No matter how hard you stare at a wall clock, it will not move faster.
Everyone knows it. But everyone ignores it.
And somehow Macy Misa thought that by grilling the ticking clock silently with her eyes would make the minute hand rotate around to 3 o'clock. Because that would make it 3 o'clock, on June 5th.
The last frickin' day of school.
There were only five tenth graders left in the grade, and they were all stuffed in last period history—all the other students in tenth grade had taken early vacation and were well on their way to fun in the sun, the lucky bastards.
Normally, she would have been thrilled with the small class, but her extremely ancient and boring history teacher, Mrs. Cramer, was droning on and on about how important the Washington Monument was, and that only served to subdue the fizzing nerves crackling away in her brain. And, Macy hated to admit, as completely wrong as it was, she was actually learning something on the last day of school. A lot of things.
Like, for instance, Sophia Reynolds chewed her nails in a disgusting manner. Spencer Fox wore putty colored earbuds in his ears and called them hearing aids(even though Macy could hear the distinct sound of ACDC coming from his direction). Macy could stay cross eyed without her eyeballs hurting for 55 seconds. The more and more someone talked about how important a monument was the more it started looking like a pointy pile of bricks.
Nick Lucas, the teacher's pet, wore sunglasses in class because he slept.
At first, Macy had just thought that maybe he was wearing them as a cool(not really) sort of fashion trend(icky teen magazines were always screaming about how JONAS—lame name—started trends all the time), but then his head started nodding like crazy. Maybe he wore earbuds, too. Nah, he seemed too respectful to do that. Or to do anything of that sort.
The pansy.
Which was why she was extremely surprised five minutes into class when Mrs. Cramer marched right over, snatched the sunglasses off his eyes, and found that his eyes were, indeed, closed. Nick's eyes had snapped open about five seconds after and he'd tried to use his whole 'smooth operator' move on Mrs. Cramer. Everyone had smirked. Mrs. Cramer didn't take bribes—he was dead meat.
But then she smiled.
She effin' smiled. Then she got up and began to teach-slash-drone again, unfazed.
Macy was absolutely shocked, and so was everyone else. Nick Lucas hadn't gotten in trouble for sleeping in class. Outrageous. Tessa Brooks had thrown a balled up piece of paper at the wall and had stayed after school cleaning the board the week before, and Nick had actually fallen asleep in class and nada? Sure, Macy's best friend, Stella, was JONAS's stylist, so Macy was therefore forced to tolerate them—but this was an all time low.
And now, as Macy waited for the clock to tick, she couldn't help thinking that Nick deserved to stay after school and rub Mrs. Cramer's feet, like the school horror stories said(Joseph Miller was traumatized for weeks).
"Mrs. Cramer?" Sophia cried desperately, waving her hand around. "MRS. CRAMER?"
"Yes?" Mrs. Cramer asked in her unnaturally deep, Chewbacca-esque growl. Macy saw Nick wince out of the corner of her eye.
"Do you think, uh," Sophia blinked multiple times, looking for something that would send Mrs. Cramer off on a rant about anything but monuments. "do you think the school will blow up?"
Frank 'Meatloaf' Simmons turned around sharply in his seat. "Nice," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Everyone knew Sophia sucked at derailing Mrs. Cramer.
"Well, maybe if the—" Mrs. Cramer started to answer, then caught herself. "What kind of a question is that?"
"I just wanted to know," Sophia shrugged. Mrs. Cramer gave a bob of her eyebrows and began droning again.
"Mrs. Cramer?" Macy shouted, deciding to try her hand at the game. Frank gave her a knowing wink. "'Scuse me? Mrs. Cramer?"
"Yes?" Mrs. Cramer quirked an eyebrow.
"Studies show that schools don't normally blow up, but there's been a lot of cases of mercury in schools. What about mercury? Do you think there's mercury in our school?" Macy asked, receiving low-fives from every kid in the classroom. Every kid, except for Nick, who she sat right next to, by some ill fate. He seemed to be ignoring all of them, more than likely trying to be 'the good kid'.
