Enoch tugged down the hood of his jacket and looked up at the sign over the shop with a sigh. "O'Connor's Funerals" was emblazoned across the ebony wood in gold letters, above two large windows. Upon these was written in the same gold font, "Cremations", "Burials", and "All your funeral arrangements" in front of a display of several different makes of coffins in one window and urns in the other. As the funeral parlour was closer to his school than home, he'd elected to walk in the light drizzle of the afternoon rather than take the bus.

He sighed and wiped his muddy shows on the doormat, a strangely welcoming touch considering the nature of the business and stepped through the door. The little bell over the front door tinkled as the door swung open and closed and Enoch marched directly towards the back as his father poked his head out of the office.

"Ah, Enoch, it's just you."

Enoch nodded a hello and slid his bag from his shoulder as he stepped into the office and dropped it beside the chair on the other side of his father's desk.
Enoch greatly resembled his father. From the deep brown of his hair to his build and stature, father and son were much alike. Except for his eyes. Enoch shared his mother's pale blue eyes, as striking a contrast to the darkness around his eyes and his skin was. Like Enoch, his father had the same dark hair which when left untamed, curled as much as Enoch's did. It was more often than not parted neatly and professionally set off with the black suit jacket he often wore in the front of the shop.
"I need ya 'elp cataloguing out the back today."

"I got 'omework." Enoch sighed and shrugged his shoulders as he turned and looked over at his father by the office door. "Can't I do that first?"

"If by 'omework, you mean drawin' those silly sketches and pretendin' to work, then no."

"They're not stupid." Enoch huffed and shook his head, blowing a curl away as it fell forward in front of his eyes. "And no...actual work. Come on, Dad, seriously?"

Owen O'Connor sighed and pursed his lips as he considered it. Eventually he laughed, more to himself and nodded. "Yeah, alright. You needa get your grades up anyway, you do that first but I do expect some 'elp eventually, Enoch."

Enoch gave a mock salute to which his father only responded with a sigh and the rolling of his eyes before closing the door behind him and leaving Enoch on his own.

The boy dug his phone and his headphones back out of his pocket and set them down on the surface of his father's desk. He sunk down into the chair and pulled his backpack over to him. Unzipping it he rummaged around inside to pull out the loose pencils and pen before pulling out his biology textbook, safely returned by Hugh, and red binder. He hadn't been lying to his father. He did have homework to complete but nor had his father been completely wrong. Enoch fully intended to bring out his sketchbook as well.

But why wasn't it in his bag? Enoch frowned and bent down again to rummage through each pocket and each item individually. His heart started to race against his ribs. It wasn't there. He was sure he remembered putting it in, or had he completely missed it? He could have left it in his locker but that wasn't likely as all his books had gone right in his bag from History.

Enoch swore and kicked his bag, knocking it over and sending sheets of paper falling from it onto the floor. It wasn't something that should have mattered, but it did more than he liked to admit. If that had fallen into the hands of the wrong person, he'd be labelled even more of a freak than he was already.
It wasn't the names that bothered a jot. It was the likelihood of not getting all his things back. His designs and drawings might not have seemed like something that should have been particularly private but he'd kept them his and only his for years through high school and Enoch possessively did not want that to change.

It was in his locker. He had just left it at school. It was still there in his locker. Enoch told himself repeatedly and let out a long breath, uncurling his fingers from the fist they had clenched into.
Now at least his homework excuse was viable...

xxxXxxx

"Enoch?"

"Huh?" The boy looked up from where he was idly stabbing holes through his mashed potatoes so rapidly his fork clinked on the plate each time. He hadn't even heard his mother speaking to him.

"I said, how was school?" Valentine and Owen O'Connor exchanged a glance with each other across the table at their son's obvious distraction.

"Oh...fine. Nofin' different." Enoch shrugged, keeping his answers short and direct so as not to invite many questions. Tomorrow was Friday, only a few more days then he could finally get away to be by himself again.
He wasn't blind though. Enoch never missed the expressions on his parents faces when they thought he wasn't looking. They didn't like how often he spent alone. Sure he had other kids that he knew well enough, at least as well as he thought he needed to but he was less inclined than they wished he would be to go out and spend time with a group outside of school.

Enoch didn't think it mattered. He could have been a much worse teenager than one who simply kept to himself. Sure they would prefer that to those who partied more nights than not and thought they were a lot tougher "lads" than they were.

