The Seaside Café

Chapter 1- Aren't You Going to Apologize?

Chapter 1- Aren't You Going to Apologize?

Emma's Point of View

The way you move is like a full-on rainstorm

And I'm a house of cards

You're the kind of reckless that should send me

“Emma Jacobs!”

I let out a short gasp as I look up from my iPod. “Wha?” I mumble softly before I notice that my English teacher, Ms. Thompson, is glooming over my desk with an angry frown on her face.

“No listening to music in my class,” She scowls, gesturing to the ear bud that she had just pulled out of my ear and rudely interrupted Taylor Swift’s voice of magic. “You know the rules, Miss Jacobs.”

I send her a sheepish and what I hope looks like an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” I squeak, realizing that everybody in the classroom is looking at me now, and I sit in the back of the room, so it’s kind of really embarrassing. It’s not like people haven’t gotten caught with their headphones in before, I don’t know what the big deal is. I also don’t know how she caught me, since today we are reading independently from The Great Gatsby, and I already read it so I don’t see the reason for reading it again for Ms. Thompson’s benefit.

She gives me one last dirty look before moving back to the front of the class room where her desk is while I pause my music from my phone and stuff my ear buds back into my pocket as my best friend, Claire, sends me a teasing ‘you got in trouble’ smirk that I stick my tongue out at. She’s gotten in trouble way more than me this year, so I don’t know why she’s being all smirky.

Soon, the bell rings and I’m free from Ms. Thompson’s wrath. I don’t like that woman.

“I can’t believe you got in trouble.” Claire snickers as we walk side by side down the hallway towards lunch. Finally, food. We have lunch sixth period, the last period of lunch of the day, and it’s agonizing to a food enthusiast like myself. Not only do we have to wait until 1 p.m. to get lunch, but we get the left-overs from the other three periods of lunch. It’s cold most of the time and it’s just no fun to have cold pizza after starving for most of the day.

“I know!” I wail. “I’m a good kid; she’s just a cranky old lady.”

“Ms. Thompson isn’t old.” Claire points out. “She’s young and she’s actually really pretty.”

“It’s to hide her bitchiness.” I tell her matter of factly. It probably is true, too. Ms. Thompson was one of the youngest teachers in the building, yet she was also one of the meanest, which makes no sense. Everybody knows that young teachers are supposed to be the nice ones. She’s breaking a very strict cycle of tradition and that’s just not cool.

“Yep, that’s it.” Claire agrees sarcastically. “It couldn’t be that you were actually caught doing something wrong or anything crazy like that.”

“I already read the book!” I claim. “I don’t need to read it again, I know how it ends and everything. She’s just a stupid person.”

“What’s up with the frown, baby face?” Mason’s voice breaks into the conversation on our way across the school to the cafeteria. Mason’s another one of my close friends, even though he insists on calling me baby face which makes no sense to me. I think he does it just to get on my nerves, and most of the time, it works.

“She got yelled at by Ms. Thompson.” Claire sings teasingly as she scoots over to the left to allow Mason to squeeze in between us as we walk through the throngs of busily rushing students on their way to their sixth period classes.