Monday

Monday morning had come. Claire was getting ready. John was lying in bed debating whether to go to school. "I must go" he said to himself. John gathered his stuff and left the home.

"Claire!" Claire's mum shouted from the bottom of the stairs. Claire gathered her things and ran down the stairs. "Come on, you'll be late." Claire and her mum bundled their things into her mum's car. The car journey was quiet. Yesterday, Claire and her mum had had quite a heart-to-heart. Especially when shopping. Now, Claire didn't want her mum to leave the family home. She would miss her. Claire's mum turned into the school entrance and stopped the car by the main doors. "Right. Well, I guess this is it." Her mum started to well up.

"It'll be fine. I'll see you at the weekend?" Claire's mum nodded. "I'm not going to forget about you, you know." That last thing reminded her of some people she'd met at the weekend. The Breakfast Club. John Bender, Allison Reynolds, Brian Johnson and Andrew Clark. Claire got out the car and waved goodbye to her mum. John, where is he. Is he thinking about me? Does he want to see me again? What do I do? Claire began to panic until someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Claire, let's go!" It was her friend Annie. Claire smiled at Annie and they both went into school. She had nothing to worry about right now.

Meanwhile, John decided to take a detour. He went to the shop and grabbed a soda was some money he had found along the way. School started at 9am. It was nearly 11am before he even started to walk towards school.

Claire was walking down one of the many hallways of Shermer High to go to next lesson and stumbled across Dick Vernon. He looked at her, menacingly. "Let's not have any bad behaviour today Miss Standish." Claire and Annie walked to Home Economics: Child Development and met up with their other friends Mia and Brittany.

"Claire, I can't believe you had that detention on Saturday!" Mia said to Claire whilst fiddling with her hair.

"How was it? Who was in there? Was it torture?" Brittany followed with as she filed her nails.

"I think she needs a party to get over it, say this Saturday?" Annie added while she got out a pen. Claire laughed as she put her bag under her desk and grabbed her class book.

"It wasn't too bad. It was bearable. There were people in there I hadn't seen before. Andy Clark was in there though, so I did know someone." Claire's friends all sighed.

"At least someone hot was in there then!" Mia giggled. Claire forced a smile and went to her seat.

John walked into school. He went to his locker to find there wasn't a lock on it anymore. "Fucking hell." He said loudly. He heard a giggle. John looked to his left, and didn't see anyone. He looked to his right, didn't see anyone. He turned around to see a familiar face looking at him.

"Hi." It was Allison. She smiled at him, awkwardly. "Are we still talking?" John had seen Allison before, although he would never admit this out loud, he did want to be friends with Allison before that Saturday detention. He found her intriguing. She was different, and he liked different. Allison got something out of her bag. It was silver, it was oddly shaped but John recognised it.

"Is that mine?" He had a slight smile on his face. Allison walked over to him. She handed him the lock. "I guess it is then." He put the lock back on his locker and then there was silence between him and Allison.

"So then. How are you?"

"Look Allison," he was talked over.

"If you're going to say you don't want to be friends with me, I'm cool with that. You don't have to, I'm used to it."

"No, I wasn't going to say that actually. How'd you fancy hanging out at lunch?" Allison smiled. "Friends." Allison's smile widened. "We hang by the car park, see you at lunch." John was never normally this cheerful in the morning, if you could class that as cheerful.

Claire was thinking about John in Child Development. She wanted to know how he felt. Would anything ever happen between them? She wanted it to; there was something about him that made her feel like jelly. She liked his smile. She liked him as a person. She wasn't sure why, but she just did. Something just made her happy. Her teacher took the register and set some work to do.

Claire was in such a rush this morning that she forgot to go to the toilet. She was desperate.

"Mrs Moore, please may I go to the toilet?" Mrs Moore looked up from her desk.

"Yes you may Claire." Claire got up and went outside. She walked towards the ladies toilets, when a figure stepped out in front of her. She recognised them. A long grey coat, a red checked shirt, and that distinctive smell of cigarettes. John. Claire began to panic, wondering what to say. Would he say anything? Probably not, he wouldn't want to talk to her.

"You lost?" John looked at Claire as she approached him. He had that slight grin on his face like on Saturday when he said it. Claire had a bold smile on her face. "You look a bit surprised to hear me talking to you…" his words trailed off.

"Oh, um no." Silence. Claire and John were staring at each other. If Claire had gone with her senses, she would have jumped onto him there and then and planted a kiss on him. She noticed a sparkly earring in his ear. It was the earring she had given him. She smiled again. "You're wearing my earring?" Looked touched his ear.

"Yes… do you want it back cherry?" Claire smiled even more. John walked towards her. Claire walked towards him. The school bell went and within seconds the corridor was filling up with students.

It was lunch time at Shermer High School. Allison was walking from physics round to the car park to meet John. She bumped into a nerdy looking boy, of course it was Brian Johnson.

"Oh Hey Allison!" Brian said cheerfully. Allison looked up. She smiled.

"Hi Brian."

"Glad to see we're talking. Anyway, where are you heading this lunch time?"

"I'm going to see John, he said I can hang with him which is nice. I didn't think he was that sort of person."

"That's cool of him, tell him I said hi."

