tags Blog and Journals

A thundering whistle had suddenly silenced every student in the cafeteria. There, standing in front of our messed up cafeteria, was our plump principal. He opened his mouth to speak, keeping his cool. "Now, I want you all to be honest. Who started this?"

The crowd was silent, hearts beating against their chests. I held my breath.

"Again, who started this?" His question came out sharper, harsher.

"I did," Farro suddenly said. He raised his hand in the air. My head turned to him, and my jaw nearly dropped. Seriously?

"But," Farro continued. "The girl over there, Hayley Williams, did too."

Eyes turned to me. My cheeks flushed red, and I began looking frantically toward the girls. They gave me the same frantic look in return. I tried to open my mouth and speak up, but apparently the principal had already made his mind. "You two, come to my office."

Farro. You sick, sick bastard. I walked beside him, following the principal down the hall and into the front office. He closed the door, giving me the feeling that we were being locked in here. The principal took a seat in front of us, behind his desk. The tension between all of us began building up. "You two, this is...completely inappropriate. Especially you, Miss Williams. I expected better from a new student."

I so badly wanted to speak up, but I didn't have the guts to. My voice was just held in, building up in my throat, but I couldn't let it out. I just let the principal blab on.

"I can't go to harsh cirumstances," the principal sighed. "But, I will assign you two detention after school for one week. Clean up the campus and the cafeteria. This will start tomorrow. Today, just focus on cleaning the cafeteria. You'll miss sixth period for that, which I don't think will be a problem. Most students enjoy missing class."

Josh chuckled softly. I just rolled my eyes, my arms crossed.

The bell rang.

"Alright, get to work. Here are the keys to the supply room, which I'm sure you, Mister Farro, are familiar with." The principal eyed Farro, as if somewhat reminiscing on a past event. "Miss Williams, I hope you learn from this." The principal handed Farro a key and the principal turned to his laptop, dismissing us.

It was a silent walk to the supply room, and I finally decided to speak up.

"How come the principal said you are familiar with the supply room?" I finger quoted the principal's words.

He chuckled, grabbing for the mop and bucket. "He caught me and a girl making out in here one time."

"Oh," I replied, my eyes widening with disbelief. "Uh, yeah.." I let out a short, fake chuckle, at a loss for words. I wasn't at all amused at what he revealed. Making out with a girl in here. Just...wow.

"I'm surprised you aren't yelling at me," he smiled, leading us both into the cafeteria. "Wow, look at this mess."

"I really want to yell at you, but I'm not the yelling type," I replied, beginning to mop the spilled milk on the floor. Why did the cafeteria have to be so damn big? It would take longer than one period to clean this mess up.

"So you forgive me?" Farro asked, picking garbage up off the table. I paused, turning my gaze towards him. "Nope, I don't forgive you. You framed me. Now all I really need to know is why, Josh. Why me?"

He paused, and all I could hear for a while was the pieces of food wrappings being thrown into a garbage can. He then finally spoke up. "I don't know, I just wanted to spend a bit more time with you."

"Me? What, are you like, targeting me or something?"

"I target every girl in the school, you just one in many. But it was you in particular that I wanted next."

"What's this leading to?"

Josh sighed, walking towards me. With every step he took my heart beat faster. Soon, his body was only a few inches away from mine. "I want to take you out." His eyes seemed to take an extra long look at my chest.

I smirked. "Uh..no."

"No? Why no?"

"Is this your first time getting rejected?" I mused, walking away from him to continue mopping.

"Yeah, but that's not the point. Why no?"

"I just don't want to get involved with a guy like you." At that moment, I was completely going against everything the girls told me. They wanted me to get with him, but I wanted to make this game just a bit more interesting. Playing hard to get would be fun.

"So..you're saying you don't want to go out with me?"

"Exactly," I replied, smirking still.

"Wow. You're...not like the others."

"No I am not."

"That's hot," he commented. My head immediately darted up to glare at him. One of my eyebrows rose. "Hot?"

"Don't think I won't stop trying to get you," he warned.

"So is that like, a threat?"

"Whatever you say," he replied. I could hear the chuckle in his voice.

He and I finished cleaning up the cafeteria mid-way into seventh period. I walked into art class with a note, in the middle of some demo Mrs. Hansen was teaching. She was sculpting some clay. The class was gathered around her, and once I had entered all their eyes traveled over to me. I walked around the table and took a seat beside Jack, who thankfully was sitting in the back.

"So what's up?" He whispered, as Mrs. Hansen continued explaining how to sculpt the clay.