As if on cue, his mother cleared her throat and pointedly asked the question he'd been expecting.
"Do you have any plans this weekend?"

"Mum, it's Thursday."

"So? You might have arranged something with your...friends today." She said "friends" a little more hopefully and hesitantly than she thought he really had them and Enoch scoffed slightly before he could hold it back.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm not very 'ungry, can I be excused now?"

"No. You can 'elp with the washin' up first." His father gave him a pointed look that meant Enoch didn't get a choice.

Twenty minutes later Enoch had freed himself from distasteful social interaction and excused himself to his bedroom.

Enoch's bedroom was more or less typical of a sixteen-year-old teenage boy. His bed was up against the far wall and covered with fairly plain black and red covers. There was a desk, in the opposite corner with the window between bed and desk. A black and silver, HP laptop sat closed on the desk and a discarded jacket was strewn over the back of the computer chair, threatening to drop to the floor with the slightest movement.

His backpack leaned against the small bookshelf, lined with more movies than actual books, beside the bedroom door and opposite the wooden dresser and mirror beside that. On the corner of the mirror, drawn in permanent marker so as not to be easily erased, Enoch had drawn a skull and crossbones purely for the sake of it.

Enoch sighed and kicked the door closed behind him. He kicked of his shoes and left them by the door before padding over in his socks to his laptop. He opened it, typed in his password quickly and opened iTunes. Turning his music up and putting it on shuffle, Enoch turned and dropped face down onto his bed, feeling every crease in the crumpled sheets and covers beneath his torso.

Unwittingly, his mind began to wander, at first to his sketches which he was still trying to convince himself were in his locker, and then to places he hadn't expected it to go. The pretty, red haired Olive whose eyes alone portrayed more of what she was thinking than the entirety of Enoch ever did. He might be stubborn and rather antisocial, but he wasn't blind. Olive might be very pretty, and indeed she was but Enoch was so unaccustomed to how obviously she wanted to be friendly with him that he didn't know how to respond. He didn't even completely understand why she was so insistent on trying to be friends. Normally one sour word or look from him was enough to put anyone who wasn't used to his attitude, completely off bothering. But not so much Olive.

Why did he even care? Enoch scowled into his pillow and pushed himself back up to sit. He didn't. he simply didn't care.

xxxXxxx

The rain was coming down hard as early as Enoch woke up, late, and he pulled his rain slicker on over his uniform and barely had time to down a piece of toast before running out the house, splashing through several puddles to catch the bus. He barely made it in time and was slightly out of breath as he did but he flicked off the hood of his slicker and wandered back to his usual spot.

For the first time in the month they had taken the same bus, Enoch noticed where Olive's stop was. He watched from the back corner seat as she got on, shaking water from her hair and adjusting her stockings when she sat down beside Emma a few rows away from him. Then she looked around and for just a moment he met her green eyes. She smiled at him and that was all it took for Enoch to snap back to his own self. He rolled his eyes as she looked like she was about to stand up, and turned his whole body slightly, making it clear to her, he hoped, that he did not want her to come and say hello.

As soon as he was sure she wasn't looking, Enoch glanced back in time to see Emma look over at him, her hair pulled back into a bun, and raise an eyebrow before leaning over to say something to her friend.

The bus pulled up at the spot outside the sixth form school at 8:30, fifteen minutes before school began at 8:45. Enoch was one of the last off the bus, only to narrowly avoid walking right into Olive and Emma who appeared to be waiting for him. Olive, curiously, was already sliding her bag from her shoulder.

"Why the rush, Enoch?" Emma asked as she fell into step beside him when he stepped around them. "A 'good morning' wouldn't kill you, would it?"

"Why take the risk?" Enoch muttered and rolled his eyes again.

"Enoch! Wait up a moment." Olive's soft voice chimed in and Enoch groaned loudly when she appeared too at his left, walking quickly to keep up with his long strides.

"Why am I bein' flanked? Go away, both of ye, I have things ta do." He scoffed dismissively and tried to brush them both off, flipping up the hood of his jacket against the rain and breaking into a jog towards the gates with a few of the other students trying to get out of the wet.

When Enoch ducked under the overhanging canopy at the entrance to the school he pulled down his hood and tousled his already soaked hair so it would dry faster. He glanced over his shoulder and let out a sigh of relief, the girls were further back now. Before they could catch up, who knew why they were both so keen on talking to him this morning, he hurried inside and down the hall quickly, sliding in and out of rows of incoming students.