"Tell him yourself." John popped out of nowhere.

"Hi John." Brian said, slightly shocked. John grinned and then went serious. Allison looked just as shocked as Brian did.

"So big Bri, where are you heading? Physics club?" Allison giggled and then stopped abruptly when she saw Brian giving her 'the look'.

"Yes I am going to physics club. Then I am heading to shop to try and bump up my grade on that stupid elephant so I must be going. Nice to see you both." Brian walked away. John looked at Allison. They both smiled.

"Let's go." John and Allison walked down the corridor, some boy, presumably a jock because he was hanging out with Andy Clark, bumped into John who then bumped into Allison forcing her to hit her head on the lockers. John looked at the guy.

"Got a problem, druggie?" John looked up the boy who had just severely pissed him off. Andy said nothing.

"What was that? Do you fancy telling me that again, because if you do I can tell you exactly what's going to happen? You will be flat against that locker, praying for me to stop. I suggest you apologise." Allison looked around for Andy. They made eye contact. He smiled at her. She didn't react. Even though Allison had tried her best to copy the makeover that Claire had given her on Saturday, she still wore her dark clothing with converse trainers and had sneakily added a little bit of dark eye makeup to feel comfortable. But her hair was out of her face, and she did feel pretty.

"Well after that insult, I'm definitely not apologising. I suggest you keep one eye open, Bender." This boy was called Fenton. He was muscular and he was good at wrestling. He was number 2 behind Andy who was number one. John had no idea what he would be getting into.

"After meeting you, I've decided I am definitely in favour of abortion in cases of incest," John replied. The majority of Andy's group giggled at this comment, as did Allison. Fenton stared at John. John stared intensely at Fenton. They were the same height. John was very aggressive and Fenton was good at wrestling. Not a good combination.

"Look guys, sorry. It was an accident. Let's just go, we'll stay out of your way. Sorry, lady. What your name?" Andy piped in before things got too heated. He looked at Allison as he said that.

"Allison." She replied.

"Well hey Allison. Sorry on behalf of Fenton here. We'll try and make sure it doesn't happen again." John looked at Andy.

"You better sporto." Allison and John walked round to the car park as Andy and his jock crew walked to the cafeteria.

Claire and her friends met up with some other people in her group to discuss prom.

"Has anyone thought of a theme?" said Mia.

"What about colours?" added Annie.

"What about music?" asked Brittany.

"Transport? How are we getting there? "Questioned Layla, another friend of Claire's.

"There's needs to be enough room for our dates." Finished Annie.

"Look. Just calm down. We'll get this sorted tomorrow when we have a prom committee meeting." Assertively said Savannah who was head of the prom committee. Claire looked around, totally bemused. She was interest before Saturday about prom, and she certainly wasn't interested now. Claire was thinking about the kiss with John which nearly happened. How desperate she was to kiss him again.

"Hey Claire, is everything ok?" Claire looked up at Annie who was asking her.

"Yeah, everything is fine." Annie smiled and gave her a slight hug. "If you need anything you know where I am. But anyway, have you noticed how Andy Clark is looking over here?" All the girls at the table started to smile and flirt with their eyes at the jock table. Andy suddenly got up and walked over to Claire.

"Hey Claire, can I have a word outside please." Claire, shocked, went red. Exactly what she didn't want, it now looks like she fancies Andy and she doesn't. She wants to be with John, and only John. Claire got up and went out with Andy.

"What's up?"

"I was an idiot."

"Why, what's happened?"

"Well, Fenton was acting like an asshole and bumped into John, who bumped into Allison whilst we were walking down here. He wouldn't apologise and I didn't say anything until things got heated. I'm not sure if Allison is angry with me or not, could you find out?"

"Wait, Allison and John are hanging out? How? Why?" Claire sighed. It's not about John right now, it's about Allison. "I haven't even seen Allison today. I have no idea where she hangs out. Sorry, I don't think I can help."

"Ok, thanks anyway." There was an awkward silence. "Have you seen John today, how's it going with him?"

"I saw him when I was walking to the toilets just before break. Nothing really happened. Haven't seen him since."

"Ok, well I'll let you go. If anyone asks, tell them I was talking to you about prom dates and I was thinking of asking someone in your group to prom. I just don't want anything being said right now." Claire nodded and said goodbye to Andy. As she walked back to her table, her friends looked very excited like something interesting had happened between her and Andy.

"Nothing happened guys, he was just talking to me about prom dates. Chill." The bell went for last lesson.

Claire got home after being dropped off by Annie. She went upstairs and put her bags down. She lay on her bed and looked up to the ceiling. "I wish I could have spoken to him again." Claire exhaled deeply. She shut her eyes and fell into a light snooze. She woke up not long before 7pm and decided to do her homework to keep herself occupied.

John hung around school for an extra half an hour. He smoked a joint with his friend Sarah, Billy and Denzel. It calmed him down. He was in an odd mood. He wasn't sure why. He had nearly kissed Claire again, something he was desperate to do. But the event at lunch time involving Allison, Andy and the idiot Fenton seemed to get to him.

"I'm going to walk home guys, thanks for the green Denzel." He nodded his head toward Denzel before leaving the school grounds and heading back to his house in the Jackman Estate.