The Literary Misadventures of Juniper Rosewood

18- Milk In First

Etta sat with us again at lunch. She seemed much happier than she was yesterday. She had apparently called J.B and talked things over with him, and he had promised to stick up for her if it ever happened again. She still sat with us though, to keep away from Stella and the other cheerleaders who sat with the football team. None of my friends minded. Etta was all too happy to keep the conversation going with a series of interesting stories, and since my friends and I had already heard all of each other's stories, it made a refreshing change.

Everybody was very enthusiastic when I told them I was playing at the festival, which was hardly surprising. They promised to come and see me play before we all headed to the fairground that evening since the festival lasted all day Saturday and I was playing the lunchtime slot on the stage by the food court, which was to be in the town square. That of course, meant that I was likely to have the biggest audience out of everybody who was playing. That didn't scare me though. Well, it did, but I was telling myself that it didn't so that eventually, I would believe it.

I ate my soggy pizza in silence while listening to Etta's story. She told us about when her little brother had fallen out of a tree, and apparently, it was very funny, because Ingrid had been laughing non-stop for about a minute, and she was starting to get some funny looks.

"Ingrid, calm down!" Rashid said, but he was laughing too. And so was Emma. And Preston. And eventually, all of us were laughing, even if we didn't know why. Circe was almost howling, while Etta's low chuckle vibrated the table. The entire canteen was looking at us strangely now, but we didn't care. We were lost in our mirth, and suddenly the black cloud following behind me beamed bright sunshine, and everything seemed okay again, if only for a moment. I forgot about my mum, and the festival, and Stella, and whatever other bad things were happening in the world. Having that weight lifted off my shoulders felt so freeing, as though I was flying.

Eventually, our laughter died down, our chests heaving and our stomachs hurting.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I wasn't listening, what are we laughing about?" And all of a sudden we were laughing again.

༓࿇༓

The bell rang, and Preston and I headed upstairs to maths. The work was especially hard today, and Preston ended up doing half of it for me, which was only mildly embarrassing, but I still walked downstairs to the English corridor with my head held high.

Stella was walking down the corridor in the other direction. I ignored her as the door to my English classroom entered my line of sight, but apparently, she didn't have the grace to ignore me, because she shoved her shoulder into mine as she was walking past. Her friends laughed cruelly and I rolled my eyes.

"So rude," I said, just loudly enough for her to hear. I wanted her to know that I wasn't going to fold that easily. Thankfully, she ignored me and carried on down the corridor, and I managed to get to English without further incident.

Mrs Harris arranged us to sit with our partners since this was the first lesson that we would officially be working on our projects. I had Dalton's copy of The Subtle Knife in my bag for reference.

"Okay," Said Mrs Harris, "Today's lesson is pretty simple. You've already had plenty of opportunities to get to know your partners, and some of you may have already exchanged books, so I just want you to make a mind-map about them, and if you have read their book, you can incorporate some analysis. Those of you who haven't exchanged books yet need to do so this lesson so that you can start writing your reports on Tuesday." She began handing blank sheets of paper out to the class so that we could start our mind-maps.

"We have a whole lesson to make a mind map?" I asked Dalton incredulously.

"I'm not complaining," He said, getting up and fetching a basket of felt-tipped markers from the other side of the room.