The Hopeful, The Hardheaded and the Homework

Chapter 4: Drawings and Detention: Olive

Olive had never, in all her years of schooling, had a detention before. She was a good student who got good grades and was well behaved in class. She bit her tongue and minded her manners and now, she had let Enoch get to her in such a way that made her argue right back.

Her eyes had filled with tears that she refused to let fall until she had run into the bathrooms between classes. He was rude and didn't care one jot about what she tried to tell him. To think she'd been naïve enough to think Enoch would thank her for returning his book. Instead, he hadn't even believed her when she insisted she hadn't peeked. She hadn't been lying. Though sorely tempted at home overnight, she hadn't opened his book. Enoch was clearly a private person and it would have felt wrong and spiteful of her to disrespect that and flick through what he clearly didn't want people to see.

This was all she got for trying to be a good person. Olive drew in a shaky breath as she made her way to the study hall at the end of the day where their detention was to take place with Mr. Clark. She smoothed out her skirt and tugged on the sleeves of her school jumper before sliding open the door and stepping in. She was right on time and Enoch had not arrived yet. She wasn't sure if she was glad for that or not. Mr Clark was sitting at the larger teacher's desk at the front of the room and nodded to a seat at the end of the front row for Olive to sit.

She smiled a tiny bit and set her books down. If nothing else it gave her time to get her homework finished, she supposed. She had just sat down and folded her hands nervously on the desk, wringing her fingers together and looking determinedly forward when the door opened again and Enoch slouched in. His lean face was twisted into a miserable scowl which Olive noticed only made his already pronounced cheekbones standout even more before she quickly looked away.

Enoch nodded to the teacher who gestured for him to take his seat, and made his way over to the opposite side of the room from Olive and sunk into the furthest chair, dropping his homework book in a pile on the table.

The red headed girl looked down and then quickly over to Mr. Clark as he cleared his throat.

"I don't want to hear any talking in the next hour, or sitting idly, this isn't time for you to sulk," He was clearly addressing Enoch in particular who looked like he was about to do just that, "This is time for you to work. You may begin."

The dull thump of books and textbooks opening was the only sound for a few moments in the room as both Enoch and Olive didn't so much as look at each other and began their homework. Olive opened up her Sociology textbook and tried to focus her mind on the paragraphs that seemed to blur into one mess of words. Her head was not in it today.

After ten minutes, Mr Clark sighed and pushed his large frame out of his chair from the desk at which he sat grading papers. His thick head of black hair waved to the back of his neck and Olive barely glanced up as he started to wander over to Enoch first. He paused over his shoulder and Olive snuck a glance over. She saw as Enoch's grip tightened on his pen and he visibly stiffened but did not appear to shift his gaze from his paper.

Apparently satisfied that the boy was doing the right thing, Mr. Clark began to make his way across the room. Hastily Olive looked back at her notes and shifted her text book slightly to the left for ease of view. She felt the teacher's presence right at her shoulder as he peered over to inspect her work. Evidently she was more convincing than Enoch, and to be honest, Olive wasn't surprised at this, as he disappeared from her shoulder a lot sooner.

Another ten tedious, dragging minutes in which every tick of the clock seemed to pass in slow motion, passed before the door opened and Mr. Barron stuck his head in the room to address Mr. Clark.

Olive glanced up in time to catch Mr Barron, the mathematics teacher, glance first at her and then at Enoch before addressing the other teacher in hushed tones she couldn't quite make out.