War Machine

Whispers

Apparently in a small school word travels incredibly fast. I just learned the hard way on how fast. I could hear girls whispering behind me calling names in hushed voices. I wished it to stop. After a couple agonizing minutes of burning stares the teacher, Mrs. Neanne, called us down into a large circle. She had explained a type of name game that was actually pretty creative. You said your name and did an action then passed it on to the next in line. The catch was that you had to recite and do everyone's name and action.

"I'll go first to give an example. My name is Mrs. Neanne." after she said her name she clapped twice as her action. Then she faced the girl to her right. It continued on until it came to be my turn, and as if on purpose the two girls before me did the toilet dance and peekaboo as their actions.

"My name is Eveline." I bowed for my action. The two girls went wild with laughter, Mrs. Neanne's brow furrowed and you could tell she was not having any of it.

"What's so funny girls." Mrs. Neanne said sharply. They stopped laughing instantly. I thought they were done, boy was I wrong.

"well you see, Eveline is a peeping tom. She was caught in the boys bathroom today." I was instantly raged, they not only said it to the whole class but they made it sound like I did it on purpose. Before I could get two words out Mrs. Neanne burst out in anger. Mind you this was a 5'6" Red headed woman who was calm 90% of the time.

"I will NOT tolerate any kind of mindless disrespect in my classroom!" She took a sharp breath and without skipping a beat she went right on. "if you want to laugh and poke fun at people because they make mistakes then you should go take a look in a mirror because you are supposed to be the example being a senior in this school. You can hike your behind to the principals office and stay there." When she finished she walked over to her desk and pulled out some papers. I don't think those girls have ever seen Mrs. Neanne huff let alone yell. They were completely silent and looked as if they were going to fall over. Mrs. Neanne hurriedly handed them both a pass.

"Now would you kindly go straight to your principals office. I have emailed them so they know you are coming do not dawdle." she pointed to the door and the girls grabbed their bags and and rushed out. I was busy staring at the door replaying what happened in my head over and over. When I heard someone clear their throat, I looked over to see Mrs. Neanne right in front of me.

Unsure of what she wanted i spouted the first thing that came to mind, "I'm sorry that happened." I looked and felt ashamed that my mistake struck their immaturity. Knowing most teachers punishing those who made the mistake was keen on their list of teaching.

"I was just going to ask if you were okay?" she spoke softly. I just stared at her.

"Um...Yeah. I'm good." I nodded and thankfully the bell rang dismissing us. Celeste and I grabbed our bags and started talking about the next school event. Which was the Homecoming Dance.  We were deciding how we were going to go and what would it take to have dates. We laughed at some of the ridiculous ideas that i was coming up with. When we made it to the underpass we split ways. I went home shortly after the underpass and walked into an already dark house. I lived with my mother but she was a social worker for the next state over so she was never home, every once in awhile groceries will be in the kitchen but not her.  I ran up to my room and flopped on my bed. I was glad to be done with my day and was looking forward to a good night's sleep. After shedding my school clothes and putting on shorts and a tank I crawled into bed. The sound of traffic outside lulling me to sleep.