Chapter One: Sleepover
'Andrew Richardson!'
Andrew Richardson had been daydreaming before Mr Roberts shouted at him. It had been a wonderful daydream, but he instantly forgot what it was about. Mr Roberts shouting voice was enough to make anyone wake up from a beautiful daydream or a horrible nightmare alike. Unfortunately, Mr Roberts made Andrew wake up out of a beautiful daydream and into a horrible nightmare.
'Have you finished the set maths questions?' Mr Roberts asked.
'Yes,' said Andrew. 'I have.'
'Show me,' said Mr Roberts, believing Andrew was lying.
Andrew stood up and took his mathematics textbook and workbook to the teacher's desk at the front of the room. In it were the completed maths questions. Mr Roberts checked them over, and, disbelievingly, found that Andrew had received 100%.
'Andrew, I'm going to give you three bonus questions,' said Mr Roberts. While he was writing them, Andrew realised they were going to be extremely difficult. He took the book away and worked at them.
Ten minutes later, he was done. There was another ten minutes until the bell was set to go. He took the questions up to the teacher, and they were all correct as well. Now he was really bored. Sitting in his seat with no difficult and challenging work, Andrew now had nothing to do but fiddle around with pens and fingers.
'Andrew,' called Mr Roberts, 'Please stop being an annoying troublemaker.'
'But I'm not being a troublemaker, Mr Roberts,' Andrew challenged. 'I have nothing else to do.'
'That isn't an excuse, Mr Richardson. Please confine yourself to your own mind and stop distracting your fellow pupils. There is no need to be a troublemaker when you are bored, especially when other students are working,' said Mr Roberts.
When the bell went, he couldn't wait to go and see his friend.
'Myles!' called out Andrew. Myles was standing fifty metres away, and came running up to him.
'Hey, Andrew!' Myles puffed. 'I asked my parents, and – do you want to come for a sleepover on Friday night?'
'Sure. I'll have to ask my parents first, though.'
'That's fine. Anyway, how's things?'
'Not good.'
'Why not?' Myles asked his friend, concernedly.
'Mr Roberts accused me of being a troublemaker again.' There was a pause, an awkward silence that had Myles put his hands in his pocket. 'I'm just so sick of it – I'm nine years old, not a fifteen-year old teenager like my neighbours son. I just seem to finish all of my work quicker than anyone else. It's so easy and I just get bored, but they don't seem to care.'
'Maybe we need to ask if you can get harder levels of work,' suggested Myles.
'I dunno,' said Andrew. 'I really just don't know. He doesn't listen to me, and he doesn't understand that I'm not being interested or challenged by his work like I need to be.'
'I get the same things too, sometimes. Come on – cheer up. If your parents let you, you'll be coming over to my house on Friday. That should get you away from their bickering for a while, shouldn't it?'
'I guess. But that's only a small highlight to my week, and it has to come at the very end of it.'
'Murphy's Law,' said Myles. 'That's just how these things work, and you have to live with it.'
'What's Murphy's Law?' asked Andrew.
'Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. It's a saying my parent's use all the time. It's funny. Weird.'
'Okay.'
'Anyway, what've you got next?'
'Erm … English. But I've already finished the work in that. It's gonna be a boring day.'
O
After watching some television (he had no homework to do), Andrew sat down to dinner with his parents. Just being in the room, Andrew could feel the tension. He saw his father, and realised it was something about his dad that was causing the tension. Andrew decided to pretend not to notice.
'So, Andrew,' said his mother. 'How was your day at school?'
'Good,' said Andrew. 'Oh,' he said, acting as if he had only just remembered, 'Myles wants to know if I can go over to his house for a sleepover tomorrow night.'
'Erm,' his mother said. 'It's up to your father.'
Andrew looked at his father, but before he could speak, his father spoke. 'Don't ask me, ask your mother.'
'Not this again!' said Andrew.
'You can go, Silly,' said his mother.
Even after this, Andrew could sense his father was hiding something, and was still rather tense.
