Cinn: I blame this - almost totally - on Jade-Rose's post in the 'What is a Mary Sue' thread... She plot-bunnied me, let's just hope it turns out well.
And for further notice I'm giving her and English Education as it is therefore easier for me to get the whole school system right - and seeing as that is what most of this chapter is about... Anyone know Lucille's maiden name? Also - I think I may have edited this somewhere, but if I have I can't remember exactly where.
Chapter 1: Reflection; should I have taken School more seriously?
Many people have asked about me over the years - about my personality, what I used to do, how I used to perceive life. The answers? They usually change - as I did. My earliest memories of my life are from the start of high school - naturally being able to remember much of primary is difficult - however I was repeatedly told by my mother that I used to line up my teddies with a tin pan on my head pretending to command them as if in the army, but that's getting off the point. So my earliest memories are walking through the main school doors dreading the boring subjects I had to endure. Well, most of them.
It only took me half of year seven to unleash my, creative, side. Not only in art and music but in more, err, non-education related matters. Yes, that's right, I was a total pranker, and ended up with many detentions because of it - whenever the teachers felt I'd gone slightly too far.
First and foremost were a lot of art jokes, our art room was a real death trap without me helping it along - but there's something about spray-mount glue that just really inspires you. I don't think Mrs. Kettleton really appreciated my sticking all that paper to the desk, but forgave me as it was the first time I'd ever used to stuff, little did she know how many pranks that came into. I wonder if Henry ever got his ruler unglued...
Eventually the creative spirit of anyone gets bored of the same old jokes that have the same old theme, you have to have new and better ideas otherwise you just get bored and don't care any more. And a creative spirit is one of the best things you could ever have. So I ended up using History class as an adventure room. I honestly didn't intend to come up with this one - but I was trying to fix my pen, or change the ink cartridge or something, and I ended up with various bits of pen in various different places in the room - and being quite small for my age I felt it would be - interesting to try and retrieve my pen without the teacher realizing.
Granted - that landed me a detention on the return trip. But it was worth a try, and many people thought it was very amusing.
ICT, German and Humanity subjects weren't really my thing. So the second I got the chance, after three years of the things - in year 10 - I dropped as many as I could and studied: Maths, English, French, Graphics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Art and Music. Physics was my worst. So I felt I'd make the most of it, and being a full-of-life-and-energy kinda girl it was obvious that I would make the most of them for finding new and wonderful ideas for art work, music and pranks.
Pranks and Art were the main two - as finding ideas for songs is a slightly different matter, singing and piano playing are not the easiest things to write songs for, unless you do jazz where it's a simple matter of learning every single jazz scale by heart. So naturally I was the source of comic relief for our year without managing to take it too far. Out of five years I managed to get 10 detentions, most in year 9.
One of my friends - Debbie I think it was - who took ICT had the great idea to tell me how to get DOS up on the school computers. She also knew a lot about crashing computers remotely, well, books will tell you anything, even if it is highly dangerous to tell certain individuals, such as Debbie the year's computer whiz. Turning off computers when people are on games when they shouldn't be ('no internet games' is one of my old school's favorite rules) is highly entertaining. However I think no DOS is also a rule and I once got caught - at the end of year 11 on it, but they didn't care as I hadn't screwed up the computer system and it was clear I wasn't doing as I had a name guessing program up as backup.
So after almost five years of pranks it was only natural that people should turn to me for a very memorable end of year prank.
This left me completely blank for a few weeks. I came up with a long list - just they were either too risky or not memorable enough. It was something like this:
1) Remote controlled car or airplane in the staffroom, with or without some teachers' help.
2) En masse bouncy ball competition - especially around the stairs
3) School bands (mainly year 11) to set up a gig in the main corridor
4) Spiders and/or mice in the staffroom - real or fake, either will suffice
5) Penny every single door in the school - or the entrance ones.
6) Stealing the doors
7) Egg everything
8) Padlock the main gates - impractical as no one lived near enough and they're never closed.
9) En masse non-uniform for year 11s only
10) 3 sheep, with the numbers 1, 2, 4 written on them, teachers searching for the 'missing' 3
11) Send all the teachers on the hunt for ancient buried treasure - which doesn't exist
12) Police tape - or other similar tape for quite a lot of the doors
13) Bucket of paste and a lot of pink feathers and the staffroom door - oh so carefully placed.
14) Paper in the bells - so either blocking them or having snow machines around school
15) High pitched squeaky thing placed in a strategic location (staffroom, locker, office)
Granted there were more, but they were the really rubbish ones.
It actually turned out quite a few of them got done on the same day - our school is not particularly renowned for its behavior on the last day of school for year 11s. The main one we did was short out the main electrical system. But because it was summer we still had to go in, and stay there...
Actually I think all of them got done - except the bucket of pink feathers, paper in the bells and sending the teachers on a hunt for buried treasure that doesn't exist.
After that it was a case of having to study extremely hard in order to actually pass my subjects. I'd already done the art exam because of the weird way they do that, but I still had the other 8 exams to do. Which was just over a month of very hard work, and about the same as pranks. My friends say that's a mark of how much work I've done, the more hilarious the prank, the more work I've done and need to relieve a lot of stress. A lot of wallpaper paste was used up in the week before the exam. And a lot of oil pastels - one of my other ways of relieving stress - my hands are still green.
So after a hectic four weeks of exams - not including half term - I was finally able to relax and get back into the swing of the holidays. I did however return to school on Sports Day to return my old textbooks and to watch the Sports Day. I was good at the running, that was it, at school. I did jujitsu outside of school - getting up to a blue belt.
So, as usual with the holidays, they went by far too quickly. And before half my year knew it - we'd spent most of that time in the park so we were all still talking - Results Day was upon us and we had to head into school.
"Lucille! Hey, Lucille!" Debbie screamed, I knew it was Debbie because only Debbie can and would scream that loud.
"Hi, Debbie." I replied, pretending to look half embarrassed, Jade just rolled her eyes at our usual half craziness. But that's how we are, we're just us, we don't bother to pretend or anything and we don't care what anyone thinks about it.
"C'mon, as much as we're all dreading these results - I think we should go and get them." Jade prompted, poking me through the doors - so we assembled in. Register was called out and we headed up one by one to go and get our results.
I'm in the middle - or near enough - so after Debbie and Jade, I too headed up to get my results sheet. My GCSE results, which I've always been kinda proud of stand as this (not as I received them, rearranged for easier understanding):
English Literature: A English Language: A Mathematics 1: A Mathematics 2: A+ French - overall: A+ Graphics: B Biology: A Chemistry: A Physics: B Art: A+ Music: A+
So, 4 A+s, 3 As and 2 Bs. Debbie got 5 A+s and 4 As and Jade got3 A+s, 3 As and 3 Bs. I felt Jade was under appreciated, she's extremely intelligent in general knowledge/useless facts and science and Maths, it's just languages and tech she has slight problems with.
But that concluded our GCSEs and our High School Education - our next step was Sixth Form then University. My chosen A-levels consisted of Art, French, Music and Maths. So plenty of creativeness a go-go and plenty of laughs, pranks and fun!
Cinn: OK, A+s meant A stars but the button wouldn't work properly. And the point of the story shifted ever-so-slightly, but I think that's the effect of sugar. I would be grateful for reviews as this is my first TB fic, and my first fic in quite a while, I would like to know whether or not I should continue (and what to develop more) and where I could/should improve... Please?