Between Us, Part 1: A New Seating Plan

Between Us, Part 1: A New Seating Plan

The Story Begins

Nela walked into 8.B with the sleeves of her hoodie pulled over her hands and a notebook tucked against her side. The classroom was already warm, although grey morning light pressed against the windows from outside. Someone was laughing by the phone locker, someone was finishing their physics homework, and Kaja and Filip sat by the window, as they almost always did.

Kaja waved a red marker over an open notebook. “I’m telling you, this isn’t a graph. It’s a traffic accident.”

“It’s modern art,” Filip said without properly looking at her notebook. His hair was tousled, and drops from his morning journey to school still clung to his sports jacket. “Title: The Person Who Forgot Their Ruler.”

“Very funny,” Kaja snapped, but she smiled.

Nela sat down beside her and placed her notebook on the desk. She liked sitting by the window. It was never completely quiet in 8.B, but it made her feel part of a familiar picture. Kaja on the left, Filip one desk behind them, shoes tapping in the hallway, a window that only opened after a brief fight with the handle.

Adam sat farther away, in the third row. His black backpack rested against the leg of his desk, and he held his phone in his hand even though he was not looking at it. He was watching the class instead. Nela had noticed that more than once. The new boy did not seem lost, but his gaze often jumped from one person to another, as if he were secretly drawing a map.

Mišo stopped by the door and said loudly enough for half the class to hear, “Did you hear our homeroom teacher has something new for us today?”

“I hope it’s not new grades,” someone called from the back.

“Maybe he’ll finally replace those squeaky chairs,” Filip said. “Mine sounds as if it’s saying goodbye to life during every test.”

Kaja turned to Nela. “I bet he’s come up with something boring again.”

Nela shrugged, but her stomach still tightened for a moment. Their homeroom teacher rarely began the week by saying he had something new. And when he did, everyone usually acted as if they did not care until it affected them personally.

A moment later, the door opened. The teacher came in with folders under his arm, set them on the desk, and spent a moment looking for a pen. The murmur in the classroom did not vanish at once. It merely changed shape. Laughter faded, and voices dropped to whispers.

“Good morning,” the teacher said. “Today we’ll begin with a small organisational change.”

Filip leaned forward. “That sounds dangerous.”

A few people laughed. The teacher looked at him over his glasses, but neither smiled nor frowned.

“We have a new seating plan. We’ll try it at least until the end of the month. We need the class to work better, and we need you to mix things up a little.”

For a second, the room went quiet. Then someone at the back let out a loud breath. A chair by the window creaked as Kaja stopped leaning back.

“Excuse me?” she asked so quietly that only Nela heard.

The teacher took out a sheet of paper. “This won’t take long. When I read your names, move your things.”

The first names passed without much reaction. Two boys by the door grinned at each other because the teacher had put them on opposite sides of the classroom. One girl quietly said, “Great,” but her tone gave no clue whether she meant it.

When Things Start to Change

Then came: “Nela, second row by the door, with Lenka.”

Nela looked up. Lenka was fine. Quiet, precise, always prepared. But the second row by the door was not by the window. And it was not beside Kaja.

“Kaja, last row by the window, with Mia.”

Kaja did not move at all. She only drew a red line along the edge of her notebook, much longer than it needed to be.

“Filip, first row in the middle, next to Tomáš.”

This time, Filip smiled immediately. “So I’ll have a direct view of the board. Finally, a school upgrade.”

Tomáš turned around from the front row. “Just don’t talk through the whole lesson with your clever ideas.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll save them for important moments,” Filip replied.

The teacher continued, and Nela listened more carefully now. Each name seemed to move someone a little way across a map everyone knew, though nobody had drawn it.

“Adam, third row by the window, next to Sára.”

Nothing visible happened in the classroom. That was what felt strange. Only a few glances passed over the desks. Sára usually sat among people who knew everything first: who had fallen out with whom, which trend was popular, who had made the school team. They were not unkind. It was simply that there always seemed to be a little more space, more voices, and more attention around them.

Adam nodded as if the teacher had just given him a page number from a textbook. But when he began packing his things, the zip on his pencil case slipped from his fingers twice.

Moving desks and bags took barely a few minutes. Even so, the classroom suddenly felt different. Not larger or smaller. Just as if everyone were sitting somewhere with new edges.

Nela carried her notebook over to the door. As she passed Kaja, she wanted to say something ordinary, perhaps that they would see each other at break. But her friend was lifting her chair just then, and her face was too intent.

“Well, wonderful,” Kaja announced as she set her bag down beside the last desk. “Now I have a view from the window of my entire former life.”

Mia gave a brief laugh, then looked down at her notebook again. Kaja smiled too. A little more than necessary.

Filip had already settled in at the front. He turned around from his new desk and raised a hand as if he were hosting a television show. “Friends, don’t forget me. I was once one of you.”

“You’re still only two desks away,” Nela said.

“That’s how it starts. First two desks. Then nothing but memories and group photos.”

A few classmates laughed. Nela did too, though it did not feel entirely easy. Filip sounded cheerful, but after every sentence, he glanced around to check that everyone was laughing.

The lesson got under way. The teacher explained the plan for the week and wrote dates on the board. Nela took notes, but between the words about projects and a test, she wrote down other things too.

Kaja stopped turning around after the third warning. For the first time, Filip did not put his hand up, even though he knew the answer. Adam smiled at something Sára whispered to him by the window, but immediately straightened his shoulders, as if he had remembered someone was watching.

