Growing Up Beside You [John Lennon/Beatles Fanfiction]

6. A pile of crap

January 1957- One week later.

"Once I've handed back your essays, please put them straight into your bags. If you wish to talk to me about it, you can see me after class and we'll arrange a meeting to discuss it."

"Fat chance of that happening," yawned John, stretching his arms back in his chair. Celia prayed he'd fall out of it.

Mr Oliver, their English Literature teacher, peered at John from beneath his thinly wired spectacles.

"Well, not everybody will be pleased with their grade, Mr Lennon. They may want to speak to me in order to help them improve."

"Is that a dig at me, Sir?" sneered John.

Celia rolled her eyes. Why must he make everything about him? John Lennon was a self-obsessed prick, and he knew it too.

"No, John," Mr Oliver sighed, scratching his greying moustache. He always scratched it when his patience was being tested, which was always by John. "It is not a 'dig' at you."

"Then who, Sir?" challenged John. With an amused smirk, he looked up at Mr Oliver who was now standing in front of him.

The lanky teacher taped his finger on the desk which was engraved with all sorts of doodles and initials.

"Suggesting room for improvement is never to be taken as an insult, Mr Lennon. Remember that." He raised his brows and made his way back down the aisle in slow, pacing footsteps. "That goes to all of you. Improvement gives you the chance to prosper, to achieve your very best."

Celia started drumming her fingers on the desk. The longer Mr Oliver took handing back the essays, the more anxious she became. Not that she had anything to worry about, or so she told herself. She was sure her essay was good with all the effort she put into it. It was interesting, something different-a fresh perspective on Chaucer's literary work.

Across from her, John murmured something to Pete who was sitting beside him and they both started sniggering. Something inappropriate or insulting about somebody no doubt- it always was.

John had been pestering Celia all week. When he saw her in the corridor the day after the hockey match, he'd eyed her up and down and told her she looked better in her muddy kit. So she told him and his "carpet eyebrows" to piss off. And if that didn't humiliate him enough in front of his boys, she then turned around and announced that he still had chocolate stuck between his teeth. As payback, he'd been bothering her all week whenever he had the opportunity- vigorously kicking the back of her chair, interrupting her in class when she gave an answer, stealing her pencils in art and sometimes handing them back broken in half- the list went on.

Of course, it frustrated her, but mostly, it amused her at how immature he could be. He was sixteen acting like a little school kid. Celia knew he was waiting for her to crack but she wasn't going to. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction. Besides, his constant provokes made it easier for her to dislike him more so than she already did. The boy was bloody unbearable. It's funny, he hadn't noticed her for five years and now all of a sudden she was the centre of his attention. She wondered how long he'd keep it up until he found the next unlucky person to torment.

Mr Oliver eventually placed Celia's essay down in front of her and he tapped it three times with his bony finger.

"I expected better from you, Miss Pooley," he said, frowning at her. "Much better."

Wait, what?

Celia quickly picked up the essay as Mr Oliver turned his back on her. She almost gave herself a paper cut with the speed at which she flicked through it. Every page was annotated with comments and most sentences she had written were crossed out. Either that or a paragraph had a big fat cross next to it. Celia turned over to the final page and there at the bottom of the paper was the letter E which was underlined twice. She couldn't believe it. Her eyeballs were about to burn holes in the paper.

"Erm, are you alright, Celia?" the girl sitting next to her asked.

No, no she flippin' wasn't. She was far from alright. She's got a bloody E, one mark behind a fail! God, she couldn't breathe. Her hands were shaking and her knuckles had turned white from where she'd been clenching the paper so tightly. Was this even her essay? Perhaps Mr Oliver had given her someone else's by mistake. She turned it over to the front page and saw her neatly written name at the top. Nope, that E was definitely awarded to her. That's what you get for being overconfident, she thought. Right then, she wanted to scrunch up the paper, throw it at Mr Oliver's bald head and then curl into a ball and cry.

"Eh, I got a B!" John exclaimed. "Ah, I knew you loved me really, Sir."

Celia's eyes widened like someone was forcing them open with toothpicks. Lennon had been awarded a B. John Lennon- The boy who never took anything seriously, the boy who tried to sabotage everybody else's ability to concentrate, the boy who never turned any work in, the boy who got a D in his last essay. There he was grinning over the B on his paper. He probably bullied someone into writing it for him. Celia wanted to shout and thump her hands on the table like a kid. Better yet, thump John on his stupid bloody head.

She shot her hand up in the air, startling the girl sitting next to her. Celia wanted answers and she wanted them now.

"Sir," she called out, too impatient to wait for Mr Oliver to notice her. He turned around and heaved out a sigh, almost as if he was waiting for this moment.

"Yes, Miss Pooley?"

"My essay, I-I just don't understand how-"

"What did I say a while ago, hmm? If you want to talk to me about it, please see me after class. I will not speak about it during valuable lesson time."

"But-"

"And that will be the end of it," he snapped.

John laughed and turned around in his chair to face Celia.

"Oh, so it was you who wrote a pile of crap," he said rolling his r with an exaggerated scouse accent.

"Oh go to hell, John! Why don't you just do everyone a favour and-"

"Enough!" bellowed Mr Oliver, slamming his fist down on the table and making everyone jump in their seats.

"Cecelia Pooley, I will not tolerate your use of profanity in this classroom and Mr Lennon, you of all people should not dare ridicule another student's work."

"Me of all people? What's that supposed to mean?"

Mr Oliver walked towards John. "It means, it is foolish of you to scorn someone else when this is the first decent grade you've achieved on an essay within the five months I've been teaching you."

Pete laughed and Mr Oliver clicked his fingers directly in front of his face which wiped Pete's smile away immediately.

Mr Oliver appeared to make students look small and inferior the way he towered over their desks like he always did when he was trying making a point. What with John's intimidating nature, it seemed to be the only way he could gain his authority over him.

"One more word from either of you and you'll both be spending your lunchtime with me, do you understand?"

Celia rolled her eyes, straightened herself in her chair and put her hands in her lap underneath the desk. John, on the other hand, folded his arms and slumped down in his chair whilst sneering up at Mr Oliver. Yes, they understood. At least for now, they did.