BOYTOY

~ Chapter 8 ~

The first week of school went by quickly. And just as I predicted, I was already counting down to the next holidays. Friday morning was bright and hot. By first period, I was sitting at the back of the English room with a sweaty forehead and listening to the buzz of the fan as it went around-and-around in the centre of the ceiling. Someone had drawn a swirl in the middle of it and I watched that instead of the teacher at the front of the room, who was talking about Antony and Cleopatra. Never having been a big Shakespeare lover, the conversation was tedious and boring. I had no friends in this class; Andrea and Matt and the others were in lower classes, the lucky sods.

Lunch came and I hurried out to the back of the art rooms, meeting up with Andy on the way. She linked our arms. "Weekend's tomorrow," she stated.

I gave her a weird look. "And why wouldn't I know that?"

"I just thought I'd remind you," she said, grinning, before skipping ahead of me. I rolled my eyes, following at a more sedate pace. Most of the group was already there; sitting on the old discarded silver benches, with the dents and the graffiti and strange brown stains, their lunches out and their laughter already loud and obnoxious. A smile curled my lips unexpectedly. I hadn't realised how much I missed this. Sitting out between classes at school, just the Group, with all our stupid traditions and jokes. As I approached, Zach hollered a hearty hello.

"Howdy my Afro friend," I greeted, raising a hand, and taking in the few extra centimeters that had grown on Zach's frizzy, blonde hair.

"How goes it, Wynny, my pooh friend?" Zach winked as he said it, grinning and showing me a gap between two of his teeth.

"What happened there?" I asked curiously, pointing to his mouth.

Zach put a hand immediately to his lips and poked a finger into the hole. "Fell off my skateboard last night. Did a total face-plant into my driveway." He shuddered as he said, "Mum went ballistic."

"I can imagine," I muttered, remembering the first and only time I'd met his mother; the woman had forced me to eat a full bowl of seafood salad. And I detested seafood. Just thinking about the occasion had me almost retching. Settling down between Zach and Andrea, I swept my eyes over the others. Kimberly and Sarah, both blonde-haired, but Kim's chopped off into a short, stylish bob, gave me twin salutes.

"How was McKenzie?" asked Sarah immediately. Mr. McKenzie was my Mathematics teacher; an old fart of a man, who was more focused on singling people out then teaching anything useful.

"Tried to get me up again," I answered sadly. "It was a question about some-sort of financial formula—I wasn't really listening when he explained it—and just looking at the problem made me want to vomit."

"Did you go up?"

"Hell no," I said, snorting. It was a well-known fact that McKenzie forced his least-favourite students out of their seats to do abnormally hard math problems on the black board, in front of the whole class. In my first few classes, he had picked on me religiously, but now I had a tougher shell and had grown a back-bone. So I refused every time he asked me. Of course, that meant I got more trouble than it was worth, but it gave me the half-hearted respect of the other students in class.

Which was pretty awesome.

"You're my hero, Bronny!" cooed Sarah, batting her long eyelashes and staring at me lovingly.

"I know," I said pompously. "I'm my own hero."

Matt appeared at that moment, stepping robotically up to Andrea and standing a foot from her. She looked up at him and I watched curiously. "What do you want?" Andrea asked after a long moment.