Runaway Man

Chapter 3: Disagreements

Chapter 3: Disagreements

I've never been popular but for some reason, at Birch High a lot of the girls ended up sticking together. There would be the occasional bitch fight but it never got out of hand. I assumed it was because of the quantity of us as if fourteen, sixteen year old girls wouldn't be able to control a scrabble every few months between three, four tops individuals.

It was funny because our group had dominated a table that stretched across the canteen too. Obviously, we'd sometimes have to remind some of the cocky first years to not even put a foot print on our territory but when that was out of the way, everything was perfect!

As usual, our smaller broken down groups in the massive group would have discussions however, when something noteworthy came up, everyone knew about it. The topic of today was the mystery man so we found ourselves talking about it as a whole.

"We can't all go as a fourteen? People will find it scary," a member called Linda complained. I stared at her innocent grey eyes and her platinum blond hair that grew to her hip bones, "Why don't we split up and meet up later?" The girls exchanged glances with each other, all waiting for the same look of approval.

"I was thinking that too, you know," the ginger Katie of our squad claimed.

"Actually, I was," the brunette one snarled.  The pair stared at each other's eyes with spite before in sync, facing away with folded arms.

"It doesn't matter who was thinking what," I rolled my eyes; "We need to be in three groups minimum." Everyone nodded their heads. That would mean, if we tried to make it spread equally, the groups would go: Five:Five:Four.  I gulped. Already in my mind, I could the pinching and pulling hair as they argued who would go around with who. But luckily, Diana saved me from my sanity.

"If we go with what Florence says. We might as well go around with the people we are sat next to today.... that way there will be no arguments," Diana had a smirk on her face as she stood up, announcing her thoughts aloud. In all fairness, her idea was the easiest to go through with because even in our group, people had secretly proclaimed favourite 'girlfriends'.

I took over and sorted everyone into Trick or Treat groups. I ended up in a group with Diana and the two Katies. It wasn't exactly what I had been hoping for but I helped make the system so I was in no shape or form to complain.

"Can't I come scavenging around with you peeps?" Jessica flicked her hand forward carelessly from the other side of the table, "I'm the one who knows where this hot hooker lives." I blinked. I had forgotten about that detail and I exchanged glances between everyone. Some shot disapproving looks whereas others stared back enviously.

"You'll have to," I declared without thinking about it twice. And just as I thought, I heard cuss words be muttered under breaths and bottom lips be pouted forward, "I'm going to class now."

Maybe escaping like that wasn't too smart because of my latest decision but I wasn't in the mood to argue. Kindly, Linda offered to walk to class with me because we shared History together so I thought nothing of it and let her. I swung my brown and wearing away satchel over my plain red V neck and headed off to my locker with Linda too close for comfort. Literally, her arm was constantly brushing against mine.

Once we were far away from the canteen, Linda flicked her head around to make sure no one was following us. I watched her from the corner of my eye, already not liking the look of her gesture.

"You know that Katie G always bitches about your back? Well, I think that means that we should swap places for our outing on the 31st."

"What?" I raised my eyebrows as the verbal diarrhea squirted out of her mouth. She was talking rapidly but not too fast to not be able to understand.

"She told me that you shove tissue down your bra to make your breasts look bigger and that you can't afford to get a new school bag because you're poor," She rambled on and my face must have looked horrified because she was half grinning. Nevertheless, my blood was boiling and I shut my locker right in front of her desperate face and it brushed against her pointy nose. Heh. Heheh.

"Owww, my pretty nose," she cried and covered it with one hand, "You bitch!"

I walked off alone and I didn't even look back on it once. Linda probably was on her knees now, all weak and defenceless but I didn't want to taste bittersweet guilt. I didn’t know what she said was true or not but what she said still stabbed me in the chest. I wondered who in our group she was so desperate to be with. I doubt it was me.

I pushed passed all of the people who were blocking up the humanities corridor. Because of my mood, I was shoving extra hard and swearing at them. Some of tried to defend themselves like swear back at me but those just got the harder push into the wall. They were all shorter and younger than me so the deed was easy.

"Good afternoon, Miss Daniels," I heard my teacher, Mr King say as I stormed into the classroom, "You're the first to arrive." I glared at him but the warmness and gentleness about his presence calmed me down. He was the youngest of the teachers and tallest of the teachers at the school. His hair usually was in a slick, blond quiff and his face was always smooth. Well, I had never touched it but not one piece of hair or acne could be seen from it.

"Things happened," I mumbled in response. It probably didn't make any sense to him on what I was talking about so assumed that he wouldn't bother asking more about the matter. I dumped my belongings at my place and stared across at the open window.

The clouds were fluffy clumps of candy floss while the trees were those thin strips of chocolates you can buy. The sky was so many shades of blue and I tried to count all the candy in it.

"Oh, what happened," Mr King's interrupted my thoughts. I clenched one of my hands together whilst the other scratched down my ripped jeans. It took my entire mite to answer him and I knew that he’d keep asking until the truth spilled out.

"Linda was a bitch to me."

"What did she do?" Mr King had gotten up from his seat and had walked over to me. His hand had been placed on my shoulder but I didn't try biting his head off in return. Instead, I let him. I was happy that unlike most teachers, he at least tried to be supportive instead of shouting at every swear word that left my mouth.

"She said some nasty things to me that I don’t want to repeat," everything I said became harder and harder to let out. There was a massive lump at the bottom of my throat that I couldn’t get rid of and my voice sounded a bit croakier too, "Because I'm going around houses on Halloween with a different group to her."

Mr King was sitting beside me now. The smell of his strong deodorant invaded my nose and I couldn't bring myself to look at him in the eye because he had the type of eyes that I could look at all day really awkwardly. They gave such a heart-warming feeling that made all of what he had to say real. I knew he was staring into my blue orbs as I could sense it.

"Should I talk to her about it?"

I opened my mouth to answer when I noticed that a fair skinned teenager with black leggings and a crop top was hanging around the door. One of her hands poofed up her platinum hair and the other fiddled bright red nose. I didn't think that she'd been there long but it didn’t take a genius to realise that she was pissed.

Pissed off at me.