Don't Bet On It

Chapter 9 - The Red Mist Descends

Here's chapter 9, hope you like it.
Sorry for any mistakes.

The song for this chapter is 'Popular Mechanics For Lovers' by Beulah.

The photo on the side is Olly.

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While Mr Ayre was lecturing about the lead upto World War One I was staring out the window not paying any attention. The history classroom had a view across Delores Park and I found myself watching dog-walkers and mums with strollers.

It was a beautiful Monday morning, a paradox within itself; how could something so dreadful as a Monday morning be so beautiful.

Somebody tapped my shoulder, I looked to the blackboard at the front, but Mr Ayre was still there. Discreetly turning to my right, I looked over my shoulder.

Recognising Pete, Noah's friend who hosted the party on Friday night, he passed me a folded piece of paper. My eyebrows raised in confusion, he shrugged his shoulders to his right where Noah was smiling at me.

Opening the note, I noticed how incredibly neat his handwriting was, much more elegant than my tiny scrawl.

'How did you get the nickname Stitch?'

Turning back to him he nodded and mimed writing with his pen.

'I'm a clumsy person, like with stubbing my toe yesterday. I always have to get stitches, the name just stuck with me. How about you, any nicknames?'

I refolded the paper and pushed it to Pete who passed it to Noah. Mr Ayre was still at the board, he'd drawn diagrams of triangles with countries' names; I copied them down reminding myself to study them later. It wasn't long before I was tapped again and the note returned to me.

'I think everybody might start calling me Lilo if I keep hanging round with you.'

I coughed to hide my laugh and found people giving me strange looks, I avoided eye contact and stared down at the paper again.

'Sketch, that's what the guys in the band call me. I do a lot of drawing, that's what I want to do when I get out of this place, Art.'

I didn't expect that answer, we hadn't really talked about what we wanted to do after leaving school. For me it had always been writing, he'd mentioned taking art at school but hadn't said anymore on the subject. I began to write back.

'Are you any good? The drawing and the music.'

His reply took a little longer to come back, Mr Ayre had decided to wander around the class. He liked to make sure everybody was paying attention, which meant you had to be on your guard for him looking over your shoulder. When he turned to the front, once more the paper appeared.

'I don't know. I'd have to let you judge, we're trying to organise a gig, you'll have to come and watch us. I play the drums, Sam's on guitar, Olly on bass and Pete plays guitar, keyboard and sings.
All the pictures on the walls at my mum's store are mine.'

Just as I was writing a reply the bell signalled the end of class, everybody rushed out of the room. Meandering round the desk, Noah fell into step beside me as we reached the hall.

"What's your band called?" We pushed through the freshmen scurrying to their lessons, most of them travelled in small packs for protection against the big kids; which meant they usually blocked the halls.

"The Telenovelas, like the Spanish soap operas. We played a couple of gigs in the summer, just locally nothing big. It was shit scary! I don't think I could do it if I didn't hide behind the drumkit."