The Life of Riley

1. The Sad Excuse That Is My Life

Chapter 1 :: The Sad Excuse That Is My Life

"The Life of Riley" is an Irish/American originated term meaning an easy and pleasant life. 

     Yeah. My life isn't like that.

My life is like this: my parents hate me, my boyfriend dumped me, my friends think I'm a joke - no scratch that - my entire school thinks I'm a joke, I'm a self-embarrassing accident-prone, and I just got expelled. And oh yes, I just burnt down my school science lab. It was my last exam, my AS Chemistry practical, and I was supposed to be making aftershave with glycerine when I soon became aware of a nasty whiff of egg-like farts floating out from my test tube. 'Did you just let one out?' Ross Tolkin mouthed to me, looking revolted. Naturally, I looked scandalised and the boys nearby started sniggering so I grabbed a flask of improperly labelled potassium permanganate, which - in my defence - reminded me of one of my perfumes because of its fuchsia purple form so surely it was bound to add a pretty smell right?

      WRONG.

Seconds after I poured the potassium permanganate to the recently added glycerine, I became aware of another smell. But it wasn't the fruity smell that I expected, no. It was smoke. Before I could even digest what was happening - BOOM! My test tube exploded. Glass went flying everywhere (if I wasn't wearing goggles, I'd probably be blind now) and I screamed, startled to say the least, and my elbow knocked over the flasks of potassium permanganate and glycerine and before I could scream, 'fire!', the flames that the two substances had breeded got in there before me. I was knocked over backwards, the fire preyed upon everything in its vicinity and everyone started screaming and shouting for their lives, kicking my flabbergasted and petrified body as they ran out of the classroom.

     'Wait, let me update my status!' says Ross, pausing at the door and snapping a picture of me.

What happened next was all a blur. All I remember was sitting in the nurses office, surrounded by the headteacher, my Chemistry teacher, a police officer, a fireman and, of course, my dear mummy who was sobbing endlessly in dad's arms.

     'You're expelled,' is all I can remember being told right now because, as much as everyone else doubts, I'M STILL IN SHOCK.

     The whole incident was an accident, despite the false accusations my so-called classmates and teacher threw against me, because they think I was "trying to prove a point". Really. I mean, really? How stupid is that? Who in their right mind would want to blow up a school to try and prove a point? They have to be really, really - 

      'You silly, stupid girl! How can you be so stupid! Your father and I -'

Mum's words rang like a never-ending phone, ringing ringing, and then dad joined it, shouting, raging, all this disappointment, until my only option to stop the noise was to answer it.

     'I'm sorry, mum, dad. I thought I knew what I was doing ...'

Clearly I was wrong and mum seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

     'Thought you knew what you were doing,' she repeated, her hoarse voice reaching breaking point with disbelief. 'You were experimenting with acids you daft girl; you could have died! You could have killed your entire class! And then you go and hold poor Bradley's asthma pump hostage? What on earth -?'

     Before you all start gasping and "huh?" -ing, let me explain myself. THIS is what happened: Bradley, my boyfriend who I loved with all my heart, believed, like everyone else, that I had purposely tried to burn the school down because "I knew" I had flopped my exam so thought that burning the school would be leave the examiners with no choice but to give me my predicted grade which was a B. What a load of tosh. So he came to my house the next day when my parents were out and said some horrible things to me, before revealing I was trying to steal his glory because "I knew" he knew how to conduct the experiment correctly like the back of his hand, and felt jealous that he was going to outshine me therefore resorted to arson. Obviously I was really hurt so I threw him out and burst into tears. Five minutes later, there's a knock on the door again and it's a panting Bradley asking for his bag back which he had forgotten to take with him. I was so angry with him that I refused so he called me an attention-seeker and so I started chucking out the contents one by one from my bedroom window, and he was running around picking them up, cursing me every time he picked up an item.