Special

Portraits

"Hey dude!"

Joe threw his arm around Matt's shoulders. It was five minutes before the beginning of the first period on another Friday morning and Matt had just sat down at his desk. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Matt growled annoyed and shook the older boy's arm off. He didn't really want to talk to either of those two. Instead he found himself scanning the rows of desks in front of him but the seat in front of the teacher's desk next to Emily was still empty.

"You haven't been hanging out with us in a while," Jonathan complained to him. "You know, you don't have to stop talking to us just because you lost the bet. You can find out everything about him and still hang out with us."

Matt rolled his eyes. Had he really sunken that low that the other two actually believed he'd try to ruin someone's life like that? That they would believe that he'd actually give them any proof?

"Yeah, we are going to a party tonight. You'll come with us," Joe said in the same decisive tone that had lead Jonathan and Matt to just follow him in his plans but now Matt hated it.

"I'm not coming," he said and pretended to sort the exercise books on his table.

"You have plans already?" Jonathan said and rolled his eyes. "It better be a date with a girl. Everything else won't count as an excuse."

"Aha whatever," Matt said and started scrolling through apps on his phone. He was feeling more and more annoyed. Why had he ever become friends with those two in the first place?

Joe sat down on Matt's desk, keeping him from obviously not paying attention to what he was saying. "We'll help you a little with the nerd. How about that, huh? We'll beat him up a little and then you can come in as his saviour and rescue him from us."

Joe was speaking in a sarcastically emphasizing tone of voice and it made Matt want to puke all over him.

"Don't do that," he replied as calmly as he felt was possible.

"Oh, come on," Joe laughed, "we'll just rough him up a little. It'll be good for him anyway. You know, to remember his place. We wouldn't want him to think too highly of himself now that he thinks he's friends with you."

"Okay, let me be perfectly clear about this," Matt hissed at him still trying to hold back his anger, "you will not do such a thing."

"Of course I won't. That's what Jonathan is for," Joe laughed and slid off the desk, walking over to his own in the back of the classroom.

"Leave him alone!" Matt shouted at him feeling his eyes well up with tears of anger and he clenched his hands into fists. He didn't care about what those two were thinking of him, he didn't care why he felt this sudden rush of protectiveness, all he cared about was the safety of the curly haired boy who had just entered the classroom, completely oblivious to the plans that were made about him.

The time passed by quickly and soon enough Daniel found himself in art class, the last class for the day and the only thing standing between himself and the weekend, two comfortable days of not stressing out about anything and being away from the people he hated.

Art was something he thoroughly enjoyed. He wasn't really interested in the theories and methods they had to learn and he didn't really understand why art would be a subject taught in school but he loved it when they had to then apply the theoretical aspects to their own creations. It was tricky sometimes and finding and perfecting one's own style was rarely encouraged but he loved art class nonetheless. He felt like it not only gave him a creative outlet which was usually not given in school but also gave him an opportunity to draw the things that he would otherwise get bullied for if he were to doodle them on the side of his notes during class. Currently though they had to simply copy a picture given to them as best as they could using only pencil and charcoal. He looked at the picture that the teacher had given to him. A young man, maybe in his mid twenties, held up a piece of cake and smiled brightly into the camera. The array of pastel colours looked pleasing to him and somehow the artist in him felt a little sting of sadness for not being allowed to colour the drawing. He sighed and looked at the clock on the wall of the classroom. They had been working on these drawings for the past three weeks and now was the last bit of time they had to finish them. Daniel always found it a bit hard to get back into drawing after not having worked on the piece for an entire week and he already saw himself handing in a half finished artwork. His pencil moved swiftly over the paper trying to cover it in graphite and shaping the features of the model.