The Rooftoppers: SHINE IN THE DARK

Art

"What do we have now?" Leo asks me. We are now walking to our next class which- sadly- was Art.

Since I am a straight-A student, I am one of the top students in most of my classes, but of course, there has to be that one subject that brings my grade down a bit, and that's Art, I absolutely suck at Art. I can't paint or draw or sculpt or anything really, plus, all my art teachers were really strict and they always seem to criticise my art pieces. Leo on the other hand, is actually pretty decent at it-he gets his training from doing graffiti I guess.

"Hello-o? Earth to Sadie Brooks?" Leo snapped his fingers in front of my face and I flinched.

"Huh? Oh yeah, sorry, I was thinking. We have Art now," I said dully.

"YES! Art! A good subject," He jumped and pumped his fist in the air. He had an eager look in his glimmering crystals.

"Ppbbttt," I blew a raspberry at his remark.

"What's your problem?" He looked at me confused.

"Nothin, just that I suck at it," I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.

"Eh- you're bad but you're not the worst though," he muttered softly.

"I heard that!"

"It's true, you're bad but you're not the worst."

The audacity of this dude.

I nudged him hard in his abdomen and sprinted like a lightning bolt to the end of the hallway to room 214- our Art room. I turned around and chuckled when he fell on his knees. I went inside.

The teacher was by her desk eating a sandwich. What did you do at lunch then? I took a look at her as I walked past and could see she was wearing painted red polka dotted jeans with a brown belt and a once white collared blouse with different colours of paint splattered on it. Cool. The teacher saw us and started smiling. She had a nice smile I guess but nothing out of the ordinary.

I was still filled with adrenaline as I took a seat in the middle row. I took a deep breath and slowed my pulse as I slumped my school bag next to my desk. I took a look at the room around me. The overall colours of the walls were beige and brown but there were many- like fifty- artworks covering the walls like a warm blanket. They were all beautiful. The whole room was like a kaleidoscope; dazzling multicoloured patterns and shapes.

Leo rushed into the room and gave me a glare when the teacher told him he was late and he needed to get his sketchbook and pencils ready. I gulped. This won't be good. Leo rarely gets in trouble with teachers. I braced myself for a series of tantrums but she just let him off the hook! Maybe this teacher is different.

Leo stomped over to me and plopped himself next to me. He crossed his arms in a huff. I felt guilty for getting him into trouble so I was about to apologise when the teacher clapped her hands twice so everyone could shut up. I'll do it later.

"Hello class, my name is Miss Lewis. Welcome to your first art lesson of the year. I'm sure every single one of you will create some extraordinary artworks over the year and I look forward to seeing them," she paused to look at everyone with her bulging eyes. Why do I feel like she is staring right into our soul? Creepy.

"Now," she snapped abruptly, "we are going to sketch today and it'll be fun, everyone-please pick a partner," she eyed us with a sudden burst of impulse. Her green feather earrings were moving sideways as she spoke. I glance over to Leo as if to plead him to be my partner. I waited for a moment but with no response, I turned back to face the teacher. I felt him look back but I pretended not to notice.

Suddenly, everyone got up from their desks and the room was filled with squealing and shuffling and squeaking of the desks as people were moving to choose their partners. I felt a tug on my hair. I turned my head so fast my neck stiffened. No. You are fucking kidding me. It's Jake Mc dumbass-Carthy.

"Hey, you looking for a partner?" He asked. I could see his purple bruise from earlier by his jaw. Ha, he still wants to flirt after what me and Leo did to him? Stupid douchebag. He gave me one of his shiny grins showing off his pearly whites. I wanted to pull every single one of them in slow motion just so he could suffer in pain. I was that close to punching his bruised jaw when I felt a hand on my shoulder. 

"Hey, um, sorry, Sadie and I already agreed to be partners, you gotta find someone else, I'm afraid." It was Leo.

"Uh-mph- fine," Jake clenched his fist but one of his friends called him so with a glare of pure hatred at Leo, he jogged off.  Ha, and that's why Leo's my best friend.

I whispered 'thanks, but I could've handled it myself' to him and he smiled: "No problemo, and yes I know."

We went back to our seats as the teacher told us the assignment; we had to sketch out a forest from the printed out piece of paper she will give us with our partners but one can't know what the forest looks like and the other is using their non-dominant hand. Hmm. That's different from what we usually do in Art. This actually sounded fun. Leo- of course- was as excited as he was in Gym. His eyes were widened with liveliness and he was becoming impatient as Miss Lewis went on and on with the rules and stuff. Honestly, I was only half listening. I was thinking of Jennifer Warren and the murderer. I mean, no one's even talking about it anymore. It's like they just pushed it away like it was old news. How's no one thinking about it? Well, maybe they are thinking about it but they aren't showing it. 

Once Miss Lewis stopped talking, me and Leo went straight into work. I grabbed a piece of black cloth from the teachers' desk and wrapped it over my eyes and tied it on the back of my head. Miss Lewis passed out the pictures and Leo frantically looked for a 2B pencil in his messy bag. He found one but it was kind of blunt.

"Oh well," he shrugged and held it in his right hand and began sketching. He had to do half and I had to do half.

I waited for what seemed like half an hour when Leo tapped me on my shoulder to say 'it's your go now.'

I grabbed my 2B pencil and started sketching with Leo directing me on where and what to sketch. It was a horrible experience. I literally didn't know what to do so Leo had to rub someone out every ten seconds. He was growing restless so fortunately, Miss said time was up and the people who had a blindfold on can take it off. I winced as I removed the cotton cloth and my eyes were being exposed to the blast of unfamiliar lights. I winced even harder once I saw the ugly sketch that I had drawn. I could tell the difference between Leo's half and my half. I mean, it was quite obvious- Leo's lines were better proportioned and his lines were not as squiggly and out of the place like mine. I sighed. 

"Oh well," sighed Leo. He rotated his head so he could secretly peer at Jake and Ryan's one. "Actually, I think ours isn't so bad," he smirked at me.

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After Art, we had Maths -which was uneventful as predicted and then the school bell rang and I waited in the parking lot for Alex. I waved bye to Leo as he slid down the school steps on his skateboard. And that was the first day.

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(1341 words)

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-Nikki