If Not Now, When? // Book 1

Chapter 1: Jan 29

Chapter 1: Jan 29

Oh god, not again.

I reluctantly got out of bed to turn off my alarm, found my uniform and tied my bright blue hair into a ponytail. My brother, Shannon, was still lying in bed, arms splayed out, dark blue hair everywhere. A glass next to him still had water in it, so I picked it up and dumped it on his face. "Get up, shit head. The bus arrives in half an hour and I'm not going to be late. I have shit to do."

"Bitch, the fuck you doing?"

"I said get up."

I was starting Year 9 at Murry Secondary College, my last year at the junior campus. And by god, my bag was heavy, which was completely my fault, but I was that type of person who took all their books on the first day, all because I couldn't be fucked making more than one trip to school. It had every single 5kg textbook that I'll probably never use, plus Exercise books, pencil case, lunchbox and what felt like a 10kg Laptop. I stopped in the office on my way into the school, to pick up care group folders for the teachers. As I stood up, my bag tipped sideways, sending me to the floor and the notes and forms flying - Fuck my life.

Thankfully Shannon, although he was still being an arse, helped me up, while the office staff reorganised the folders. My 'incredibly nice' brother got my laptop and lunchbox out of my bag, the larger, heavier items in there, carried it for me, but then left it 20 metres away from my locker. "You're such an asshole!" I yelled out.

I had put the folders down, above my locker, retrieving my laptop and lunch from the floor and sorted my shit out. I put all my textbooks in the top section of my locker, and my bag in the larger section, and left my books for class inside it. I handed the folders to their respective teachers, and went back to get my books.

Sudden thought came to mind.

Shit, exams are happening this year. I'm screwed.

Mr. Small read out the roll as I entered the classroom. I sat next to Kasey Coleman, a short stick of a girl with short blonde hair and glasses, and my best friend since year 7. "Whattup," I greeted, "how were your holidays?"

"Apart from going to New Zealand, it was boring. The only good thing was getting to see Charlie last week. What about yours, Child?"

"Stop calling me Child, child," I glared at her, "Anyway, they were boring. I spent half of it reading fanfics and mum took us out to see The Greatest Showman, obviously I've memorised every lyric of every song. That's... that's about all we did. Oh, and we were dragged to this weird movie at the drive-in's at some point. It was so weird."

"And you came over to my house for my birthday."

"Right, that too. Where we saw the depressing movie that is the Maze Runner."

"How many times did you cry over Newt?"

"Too many." Shannon butted in.

"As suspected," Kasey grinned.

"Shut up," I muttered. I opened my computer and checked my timetable and the daily messages. I had Math and Food Tech. Period 3 and 4, I had English and Japanese, and my last period was Science. The bell rang and I headed into Math. Mr. Small was also my Math teacher and he usually takes longer than my other teachers to reach class, so everyone ends up standing there for over 5 minutes, losing not-so-valuable class time. But that's just my opinion, Math has never been my strong suit. Mr. Small started us on our first modules. Modules were digital worksheets on this site called Mathways. We'd been using it the last two years and most students seem to hate it. Every two weeks there was a test, and in those two weeks you had to complete six modules. When I do them, I either finish all six in a week or have a very close call with finishing it a day before the tests are generated. There is no in-between.