The Hopeful, The Hardheaded and the Homework

Chapter Nineteen: Back Off. Now : Enoch

"Mr O'Connor...Mr O'Connor! Enoch O'Connor, I'm not going to ask you again."

Someone elbowed him and Enoch looked up into the scowling face of Mr Barron at the front of the classroom. "What, sir?" He asked dryly though he knew perfectly well what he was being asked for.

"Homework. I'll be impressed if you can turn in at least one assigned lot of homework this term, Enoch. What's the excuse this time? Let me guess, dog ate it? Wind blew it away?"

A few people snickered as the booming mathematics teacher never bothered to mince his words when it came to Enoch's inadequacy. That only made Enoch despise him more. He couldn't be the only student in the class to be doing so poorly, calling him out wasn't going to discourage Enoch's attitude.

"Frankly, sir, I just don't care ta do it." Enoch snapped back, holding Mr Barron's sarcastic expression with a cool glare of his own and again a handful of students erupted in snickers around him. No one particularly liked Mr Barron, and there was nothing funnier than somebody talking right back to him. It would be less funny when Enoch's parents heard about it again after all the fuss his father was making about making Enoch do his work.

"I promise you'll care a whole lot more when you get an F for the term, Enoch. Why you're even in this class is beyond me."

"With no due respect, I don't want to be."

By the time the bell rang, Enoch was in a foul mood which could only get worse. It felt like everyone stared ten times more than ever, that the whispers about him he never paid any mind to were suddenly magnified and he could have sworn he caught some of the lipsticked, catty girls with their skirts up too high cackle something about red heads when he passed.

When he sat down at the table in the cafeteria beside Olive, unintentionally close enough to brush arms every time one of them moved, everyone's eyes stared at him and he scowled back.
"What?"

"Okay, he totally didn't see either."

"See what?" His eyes shot to Olive beside him and her green eyes widened as she shook her head.

"I don't know, they were waiting to see if you knew."

Hugh pulled his phone out of his pocket and exchanged a glance with Fiona beside him.
"Okay because you get all pissy with me, it wasn't me and I wouldn't do it." With that he pushed the phone across the table to Enoch who picked it up and barely stopped himself from throwing Hugh's phone to the floor as he cursed.
There on the screen was a blurry, clearly zoomed in, but no less distinctive picture of the large decorative reindeer over the weekend, and in front of it himself and Olive in a very clear lip lock.
Enoch felt his face grow hot.

"What the 'ell is that?!"

Olive, who had leaned over to look, squeaked and turned a violent shade of pink while Enoch downright fumed, pushing Hugh's phone back to him while the other boy cringed slightly.

"Yeah that got spread around from someone then someone on the football team sent it to me, I swear I dunno who started it. I didn't even know you two actually went-ouch!"

"Really, Hugh?" Fiona shook her head, and had clearly stepped on his toes or kicked him under the table.

So Enoch hadn't been imagining it. People were muttering more, and he had heard Olive's name pop up in conjunction with his a few times but he didn't even remember seeing anyone from the school around by the time they'd gotten out of the movies. Unless.
He turned a furious glare past Olive, who was hiding her face in her hands in sheer embarrassment, and to Emma who shot it right back at him.