The Alphabet Theory

Chapter 5

I was woken up to blankets being tangled between my legs and my head banging on the table in front of me. That's right. I bloody fell asleep in the Ocean Hall common room where Vincent and I had been plotting how to break into an office full of important evidence. I had slept in my clothes by the looks of it so I dragged myself to the dorm room. It felt like such a trek I swear to god.

'You are just being a melodramatic drama queen. Get over yourself, Valerie. It's really not that bloody hard, you lazy ass.' I hate Sundays with a fiery passion. They are so disappointing. Sundays were the day that our school got to go into the town on the bus. It was the students from year eight to year thirteen that were allowed to go. I looked out of the window and it looked relatively warm so I decided that I didn't need to wear a jacket and chose a tartan cardigan thingie. I don't know what they are called so that is their new name until proven otherwise. I went through a phase of hoarding them so I have a concerning amount. It's fine though. That's future me's problem. No classes, getting proper evidence and I can buy apple juice and a new book equals a perfect day. This is the week that school starts for real though. Fabulous. I set a reminder in my phone to remember to get apple juice, a new book and some silver rings. I am a silver person. I like silver jewellery. But not the clean-looking silver, more like the rustic-looking silver. It makes me look scarier. If I look scary, then people won't try to approach me and I won't have to talk to them so anything I can do to get people to leave me alone, I will do. Conversations scare me. It genuinely, scares me.

Breakfast was alright. I liked the toast but the milk was looking a little funky so I passed on it when someone offered me some. As much as I adore milk I did not want to drink funky-looking milk. The doors swung open as loud as possible and in came Alice and her flying monkeys. She strutted in as if she was the main character so I got the urge to "accidentally" stretch out my legs when she just so happened to walk past and she fell flat on her face. I think the counsellor man who to me, Mr Cleary - or something like that - must have seen me do it because he walked over to me and said,

'Valerie, do you have anything to say to me?'

'Oh no. Is the floor okay?' I muttered pretending like I cared. Mr Cleary frowned and shook his head in a disappointed way. People do it to me all the time so I can tell when adults are disappointed at me.

'No Valerie, you need to apologise for tripping her up. Now.'

'In your dreams. I won't do it and you can't make me.' I scowled and he probably gave up because he walked back to where he was originally sitting, next to Mr Fagan and Mr. Stein who was blatantly staring at Mr Goldsmith but somehow Mr Goldsmith didn't notice him. It was a wonder how stupid teachers could be. I could easily beat a teacher in a test. I am cleverer than all of them combined I bet. Vincent was looking at me when I turned back to my food and raised both of his eyebrows in amusement. I think he knew it was me. Everyone probably knew it was me who tripped Alice up. I don't regret doing it and she deserved it so why the feck should I apologise?

We had to get a particular bus to go into town and since I wanted a good bit of time to do everything, I checked out the early bus which was at ten thirty. It was nine-thirty so I had an hour to get my stuff, find Vincent and make a plan. Trust me to procrastinate till the very last minute. We just needed to figure out how to distract them or even just how to sneak into the file office. We couldn't light a fire, that was arson. We can't flirt because that would be inappropriate. I needed to find Vincent but since I didn't have his phone number and I didn't have Snapchat I needed to search for him. I also didn't know which one his dorm room was. Fantastic. Just Fantastic. I decided that I would go back down to the common room and wait for him there. Vincent was in fact there and was in a tank top and jean cargo pants so his outfit made me feel more relaxed that I wasn't the only one not wearing a jacket. He looked nice. He was wearing the cross necklace that he had on our first day that I was accidentally staring at. I noticed a couple of days ago that he was a silver jewellery person like me. He wasn't wearing his glasses. Odd.