Ulrich went over to the room he had heard that Jordan was in and knocked on the door.
“Come in!” Jordan called.
Ulrich opened the door and saw that she had done a lot with her room. Posters were on the wall almost covering it completely. Ulrich saw that some were of the Subdigitals. Than he saw what was hanging from the ceiling. Lanterns, drawings, and a black bed curtain hung down to cover the bed.
“Wow, nice room.” Ulrich said.
“Thanks.” Jordan said as she turned down the music she had playing.
“How’d ya get the stuff to hand from the ceiling?”
“Paper clips.”
“Is that the Subdigitals?” Ulrich asked her.
“Ya, why, you like them?”
“Ya, they’re cool.”
“Here’s a little thing I’m sure you don’t know. They have CDs in at least eleven different languages.”
“Cool.” Ulrich said, wondering if Japanese was one of the eleven.
“What’d you want anyway?” Jordan asked.
“I was just wondering if the rumors were true about you.” Ulrich said, taking his eyes away from the room and to her. “I’ve heard that you’ve had some...trouble in the past.”
“You probably haven’t heard the half of it by the looks of thing.” Jordan said. “Actually I ended up in juvie because of what I’ve done. Though I am trying to go strait. Oh, here. I think this is yours.”
She tossed Ulrich a set of keys he had had in his pocket a second ago. “How’d you get them?”
“I wasn’t called the present Houdini for nothing.” Jordan smiled. “I can just pass someone and end up with what ever was in their pocket. But, like I said, I’m trying to go straight.”
“Ok.” Ulrich said, swinging his keys around his pointer finger once before putting them back in his pocket. “Well, I better get going. I promised Jeremie I’d play him a game of chess.”
“Your friend plays chess?” Jordan asked.
“Ya, do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Jeremie might want to play against you instead of me.”
“Lead the way.”
Ulrich and Jordan walked out of the dorms and found Jeremie, Aelita, Odd, and Yumi on a bench. Jeremie had the chess board out and it was sitting on his laptop.
“I heard you can play chess.” Jordan said. “You mind if I play?”
“If Ulrich doesn’t mind.” Jeremie said. “Name’s Jeremie.”
“Jordan.” She sat down next to Jeremie and asked, “What color you want?”
“Well, the guest gets white.” Jeremie said.
“Ok.” Jordan mover her pawn and they went and played their game.
“I didn’t figure you for a chess player.” Yumi said after a while of Jordan getting Jeremie’s pieces.
“Chess was first created to teach people how to become generals in the Chinese wars, at least I think it was the Chinese.” Jordan said as she moved her queen to over by Jeremie’s king. “Shah Mat.”
“Zut.” Jeremie said as he laid down his king.
“What’d you mean?” Aelita asked.
“My friend is a gang leader and he can beet me in both chess and Stratego. Actually, the lower people are, the smarter they are. The smartest people I know are serial killers that were in jovie with me.”
“I never thought of jovie being full of people playing chess.” Aelita said. “Well, not everyone would play chess. Some were more interested in lifting weights, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to get muscles at all. They end up being just flab.”
“Jordan!” a male voice called.
The whole group looked up as they saw Jim and Delmas coming their way. Jordan stud up and looked at them.
“Miss Malince.” Delmas said sternly. “I know this is your first day here but I’ve already got a list of things I could kick you right out of this school.”
Jordan looked strait ahead and said with a dead beat face, “I am sorry sir but I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Ms. Hertz and a number of the students saw you sneaking off from the science lab with a number of different tools.” Delmas said, bending down so that he was looking into her eyes.
“Not to be rude, but your sources were wrong.” Jordan said. “You can check my room and my person, you will not find anything you say I have stolen. If I may, I think Catie Astion has followed me here and is trying to set me up again.”
“Catie Astion in deed.” Delmas said, not believing any of it. He turned to Jim and said, “Search her room and if you find anything at all, I want to know about it.”
“Yes sir.” Jim said, clearly shaken about how the principal was becoming around Jordan.
The two adults walked away, leaving Jordan standing there with her hands clenched. She unclenched them and turned around to face her new friends. They, too, had faces of surprise.
“Who’s Catie Astion?” Aelita asked.
“An ex-friend of mine.” Jordan said. “We met in kindergarden and from then on we played a game, if you want to call it that, of getting each other in trouble. It crossed the line when my boyfriend went missing and I was pinned for it. Since I couldn’t tell anyone where he was, he was never found. I believed Catie killed him. She is very dangerous and will hurt anyone in her way to try to get me killed.”
“What’d you do to tick her off?” Yumi asked.
“I ruined her face on accident. I didn’t know someone had changed the dish soap to something she was allergic to and it sort of burned her face.” Jordan said. “I told her I didn’t know it had been changed but she clamed I knew and that also got me in trouble.”
Jordan
“What was that?” Aelita asked, hearing the name called out.
“What was what?” Jeremie asked, not hearing it.
“I guess it was nothing.” Aelita said, dismissing it.
“It wasn’t nothing, it was Catie.” Jordan said. “I heard it too. I shouldn’t have played that game with you Jeremie, now you and your friends are in grave danger.”
“Nothing more than we normally are.” Odd said quietly enough that Jordan wouldn’t here but Ulrich did.
“Don’t worry about us.” Aelita said, seeing Jordan was clearly worried for their safety. “We’ll be fine. Come on, suppers about to be served.”
The diner bell rang as Odd’s stomach growled.
Ulrich and Aelita laughed as it sounded louder than the bell.
“Hey, I’ve got to get going home.” Yumi said.
“See ya.” Aelita said, waving.
“Look out for Catie!” Jordan called as Yumi walked over to the gate.
“I’ll be fine.” Yumi called back, smiling.