Some desks felt like a reward. Others felt like a punishment. There was nothing special about them: only scratches from compasses, half-peeled stickers, and chewing gum under the tabletop. Yet everyone knew exactly which places meant being closer to the centre and which meant being a little off to the side.

An Important Moment

When the bell rang, the class spilled into the hallway. Kaja was among the first out. Nela caught up with her at the drinks machine, where two seventh-graders were already crowding around.

“Hey,” she said carefully. “The new seat isn’t that terrible.”

Kaja pressed the button for sparkling water harder than necessary. “Sure. A total win. I’m sitting at the back with Mia, who said about three words all lesson. I can finally become a better version of myself. A quiet one.”

“Mia isn’t bad.”

“I didn’t say she was bad.” Kaja took the bottle from the machine. Then she added, “It’s just weird that they split us up. That’s all.”

Nela nodded. She could have said it felt strange to her too. Instead, she watched the bubbles rise in the bottle. She was afraid it would sound too serious, too hurt. And perhaps Kaja did not want to hear that someone else felt the same way.

Just then Filip passed with Tomáš. “Nela, if you want to send me a message, use a pigeon,” he called. “The signal is weaker in the first row.”

“That’s because you have to pay attention there,” Kaja said.

“Exactly. Inhuman conditions.” Filip laughed, but when Tomáš turned towards a locker, his smile vanished for a moment. “Anyway… it’s pretty stupid, isn’t it?”

Kaja looked at him. “So you mind not having your audience by the window anymore too?”

“I am my own audience,” he replied automatically.

That ended it for a moment. Kaja looked away, and Filip shifted his bag to his other shoulder. Nela felt that something small and unpleasant had been left hanging between them, like a torn scrap of paper nobody wanted to pick up.

After the next lesson, Adam lingered by the classroom door. Most of the others were already in the hallway, but he slowly put his textbook into his backpack. Sára was talking with her friends by the window and kept turning to look at him.

“So, is it a good seat?” someone in the classroom asked. There was no mockery in it, only an ordinary comment. Even so, Adam stiffened slightly.

“I suppose so,” he said. “At least I have a window. If it gets boring, I can watch the pigeons.”

“Sára won’t let you get bored,” someone said behind him.

Adam smiled. Too quickly. “That’s for sure.”

Nela stepped into the hallway just as the boy was fastening his backpack. For a moment, they stood alone by the door, while chairs scraped in the classroom next door.

“That corner by the window is supposed to be prestigious,” she said before she had time to consider whether it sounded silly.

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Really? Nobody told me at the official ceremony.”

“Nobody says it out loud.”

He looked at her for a moment. Then he asked more quietly, “Do you feel it too?”

Nela nodded. “A little. People act as if it’s only about where you sit. But then they know exactly where everyone ended up.”

Adam ran a hand along his backpack strap. “I don’t know whether I should be happy. If I look happy, that will be weird. If I don’t look happy, that’ll be weird too.”

“Then you can just look normal,” she suggested.

“That’s the hardest option.”

This time she laughed for real. Adam did too, but only briefly. Then the hallway filled with voices again, and their moment disappeared among everyone else.

What Comes Next

By the end of the day, the new arrangement no longer felt so loud. Everyone knew where to sit, where to put their bag, and whom they could borrow an eraser from without having to turn around over three desks. That was why Nela noticed what had changed.

Kaja no longer showed her every silly thing she found in her notebook from across the classroom. Filip stopped glancing towards the window as often as he had that morning. Adam sat more calmly beside Sára, but whenever someone turned in his direction, he straightened in his chair.

After the final bell, Nela waited by the lockers. Kaja arrived a little later with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Are you going to catch the bus?” Nela asked.

“I guess.” Kaja closed her locker. “Well, yes. Unless my new seat at the back has completely turned me into a mysterious loner.”

“That wouldn’t last long.”

Kaja smiled, less sharply this time. “No. Probably not.” Then she looked down the hallway for a moment. “Just… tomorrow, let’s sit together during the long break, okay? Even if it’s on the windowsill by the gym.”

“Of course,” Nela said at once.

Filip caught up with them by the stairs. “So, did you survive the school reform?”

“Barely,” Kaja replied.

“Me too. Tomáš has three identical pens in his pencil case, and none of them works.”

“That really is terrible,” Nela said.

“Thanks for the support.” Filip looked at Kaja. “By the way, the back row is survivable. I used to sit there. At least you know who’s laughing behind you.”

Kaja shrugged. “Great. At least I’ll know what’s going on.”

Adam was coming down the stairs behind them. As he passed, Filip waved at him. “That prestigious corner, huh? Don’t forget us ordinary people.”

This time Adam did not look tense. “I’ll send you a postcard from the window.”

“Bring a pigeon,” Nela added.

The boy smiled and continued down the stairs. It was not a big thing. Just a small joke that was not aimed at anyone.

That evening, Nela sat down at her desk. Her lamp shone on the open notebook, and a small planet sticker was peeling away from the corner of its cover. First, she wrote the date. Then she stared at the blank page for a long time.

Nothing terrible had really happened in class that day. Nobody had shouted, and nobody had argued. Still, she felt as if everyone had spent the day walking in slightly different shoes, trying to work out whether they pinched.

At last, she wrote: Sometimes you sit somewhere other than where you belong.