Today is the first day of year eleven, and I'm already running late.
The alarm had refused to rouse me. My body clock was thoroughly out of sorts. And my mother was sleeping off the aftermath of her drinking binge last night, despite the fact that she knew I had school this morning.
I was taking care of the new kids today. I needed to be in at eight. My clock blared 7.45 at me in red, flashing as the alarm screeched in a monotone drone. Fifteen minutes to make a thirty minute journey plus preparation time - things didn't look too good.
I gather my things and pull my blonde locks into a tight pony-tail that tugs at the roots of my hair painfully before swiftly running a toothbrush around my mouth. I shove my blazer onto my shoulders, swing my tie around my neck and pocket my music player.
I now have ten minutes.
I don't need to be the holder of a physics graduation roll to know thirty minutes just wouldn't fit into ten. Not unless I ran.
I slip out of the door and plug myself into the music player, hooking my backpack over both shoulders before slamming the door shut behind me. If it was loud enough to wake my mother I would be in for some shit later, but, what the hell? Anything to get her to feel something for me.
Seven minutes.
My feet beat against the ground in time with the pulsating base of my music.
We're not gonna be just a part of their game,
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, giving myself over to the rhythm as it pounds; a heartbeat inside my ears.
We're not gonna be just the victims.
I stand on every crack in the concrete. If the old saying was true, my mother's back would be thoroughly broken by now. I should be so lucky.
The time inches ever closer to eight and the sun is beginning to peek out from behind the rows of houses, bathing the road in a blinding yellow glare the colour of molten gold. The strength of it winds me and I slow to a half-arsed lope that my grandmother could achieve without breaking much of a sweat.
The backs of my hands and my cheeks prickle with tiny shooting stabs of chill that slowly creep beneath my rosy skin. I huff out a breath and swipe the cooling moisture from beneath my fringe. I'm hot and cold at the same time; an unpleasant feeling to say the least.
I glimpse at the alight display of my music player and sigh. I have one minute to get inside and greet a shitload of ruddy-cheeked and misty-eyed post-primary-kids who frankly, are ranked lower that teachers on the crappy scale. They're constant balls of optimistic energy, rallying around still full of innocence and a willingness to learn that could turn the stomach of a much harder gutted girl than me. They haven't sat exams, they haven't dealt with boys, they haven't fallen out with their slutty, so-called best friends and they most certainly haven't had their first grope behind the bike-sheds roughly gifted by a far-from-dreamy sixth former with a bad attitude.
What they lack in experience, they counteract with a sickening enthusiasm. So naturally, tolerating them isn't something I often try.
How the hell I managed to be nominated for something so obviously not my forte is beyond my human knowledge anyway. In fact, the only reason I made the effort is because I didn't care for a whole week's worth of detention slips.
Up ahead, the wrought iron school gates were in sight and swung wide like the gaping mouth of a beast, ready to consume the life of any unsuspecting eleven-year-olds that may unwittingly enter. Those gates and the institution beyond them specialize in sucking life out of teenagers, shaping and moulding us until - for the most part - we all transform into working, eating and sleeping robots that for some reason, are unnervingly similar.
