The Phantom of Scranton Hill

13

It was six in the morning when Justine woke up from her not-so-beautiful beauty sleep--if you call bed-hogging and drooling beautiful--to the irritating blaring of her alarm clock. Muttering an incoherent curse under her breath, she threw her heavy blankets onto the light gray carpet and trudged toward the calendar pinned against the wall. Digging through one of her many plastic drawers, Justine managed to find a black ballpoint pen and crossed out yet another day out of the year.

"Goodbye, June eighth and hello June ninth," she yawned, stretching with her arms in the air. She started toward her bathroom, sleep deprived, but a new and never before seen level of energy burst inside of her. She almost tripped from stopping so quickly as she realized what day it was. Today was the day every teenager dreams of from the beginning of rotten teachers and bountiful homework assignments. It was the last day of school, the last day of junior year.

Running around her perfectly organized bedroom, Justine pulled on a pair of dark gray jeans and a light pink flowy tank top. She raced to her closet, slipping on some black heeled boots and slid into the bathroom, nearly falling over from how slippery the tiling was. While brushing her hair, Justine sang into a toothbrush like a microphone and bowed to the nonexistent audience known as the mirror.

"Ow," she mumbled when she hit her head on the ceramic bowl of the countertop. Feeling the newly formed bump growing on her head, Justine commended herself for her exemplary stupidity. "Great way to start a day, right?" She examined her reflection in the mirror before her and spoke to it. "Why do you have to be so clumsy, huh?"

After applying a thin layer of makeup and styling absolutely nothing atop her head, Justine shouldered her navy blue Jansport backpack and walked out the front door, yelling a goodbye to no one in particular. Her grandmother had left for her summer house on the West Coast weeks ago, so Justine was now alone for the next six months. Fun.

~*~

"So, Justine," Max nudged her arm as he reached over his own desk. He wriggled his eyebrows in a wave causing Rose to start laughing beside him. "What's going on with Mr. Perfect over there?" he asked, his eyes quickly darting back and forth between Justine and Chase Samuels who was currently staring at Justine persistently. His piercing blue eyes were as compelling as ever.

Justine looked over to her admirer and gave him a small smile, which he gladly returned with a wave. She gave Max a shrug and simply said, "I don't know." Max clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Mr. Sands," Mrs. Wells, their history teacher, called from her disorderly desk at the front of the classroom. Her clear spectacles sat on the tip of her pointed nose just below her crystal blue, nearly transparent eyes that eerily added to her bleached white stringy hair. Her appearance didn't help the fact that kids thought she was some sort of vampire or witch. She'd just magically appear behind you the exact moment that you do something wrong, and the shocked and frightened expressions on their faces just made it that much more funny. "You are excused for the rest of the class," she stated without lifting her eyes from the computer screen as she held an orange slip in her hand.

"Thank you, Mrs. Wells," Max nodded before grabbing his bag and exiting the class, not forgetting to send a wink and a mischievous smirk in the girls' way as he opened the door. "Bye, ladies. Duty calls."

"Why do you have to do that, Max? What's the point?" Rose complained just as he was about to ditch them for practice.

"You weren't complaining last night," he smirked in response and left them for good, speechless.

Justine's mouth hung open, her eyes like flying saucers. "Spill."

Rose shook her head in disappointment and let it fall to the desk in embarrassment. Lifting it back up, a happy grin took the place of her routinely disinterested face. "I hope you crush them," she muttered, her brown almond eyes fixed on the classroom door.