A thousand nights

XXVI

The last hours of a busy week always culminated in the reeking excitement of teenagers as they looked forward to the prospect of a hardcore weekend of revision.

Yes, revising the local pubs, and paying a visit to some clubs downtown.

I - in the meantime - was munching a pack of chips as I concentrated on the equations that I was trying to solve in my last free period of the day.

I was aware of the fact that food wasn't allowed in the study area, just as the rest of my fellow classmates were, but another thing which was common knowledge was that no one cared; the teachers, the principal, us. The adults that came up with this rule actually joined us in our desperate search for edible food.

I crossed out the answer and the working out for the equation, noticing the very different answers on the book.

A body collapsed on the chair next to mine and sighed.

'I swear, that teacher hates our class' Hamlin complained. She hastily took a few chips out of my pack and chunked them in her mouth.

'What is the matter?' I asked. She chewed the food in her mouth so aggressively that I could hear her molars crashing against each other.

'I can't stand Mrs. Philips' she swallowed 'just because we didn't write enough words for the last essay we had she wants us to write in again, I wrote three thousand words! She said that she wants three thousand and fifty, and she doesn't want us to rewrite it all' she emphasized the last sentence.

'Our history teacher did the same once, I'll tell you what I did: add fifty words to your old essay and change some words in the first essay with synonyms' I suggested passing my pack of chips to her. I took my coke from my bag.

'Now, that could actually work' she looked straight ahead as if she could picture her essay and what she could have changed.

'You're welcome' I smiled.

'Thanks' She shook her head and punched my arm lightly. 'Anyway guess what my dad has gotten into?'

'Uhm... I don't know, DNA profiling?' I said. I could imagine Luke reading a load of thrillers and crime books and ending up in deep research on DNA profiling.

'Nope, he had that phase a couple of years ago' she snickered 'he got into philosophy, he's even ready to learn ancient Greek to read those philosophers' books in the original language'

'Well that is not so unexpected, your dad has a philosophical way of approaching things, hasn't he?' I said remembering his existential crisis ''talks''.

'Yeah... exactly because of this philosophical phase of his, he is going downtown to a conference, he's taking Ali with him, so...' I didn't like where that ''so'' was going.

'So there's this party at Jeremy's house tonight t-''

'We are not going' I cut her off getting back to my workload on the table.

'Park come one, we'll stay there just for a couple of hours, I think Mallory is coming as well-'

'I wouldn't care if André-Marie Ampère were going to this party, we are not going' I couldn't understand her, she was the one who felt outraged when her brother got drunk at a party, I thought she didn't like parties.

'You can't tell me where I can go and where I can't ' her eyes came to slits and her eyebrows snapped together.

'Hamlin, it's a stupid party, like all they do is get drunk, hook up and dump each other' I rolled my eyes.

'How do you know that?' she crossed her arms.

'That's what they say' I swollwed.

'Well, don't believe what peole tell you without knowing it for yourself' she got up.