Pandora's Vengeance

Chapter 1

"I'll take two please!" I shout into the intercom of the McDonald's drive through. Gotta love that McD's.

I pull up to the first window to pay. I wasn't surprised to see my best friend, Iris Cloverfield, work the cash register like it was her phone. She presses pink buttons, then blue ones and finally the long yellow one that looks like a space bar on a keyboard to pull out the drawer with the money. Since she knows that I pay with my debit card, the moment she laid her eyes on me, she immediately closed the drawer and pulled out the debit card machine.

"Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in! Finished our exams, are we? Cal, this is your third time passing by here and ordering, yet again, two medium French fries. Are you shoving those things down your throat, or what?" said Iris. We both knew she was joking but her sense of humour is questionable.

"You know I adore these French fries! Plus it's a post-exams-recovery snack. Gotta get the energy to endure two hour exams from somewhere! But I also wanted to see how my best friend's new job is going," I answered.

While Iris and I aren't in the same classes, we are still very close and see each other at lunch and at any other time we can find. We both go to Varix High, it's just really hard to see each other between classes and all that.

Varix High is just terrible. Iris and I are very popular there and my boyfriend is captain of the basketball team, but I hate it there. Students are always underprepared for exams and teachers couldn't give two craps if you are working or not. All they care about is when they can slip out of class, only to come back with a chocolate chip muffin, or a donut if they're lucky, resting on a paper plate in one hand and a coffee in the other. So in other words, the teachers are slacking off more than the students. It is considered one of the best high schools in the province but the school is slowly declining academically.

I am one of those students that don't need that much time to study and still get a good grade but Iris is the opposite. She still gets incredible grades, she just needs double the time I need to get them. And considering how badly she wants to become a heart surgeon later on in life, she needs these grades and needs to excel in everything no matter the importance or the effect it'll have.

I, on the other hand, am completely clueless as to what I want to become when I get older. I have gone through phases where I've wanted to become things like an optometrist or a pediatrician and other times where I've wanted to become things like a lawyer or an accountant. It's getting harder and harder to find my calling and it scares me to make a decision that will last for so long. If I make the wrong decision, I will hate what I do for the rest of my life. I always live with the fear of doing something I don't love because of a stupid decision I made at this age. We are way too young to be making decisions like this.

It's at around 5:00 p.m and I know that Iris is on a break. I dump all the fries in the brown paper bag and toss the two French fry holders in the trash. I park my car right in front of the door and walk in to grab a table for two.

Iris is standing right in front of me not even two seconds later. Her McDonald's uniform fits her perfectly, accentuating her assets. She calls it "looking hot on the job", but I call it "wanting to hook up with the manager". Iris has had a thing for the manager who also goes to our school.

"Did you see Jonas today?" Iris asks. I bet she's been eyeing him all day instead of really concentrating on her work.

"No, I've only been coming through the drive through, remember? Plus, I don't really feel like having those two hour conversations that he enjoys having with me so much. He never stops talking and he's mostly the one having it. It's like he's talking to himself but with someone in front of him."