The John Hughes Club

Chapter Two

It's safe to say, I think my non-uniform ensemble, didn't go down very well with Mrs. Woolington. I had a loooooooong lecture about appropriate use of makeup and an acceptable standard of clothing—both during an average day at school and the non-uniform days. Luckily, the lecture was enough for my head teacher to not send me back home. The promise from me that in the future, I'd adhere more to the uniform policy, saved me from the embarrassment of having my mum called to collect me. I don't think I could bear any more of her disappointment in me today.

"Hey Mindy! Come and sit with us!" Ella's calling me over, smiling and beckoning me with an animated arm.

After my lengthy first and last warning about what I am wearing, I'm quite glad of a friendly face. "Hey." I cheerily say, making myself comfy on the chair nearest to Ella.

"This is Zigs." She introduces me to the boy next to her—him and his shaved head and metal teeth aligners.

"Hey," he replies, showing me more of his toothy scaffolding with a friendly smile. "So, your parents are getting divorced, huh?" He randomly asks me, shoving a whole Jaffa Cake into his mouth. "Mine divorced nearly two years ago...it kind of sucks, doesn't it?"

Surprised that he'd even know, my brows have now pulled together with their curiosity. "How do you know that?" I ask him, my eyes fixed on his relaxed, chewing expression.

Once his mouth is Jaffa-free, he's keen to explain. "Mrs. Neville who runs the fruit and veg shop on Newmarket Street heard it from a friend of your nan's. That friend, knows my nan, and nan told mum who then told me."

God, it would seem there really is a someone who knows a someone who knows someone who knows our family business. "Okaaaaay." I dubiously answer, my eyes now wandering around the break room.

Wanting to fill the slightly awkward silence that's suddenly descended on us, Ella taps me gently, wanting to get my wandering attention. "You obviously didn't get sent home by Woolington, then?" She asks, peeling the banana in her hands with a wry smile.

My now lipstick-free lips downwardly curl. "Nope! Just a wrathful lecture." Sighing, I'm pulling out my own banana from the depths of my backpack, feeling rather fed up that my family story seems much more well known than I am around here. Biting into it, I'm chewing and thinking, thinking and hoping that the next thing to come out of Zigs' mouth isn't about Anais—I can't face that today.

"Something else we have in common." Ella eagerly states, flicking her amused eyes down to my banana before flicking the ends of her bouncy hair.

With a small smile, I agree. Ella's right, we both like bananas and we both have curly hair. Except, hers is a warm shade of mahogany and mine is an iridescent shade of blue/purple—dark as a Corvid's plume of feathers.

"Sooooooo, I've heard that Chas Summers has personally invited you to The John Hughes Club." Ella delightedly blurts out, giving me a wide-eyed gaze.

First Zigs about my parents, now Ella about that stupid bit of paper. "How do you know that?" I abruptly ask her, frowning unattractively hard, thinking that the words I seem to be constantly saying today is how do you know that.

"Ros saw him push something into your pocket. Being as she's had a crush on him like since Year 8, she wanted to know what it was he'd shoved into the new girl's' jeans, so she just had to ask him. She's now sulking about it, and she's wanting the entire school to know why—she's already pretty much told half the school by this morning's break time, the rest of the school will surely know by lunchtime."

Great! Inwardly, I'm doing an inner scream. This day is just getting worse and worse, it really is. Outwardly, I loudly sigh...so both Ella and Zigs can hear my annoyance with just about everything today. "I don't really know why it's such a big deal. It's just some school club thing that I'll not ever go to." Again, I sigh.

"Ahhhhh, but I think Chas might think you're a big deal! He doesn't usually personally invite peeps to the club he started some time ago. Usually, he just sticks up a poster or pops it onto the online school page or something...yup, you must've caught his eye." She's now smiling, smiling with mischief.

"Well, Chas isn't exactly ordinary, so it's no real surprise that he'd be interested in the new girl who's going against the norm, is it?" Zigs casually remarks, only just being bothered to look my way as he's filling his face with some crisps now.

Hitting his arm, and knocking some of his precious crisps from out of their bag, Ella's now glaring really hard at him. "Zigs! You can't say stuff like that! Just because Mindy's a bit of a goth, doesn't mean that she's going against the norm, does it?"

"She ain't exactly swimming with it either, is she?" He smirks, picking up a big crisp that'd fallen onto the floor, jubilantly popping it into his mouth.

I don't know whether I'm more bothered by the crisp thing or them talking about me like I'm elsewhere or something. "Um, hellooooooooo! I'm sat right here, you know?" I sarcastically declare, just as sarcastically smiling their way.

Zigs is now grinning back at me, relaxed with his demeanour. "I'm just saying that you're different, Mindy. Not bad, different. Good, different. Chas is good different, too...which is why he's probably personally invited you to The John Hughes Club."

"What is this John Hughes Club, anyway?" I find myself asking, eating some more of my banana.

Just as Zigs is about to answer, his eyes suddenly open wide like saucers, on something he's seen behind of me. "You can ask him that yourself, Mindy. Chas! Over here! Mindy's needing to ask you something!"

Yeah, Zigs might be needing surgery later, to remove his braced teeth that I'm contemplating punching into the depths of his oesophagus.

"Alright guys." Chas confidently addresses us all, yet I'm the only one who gets greeted with his cutely obscene smile.

Swallowing down what's left of my banana with a painful gulp, I eventually manage a croaky and somewhat embarrassed. "Hi." Yeah, Zigs is most definitely going to need that surgery. When I briefly glance across at Ella, she and her too-broad grin may also need some surgery.

Standing in front of us all, Chas still keeps his interested gaze on me. "What do you need to ask me?"

Lifting my chin, I'm acutely aware that all eyes are now very much on us. For Archleigh High's morning break, this is headline school gossip. "I was just asking Ella and Zigs what exactly is The John Hughes Club. I'm told you started it, so I figured you could tell me?" I hadn't figured he could tell me at all. I've been cornered into having this conversation with Chas, I just don't need it to be anymore cringey than it already is.

Nodding gently, Chas removes his gaze from me, up to the clock above the break room door. "The bell is just about to go. Maybe I can tell you more about it at lunchtime?"

Knowing that both Ella and Zigs are enjoying their front row seats to what Chas and I are talking about, I make sure I'm ignoring their viewing pleasure, keeping my eyes on just Chas. "Okay. Lunchtime. Great." Not great! I've just agreed to making myself become even more school gossip. My old friends would be shocked. I would never knowingly put myself in the lead role for gossip. In my old school, I was always able to hold things together in a much less complicated way. Here, everything feels complicated. I have to say the right things. Behave the right way. Smile the right way. Walk the right way. Agree to the right things. When you're new, you have to be so damn agreeable all of the time, for fear that you'll be otherwise known as the disagreeable new pupil. I'm saying yes to things that I wouldn't ordinarily say yes to.
It's exhausting.
Annoying.
Ordinarily, I tend to be guarded—almost a little aloof. Yet here I am, pushing myself out of my personality comfort zone, because I don't want to be labelled as the moody new girl. I'm being carried along with something I'd really rather not be. It's not that I don't like Chas, I do. It's just that this whole thing feels like it's been thrown together by those who are simply enjoying the floor show. It's not feeling natural. It feels, coerced. Sure enough, the bell starts ringing. Chas smiles at me, I smile at him. As I'm on my way to class, I'm becoming more unsure by the second whether I'll actually make our lunchtime chat...after all, I first need to ensure that Zigs and Ella need that surgery.