CHAPTER 3: DETENSIONS, TRAUMAS AND TERRORS
Weekend wars were over and it was a dreary Monday morning. Athena was woken by the calls from her mother, Hilary, and then the dawning terror that was the early Monday morning made Athena groan and flop lazily out of bed. Any school in the world could be better for her than Palmer Road, it was on the edge of town, it was run down and it was surrounded by stupendous amounts of spiked fences and barbed wire. To Athena it very much resembled a prison or a concentration camp.
Trundling down the stairs, she cursed as her mum had made a death trap with some books that she tripped over. Athena glumly picked up the scattered books and trudged to the sparkling clean kitchen for breakfast.
“Morning sweet” Hilary declared
“Morning” Athena said blankly, shoving cornflakes in her mouth
“Did you have a good sleep?” Hilary quizzed, trying to make mother-daughter conversation
“No” Athena casually retorted
“Whys that?” at this point Athena gave a deathly glare at her mum as if to say ‘seriously? I’m pretty sure you know’. “Oh right the dream” she brushed off. Athena just rolled her eyes, before scooping up the last of the cornflakes and dithering out of the room.
“Tom will be here soon” Hilary called
“Okay mum” Athena yelled impatiently back.
She was right, before Athena knew it, Tom had arrived.
“CAR” yelled Hilary. Athena and Tom exchanged apprehensive, but giggling glances, before trudging out the battered green front door, to the black Corsa on the driveway. Tom swung open the door and Athena begrudgingly clambered inside of it, Tom at her heals. Hilary spun out of the door with an abundance of bags, locking it trickily behind her. She too, then climbed into the car. It rattled as Hilary reversed down the driveway, and then they sped off to await their fate.
Together, Tom and Athena approached the gates, both hoping that the day would go as quickly as the weekend had gone. They had only three more weeks left at school before the Christmas holidays were thrust upon. They had a lot of assessed tasks and tests for English, Maths and science, plus a few other subjects whose teacher hated them. The first lesson of the day was French with Mr Slie, he wasn’t particularly nice to Athena, or anyone at all really, apart from the student whom he favoured the most. That particular student was Tom as he was clever at languages. However Athena herself was not so gifted and usually she would muddle up two cognates, as they called them, and was subsequently given extra homework for so called ‘help’. Although, Athena was lucky compared to timid Timmy, he was picked on by every teacher.
As usual, French went quickly and Athena was first to leave the classroom, shortly followed by Tom and Timmy. Next on the agenda was I.T with Miss Shodnog whose hopeless monotone voice normally sent the class to sleep. Her lessons always dragged on for what felt like hours and they were never in the least bit interesting. Not to mention her name, it’s a bit unfortunate to say the least. After their hard earned twenty five minute break, they had science with Mrs Lawrek. Lawrek was a timid frail young woman and she could never control the class and her limp scraggly hair always looked bushy from stress, even when it was in one of her slick pony tails. After that it was Athena’s least favourite lesson; maths with Mrs Goleson. She hated Athena and would always find an excuse to yell at her or give her detentions.
As the lesson began, she reminded them all of the homework that was due in today and the whole class groaned. However, being the spiteful cow she was, Mrs Goleson told Athena off for apparently groaning too loudly and louder than the rest. That boring lesson passed though and they headed out for their lunch break. Once it was over, Athena and Tom grudgingly made her way to English class, where Mr Fendulle stood impatiently stomping his foot, hurrying them in.
