A change of pace
Bree walked faster than usual through the schools hallway. She was not late yet, she almost never was, but it started to lean that way. She just needed to reach her locker and get a notebook, before attending a meeting with the anti-bully group. While she zick-zacked past the other students, she tried to clear her head of what had just happened outside. She did not have time to focus on that now, even though all she wanted was to just tell someone. She wanted to call Irma, out go to the principal, but she didn't know who she could possibly tell that could help Dabria. And that was exactly the reason she needed to get it out of her head, to focus on the upcoming meeting.
She reached her locker and quickly unlocked the combination, almost purely on musclememory. Her routine was interrupted suddenly as she opened the metal door and she was hit with a cascade of tiny papers. She started to wave away what got in her face, and looked down to see hundreds of confetti sized cutouts settle around her feet. She pushed them together in a pile hastily with her feet, and looked over her shoulder as she heard some students chuckle as they walked by. A mild irritation started to grow in her stomach as she did not have time for this. She brushed more papers of her sweater, and that was when she first really looked at them. She realised that they had something written on them. She picked some back up from the floor to see if they all said the same thing. She found a total of five different messages, that repeated over and over again.
You're cute.
I like your hair.
Your eyes are pretty.
Your laugh is cute.
Hope you're having a good day.
As she flipped through the tiny notes, her eyes got wider for each message. She started to flush and began to quickly try to gather them all again. She picked up ass many as she could and carried to a nearby trash can. She had to go several times to make sure that they were all gone from underneath her locker. When she turned back the last time to lock the door again, she looked up at the clock on the wall. She cursed under her breath, and started running down the hall.
As she reached the conference room, she slowed down, tried to control her breathing and straightened her clothes a little. It was not a very formal meeting, but she wanted to look presentable. Irma had taught her that you needed to look the part if you wanted people to take you seriously. She heard a voice get closer on the other side of the door.
"Let me you see if there is any latecomers in the hall." she recognised the principal's voice.
The door opened, and sure enough, there stood the principal, Mr. Ironcoin.
"Ah there you are Bree! We haven't started yet, you just made it." He said and held the door open.
"Thank you, and sorry. It won't happen again." Bree reassured him as she walked by.
"No worries at all, really." He confirmed and patted her shoulder as he followed her into the room.
Bree sat down at the far end of the long table. There were mostly other faculty present, but also other students from the other grades. She took out her notebook and started to take notes as the principal called the meeting open. If she had thought that she was distracted before, that was nothing to now. She had a hard time following as the others went through their different points of the meeting. Who had put the notes in her locker? How had someone even got all of them in there? Was it actually someone who meant all those nice things or was it just a practical joke?
"Bree? Did you have anything?"
Bree snapped out of her mind, only to notice that the whole room was looking at her.
"Erm… Sorry, hold on." She held up a finger as she flipped through her notebook. "Here, yes. There are some concerns among some of the student about the upcoming football match. The other teams audience has shown several times before that they can't handle a fair and quiet game. For example they have brought smoke grenades and caused a bit of chaos before."
"Do you want us to forbid them from coming?" The schools coordinator, Mr Drakeson, asked doubtingly.
"Ehm, no maybe not something that harsh. I hadn't really thought of a solution, I just wanted to tell you what the students have been talking about."
"That's alright Bree. Thank you, we'll set up some extra parents to watch the game, and the crowd." Mr Ironcoin decided. "And if that was all from you, I think this meeting is done. Thank you all for coming." He stood up and buttoned his suit jacket before leaving them.
The others also got up and started to pack their things back into their bags. Bree threw a glance at her watch, she could not believe it had been an hour already. She pushed some loose hair behind her ear and stood up. As she moved, she saw a piece of the paper from before fall from her head. Almost panicking, she quickly reached out her hand and caught it. Her eyes darted around the room but no one else seemed to have noticed. She read the note again and felt her cheeks get hotter. She collected her things and hurried out before anyone saw.
Bree turned the corner to the next corridor a bit to quickly, because when she thought she could continue forward, there was suddenly someone in her way. She dropped her books as she bumped into Katkin.
"Shit, I'm sorry." Bree started to apologise.
Katkin simply kneeled and picked up the books in one smooth movement, and handed them over back to Bree.
"Could just as easily been my fault. Maybe the school could use some kind of direction rules. Like a road, always go on the right side to avoid running into people. Maybe even a fastlane?"
Bree laughed. It felt good after the day they'd had. Katkins joke was unexpected but welcome.
"Maybe I should bring that up on the next meeting." Bree said.
"Do you want to paint guidelines on the floor and put up road signs as well?" Katkin did an imitation of Mr. Drakeson's negative voice.
