Young, Poor and Crazy

Chapter 15

It's finally here!

'I mean, if she knew anything about actually playing music, I might even pay attention.' Roger ranted. Him, Brian and John were huddled at the end of a table during lunch break. Mark, George and Andrew had ignored him all day. Classes had been awful. But lunch break was thus far the most fun he'd ever had at school. Yes, he was hanging out with the dorkiest of dorks. Yes, Mark was occasionally glaring at him from the 'popular table', but somehow, none of this fazed Roger right now. Besides, Brian and John didn't seem fazed. Neither seemed other less popular kids sitting in smaller groups. Roger was shocked to realize that the other two made him feel safe. That's not logical at all. He thought.

'That's exactly what I told her this morning!' Brian nodded enthusiastically. 'honestly, having Mr. Smith as our principal is already bad enough, but to have to learn music from someone who clearly has never touched an instrument is just ridiculous. When I walked into class this morning and she started with a surprise test to 'keep us sharp', I knew I had to say something.'

-'What did you do?' asked John.

'I gave her an acoustic guitar and told her that if she could play three cords on it, she could continue teaching us. If not, I'd be taking over.'

Roger raised his eyebrows incredulously. He had never expected to have anything in common with Brian. They never hung out outside of his extra maths class and he had never really considered that Brian would be anything but the goodie-two-shoes that he knew from those instances. He shifted in his seat, eager to know how the story would end. 'So what happened?'

Brian shrugged disappointedly. 'I should have said four cords. After about five minutes she managed to produce a C, a D and an A.' He sighed.

'And you didn't get in trouble?' A wide-eyed John asked.

Brian shrugged again. 'I don't think she'd ever do that, she needs me too much.'

Roger nodded. 'Yeah. Also, I don't think she'd like to explain to Mr. Smith that his star pupil has to sit in detention instead of training for whatever match he has you competing in at the time.'

'Yeah, I guess.' Brian chuckled a little uncomfortable. 'So what about you, John? Any interest in music?'

John looked nervous about being the centre of attention now and looked down at the table. 'Uhm.. I mean, a little I guess? I, uhh... played guitar for a while.'

'Really?' Brian asked, smiling encouragingly. 'That's very interesting. I play guitar too.'

-'Same here.' Roger said. 'Although I prefer the drums.'

-'Hmm, sounds like we could start a band.' Brian joked.

-'If it would allow us to skip music class then I'm all in.' Roger chuckled. John looked very dawned by the entire concept and stumbled to retract his previous statement. 'I- I don't actually play anymore, I mean, I used to, but I'm really not any good and I should focus on my studies and get good grades y'know. I just-'

-'Of course John, I get it, we were only joking.' Brian soothed. John seemed to relax after hearing that, though his cheeks were still flushed red and he was avoiding eye contact.

The sound of the bell startled all three of them and they scrambled to get their things shoved back into their bags. Roger noticed that John's bag was still bulging with books and seemed to be almost heavier than the day before. John handily used the bag's momentum to swing it onto his shoulder, only stumbling a little bit under its weight. Roger turned to leave the cafeteria, with Brian following closely behind. After a couple of steps however, Roger noticed someone had failed to join them. He cast a worried look over his shoulder and saw John looking at his schedule with a puzzled frown on his face. When he finally made eye contact with Roger, he smiled that sheepish smile of his while gesturing with his schedule 'Uhmmm..' He began, but Roger just huffed with a smile on his face and snatched the schedule out of the younger student's hand.

'Here.' He said. 'I'll take you there.'

Brian looked on fondly as the two students caught up to him. He was aware of Mark and his friends staring at them from the back of the cafeteria, but he decided not to point it out to his young friends. They could enjoy their moment of peace for as long as possible.

'We should probably meet up after school to look after your burns and cuts though, John.' Brian said as an afterthought. John looked taken aback by this offer. 'How did you know about those?' he asked while subconsciously rubbing his wounded arm.

'Roger filled me in on the gist of what happened yesterday.' Brain explained calmly. 'And by the looks of it, it's still hurting. You've been fidgeting with that arm during the entire lunch break.'

John still looked a little hesitant. Did John still not trust him? Brian sighed. 'Look, my mum's a nurse, so I know what I'm doing. Can I please just take a look after school?'

Brian looked at John pleadingly until the younger of the two seemed to deflate a little bit and nodded his head.

Brian beamed and snatched Johns schedule out of Rogers hand. 'I'll come pick you up after your last class. We'll need to hurry because after that I'm showing a new foreign student around the school. All the way from Zanzibar, would you believe.' After giving Roger the schedule back, he waved the other two students goodbye and was on his way to Physics class.

To be continued

DunDunDuuun ZANZIBAR?!? WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS (I'm just assuming that we all know what that means sorry for that)