Road Trip [#Wattys2015]

Chapter 2

Jackson was waiting for me outside the building and pulled me by my hood when I tried to walk through the doors.

"Dude!" I yelled adjusting my hood the way it was before he nearly tore it. "Why'd you do that?"

"Don't go in there, just don't" he said looking at school with a horrified expression as if he were looking at it for the first time.

"Why not? I mean besides the obvious fact that it's hell, why not?"

"Because" he said and turned to look at me for the first time today, with the same terrified expression he was looking at the school building just a second ago "they are giving us tests."

"So? We're writing like the easiest subjects today." I protested, not getting what all the drama was about.

"No dude, they are giving us all the tests." He breathed out the last words.

"All the tests as in..."

"The ones that we missed last week." He completed the sentence for me. "All of them!"

Last week was noted down in East Highs history as the week were we wrote the hardest tests on the hardest subjects ever. Never had any of us seen so many tests on serious subjects in one week, how could we possibly manage that? Other students, you know the ones that actually studied were ready, but me and Jackson would fail every single one of the without a doubt. So we decided, primarily for educational reasons, to skip the periods in which we were supposed to write the tests and instead, drink bears in the school's basement. It seemed like a good idea because it would give us extra time to study and we would take them all next week and actually have a shot at getting good scores. But in one day? We were going to write them all today? Before I realized it my face had taken the same horrified expression as Jacksons.

"Oh, shit! What are we gonna do?"

"Skip?" He said casually, but for the first time skipping didn't look like such a good idea.

"Dude, no way! We are gonna have to take them sometime!"

"We will!" He answered softly, the anxiety and fear had now vanished from his face, but they were more than obvious on mine. "After the holidays." He continued.

"What?"

"Next week's Easter, you dumb ass! Did you forget?" I didn't scold him for calling me a dumb ass because I definitely deserved it this time. I had completely forgotten about Easter.

"Dude, you're a genius!" I patted him in the back. "Now let's get the hell outta here before anyone sees us.

We jumped into his car and he drove away in the perfect amount of fast. Fast enough to disappear from school grounds without being noticed and slow enough not to make us look suspicious to anyone around us. Jackson and I had agreed that this was the best speed and we seemed to be moving in that a lot lately in order to avoid classes, parents and every situation that we didn't like. In fact I had gotten used to it so much that I seemed to be subconsciously walking in it lately.

We walked into his house carefully just to make sure that none of his parents were there.

"Nobody's here." I reassured him. "Both cars are gone, I checked."

"Shhh, I hear a noise." He whispered.

"It's probably Maia." I said, being entirely sure that it was Maia.

"No way, she doesn't skip school." He said jokingly, but sure enough, the bathroom door opened wide and Maia came out. She was wearing a classic Maia-outfit black tights, a white T-shirt and a grey cardigan and her long brown hair were tied up in one of those enormous ponytails, the whole outfit looked like it had been prepared for days but knowing Maia, it would have probably taken her less than five seconds to pick out. Her glasses were resting on her nose making her blue eyes look gigantic. She and Jackson could easily be twins, they both had brown hair and green eyes but they were two years apart.