Bree put her hand over her mouth to cover another laugh from bubbling up. It wasn't nice to laugh at others expense, but the imitation was quite spot on.
"Anyway. I wanted to ask you if maybe you wanted to come with me home someday? Now that you all know where I live, thanks to you." Katkin rolled her eyes with the last part. "I think we ended up in a bit of a weird place, and I thought that hanging out a little could help."
"Sure. I don't know when it would work though. I live pretty far away and there are only a few buses after school that goes all the way out there. I don't think I could make it to the stable and back without missing most of them." Bree answered and made a disappointed face.
Katkin nodded and thought for a moment.
"Maybe, and it's totally fine if you don't want to, but maybe I could come with you? I have my bike, and could technically bike home? Today would work, I don't have to many chores to do today, and can text someone else to do the last ones?"
"I don't think you understand how far it is. Just riding the bus takes almost an hour."
"Oh… Well shit."
"I guess, I could call Irma and check, maybe you can come with me home and spend the night? We have school tomorrow but we start at the same time right? That way we can hang out and none of us have to spend half the night to get home?"
Katkin nodded approvingly.
"That could absolutely work for me! I have an extra shirt in my locker, and I always have a toothbrush in my bag."
"Why do you always have a toothbrush in your bag?" Bree asked a bit confused.
"Eh! It's good to be prepared. You don't know when you'll spend the night somewhere, like now for instance." Katkin shrugged and smiled. "I gotta go catch my last class. See you later by the bike stand?"
"Yeah sure. See you there."
Katkin hugged Bree with one arm before she left. Bree slowly started walking again. She wondered if Katkin usually spent the night with different people, and with who that would be. She shook the thought out of her head, it was really none of her business, all she needed to know was that Katkin still wanted to be her friend, and that made her happy.
Calming down
Sel sat down at his usual place, outside behind the science classrooms. He lit his pipe and pulled a deep breath. He held the smoke in for a moment, letting the effect really take, before exhaling out. The rain was still falling but he was safe on the fire escape. From around the corner he could hear the shouts from the football field. He put in his headphones to cancel it out, and put on some music. For the duration of the first song, he just sat there, smoking his pipe, moving his head to the soft beat and watching the raindrops hitting the surface of the puddles on the ground. For about three minutes, he was alone and relaxed. Then, just as the song faded out, he heard the door behind him open and close. He took out one earphone, and turned around. It was Bethany. He was not surprised, this had been their place, they used to be closer before, before they started hanging with different friends. He was not surprised that she came here as well.
"Hello." He said and scouched over.
"Care to share?" Bethany asked as she sat down on the stair.
Sel handed her the pipe, and she inhaled. She let the smoke out through her nose, and smiled a little as she gave the pipe back.
"Thank you. That was a good batch hm?"
"Yeah, I'm quite happy with this one actually." Sel took another breath.
"Does Agosto know that you make your own tobacco?" Bethany pushed Sel lightly with her shoulder.
"Unclear. He doesn't try to clean my room anymore, and even if he did walk in there I don't know how much he knows about plants. Maybe he thinks it's just a normal plant."
"I don't know, sounds a bit naive if you ask me. Parents know more than you know." she teased him.
"Maybe." Sel handed over the pipe again.
Unsure what to talk about next, Sel offered Bethany on of his earphones. She took it and he put on an old soul song. And for another song, they sat their together, listening, smoking, watching the rain. The song ended, and Bethany handed back the earphone.
"We should do this more often." she said as she stood up. "It's nice to go out here to be alone but sometimes company isn't to bad either."
She offered Sel a hand and helped him up. Sel put his pipe back in his bag, and Bethany started to look through her satchel to find something. She held up a perfume bottle in quiet triumph. After having sprayed some on her clothes to cover the smoke smell, she offers it to Sel.
"Thanks but I'm just gonna let the rain deal with that." He said.
"Why go around in the rain when you could remain dry and just use this?" Bethany asked, not understanding why Sel would do that.
"Well because you didn't hitch the door on the lock when you stepped out so now we can't open it." Sel said and pointed to the closed door.
She turned and saw that Sel was indeed right. She let out a tired and deep sigh.
"I agree that we should do this again though. See you around." Sel finished and stepped out into the rain.
He pulled his hood up over his head, and quickly hurried around the building to find the nearest entrance. When he got inside he stopped and shook his body, and tiny droplets rained of his shirt. he was just about to head for his next class, when he heard the door open behind him again. He turned around and saw Bethany come running in. She did not look pleased, and simply walked past him and in to the nearest toilet. Sel chuckled slightly, and then went on his way.