" 2:52……….2:53………..2:54…only a minute to go Simon, you can do this"

Mr Farrows, my chemistry teacher, was staring at me over the top of his half-moon glasses. I looked up at him, but as soon as I did this, his eyes quickly retreated, and were once again focused on the extremely large pile of papers in front of him.

I looked up again, as I felt Mr Farrows' gaze upon me once more. He did the same as before when he caught me watching. Then I realised why he had been staring like that. He held my paper closely between his thumb and his index finger…I could see something circled in red at the top of the paper…as I leaned across my friend cee cee to try and get closer to the paper, I saw it…omg was that an 'F'? 

"Only thirty seconds to go and then I'm out…deep breaths Suze, come on"

In the effort to get back to my seat, I climbed back the way I came but this time, as I could not believe what I had just witnessed, I knocked the chair with my foot and as I went to sit down, the chair lost balance, and I, along with my seat when crashing with a great thud onto the lab floor.

"Way to go Suze" I thought

No one except Adam and Cee Cee came to my aid. As they helped me back up, I saw Mr Farrows stood gazing over the top his desk, his overly large nose hanging over the edge as if it was coming to meet me. "Problem Miss Simon?" He had a stern look in his eye, so I thought it best not to ask him if I could send him flying from his seat and see how he liked it." No Mr Farrows, no problem at all."

I attempted to stand up on my own to try and regain some dignity, but I was having difficulty. I had a horrible feeling I'd sprained my ankle. How the hell was I going to get out of here without Jesse seeing me? With only one leg in proper working order I didn't think I was going to be getting very far.

"Good. Simon I'd like to see you after class for a few minutes," said Mr Farrows.

After the bell had gone and everyone else had cleared out the classroom, I realised I only had four minutes to get this thing with Mr F out of the way, and also find away of hobbling past my ghostly watch-man. "Unlikely" I thought to myself

"Susannah…..you are an extremely able student, but recently you have seemed, well….a little bit distracted from your studies," Mr Farrows said as I approached his desk.

Uh, well if you call having a ghost taking up permanent residency in your bedroom, trying to make it through a day without having some sort of death threat from the other world, and recently taken part in an exorcism amongst other things, then yeah you could say I've been a little bit on the distracted side. However, I wasn't going to tell him this.

Mr Farrows continued. "Your last assignment was extremely disappointing. You only managed to score an 'F'." I did my best to look truly shocked as if I hadn't already seen the mark.

"But Mr Farrows," I said in my most innocent voice, "I studied really hard for that assignment, I didn't go out all weekend." I hoped he couldn't see right through me because of course I hadn't stayed in all weekend. My stepbrother Jake had dragged me along to work at the pizza place with him because his friends had all gone away for the weekend. I happened to be the last one out of the house so he had cornered me and blackmailed me into doing it. Part of the deal was he wouldn't tell his dad that I'd been learning to drive in the family car and backed into an extremely large oak tree, which caused me to break a taillight. So as you can see, it was either work with Jake, or be grounded for the foreseeable future.

"Well obviously just not hard enough Miss Simon," with a look of distrust creeping across his face. " I shall be speaking to Father Dominic about your performance this year, and see what he has got to say about it. Now run along Miss Simon, I don't want your parents to be wondering where you've got to."

I look at the clock. It was three o'clock on the dot. No chance of making a run for it today, so I grabbed my bag and strolled, well more limped down the corridor, and out into the quad. Jesse however was not at the gate. Where was he? I waited at the gate for the next five minutes, but Jesse did not make an appearance for another few minutes. However, I could see Father Dominic in the distance waving his hands around like a mad man. "Susannah," he called, "SUSANNAH!"

I spun my head around to see what all the commotion was about. "What's the matter Father Dom. What is it?"

"There's someone in the office I'd like you to meet Susannah, Come along now." I hobbled my way after Father Dom until I finally reached his office for the second time that day.