The Handcuff Effect

1

Sometimes, not always, but on the rare occasion it is a great thing to live near school. It means that on the off chance I forget something important, like my phone, I can walk three minutes-- or run sixty seconds, but who does that?-- and bam! Problem solved.

It also means that when I sleep in because someone forgot to turn on my alarm last night, rather than being half an hour late for school, I'm practically on time.

Such an incident happened this morning, so while I was frantically scrubbing my teeth and yanking a hairbrush through the matted tangle of crimson strands stuck to my head, my eye was glued to my clock. Quarter to nine.

I tied my hair up and rubbed moisturiser into my face. Ten to nine. It was alright if I missed home group, right?

I threw on my uniform, fumbling at the buttons up my front, before pulling on my socks and stuffing my feet into my shoes. I snatched my bag from the corner of my room and sprinted out the front door, my tummy grumbling angrily about the fact that I had forgotten to feed it.

No time to feel sorry for myself now, I thought as I zoomed into the school grounds, flying down the maze of paths and jumping over low rising shrubs, barely sparing a second to marvel at my sporting prowess. I pushed through the home room door three names before my own was called out.

'Charly Richards?'

'Yep.'

I slid into a seat, letting my bag fall silently to the ground, my chest heaving in silent gasps of air. Wisps of my scarlet hair fell in front of my eyes, but I was too relieved to even bother pushing them away.

Instead I opted to tilt my head back and breathe out a soft chuckle.

'Stacy Russel?'

'Here.'

I shot Stace a look, and she grinned at me. She was my best friend, and if I had still been running late, she would have stalled for me. Had it ever worked? Well, no, but there had been a few close shaves.

'Emma Van de Burg.'

'Yep!' I call, popping the 'p' before slumping into my chair.

Stace scoots over to me and I shuffle over obediently so she can share my seat. 'The Crow has an assignment for us today.' She whispered and I looked at her, my face falling.

The Crow had a reputation for being a cow and everyone knew it, whether they had her or not. She tried to 'engage' us with her teaching, but handing out thirty cent ice creams only works the first few times.

'Do you know what it is?' I asked her, but Stace shook her head. Sometimes it was pretty cool that her dad was a teacher here. She got a lot of insider information for our grade that none of the other years got to experience. It made her pretty popular a few years back, and she's just kind of held that position ever since. Me, as her best friend, also became popular, but not to the same degree. I was happy with that. I've never been particularly good with attention.

'Girls!' Mrs Sanders scolded us. 'You can talk in a moment. Nothing is so pressing, I'd think, to be talking over me whilst I speak.' She scowled, her eyes, thick with eyeliner and green eyeshadow watched us carefully. Her manner was so affected you wouldn't have thought she'd grown up around here. You also wouldn't be able to pick it from the things she wears. She's like a half-bohemian-half-eighteenth-century-duchess or something.

'Sorry, miss.' We both say in unison. There are some drawbacks to private schooling, not going to lie.

She waved her hand at us and continued on, reading out whatever messages needed to be told to us and so forth. I was itching to get to religion studies now. The Crow was a piece of work, not question about that, but if the teachers were talking about it, I got the distinct impression that it would be more than ice creams.