Class of '19 (A Steps School AU)

11 - Endless carnage

Lee's point of view
"I still don't get what I did to deserve being in set two for English." I moaned.
"I don't know how I took your place!" Faye replied with a laugh.
"Maybe the head of English got you confused. I mean Lee could feasibly be a girl's name." Claire said.
"In that same way I'm sure Faye is a boys name." H teased. He flinched away as Faye went to slap him.
"No no no. Not worth it." Faye mumbled.
Lisa looked up from her phone and squinted as she looked into the sunlight. "Is no-one else at all worried about PE?"
"I'm more worried about maths. I'm not sure H exactly makes the three of us look like good students." Faye replied. "What's so bad about PE anyway?"
"Faye it's netball term. Everything's bad." Lisa replied.
"Wait you guys do that all term? You don't swap out to anything else?" Faye replied. It was week four of the term, and Faye still struggling with the concept of just how mundane PE lessons of set two were.
Lisa shook her head. "Yeah, it's shit. I fucking hate netball as well."
I looked at Lisa. "You were amazing at netball in primary!"
Lisa shook her head with a laugh. "I was useless, I was only on the team because no-one else would join instead of me!"
Claire groaned, rolled her eyes and stuck on Viva la Vida in an attempt to get us to shut up. It worked and the four of us sung along and when H realised what we were aiming for he joined in too.
"So what we do here H is we do stupid rubbish, like singing really loudly together, it's kinda our friendship group's whole thing." Claire explained when we finished to a very confused H.
"Right but why?" He asked.
Faye shrugged. "Fun." She replied.
H pulled a face. "I'm not sure that counts as a reason."
"It does to us." Faye said with a sickly sweet smile.

Luckily, the conversation was cut short by the faint sound of the bell ringing in one of the buildings and we all had to go to Maths. Faye, H and Claire were across the hall from Lisa and I so we walked down to the building together. Lisa hugged Faye before trying to get her to go into her class. They'd been talking quietly the whole way to the maths block, I'd guessed probably about Faye's terrible skills in maths.
"You'll be okay." Lisa said to her.
She shrugged. "I'm always scared I'll get moved down after tests though. I don't feel like I should be in second set."
Lisa took a firm hold of Faye's arms. "You can do it, and if you believe that then you'll be okay. And if it goes badly Lee or I will help you understand where it went wrong okay?"
"Come on Faye, you got a really good score in most of the tests last year." Claire encouraged.
Faye nodded, hugged Lisa one last time and then headed into class, just as our teacher turned up to let us into our classroom.

There hadn't been a seating plan, so Lisa and I had adopted two seats near the front, and had then been stuck there next to some of the other nerds. But despite the fact we sat right in front of the teacher's desk we still messed around a bit, because otherwise getting through maths would probably come with the side effect of us wanting to die.
"Lee it's your go." Lisa said, nudging me softly and indicating to the back page of her maths book where we'd drawn out a X and O grid.
"Oh come on you're gonna win again!" I moaned looking at her set up.
She smiled, then got out her rubber to erase the markings on the grid. "We need something else to play."
I nodded. "Seems wise." I replied.
She thought for a moment then bent down to grab her bag. "I don't think I took them out..." She mumbled, before pulling a box of animal snap cards out of the front pocket. "I was right."
I looked at her and tried not to roll my eyes. "Why have you got those with you?"
"Have you ever tried going on a four hour car journey with my brothers?" Lisa replied.
"Weirdly no."
"Don't. Its hell" Lisa said, slipping the cards out of their box.
"Yeah I wasn't planning on it."

So we played snap really quietly on our laps, in the hope the teacher wouldn't notice, and somehow he didn't for a good ten minutes. And he only did because Lisa swore as she accidentally dropped a card on the floor and had to lean down and get it.
"Lisa, Lee, care to tell me what's so important under the table?" Mr Jones asked us.
Lisa immediately sat up, looked at me and bit her lip. Then she looked at the teacher and forced a smile. "Ehrm, nothing?"
"Show me what's in your hands." Mr Jones said as Lisa carefully took my cards off me under the table. I just hoped she wasn't about to get into trouble.
Lisa sighed and put the cards on the table. "I swear I just found them in my bag sir, I must have forgotten to take them out after I went away in the holidays."
Mr Jones looked at her. "Cards. Now." He instructed.
Lisa handed him the cards and he told her she could get them at the end of the lesson, but surprisingly he didn't yell at her. Maybe he planned to save that one for the end as well.