Actions Have Consequences

Chapter 11

I dropped my handbag on to the floor and sat down on the desk next to Lewis. "I'm interested."

Lewis whistled slowly. "Well, it's a stupid story to be honest."

I elbowed him. "Just tell me. I'll tell you my story after."

He laughed. "Trust me; I already know your story."

"How?" I asked, shocked.

He shook his head, smiling. "Taylor, the whole school knows your story. That's all everyone's been talking about for the last two weeks."

"Well, at least it saves me telling you!" I joked. "Now, get on with it and start confessing."

The room dulled slowly as a cloud passed over the faint sun.

"Two years ago," Lewis began suddenly. The tone of his voice felt almost as if he was telling me a horror story. "Well basically, I've been here a year and a half, but they won't expel me, no matter how hard I try. I just want out of here, it's like living in a caged in environment. You can't do anything," he complained, his tone changing from scary to casual.

"That sounds fun..." I frowned sarcastically.

Lewis chuckled and started over again. "Two years ago," he restated. "Back in Louisiana-"

"You're from Louisiana?" I gasped excitedly. "I love Louisiana."

"Yeah, it's great. Apart from the fact that the cops are assholes," he grumbled, grinding his teeth.

This was when I knew he was moving onto the serious part of his story.

"All I did was vandalize the school!" he moaned. "Me and few friends, we were out one day when we passed our high school. It wasn't late or whatever, it was just getting dark, and Liam suggested we went round the back."

"Oooh," I whispered, completely interested in something for the first time since I came to England.

"We all staggered round the back of the school, and then Ross started fooling around, climbing up the walls and such," Lewis sighed. "Next thing we knew, he was up on the roof and telling us to get up there with him. We were bored, so we did what he said and climbed up. That was when Kieran fell back and smashed one of the windows on the roof by mistake."

"Was he okay?" I asked, concerned.

"Yeah, he was fine. He found it quite amusing to be honest. We all did, apart from Timmy. Next, Liam suddenly jumped in through the window - it wasn't far from the floor of the class, only about fifteen feet or so to fall."

"What happened next?"

"We all went in, obviously," he admitted. "Well, four of us did. Timmy wimped out and left, and now that I think about it, I wish I didn't go in either."

I felt myself shift my body self-consciously a few centimetres closer to Lewis.

"So, the four of us - me, Kieran, Ross and Liam - we were inside the school at night with no-one else there. What we didn't know at the time, though, was that when the window smashed, we'd set off the silent alarm."

"Well I know now that you were already in deep shit!"

"Yeah I know," he laughed, frowning. "But we didn't stop there. We had no clue about the alarm, so we just kept on exploring."

I turned serious again.

"We started trashing the classes... I don't know what caused us to do it, we were just so bored. We threw the chairs and desks around; wrote all over the walls; ripped up all the paper we could find; threw the textbooks all over the floor... We did it to class after class. And then we moved onto the hallways... We started punching in the lockers and spraying the fire extinguishers all over the place. It looked an utter shambles and I did feel guilty, but I wouldn't have dared mention that to my mates."