"I was just cleaning the huge mess we made," I sighed, trying to pay even the least bit of attention to the teacher. "We seriously fucked up that cafeteria."

"We're all a mess, and still are. It's pretty funny," Jack motioned over to the students, who still had wet clothes or bits of food caught in their hair. I couldn't help but giggle.

"It's like we're all dressed up for some crazy zombie movie," I laughed. Jack chuckled, and we were soon hushed by a student in front of us.

"Bitch," I whispered, earning another giggle from Jack. That student, luckily, didn't notice my remark. "So how was it cleaning up?"

"Really hard. Not really. I guess. Sort of. Ugh. I need to make up my mind." I sighed, angry at my indecisive self. "We just basically had to pick up trash and mop up the crap on the floor." Finally, a decent answer.

"Sucks," Jack said, looking up at Mrs. Hansen. He was trying to pay attention, too.

"I bet I'll fail this sculpting project thing," I noted. "We aren't really listening to her, are we?"

That student hushed as again, glaring this time. Mrs. Hansen even looked up at us, angry.

"Yeesh," I said. She had finished her lesson and we were dismissed to start working with the clay that was set up at our black art tables. "So what do we do again?" I asked the girl sitting across from me.

"You start sculpting an alien. It's our project." The girl didn't pay any more attention to me after that. I didn't know where to begin. There was a slab of clay sitting in front of me and ready to be sculpted. But I had absolutely no creativity to carry me forward with this project.

"What should I do?" I asked, turning to Jack. He was sculpting something already. "What are you doing?"

"Ice cream sundae alien," he replied, a bowl for it already made. "It will have ice cream eyes and a big, banana mouth. I know, genius." His sarcasm amused me. "I'm shaking at your creativity," I joked. He let out one gleeful chuckle before turning his attention back to his project. I did the same, sighing down at my poor clay. I tore off a piece, rolling eyeballs. Maybe I'd just make some plain blob creature. Yeah. I'd color it light blue with red eyes. That would at least earn me a C, wouldn't it? I began with my little blob creature in mind, naming him Oscar along the way. Mrs. Hansen told us to place a bag over our pre-made alien sculptures and called it a day.

"So you walk home, huh?" Jack asked, as we grabbed our backpacks that lay against the art class wall. "Yeah," I answered, walking with him outside the classroom. I paused, standing in front of him. "Offering to take my books and walk me home, Mister Jack?"

He chuckled, but nodded his head. "Yeah. This a problem, Miss Hayley?"

"Not at all," I replied, smiling. The three girls had approached moments later. "Hey Hayley! We're going to the mall, remember?"

I turned to Jack, completely forgetting that fact. "Crap," I sighed, staring up him. "I'm sorry, I totally forgot. We can walk next time though."

"It's cool, as long as there's a next time."

I smiled, nodding. "Definitely." The girls all had their eyebrows raised, wierded out. I was slowly dragged away, shooting an apologetic smile towards Jack one last time before leaving with the girls.

"I have a feeling Hayley likes Jack," Cara said, as our group walked down the hallway. "That's totally fine, by the way. As long as it doesn't interfere with the plan."

"So? Do you like him?" Valerie questioned, her eyes growing wider as she waited for my answer.

"He's really cool, what's not to like?" I answered. I admitted this very reluctantly.

"You like him," Valerie concluded, throwing her arms into the air. "Anyways, you sure your mom will be cool about this?"

"Shit, my mom," I remembered, instantly pulling out my phone. I sent her a quick text before putting it away. "Great, she's taken care of," I announced. The girls and I took a short walk to a large house, a car parked outside. "Well this is my house," Valerie said, as if it was nothing to her. Her house was huge. Bigger than mine, at least. It was fancy, and only a few blocks away from our school. She had her own car. It was quite obvious her life was better than mine could ever be. We all entered her car.

"So Hayley," Nicole began as we drove toward the mall. "Did Josh say anything during your detention thing?"

"I still can't believe he said you did it too," Cara chuckled.

"He actually..asked me out," I answered. Their eyes all turned towards me. "No. Way!" Cara exclaimed.

"Well, asked me out in a sense. I mean he said he was targeting me, um.." I paused, going back through the events in my mind. "Oh, he said, and these are his exact words, I want to take you out."

They squealed. "You guys seriously love this, don't you?!" I joked.

"It's entertainment," Nicole answered, the other girls nodding at her statement. I shook my head and smirked. We all arrived at the mall.

I need your help. One, I need to know what they should do at the mall. Of course, it has to involve Josh. Second, I need a last name for Jack. Thanks for reading, guys! This chapter sucked balls. :(