Taming Life

Unexpected Day

We had one more English lesson before Thursday, and I found myself getting nervous for it. It was Wednesday afternoon, and it was a double period. I would be in that room all afternoon, and the thoughts of it had me nervous all day. The entire day just seemed to go slowly until it was lunch time. I sat in the library for most of lunch, reading a book I'd found and liked. I had so much homework but I didn't want to do it just yet, I felt like if I even attempted it that I wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. I concentrated on the book for a while, but soon I found myself reading the same page over and over again, without having a clue what it actually said. I was distracted, I'd have to spend the next two hours sat next to Alex. I was worried, what was I supposed to do? Was she going to ignore me, was she going to mention tomorrow? Or would she actually talk to me? Okay so that was the least likely thing to happen, but still, it could happen. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted her to talk to me, either.

When the bell rang, I mentally groaned. I walked slowly over to my form room, and didn't hear a word that my form tutor said; I was in a different world entirely.

"Hazel. Hazel Mason?!!" the teacher said irritably. He was taking the register and he must have said my name quite a few times now, the entire class was looking at me. I felt my face going red and looked at the floor, wanting to hide.

"Yes, sir." I said meekly, and looked up to see him rolling his eyes before continuing the register. The bell rang and signalled the end of form, and I could not have been more scared. I felt like my legs were jelly as I stood up, almost as if they were going to collapse underneath me at any second. I was incredibly shaky, and I hoped that no one would be talking to me any time soon because I felt like I would just be croaky if I was made to talk at all. I made it up all of the stairs to English, and everyone was waiting outside already, having their own conversations. I noticed Josh and Alex kissing; Josh was in a different English set to us.

"I'll see you later, babe." He said, before walking into his own English class. I rolled my eyes; they were only going to be away from each other for what, 2 hours? These people were ridiculous.

Mrs Newman let us into the classroom, and everyone walked in slowly, still having their own conversations as they walked in and sat down. I sat down next to Alex, who smelt like a flower shop. How much perfume was she wearing?! I was incredibly glad that I didn't have asthma anymore, this would have given me a full on asthma attack otherwise. I sighed and got out my books and pencil case, I had a feeling this was going to be a long two hours.

"Good afternoon girls, did you all read the pages that I asked you to read?" Mrs Newman asked. I nodded, and there were a few murmurs from the class. It seemed that whilst a few people had read the pages, a lot of them hadn't. I saw that Alex hadn't even got her book out, so I doubted that she'd read even a word of it. She probably hadn't even read the title. But, when I took a glance up at her, she was nodding. She had actually read it. I raised my eyebrows, I was surprised at this. We were reading Of Mice and Men at the moment, and I quite liked it. Mrs Newman was sighing.

"Girls this just isn't good enough. I'll let you off this time as we're at the start of term and everything, but if this keeps happening you will only ending up struggling in my class, and you will end up with detentions, which is just a waste of both my time and yours. Don't let this happen again. Now, I want you to all open your books, we'll just start to read it in class." Mrs Newman said. Everyone was moving and getting their books out, it seemed that everyone had theirs.

"Hey, Hazel?" Alex whispered as I opened my book. I looked at her, with one eyebrow raised.

"I was reading the book at home and I forgot to put it in my back. Can I share with you?" Alex asked. I nodded and put the book in between us. I figured that it was easier than refusing to share with her. Mrs Newman read a page, and then she would ask other people to read a paragraph or two. I zoned out quite a bit because I'd already read it so I knew what was happening. Alex was asked to read at one point, and I expected her to sigh and complain, but she didn't. She read in a voice that sounded like she cared. It seemed like everything was a surprise today, maybe I was dreaming. Mrs Newman called on me to read near the end of class as well, and I blushed the entire time. I read in quite a quiet voice, I didn't like having attention drawn to me. I was happy when she told me that I could stop and she picked on someone else to do it.