Take Me In (Jack Johnson)

03.

I arrived at work just in time.

The building that I worked in was a large, beige building that is extremely boring looking. Surrounding the building were large fences with barbed wire at the top. It was a gloomy day in the area today, which made the usually intimidating building look so much worse.

I walked up to the fence where there was a gate and used my key card to open it and close it behind me.

There were steps that I had to go through to get to the place I was supposed to be, my office. I had to go into the actual building, go through multiple metal detectors, pick up some papers and the schedule for the day. You know, the normal stuff.

Sitting at the desk in the mail room was a girl who was put into the detention center. She wasn't a bad kid at all, just got mixed in with the wrong crowd. I think the people in charge here realized that, and that's why she had a 'job' of sorts here in the mail room. All she had to do was deliver the mail to whoever's name was on the envelope and also hand out schedules to the workers who stopped in.

"Hey, Ruthie, anything for me?" I asked, walking into the room.

The walls were just cubby holes, and each cubby hole had assigned sections of the alphabet, just like a dictionary.

Ruthie looked up from the desk, her uncut red hair falling into her face, her brown eyes lit up when she saw it was me.

"I doubt there's anything but this schedule." She stated, moving her hand to a stack of white papers on the desk and holding it up to me.

I walked forward and took the piece of paper from her hand, laughing lightly as I examined it, because it was true. I stopped laughing as soon as I saw what was on the paper, instantly locking eyes with the other girl in the room.

"Why didn't you tell me I had a group counseling session with the Idlers in two minutes?" I questioned, turning around to get out of the door so I could get to my office in time for this counseling session. Before I left I heard her yell that she didn't know. That makes two of us.

Our schedules are set a week or more in advance. We only get these paper schedules to help us stay on track and to remind us of what we have going on during the day. Last week, when I was meeting with my boss, Mr. Shaum, to discuss the schedule, meeting with the Idlers was not on there.

The Idlers were a group of slacker kids, who named themselves. They got their names because they didn't go to the classes that were provided to them by the state. They thought that even though they were already in juvy, which somehow made the outside world teenagers think they were cool, they needed to be deemed cool by the other teenagers in the facility.

I rushed down the cement hallways, passing rooms that classes were being held in to get to my room. They were already standing outside of it.

There were five of them, three boys that I'm guessing influenced the girls. The guys were those that teenage girls found to die for.

"Sorry, guys, had a late start this morning." Of course this was the only thing that they'd actually show up to on time. I swear they had some sort of sixth sense to tell when someone was going to mess up so they could make them feel bad about it.

"You're wasting our time, making us stand out in front of your door waiting for you while you do God knows what," Daniel, the leader, sneered as I unlocked and opened the door for the five of them to go in.

I gave him a dirty look, walking in behind all of them, "you better lose the attitude."

"It's hard to lose it if you keep finding it."