Picture is of Harvey

⊚Chapter 7: The feud begins⊚

Monday, at school

I made my way down the corridor, dodging over excited freshmen who still know what it's like be stress-free. Their loud, high-pitched voices pierced my mind as I groaned internally. Up ahead was Monica and Haley. 

"Hey, girl," I greeted, high-fiving Haley. She grinned at me and motioned to Monica.

"Unfortunately I got her as my partner in drama, so she's going to tag along with us at break again," she explained. I groaned and facepalmed myself, but didn't say anything else.

Monica looked over at Haley. She smiled when Haley looked back, and skipped towards us.

"Hi, Haley," she chirped, giving my best friend a hug. Haley was speechless with her mouth open a tiny bit.

"So, we can work on the scene at break today," Monica said, "and we can find a place where there won't be an audience." She inclined her head towards me.

I rolled my eyes, hoisted my bag higher over my shoulder and walked away. Monica's voice followed me to the music class, and when I opened the piano to start playing, it was a dark, angry tune which arose. I stayed in the music room for ten minutes before the door opened and someone else came in. From the corner of my eye, I could tell that it was a girl.

She took no notice of my playing but went straight for the light switch. Yeah, it was pretty dark in here. Maybe I should have switched it on when I first got here. The girl flicked the switch and the room lit up. One beam of light reflected off the piano's sleek wood and went into my eye.

I slammed the piano shut and rubbed my eye.

"Owww," I whispered.

"Ooops, sorry, Gen," said the girl.

"Kate? Oh it's you. I didn't recognise you," I said, surprised. She laughed. 

"Y'know, Gen, you are something else," she said. We left the music room together and reached maths just in time for the start of school.

Mr Smith didn't waste any time with formalities and launched straight into teaching us some bullshit about factorisation. Only fifty percent of what he said stayed with me. At the end of the lesson, he gave us seven pages of homework(!).

"Sirrrrrr, whyyyyy?" complained one the brown haired sluts. I don't know her name.

"Because you need practice," he replied, sternly.

"We practice in classss," she wailed.

Mr Smith strode casually towards the girl. He leaned into her face and pulled out something from his pocket. He unfolded it. 

Picking up the girl's pen, then filling out the notification slip, Mr Smith said, "Anyone else who complains about the workload will get one of these too. Understand?"

Everyone except the girl nodded. The bell rang and we all scrambled out of the class room. We had to go to the field for PE, so Kate and I waited at the path for Haley. She came out class side-by-side with Monica. 

"Um, no thanks," growled Kate, turning away. She began walking alone.

I went after her and said, "Relax, if Haley wants to walk with her, it's fine."

"Yeah, you're right. And didn't Grant say that we could fight her today?" she retorted. 

Kate clenched her fists and I stepped back. As Monica approached, the anger radiating off Kate was hot enough to scorch the sun. Monica walked right past Kate, ignoring the hell out of her. Haley stopped and gave Kate an apologetic smile. 

"Sorry, Kate, she's my acting partner," Haley explained. Kate still scowled.

Haley gave me a confused look and I shrugged. She looked down then followed Monica. Fast-forward us five minutes and you get the entire class sitting in the blazing heat, listening to our instructions that were being barked by Coach.

"You've got to run two laps-" simple- "do twenty sit ups-" mundane- "do fifteen lunges with each leg-" oh shizz-  "then end off with ten squats and ten push ups."

The class broke out in protests at once, begging for less. Coach glared at us all.

"You'd be grateful for all this if you did PE back in the day," he said.

We groaned at the classic, 'I had it worse' speech and set off around the field. By the time I got to squats, I was cheating. Every time Coach looked around at the other kids, I'd stand up and just stretch, while still counting.

"Nine, ten, done!" I chirped, reaching up and yawning, "Now for push up. One, two, three..."

"Imogen, if you really think that anyone could do push ups that fast, you're an idiot," said Coach, turning around. "Run an extra lap."

I sighed angrily and jumped up.When I finished, the others were too.

"It's break now," said Haley, checking her watch. Monica came up behind her and linked arms.

"Haley, let's go somewhere else," she whined, like a little kid does to their mother. The disgust in Haley's face was evident.

"Monica, stop it. I want to hang out with my friends," she snapped. Monica shrugged and unlinked arms with her. Instead, she crossed them. 

"No, it's fine, Hales," said Kate, gently, "go with Monica. Gen and I got each other."

Haley frowned. "Don't you want me here?" she asked sadly.

"I don't want her here. And if you're here, she's gonna be too. No thanks," said Kate, waving her hand with attitude.

Haley motioned to Monica and the two of them walked away. From afar, they looked like a good duo.

"Why'd you do that, Kate?" I groaned, facepalming myself. She shrugged and we kept walking to the school building.

⊚

©ObsidianGlowstone/ Cleo