Congratulations, Laurence Beveridge

II

The next morning, in his second lesson, Laurence's mind was racing with worry as his English teacher collected everyone's homework. To prevent his mind from causing anymore worry, Laurence began to make observations; eighteen of the twenty-three in his class had done their homework. Two of which, including himself, had written on paper yet the other sixteen had been intelligent enough to take their class books home with them and wrote it in those, probably underling last lesson's work and titling their homework clearly with, well, presumably the word 'homework' and then ruling off their story ready for today's writing work.

He then went on to guess the five kids-without-homework's excuses; Amy wasn't in last lesson, so she'd be let off, with maybe an extended deadline so she does the homework as well and nobody whines about how it's unfair. Shawn would just tell the truth like always: he didn't do it, simple as that. He assumed Luke (Lucas, not Fairhead or Illingworth) would make up yet another excuse as to why he didn't have this week's homework and the teacher would just discard any idea of trying to get him to do it because he's figured out by now that it will never be placed on is desk, and detentions don't effect that fact at all. The twins, Anthony and Aaron, would've just forgotten about it because that's what they do, and they'd both get a detention where they'd do it in about fifteen to twenty minutes and nothing would be mentioned to or heard from them about homework again until next week.

Laurence was just about to move his thoughts to how Drew was doing in his extra maths tutoring this morning (skipping his religious studies class, the lucky bugger,) before he was startled back into reality by the booming voice of his English teacher.

"Okay, class, settle down, will you? I know you want to go to break but you have another hour left, so quiet!"

○○○

"Finally, break time!" Laurence heard Drew exclaim as he walked out of the class to see the smaller boy waiting for him with Shane and Luke Fairhead.

"Alright, guys?" Laurence spoke as the four boys made their way to the canteen, earning a nod in response from both Shane and Luke, and an almost aggressive sound from Drew.

"I will not be alright until I've had food." The smallest blonde said matter-of-factly and he rushed his friends up the stairs and into the cafeteria.

As the boys sat down, they began their usual break time conversations; if everyone did their homework, if whoever didn't could copy somebody else's, why Drew and Luke were so short, etc.

"I'm not that short!" Drew exclaimed, pointing at Luke as he continued, "I'm taller than him!"

"Hey!" came Luke's yell of protest, "I swear I'm taller than you!"

"Okay, okay," Shane hushed, "Stand back to back and we'll find out, yeah?"

Grumpy mumbles were heard from Luke's direction as he and Drew stood up and turned to face away from each other, backing into one another and standing straight.

"You're both the same size." Laurence chimed in with a loud laugh and long grin.

"Yeah, Luke might be a teeny tiny bit taller..." Shane trailed off. "But that might just be his hair." He added when he saw Drew's upset face; he hated it when his best friend was upset or grumpy, it meant no hugs for him.

The bell rang signalling time for lesson three and the boys collected their things, putting food wrappers in the bins as they walked out.

"See you guys later." Luke said, walking off in a different direction to the other three.

"Bye, Luke." Laurence smiled, Drew and Shane both waving behind him as they left to go to their next lessons.