower. Damn. He hadn't seen who the hell it was that had thrown the food in the first place.
'Now I'm kinda glad I got this crap,' he smirked to himself, picking the tray up and hurling the food at a table of jock-type people. They seemed the most likely perpetrators.

Once they were also nicely coated in the crap, he grabbed his bag and held it over his head in an attempt to avoid getting hit badly in the face with some kind of foodstuffs.

He looked over at the girl he'd been sat with, and laughed. It was pretty funny, really.

[jasey rae archer]

Jasey shook her head when the guy, Danny, apologised to her; she didn't know why he was apologising, so she figured that there was no reason as to why he had said sorry in the first place. "...for what?" she asked, tilting her head to one side and biting off a chunk of the celery; chewing it and dropping the rest of it back into the salad bowl.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him prod the lumpy.. thing with his fork and half expected it to fight back somehow, but it didn't. Well, it wouldn't; it was supposed to be food, but it sure didn't smell, or look like it. Jasey shook her head gently and picked up the celery again, taking another bite out of it before putting it back in the bowl and washing it down with a sip of her water.

The boy was speaking again and the sophomore couldn't help but giggle very quietly. "Yeah, I, uh, never really enjoyed stew in the first place." She looked over at him and shot him a very small smile, screwing the cap back on her bottle and setting it back down on the table.

He declined her offer of the pizza she had brought, taking note of his grin as he did so. Jasey smiled back. "Yeah, best not; you never know what they put in the pizza's - I'd suggest staying away from then, unless you are absolutely starving to death, or something." Picking up the apple, Jasey took a small bite from it and looked around the cafeteria - there was a small silence between her and the boy, it wasn't very awkward, but it was awkward enough... well, it had been until he'd asked her if she'd been 'here long'.

".. in the cafeteria? Or... the school?" She asked, a little unclear on where, exactly he meant. "Because if you're referring to here, I've been here about twenty minutes. However; if you're referring to the school; then I'm in my sophomore year." Jasey shot him a lopsided smile. "So, only a year, how abo--"

Jasey didn't get to finish her question before the brown crap flew into their table, splattering both of them with it. "Aaahhh!" The yell of 'food fight' caught Jasey's attention and she looked around for a place to hide, watching as the guy she had been sitting with hurled the tray back to one of the tables, that was more than likely responsible for starting the food fight and then grabbing his bag to shield himself.

Unfortunately, Jasey had left her bag in her locker and so had nothing to shield herself with. She did, however, had food to throw back. Glancing quickly at the male she had just been talking with, Jasey scooped up the ice cream she'd brought, dug the spoon into the pot and flicked a little of it at him, giggling slightly as she dived under the table, narrowly avoiding a flying tray of brown mush.

[daniel grey]

"Uhh, I made you jump, didn't I? Sorry," he frowned a bit. Maybe she'd jumped at something else? It seemed unlikely though; perhaps she was just being polite. He watched as she dropped the green stick things back into her bowl.
'Ewwww. Saladddddd,' he whined to himself mentally. Danny never really had developed a love for foods of the green-variety. They all tasted the same, in his opinion: gross. However, mint ice cream on the other hand...

"Uh.. Yeah," he said in reply to her stew comment. Stew and curry: two more things he'd never been a massive fan of. They just looked like crap on a plate. And smelt pretty disgusting too. Danny made a mental note to rage at the dinner-serving ladies and attempt to persuade them to change the school menu. Did anyone even like this stuff? If they refused.. He could start a rally. Yeah. He'd totally win. Pfft.

"You mean.. The pizzas are poisonous too?" he arched an eyebrow and underlined the mental note to rage at the dinner-serving ladies five times over. Or maybe he could go and at a teacher. They might listen to him more. Hmm.

At her next comment, he snorted.
"Yes, the school! Not the cafeteria," he laughed a short laugh and then coughed. Ah, so she was a sophomore. So she was around.. Fifteen? Was that right? He still hadn't gotten much used to the grading system over here; it was all rather confusing. However, he didn't get a chance to enquire more, as that was when the food fighting commenced.

Still holding his bag over his head, he turned around and - got flicked in the face by the girl's ice cream.
"Hey!" he grinned, watching her as she took shelter beneath the table. Danny gave up trying to cover his head - most people were covered in food by now, as long as a certain brown and lumpy thing didn't land on his head he would be fine - he let his bag slide down onto his back and dashed over to the nearest table. He grabbed a girl's cupcake and, ignoring her squeals of protest, skidded under the table he had been seated at previously, squashing it upside down on the girl's head.

He hadn't done it too hard and so it half stood up, looking like some kind of tiny hat. Danny stared. And then spluttered.
"Aha... A.. Hat.." he snorted, knowing that she would most likely get revenge on him.
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