He made her sick.
"I'm not sure—" The ancient teacher seemed to be considering it. U.S. history was long forgotten now.
"What about the planet, Mercury? Ain't that close to Uranus?" Frank snickered.
"No, not at all," Mrs. Cramer shook her head, smiling proudly at her knowledge of astronomy despite the fact she was a history teacher.
"I heard Uranus is pretty huge, is that true?" Spencer put a finger to his chin, as if he was seriously thinking about it.
"Oh, yes, it's very true, the astronomy teacher told me himself," Mrs. Cramer nodded. The class lost it—except for perfect angel Nick Lucas, of course.
"SPENCER, SOPHIA, FRANK, AND MACY, DETENTION!" Mrs. Cramer cried in her usual defense mechanism. She had seriously just given detention to children who had simply laughed. The woman was senile.
"Damn," Macy muttered. Nick turned his head to look at her.
He seemed disappointed. Or…like he was seriously considering something.
Maybe they should stop?
No way. It was 2:55. Time was flying.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Cramer?" Nick raised a hand.
"Yes, Nick?" she said, smiling at her only 'good student' in the classroom.
He smirked slightly. "Isn't Uranus the source of great and powerful gases?"
A shocked silence followed. Then everyone but Mrs. Cramer started cracking up.
"Detention, Mr. Lucas!" Mrs. Cramer cried. Macy turned and looked at him. He looked back at her. Nick seemed to be…awaiting her approval.
She gave him a curt nod.
She was impressed.
***
Two arms roped around Macy's waist and she spun around quickly, ready to attack.
"Oh," she sighed, pressing her palm against her heart. "I didn't know who it was, you scared me,"
Christopher Reese's blue eyed gaze flicked to her backpack. "I came to pick you up,"
"Yeah?" Macy asked, nuzzling into her boyfriend's neck. "Wait, doesn't your school end 15 minutes from now,"
"They weren't doing anything important," He shrugged. "Come on, let's go, I left the car running with my little sis inside,"
"But, the thing is," Macy stepped back and held him out in front of her, taking in his lean figure. "I can't go. Detention,"
"On the last day of school?" Chris looked shocked.
"I know! It was my first one for the whole year!" Macy pouted, a little upset that her record had been ruined.
"Dang," Chris kissed the corner of her mouth. "It's okay. Want me to wait for you?"
"No, you're busy. Go to work," she pushed his shoulder playfully.
"I get the day off today?" Chris half-asked. Macy laughed and kissed him on the forehead.
"Go. Now," she growled.
"But how're you gonna get home?"
"I'll take the bus! Go! You're gonna be late," Macy giggled and shoved him towards the exit at the end of the hall. "I'll call you. I promise."
He grinned and left, whistling. Macy shook her head after him and went back to throwing things into her backpack.
"Who was that?" Nick's voice startled her and she jumped.
"Chris," Macy half-gasped, still trying to catch her breath. Nick walked over, his bottom lip sticking out dubiously.
"Seems like a nice guy," Nick nodded. Macy quirked an eyebrow.
"Yeah, he is," her eyes narrowed. "Should I tell him he has your approval?"
"Nah," Nick shrugged. "He doesn't have it yet," he opened his locker, which was conveniently next to Macy's, coyly.
"Oh, doesn't he?" Macy rolled her eyes, throwing several notebooks into her backpack at once..
"He your boyfriend, or something?" Nick laughed. Macy didn't see what was funny.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" she muttered.
"I wouldn't," Nick quipped. "I'm just guessing that since you were pretty much swallowing each others' tongues yesterday when he came to get you, you're probably romantically involved,"
"If you want to watch, you just have to ask, you don't have to spy," Macy smirked, slamming her locker shut and walking off, leaving Nick with his mouth gaping open.