My Favourite Part

50: saturday night fever

Scott Kellerman

Our year group spills out into the hallway, chatter and laughter bouncing off of the walls, their heads too quickly emptied of the contents of the assembly. As my swarm leaves the hall, I sling my backpack over my shoulder with one hand, and reach up with ease to slap the top of the door frame with the other.

"Ah, fuck off, Mr. Six Foot One, we get it," my mate Gordon grumbles with an accompanying scowl. I squat as I walk alongside his shorter frame just to piss him off.

"Sorry, little G. This better?"

I get a burst of laughter from the rest of the group, who ruffle Gordon's hair, ribbing him about drinking all his milk so he grows up big and strong. I laugh before my attention turns to navigating the crowd.

Almost instantly, my eyes locate Evangeline on the stairway with her friends. I blame it on the adorably bright pink sweater she's got on today. That and the strawberry blonde waves of hair that tumble down her back. She has it clipped back, so every time she turns her head to address one of her friends, it swishes behind her like a waterfall.

Part of me hopes she'll look back for a moment, and I'll get another sweet, shy smile. When we locked eyes in the hall, I could see her hesitation – her tentative hand in her lap, uncertain of whether to say hi or stay still. So, I took the leap and waved a hand, clear and high. The smile was somewhat involuntary on my part, and for a second, I panicked that I'd made a tit of myself and looked way too eager for a guy who could barely get a text back. But she smiled back. She waved back. I gave Jimi shit for not paying attention in the assembly, but if I'm honest, after that, my head was in the clouds too.

She's intent as she speaks now, although I can't hear a word of what she's saying over the hubbub of the mob. Everyone's abuzz with the back-to-school feeling.

I'm snapped out of my trance when Jimi claps his baseball mitt of a hand against my back with a school spirit of his own, although I don't think it's the kind the teachers would approve of.

"Kellieee," he grins with a Cheshire gleam, "party in Aldwych this Saturday night. We're going."

I side-eye him as I let out an amused sigh. I've known Jimi since we were just kids trying to make mates at Scouts – long enough to know that when Jimi Coker tries to convince you of something, he'll convince you no matter how long it takes.

"You didn't hear Madison?" I point at the double doors we just left, although I know for a fact he was preoccupied with Snapchat for the better part of the assembly. "Exams are in 3 months, mate. I'm studying Saturday."

Jimi frowns dramatically, and the mitt on my back becomes an arm slung roughly around my shoulder,

"We're naturals, mate. We could ace them things with a week to prepare. Besides, all work and no play makes Scott a very boring bastard indeed."

In his dramatic insistence, he doesn't notice when his backpack collides with an innocent bystander's handheld stack of textbooks. The spectacled girl shoots a glare at the back of Jimi's head, and rolls her eyes when she spots the rest of the group, all jostling and carrying on with the air of arrogant youth. I don't blame her. They're good lads deep down, but on the surface, they can be right pricks, meaning I try to make up for it most of the time with apologies to innocent bystanders and sizeable tips to patient restaurant staff.

"Sorry about him," I say, kneeling in the rabble to help her regather the books, "he's got the manners and peripheral awareness of a bull."

"Oh, no worries, it's totally fine," she insists, her glare easing as she blushes, "Chemistry's a pain anyway. Thank you."