Enoch's locker, merciful to his height, was on the top row. He twisted in his combination and tugged it open to shove his wet backpack inside. Pausing to pull out his phone and tuck it into his pocket, after silencing it to avoid any unnecessary chastising and confiscation, Enoch began to rummage through the books and binders he'd left in his locker the day before.
It had to be here. He couldn't have really lost it. Despite the clutter of his desk and his bedroom, there was a sort of strange order to it. Enoch didn't often not know exactly where one of his things was.

"Come on..." He muttered to himself, checking and double checking every item in his locker but it wasn't there. In frustration he slammed it closed and made the boy with the locker beside his jump and stare with slightly alarmed green eyes at him.

"What have you lost?"

"Never you mind, Nullings." Enoch snapped and started off down the corridor towards Miss Wren's History classroom. It had been the last class of the day...perhaps it was still there? That had been the last place he'd used it.

As he came to a sliding halt on the linoleum floor outside the door and stuck his head into the empty classroom Enoch groaned. His sketchbook was not sitting on the desk he'd sat at yesterday. And now he had no idea at all who could have it.

xxxXxxx

Enoch spent his first period of the day, Mathematics with Mr. Barron, drumming his fingers on his desk and trying in vain to keep his attention focused on calculus. He was the first out of the classroom, despite sitting further to the back, when the bell rang and beat most of the rush into the corridors for the next period.

He liked Biology. It was his favourite class, and one he was good at without having to try too hard. It was also one of the few classes that Enoch was perfectly willing to put the effort in when and if he needed. It was a theory class today and the class was busy drawing and labelling the anatomy of various rodents and frogs. But even Enoch, who usually enjoyed this sort of work as it meant it was leading up to a dissection, was more sour faced than usual.
He shared a bench with Olive in the classroom and could practically feel her presence to his right, though he desperately tried to ignore her.

"Enoch...Enoch!" She hissed, and nudged his elbow suddenly so he couldn't pretend she wasn't there.

He sighed and turned a stony expression on her, unsurprised when she suddenly looked away from his eyes. "What, Olive?"

"I just wanted to give you something is all." She whispered as a dull hum of conversation started around the room as students compared notes. Enoch was for a moment so surprised he forgot to be surly and his eyebrows shot up as she pulled from underneath her pastel pink binder, his sketch book.

"Wha-Where the 'ell did you get that?"

"You left it behind in History yesterday and I jus-"

"You took it then?" He interrupted her, a little too loudly and drawing the eyes of the rest of the class, including Mr. Clark, the rather large teacher who shot him a pointed look which Enoch ignored. "Well why didn't you give it back then?" He snapped, reaching over and pulling it across the bench towards his things.

"That's what I'm doing, Enoch." Olive huffed and he thought he saw a hint of annoyance in her eyes for a moment, "I was trying to talk to you this morning but you kept-"

Enoch lost interest in her reasons and was suddenly preoccupied by another thought that worried him almost as much as if it had been a psychiatrist, who might have had a field day, who found his drawings. But for a whole other reason he wasn't even sure of himself. Olive had looked, she had to have. Who wouldn't have when given the opportunity?

"You looked didn't you?" He accused, a little too angrily and then he was certain he saw offense flash across Olive's usually smiling face.

"I didn't! It's not mine to look at. Of course I wouldn't?" Now she was raising her voice and the dull conversation that had risen fell again so theirs were the only clear voices in the room.

"Oh please, why wouldn't you?" Enoch snapped, defensively tucking his book away and holding her green eyes with his blue ones with such a hard glare that even Olive didn't look away from.

"I didn't! I thought it would be pri-"

"It was."

"Would you let me finish one sentence? Why do you have to be so-"

But what he was apparently "so", Enoch wasn't about to find out. Mr. Clark's deep booming voice quickly silenced them both. He was clearly in a no nonsense mood.

"Enough! Do either of you know the meaning of quiet work? You could wake the dead! Miss. Elephanta, I'm surprised at you." He stared firmly at both Enoch and Olive in turn, the former of whom just scoffed and glared at the bench top.
"You can both serve detention after school. Childish bickering indeed...I'm surprised at both you."

Enoch turned his glare on Olive who was no longer looking at him but at the bench. Her big eyes were wet but her jaw was set firm and she looked determined not to let him get to her.

"See what you did now?" They both muttered in unison.