Notes: Oh yes, I did this. For funsies. Feel free to bug me if I don't update within the week. My main goal in this is to try my hand at developing actual friendships, and since these characters are pretty simple, plus incredibly easy to give those little qualities that make people be people, well then.
Estimated ages are 10-11.
Consider this chapter an introductory chapter, and yes, I'm starting from the beginning: immature snarky-brat Phil go!
Other notes: Unbeta'd, actual game owned by Jonochrome (ex: JonBro)
I just want to make this clear: I don't have anything against my school. I also don't have anything against Smiley, either, even though I did make fun of her.
That doesn't stop me from wanting to get out of here, though.
Mr. Kahm was twirling his pointer again, for some reason thinking that it made him look smart. I'd know since he told me at the beginning of this...class. If you could even call it that.
"What's 132 + 64?"
"I don't know, Mr. Kahm," I answered flatly, "What is 132 + 64?"
"That's why I'm asking you," Mr. Kahm said, eyes wide, "I dunno."
I stared at him. Mr. Kahm stared back, then coughed awkwardly and started to pick up a piece of chalk to write on the board. Or, draw on the board, because apparently addition was too hard for him.
"I am leaving," I thought, "I am leaving, and I'm not coming back until I absolutely have to."
Or until my parents catch wind and punt me back here. One of the two.
Mr. Kahm started twirling his pointer again, and I looked down at my forever unused pencil and asked, "Mr. Kahm? Can I sharpen my pencil?"
"Only one at a time!"
And I walked up to the desk's pencil sharpener, then turned right on my heel to face the door and walked out.
Resist urge to make pun. Resist urge to make pun.
"Now that was sharp."
That was one of the worst puns I've ever made.
Shaking off the immediate self-loathing that came whenever I made a particularly cringey pun, I walked down the halls. I passed the drinking fountain, taking a sip while I was there, then looked up to see Mrs. Cophey's class door.
I peeked inside, and looking in, I saw my regular classmates along with my friend.
In the first row next to the empty seat that used to be mine, was Smiley. Well, her real name was Shirley, but a lot of us called her Smiley. Cause she smiled a lot.
Trust me, this is an odd phenomenon. There are very few people in school who smile here. I'd ask her how she does it, but I really can't go into the room right now.
Behind her was Zack, shivering and holding himself like usual. Wonder why he doesn't wear more than one sweater. It's make him warmer, surely. He was curling in on himself, practically a bal in his seat, shivering miserably. I kind of wanted to offer him a blanket, if I had one. He just looked really sad.
And then there's Phred. The only guy who's more bored than I am and really, really doesn't like his name. He should be happy, I think, since it makes him stand out.
He'd given me a really flat look when I said that, so the thought wasn't appreciated.
Phred was practically half-asleep on his desk, not really listening, as per usual.
He sits behind me, so he usually doesn't get caught, but since I'm not there he has to put in effort to look awake.
He was glaring at my empty desk.
I marveled. And we were somehow best friends.
Mrs. Cophey spat out gibberish at a hundred miles per second, again, most likely because of the coffee in her hand, and I spotted Smiley picking up a pencil and taking notes. Somehow.
How she understood what the teacher said was beyond...anyone in the school, even Mrs. cophey.
Speaking of, Mrs. Cophey was trying to write on the board now, which was useless, because her writing was worse than Phred's, and his looked like chicken scratch at the best of times.
Quietly, I opened the door and knew that the students all spotted me. But Mrs. Cophey didn't, and that was what mattered. I could feel Phred raising his eyebrows at me when I went straight behind the desk, crouching under it. I tried to remember if I left anything useful in my desk, and while I was doing that, Mrs. Cophey turned back around, "Alright students, partner up."
Smiley tilted her head at me, and I looked to my left to not look at her, and saw a dustbin. Looking in, I saw a feather duster. Nice.
I took it, flicking Phred a short wave when he started glaring at me.
If you don't take me with you I'm stealing your lunch tomorrow, his look said.
I ignored him, and looked over to Zack. He was hunching over his desk, shivering badly. He should really get a new sweater.
There wasn't anything useful here, so I sneaked out of the classroom, feather duster in hand.
Outside, I looked at the handle and tried to think of anyone in the entire school who'd bring use a feather duster.
...Oh. Well. I went straight to the janitor's closet.
"What are you doing here?!" the janitor screeched the second he saw me. I held up the feather duster as a sacrifice.
"...Oh," the janitor immediately deflated, "You found my feather duster! Here, have a nickel. And don't waste it on the school's cheesy pencils."
I caught the coin, nodding dumbly in the face of this man who could switch between mad, happy, then snarky within the expanse of five sentences.
"…Now get out of my closet," the janitor finished flatly.
I nodded again, then slowly slid out of the closet. Closing the door behind me, I vowed to never talk to strange men ever again.
Well, at least I got money.
"hey."
I looked up, pocketing the nickel. A boy the same age as me, except with blonde hair, held out his hand in a matter-of-factly sort of way, "Where's your hallpass?"
