New Kid in America

Chapter 7

"Sorry," I mutter, stumbling into my maths lesson, at least 10 minutes late. "Missed the bus." Mr Jarvis rubs between his eyebrows in thought and gestures for me to take my seat. One of the few good things about being the school's resident 'good girl' is that when I do do something wrong, more often than not I get away with it.
"That's OK," He sighs tiredly, teaching maths to a rowdy set 1 class probably isn't helping his exhaustion. "Just sit down and take out your homework,"
"That's unfair!" Victor, a black haired,brown eyed, tall and sporty prat who's possibly one of the world's most obnoxious and arrogant creatures, shouts loudly. "How come she gets let off for being 10 minutes late and I get an hour for being 5 minutes late?"
"Because you are a serial offender who never does as you are told, Victor," Mr Jarvis replies whilst flicking through his papers. I look accusingly at Victor, and when he sees me he gives me the finger. I laugh a little, and laugh even more when I realize that Mr Jarvis saw.
"How kind of you to donate your lunch-time to me, Victor," Sir says, flicking Victor's planner open and writing that he must come back at lunch. "And this time, you can't use the excuse that I didn't write it in your planner." I smile evilly as I take out my homework, write the date and title and settle down to learn.

The day can't seem to end quick enough. Not only is it the end of the year but I'm unbelievably preoccupied by, oh I dunno, the fact that my parents are getting a divorce and my Dad's moving to America. I'm so out of it, lost in my thoughts, that I pay almost no attention to the lessons which isn't too bad as we don't do anything too essential to life on the last day. I don't realize that it is the end of the day until my amazing English teacher Miss Donahue snaps me out of my trance.
"You OK?" She asks worriedly, perching on the desk in front of me. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. I'm OK," I reply absent-mindedly.
"I only ask because you haven't made any attempt to move even though school's out and you seemed preoccupied all lesson," She raises her eyebrows sympathetically and something about the look on her face made me tell her everything, but very quickly as I don't want to miss the bus again.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," She says when I've finished, "If it helps at all, my parents divorced when I was young. Of course, that was because my mother killed my father's cat when she forgot to take her medication and not because of a promotion, but still. If you need me I'm here."
"Thanks Miss," I say, packing up my things and racing out of the classroom. "Have a nice summer!"

All the way back home on the bus Victor and his friends throw bits of paper at my head and chant, "It's a lot of floor work!", conforming my suspicions that Heather tweeted about my 'stretching'. Abruptly I turn around to Heather, thinking that I should probably tell her about Mum and Dad before we get home. At that exact moment Victor chucks a bit of paper at me and it hits me square on the forehead. They all errupt into laughter and I get up, storm towards them and stuff the bit of paper into Victor's laughing mouth. Or previously laughing. His face falls and his mates all go, "Oooohhhh!" as I go back to my seat. I turn back to Heather and she looks up at me, rolling her eyes, her gal pal Felicity doing the same. Felicity looks a lot like Heather actually, and copies her every move. She's Heather's minion, basically.
"I need to talk to you," I say in a very serious tone. Heather's about to open her mouth in protest when I interrupt, "Now." She sighs and dramatically pushes past Felicity and slumps sulkily down next to me.
"What?" She snaps, "If it's about my tweet, then grow up."
"It's not, but while we're on that subject I'd apprecite it if you took that down," I lean in slightly closer and whisper, "It's about Mum and Dad." "Hurry up and tell me," Heather says stroppily, but I can tell I've got her attention.
"Mum told me after you got on the bus. She said that Dad had been offered a promotion... in America. They're getting a divorce because Mum doesn't want to go and Dad accepted the job. That's all I know." Heather's face falls and then, after some thought, says, "Well that was a bit insensitive of Dad,"
"Really?" I ask, shocked that she's taken Mum's side. But then again, she's always been a mummy's girl. "I think Dad is perfectly entitled to his great new job. Mum totally overreacted."
"Typical daddy's girl," She sighs, swinging out of her seat and back into the one next to Felicity, who gives me the dirty look she always gives me when she doesn't know what to do. I have a billion retorts in my head, but then the bus pulls up outside our house and Heather kisses Felicity on both cheeks and breezes off the bus. I count to thirty seconds and follow. Time to face Mum.