"Um, Mr Lester?" I tapped my tall, dark haired English teacher on the shoulder. He sighed and turned around.
"What now, Helen?"
"I um… I don't understand this question," I said, pointing to the third question on the sheet.
"Helen, we're twenty minutes into the period and you only have two questions done?" he asked me sternly, "You know I might have to split you four up if this is all you get done in that time," He pointed over at the table in the back corner of the room where my three friends, Heidi, Abbie and Gemma were sitting, laughing at the word "coming" on the worksheet. I sighed and rolled my eyes, they were so immature at times. "Now, what don't you understand?"
"Well, on this question it asks how old the girl in the story is, but it doesn't say in the text," I handed him the text book and he frowned, "What?" I asked.
"Helen," He sighed, "There's another side," He turned the page over to reveal a whole other page of writing, "You need to focus more on your work, and talk less, now read that page, sit back down, and get on with your work, quietly,"
I grunted and walked back over to my table to where my three friends were sitting, "there's another page,"
"Well that explains everything," Abbie said, flicking over in her book. I picked up my pen and began to answer the next question, suddenly Gemma, who was sitting beside me, nudged me really hard, knocking my hand and putting a huge line across my page.
"Oh my god, what the heck Gemma?" I gave her a look and she laughed, putting her head face down on the desk, "Heidi, have you got tip ex?"
"No, sorry," Heidi said, flicking her straight, brown hair off her face.
"It's alright," I sighed, crumpling up the file page and starting from scratch on a new one, trying my best not to get distracted by the annoying boy behind me who kept clicking his pen, I kept my head down and worked for another solid five minutes then realised something, "Oh, shit," I said, looking up. All three of my friends looked up too.
"What?" They said in chorus.
"We were meant to go to a detention with Mr Howell this lunchtime, remember?"
"Crap!" Abbie exclaimed, throwing her pen down in front of her, "I knew I had forgotten something,"
"Oh no,"Heidi groaned, face planting the table.
"Oh well, Mr Howell's probably forgotten about it, you know what he's like," As soon as Gemma said that there was a creak as the door opened and Mr Howell, A tall, handsome, dark brown haired guy, walked in.
"Mr Lester?" He said, his eyes scanning the classroom, for us no doubt, I thought, biting my nails.
"Oh no," I heard Abbie mumble
"Would you mind if I spoke to a few girls in this class please?" He asked, looking directly at us.
"Who would you like to speak to?" Mr Lester asked, pretending not to notice the worried looks on our faces.
"Abbie, Gemma, Heidi and Helen, please," Mr Howell said. He walked over to speak to Mr Lester and I overheard their conversation.
"What have they done now, Dan?"
"Guess,"
"I don't know, what?"
"Missed another detention, Phil, I think we may have to call their parents," Mr Howell gestured for us to come over. We stood up and slowly walked over to the two teachers, my heart was beating faster than ever before, not my parents, I thought, oh please dear god not my parents.
"Girls," Mr Howell started, "You are disruptive, noisy, and downright annoying! Why didn't you come to your detention?"
"We forgot," Gemma said, twisting a strand of her long, dyed red hair.
"So, just like you forgot yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that," He raised his eyebrows at her, "Tomorrow, afterschool, my room," He abruptly straightened his tie, and walked out.
"Twat," I muttered, wiping my sweaty hands on my skirt, my hands ten to sweat when I'm nervous.
"Oh my God, tomorrow's Friday, we're supposed to be going downtown afterschool," Heidi wined as we walked back to our desk.
"Look at it as a positive thing," I said, taking my seat, "If our parents think we're downtown then they'll not know we're at a detention,"
"Helen, sometimes you're too much of an optimist," Abbie frowned.
"There's nothing wrong with being positive," I protested, "and anyway I'm happy that the glass is always half full with me,"
"That's what Mark said…." Abbie mumbled then giggled, it didn't even sound that dirty at all.
"Abbie," I groaned, rolling my eyes, "Just no," Mark was a cute, sweet, shy guy who I had a little crush on, but I wasn't obsessed, "Abbie, you're sixteen, stop acting twelve," We got on with our work for what felt like hours, and when the bell finally rang for home time, it was like all my prayers had been answered.
I lay in bed that night, staring at the glow in the dark stars I had stuck to my ceiling and went over in my head everything that had happened today, a detention, I thought, I had never had a detention before, but recently, the four of us had started getting a bit loud, and had started distracting each other from schoolwork. We had already been separated in most classes apart from English, Drama and Art. We had Mr Liguori for art, he was a young man, about twenty six, the same age as Mr Lester. All the girls loved him because he was so attractive and yes, he was very handsome with piercing green eyes and a gorgeous smile, but I wasn't really attracted to him that much and Heidi, Gemma and Abbie have always wondered why not, simple answer, I don't know. I remember in geography how much we pissed off Mr Kendall, we actually drove him to the point where he threatened to lock Gemma in the cupboard if she didn't shut up. Obviously when he said this it drove all four of us into uncontrollable laughter, then when he told us to be quiet and get on with what we had to do, we started giggling every five seconds, breaking the peaceful silence of the entire class, Mr Kendall had split us up, and we were all in opposite corners of the room now. I sighed and laughed, remembering those times, I turned onto my side, staring at the figures on my alarm clock, glowing bright red, 11:11 pm. Make a wish, I thought closing my eyes and wished for the one thing I had always wanted…