"…I don't have one."
"No hallpass, no hall."
At which point I found myself being pushed back to the end of the hall.
What…the flozwad?
Where was I supposed to get a hallpass?
I looked at Mr. Kahm's door, found out I'd rather jump out a window, then started walking forward, looking over lockers and vents to see if:
An unlocked one.
I smiled.
And hello, a hallpass. I flicked the water fountain nobody ever uses open, like most of us do because nobody trusts the water here, as I passed, then smugly showed the hall monitor the pass.
He glared at me, but buggered off soon enough.
Awesome.
Grinning, I pocketed the hallpass along with the nickel and soldiered on.
Operation: Escape School was off to a start!
...Check that, it will be off to a start. Soon-ish.
Chubb stared back when I stared back at him.
He blinked sluggishly, like all the fat in his eyelids were too heavy to blink without manual support, then groaned out, "I want a cookie."
I took a step.
Chubb twitched in place.
I flinched.
I heard he once ate an entire refrigerator. Last time I checked, I was much smaller than a refrigerator.
Chubb groaned and sort of…rolled like a ball onto his side, and I inched around him before dashing towards the safety of the cafeteria. Relative safety.
It was gross in there.
Greg, the least hungry and most rested kid in the entire school, was still in his eternal spot on one of the benches. No one really knew how he hadn't died from lack of sustenance, but Zack had frozen flames solid once and no one had really thought much of it.
On the far side of the cafeteria, right beside the forever-broken cookie machine, was that splash of yogurt that Phred had stepped on months ago. Eugh.
Wrinkling my nose, I looked over to the wall above Greg's table and grinned. Ah, the school-famous Smiley Smudge.
It was how I got into my special class. I made fun of Smiley, with mustard.
(Don't really know why, since she found it kind of funny. At least I think she did. She was smiling….like she does perpetually.)
Across the room, the counter was unmanned. I guess Mrs. Munch was out today.
Like she usually was.
There was a blueprint to show us all what the cafeteria looked like without aged stains on the walls, but nobody really looked at it to cope with the situation. Last time someone did, Mrs. Sleep collapsed and the janitor started wailing.
Weird times. Then again all adults are weird.
I leaned to the side, trying to see if someone dropped something important under the table. Again. That happened a lot, actually. Someone drops and/or loses something and the first place anyone goes to is under the cafeteria table.
I saw a picture, a roll of toilet paper, a vent cover, a few bottles, and nothing useful.
Well, I wasn't hoping too much for that one anyway.
Straitening, I looked around one more time before spotting something green at the base of the broken cookie machine. I crouched down, picked it up, and saw it was a dollar. Saw that a cookie cost a dollar. Saw my reflection on the shiny surface smirk when an idea came to me.
I went back out the hallway and made my way to the front of the Teacher's office, where Chubb was still lying against. I handed him all the coins I'd collected, roughly amounting to a dollar, "Take the dollar, fatty."
And snatched my hand away before he could eat that too. The coins fell to the ground with several noisy chimes, rolling across the tile floors that are never cleaned.
He landed on the floor like a heap of lard. If lard could move. I opened the door and blinked at the….'Box Office'. It was a room covered from wall to wall in cardboard box and had closed boxes as tables. Punny.
A teacher, one I hadn't seen before, frowned when she saw me, "What're you doing here?"
"Uh," I stammered, "I want to see the Principal."
"And why would you even need to do that?" she asked.
"…I want to tell a joke?"
"Oh!" she beamed, "Jokes are always fun! Go on right in!"
…That was easier than I thought it would be.
I shrugged and trudged inside, finding the Principal asleep on his desk. It was huge. He was huge.
I'd get slammed flat within seconds if he woke up!
Tiptoeing across the carpet, I slowly made my way to the table. Spy-style. With my back to the table, I inched around the sides until I saw the gleam of sweet, sweet freedom.
And then the principal woke up.
I blanched.
Ran outside, tossing a thanks to the teacher in the box office and almost screaming when I heard the principal start yelling.
Gotta get out gotta get out gotta get—
I jammed the key inside the lock and jumped outside—
"Morning, Eggtree," Phred greeted, raising an arm in a sloppy imitation of a wave.
I waved back, walking further inside the room.
"You see it?" I asked, grinning. I didn't do it often, but this warranted one I'd think. Phred snorted, "You got her eyes wrong."
"So what?"
"That wasn't all that funny," Zack replied from somewhere outside my general vision, voice sounding absolutely disapproving.
"Shame that your opinion doesn't matter anymore, no?" Phred sighed out, "You're gonna get in trouble, Phil. Don't expect me to bust your butt out this time."
"It's fine. It's not like the walls don't already have—"
"The principal is requesting Phil Eggtree to come to the box office, please," a voice crackled out from the intercom, sounding bored and probably half-asleep.
Phred smirked triumphantly when I winced.
"Good job breaking it, hero," he snickered as I trudged out the room, passing Smiley on the way in. She wasn't smiling.
And that's that. There will be actual content next chapter, I swear.
