Finding Family

Chapter 10

 We'd been at school for over a month now. My tutoring with Mr. Daniels was going slow, but I was finally making some progress. I won two more tournaments. Ben had gushed about how much fun the first one was, so now Peyton, Rory, Sabrina, and Mouth come too. For the first time in a while, I had a whole group of people supporting me. I had a family.

Things were going great, except for our love lives. Nate and Peyton are happy, but Mouth has started to stare at Peyton with googly eyes. He starts stupid fights with Nate, and I can tell it's getting on Nate's nerves. Rory has started gushing about Mouth in our room. As far as she's concerned he walks on water. She's started avoiding being around Peyton and Mouth at the same time, which is tricky because we eat every meal together. Sabrina and Ben rarely stop fighting. The other night I walked in on him crying. I just wanted to give him a hug, and feel him pressed up against me, but he left before I could say anything. We were sitting at dinner and I could tell that things were about to blow up.

Peyton was sitting in Nate's lap, giggling with her head lying on his shoulder. Mouth's eyes were doing there best to punch my brother in the face from across the table. Rory was watching Mouth's face as if she might cry. Sabrina was stirring her salad slowly with a fork, staring at the lettuce as if it was a dying child. Ben sat on the opposite side of the table glaring right at her. He hadn't even bothered to get any food. I hadn't seen him blink in minutes, or smile in days. I allowed my eyes to dart back and forth between my friends with concern written in red on my forehead. We were like a ticking time bomb.

We finished our food and started to clear our places. Sabrina lifted her completely full tray and started to walk away.

"Sabrina we NEED to talk." Ben said running up behind her. She spun around with fury burning in her eyes just as he caught up to her, and her tray smashed right into him, leaving him covered in lettuce and dressing. "Are you kidding me!" He shouted.

Across the table Mouth had worked up the guts to approach Nate. "Look Nate, I think the rest of us would appreciate if you and your girlfriend didn't have sex on our lunch table."

"Excuse me!" Nate exclaimed, shocked by mouth's outburst.

"You're going to pay for that." Ben said scooping up some spaghetti from my plate with his bare hand. He raised his arm to launch the food at Sabrina.

"I'm just saying..." Mouth said wishing he could take back his accusation.

"No! No you're not saying anything. If you don't like sitting with us, sit somewhere else." Nate said turning his back and marching off.

Ben released the noodles from his hand. Sabrina crouched just in time for it to fly over her head and splatter on my brother's back. Nate turned back to Mouth eyes filled with rage.

"Nate stop it wasn't..." Peyton cried trying to hold Nate back. Nate scooped up a bowl full of soup from a nearby table and brought it down on Mouths head. This isn't like a movie food fight where the whole room starts throwing food until every inch of the room is covered in guck, and you can't tell where it started. Only my friends participated, while the entire academy watched them. Ben, Nate, Sabrina and Mouth continued to snatch various items of food off of random tables, while Rory, Peyton and I tried in vain to stop them.

Mouth grabbed a large glass of blue powerade and launched it at who he thought was Nate but ended up being Mr. Daniels.

"My office." Said Mr. Daniels with his teeth clenched as he wiped the liquid from his eyes. "NOW!"