They Treat You Like a Criminal (Jerrie Thirlwards)

Detention

“Miss Thirlwall!”

Jade, a straight A student, completely submerged in her studies and head girl in her school, was shocked to hear herself be reprimanded during her English Literature class. What she was being told off for was something that no one had expected from her. She had fallen asleep while the class was reviewing for their upcoming final exams.

She, at a dizzying speed, raised her head from her now drool coated desk for her eyes to be met with a glare from her instructor.

“Care to answer the question?” Jade’s mouth gaped open as she started unknowingly at her teacher.

“I’m sorry can you repeat the question?” She quickly regretted responding as she remembered that her instructor, Mr. Jaron, would, without hesitation, give a detention to anyone who asked to have a question repeated. She fidgeted in her chair as her teacher strutted quickly to her seat to slam his bear-like fists onto the wooden tabletop in front of her. Every student in the room jumped in their seats as the loud slam echoed, the vibration from the boom almost reaching the window on the far side of the room. The intense pounding on the desk had signaled since the beginning of the year that a student had received a detention, and Jade’s heart sunk as the vibration hit her eardrums. She had never had a detention in her life, and to receive her first one in her last year of college was dreadful. The thought of sitting in the school library for six hours on a Saturday was enough to drive her mad, and for the rest of the class she hung her head in shame, contemplating how awful the weekend would be for her.

 

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She pulled up to the front of her school’s library in the old, broken down car that looked centuries out of date, and glanced towards the staircase leading towards the double doors. Not expecting much more than a scowl from her mother Norma, she looked away as she unbuckled her seatbelt and yanked the door handle so the hinge squeaked and the car sounded like it was about to fall into a million pieces. She stood on thin, wobbly legs, gently shut the car door, and began trudging towards the building. Jade stopped to turn and utter a sheepish smile and wave directed at her disappointed-looking mother before she drove away. Sighing, she pivoted on the balls of her feet, walking the remaining distance to the library.

 

Jade became overcome with nerves as her hands grazed the cool door handle outside. Her stomach tied itself in knots and her brain was doing backflips as she thought about the people that we’re potentially in the detention room.

 

Are they going to do anything to me?

 

Am I going to be able to do any work?

What if someone has a weapon?

 

Should I have listened to me mam and brought her ridiculous pepper spray?

 

The truancy warning bell was about to sound as Jade stepped through the doorway of the room, and her worried gaze was met by a very unenthusiastic teacher sitting at her desk. She hurried towards the cluttered table and was told to ‘sign in, sit down, and shut up’ and followed suit fairly rapidly. Looking around the area, Jade expected to see a great deal of people, but to her surprise there was no one in the room.

She sat and stared at blank walls for what felt like a century (which was really only about 10 minutes) before and sign of life appeared. The door swung open, a loud clatter coming about as the small statues of old poets on the shelf behind it came crashing to the floor. A small blonde girl, about Jade’s height entered the room, and what an entrance she was making. She strutted towards the teachers desk to sign in, (obviously a recurring visitor) and the heavy metal chains around her neck were chiming as she took each step. The woman in charge of watching them didn’t even bother to look up from the book she was reading as she muttered in a monotone voice,

 

“Hello, Miss Edwards.”

“Hey Janice.” The blonde grumbled sarcastically before turning to face the only other person in the room. Jade’s heart raced as she looked away from her, hoping she wasn’t noticed, but she was able to peek long enough before her eyes met gorgeous blue ones, and she almost didn’t want to look away. “Hey girlie, got a pen? I need to sign in.” Jade quickly reached towards the side of her head to grab the blue writing utensil from behind her ear.

 

“Here. It’s not the best pen in the world, but it’s all I have at the moment” Shut up Jade, she doesn’t care. She tossed the pen to the girl from the other side of the room and was greeted with a smirk and a nod.

“Thanks babe.” The pale girl turned back to the desk, and quickly jotted her name on the page, making sure her name was obnoxiously large. She began walking towards the tan geordie, making sure her heavy black boots were making as much of a ruckus as possible. She threw her studded black bag to the floor under the desk in front of the smaller girl before throwing herself backwards in the seat, staring intensely at the brunette. Jade hadn’t looked up from her book, but she didn’t need to to know that there was a pair of cobalt blue eyes staring her down. They sat in complete silence for a few minutes longer before the teacher announced that she would be in the faculty room getting coffee.

 

“So what are you in here for? Get caught smoking weed in the teacher’s lounge?” Jade questioned the blonde sitting in front of her, sounding sarcastic and confident, but hyperventilating on the inside.

 

Why am I talking to her? She could stab me or something!

 

Lucky for Jade, the pale girl in front of her simply chuckled and raised an eyebrow.

 

“What are you in for? Hand in too many extra credit assignments at once?” This comment made Jade break her concentration from Gatsby and look at the troublemaker sitting just inches from her.

 

“Actually I fell asleep in class the morning after a huge rave. It was insane, you should’ve been there.” Jade leaned forward to rest her elbow on the desk as she cupped her chin with her palm. Of course she was only confident enough to do this because the blonde in front of her had leaned back, with an expression of astonishment written across her face. She clapped in a congratulatory fashion and Jade giggled. “What about you?”

 

“Oh that’s not important. What’s important is that we get out of here before oldie comes back from ‘getting coffee.’” She put her hands up to make air quotes. “I’ve snuck around enough to know that she’s really making out with the head janitor in his office, so we’ll have about four and a half hours before we have to be back here.”

 

Jade nodded and smiled before she realized what the blonde was talking about. She couldn’t just up and leave like that!

 

“Oh calm down! I’m in here every weekend and I almost never get caught. You can come with me and have a life for once, or you can stay here and keep reading.” The pale girl stood, grabbing her bag and extending her arm.

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Not sure if I should keep going with this, but let me know if you like it so far!