Pretty Much Popular

Chapter 2: Prison Days

The stupid thing about our school is that they don’t give you new locker combos at the beginning of each year. It is a catch 22. On one side of the coin you can’t write your combo down with fear that someone will find it and it is guaranteed someone will find it. On the other side of this coin, when it comes around to the new year and you haven’t plugged in your combo for 7 weeks it is impossible to remember.

 So there I was, on the first day of school, sitting on the bus swearing at my locker as I tried to remember the numbers I plugged in way to many times last year. Just as I put the combo in wrong for the 63rd time, Jack Ingram got on the bus. King stoner, very pimply and short, he was a quality friend to have. You could tell him anything and you know that he wouldn’t remember the next day because he was flying high.

 He sunk into the seat next to me, eyes staring straight ahead in that stoners trademark way.

 “School. Ew. Pain” Jack informed me, glancing at me.

 “Your eyes” I gasped. “They are blue. I never knew they were blue”.

 He looked at me with this weird look before remembering that drugs make your eyes just go red.

 “Over the holidays I was smoking this new drug I got for free as a trial and I had an epiphany,” he told me.

 “What drug dealer gave you free drugs?” I asked curiously.

 “That is not the point Allie. The point is I had an epiphany. I realised that I needed to be clean otherwise my life would crash and burn. Therefore I went cold turkey. I feel free” he smiled at me, his face lit up.

 “I feel free is not something clean people say” I informed him. “Oh” he replied. “Oh well”.

“Well that’s great Jack. While you were having an epiphany did you somehow remember my locker combo?” I asked, shaking my lock in his face.

 “No, I never knew your combo. Shame really, I would love to see the inside of your locker” he smirked. His dirty mind had obviously been able to push through the drug smoke and clutter within his mind.

I glared at him, pretending to be serious. “Pull your head out of the gutter boy” I retorted, thrusting my finger just under his chin before turning back to the task at hand.

 It was only a half hour trip to school so no one really bothered to get their social on. As I fiddled with my lock, Jack tapped away on his phone playing some new fandangle game that came out. The guy behind me had his music turned up full bore and I could hear everything Eminem was rapping. A few people gave him a disgusted glance, not for listening to Eminem but making us all listen to it.

 As always the first day of school was a hassle. New lockers had not been allocated yet so people were carrying school bags around, hurling them at friends. “Ah year sevens. Just what the doctor ordered” Josh grinned sweeping his arm around the group of brand new year sevens huddling in groups around the entrance of the school. “I am sure we weren’t that timid in year seven,” I complained to Josh as we made our way through to the locker bays. When we reached the small brick wall that seperated the locker bays with bade farewell and went our designated ways.