" Will, wake up!" I heard and jumped up.
"I'm gonna be late!" I yelled and got up out of my desk.
"Mr. Quinn," my chemistry teacher said, in a condescending tone, "I don't understand why you are so tired if you had all summer to relax, considering your summer work was incomplete."
It had been a 3 weeks since school began and he was still complaining about it. In reality I did nothing of my summer work, but still. I had been busy, I was dragged around by my mom...everyday.
"Sorry." I replied.
"Don't be sorry, just pay attention! " he yelled.
I had never been able to understand why Mr. Robertson was this way, he had never said anything nice, well, to anyone, besides his cats. He had this sort of red glow trailing up his receding hairline and down to his always protruding neck vein. I could definitely tell he was not one to be messed with.
When the bell rang the class all started walking out of the classroom like a colony of ants following their boring, everyday routine.
I waited until they all left so I wouldn't get trampled, I picked up my things and began to walk out, but then Mr. Robertson got me in his sights.
"Mr. Quinn," he said, gesturing me to come to his desk "I don't poke at you to annoy you, I poke at you so you can understand that paying attention and being responsible are two very important life skills. The faster you understand that, the faster you can be an independent adult man."
"I understand Sir" I replied, " I'm sorry."
" I said, 'don't be sorry, just pay attention'." he responded.
I walked out as quickly as humanly possible. I had never heard him sound like that, like he actually cared. It creeped me out.
"Hi," my fried Phil said, snapping me out of what just seemed like a weird illusion.
"Hey" I replied.
Phil was one of my best friends. I know, Phil and Will, trust me, we had enough people tease us because of that.
"Do you want to have lunch in the cafeteria or the snack bar?" He asked.
"I'm not hungry" I replied. I was hungry, but the cafeteria food was beyond inedible.
"Okay, let's just go to The Bench." He said.
The Bench was the meeting spot for me and friends since freshman year. It was a random bench on the corner of the field we walked around everyday for P.E. and was unoccupied during lunch. Behind it was a small hill, then a wall, then an entire row of houses.
"So what's new?" asked Phil as we walked across the lumpy grass field.
"Nothing really," I responded "Mr. Robertson was acting strangely nice today."
"Hm, maybe he was high." he answered, completely serious.
"I guess."
Phil wasn't the kind of guy that was ever stumped, if he had no answer, he made one up.
As we approached the bench we saw our small group of friends already there. Melissa, Avi, and Sean.
"Super slide?" Melissa asked as we joined them under the tree where the bench was placed.
"Super slide." everyone agreed in unison.
Super slide was when we set the bench on the hill and rode it down like a slide. It wasn't super, as suggested by the title, but anything was better than walking around all of lunch break in the scorching sun.
"It's really quiet today!" Sean yelled as he slid down the bench.
"It was." Avi responded.
Avi and Sean were brothers that were the same age, but not twins. They loved confusing people by only saying that and leaving them to guess how it happened.
In reality they were both adopted by the same family. Sean and Avi were like bestfriends, until one would become irritated at the other, then they became archenemies.
"What did they have at the cafeteria?" Melissa asked.
"They had shit and gravy-covered shit with sprinkles." Phil replied
"We didn't check." I answered honestly.
"Phil probably wasn't far off."
Melissa replied.
Melissa was a rough girl, well she gave off that vibe. She used her roughness to repel any person that became too close to her, except for our group of course, we were tight.
We all sighed as we heard the bell toll on our fun. We said our goodbyes and headed off to class.
While I walked to class a small crowd formed and then the crowd multiplied and became a full on audience. Once I pushed through the group I noticed a new kid, that I hadn't seen before and a more familiar face, Logan Pierce, the world renowned superstar (or so he believed). They seemed to be fighting, and not sloppy 'lets square up' fighting, they were full on fighting like professionals.
The mystery boy took a quick right hook, and knocked Logan on his ass. As he walked away, the crowd seperated like the red Sea and let him out.
I was over the fights that would take place almost every week, it all went the same, one person would yell at another and then both would start swinging until security broke them up, it was so stupid, but everyone else just seemed to eat it up.
~
"Did you hear about the fight?" Phill asked while holding the door open for me and accidentally volunteered to be the doorman.
"Yeah," I responded, "it was more intense than most"
"I heard that Johnnie did a crane kick and knocked out Logan", he said excitedly, "do you think it actually happened ?"
"Yup." I replied
" Wait, who's Johnnie?" I asked.
"He's the new kid" he answered, "I heard from Denise that Frank told Meghan that he was in jail for 2 years before he moved here. That's probably where he learned to fight so well."
"Probably." I responded, although I knew it probably wasn't true.
Phil had an interesting ability that we, in my group of friends, called Nosykinosis, the ability to listen to a conversation for seconds and pretend to understand exactly what they were speaking about. As a side effect, he spread rumors like Ebola in a small African village.
"Welp, bye" said Phil
"Bye." I returned and we went our separate ways.
The final school bell was always very relieving, not to mention, incredibly loud. It felt great, but only signaled my expected arrival home 25 minutes later.
" Mother I'm home!" I yelled.
" Come to the living room! " she returned.
I made my way down the small hall that was covered in pictures, and walked into the living room. I let out an audible *sigh* when I noticed who was sitting, rather intruding, in my home.
"This is Jack," my mother, said breaking a long silence that I didn't even notice," he's from-"
"Church!" he interjected, he was so small, that he could be an extra for The Hobbit.
"Oh," I said, out of shock, " what are you doing in my house?"
"Will," my mother whisper-yelled " be polite."
"Just came to say 'Hi'." He responded.
" Well, Hi" I replied and went up to my room and locked the door behind me.
Dear Diary,
Kill Me Now
-Will
Thanks for reading!
