I walk into the library and look around. I'm the first one in here. Hopefully the only one. I don't want anyone bothering me today.

The library is very fancy and high tech, which I don't understand since the school budget isn't exactly where it should be and money should be spent on field trips and pep rallies and that kind of thing. There are many windows, so lots of natural light can enter and illuminate the space.

But most of all, there are books.

Obviously. This is a library, what did I expect? It's way more than just a few, though. There are so many my head starts spinning. Why does a high school with less than a thousand people need more than a hundred thousand books? I don't think there are actually that many, but there might as well be. No one cares about books in this school though, especially since there's enough real-life drama going on around us.

There's a weird looking, brown sculpture right in the center of the empty-to-a-certain-extent space I'm inhabiting for the next nine hours. I try to figure out what it's supposed to depict, but only come up with deformed human before I give up. It is perched behind six long tables that each seat six people, although there are only three at each that face the entrance.

I decide to take a seat at the front table on the far right. Just as I settle in, a blonde, skinny kid who's obviously a nerd walks in. Damn it. Guess I'm not going to be alone all day after all. I don't recognize him, but by the looks of him, I'm proud not to know who he is. I couldn't care less. I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to serve a prison sentence. I hope he doesn't try to talk to me.

He trudges behind me, taking his hat off, and I hear a chair being pulled out to my left in back of me.

Then another boy drags his feet through the door. This one I recognize. How could I not recognize him? He's Andrew Clark, for goodness sakes. He's the pride, joy, and heartthrob of this school ― state wrestling winner, surprisingly good grades, and an awfully good-looking bastard. For all that I hear my girlfriends talking about him, I barely know the guy. No, scratch that. They don't talk about him, they talk about his body. The girls couldn't care less about his achievements or personality. I've seen them in class ogle him, and I can't say I haven't done so either.

He obviously doesn't want to be here. I smile mentally. Honestly, who would? But it's more than that. He really, really doesn't want to be here. Like he shouldn't even be here.

Like me.

I wonder if that's how I looked when I came in.

He seems tough, almost defiant. Feisty. Emotional. Emotionally driven. Not that I care.

I eyeball him, looking him up and down, checking him out as he shuffles towards the seat to my far left. His eyes and body stance ask clearly if he can sit there, but he points to the chair anyway. Don't see why he bothers. I shrug impassively, with a small flirty smile, and he takes a seat, one chair between us.

When I hear a scuffing noise, I look away from him and to the door. A boy flounces into the library. He hits each side of the door, reaches over and shoves something over on the counter to his left, spins a rack of sunglasses (what the hell is that doing there anyway?) with a squeak, picks up a piece of paper folded into quarters, and pockets it.

When he fully enters the library, he takes off his glasses and perches them on his head, arms swinging and clothes jangling as he stares at me, Andy, and the nerd. What the hell is he looking for in our faces? Is he trying to intimidate us? Anger us? Well, he's succeeding at the latter. I don't know why I feel angry at him on sight, but I do.

Obviously, I know who he is. John Bender, Sherman High School's resident criminal. What an attention-seeking idiot.

Bender approaches Nerd menacingly, and I can practically feel the fear rolling off of Nerdo in waves. Andy and I turn around in our seats to see what will happen. Bender stops moving toward Nerdo only when he's almost on top of him, and points to his right. Get out of the fucking chair, this seat is mine now. Nerdo obliges, grabbing his stuff and dropping his dorky Bears hat. He hastily picks it up and cowers his way to a table on the left, sitting on the edge. Bender exchanges I'm the leader glances with him before they put their asses in their new chairs. He pulls his glasses out of his long hair and throws them down on the table just as another person walks in.

What the fuck happened at school this week for everyone in school to be in detention? Did they all plan something and get busted just as I get caught doing something silly like ditching class? Now I definitely won't have a peaceful day. Five different people in detention in one Saturday. God.

This one is a girl. She keeps her head down, short, dark brown hair falling in her face as she stares at her dinky black Converse. She speedwalks to the back, circling around the sculpture, obviously feeling all of our eyes on her. Eew, I can barely even watch. She's dirty, disgusting, and who the hell bought her that bag? Her outfit is terrible: a dark jacket, long black shirt, and black tights under a long skirt of the same color. No fashion sense at all. It's almost painful to look at her.

When I turn around again to see which seat she chooses, which is the one at the far left corner, I also see Bender making himself comfortable by situating his legs on another chair. So he's using two. What a rebel.

Because that's obviously what she is, I mentally christen her with the nickname Basketcase. Basketcase loudly tosses some kind of composition book on the table and pulls the hideous bag off of her shoulder before throwing herself into the chair.

Andy moves beside me, turning to me, and our eyes lock. He smiles and ducks his head down a little as he stifles a laugh. Aww. Cute. I laugh a little with him.

Nerdo's hands, gripping a plaid scarf, shake. He faces forward and raises his eyebrows, shaking his head a bit with an exhale. As if wondering how mentally stable she is. As if she's the only weird one in here.

Then I hear footsteps at the door.

I hate the damn kids at this school. They never let me stay home on a Saturday. I have to babysit them instead because of all of the things they've done, from the understandable to the bizarre. It's one of the many downsides of being a principal.

I walk in hoping they can see the sarcasm dripping from my every movement. I stride to the center of the room and scan each of their faces. There are many different emotions, but one that is the most identifiable. Boredom.

I want to laugh out loud. Seeing these juvenile delinquents being punished is very fulfilling. If they didn't want to be here, why did they do the things that would land them in here? Hmm? Have an answer?

I won't keep them bored for long.

"Well, well. Here we are." I smirk, mocking them. "I wanna congratulate you for being on time."

Claire Standish. The rich one, the prom queen, the one I have to let things slide for, even though she needs to learn a few lessons. She has the audacity to raise her hand and interrupt me with, "Excuse me, sir?"

I open my mouth, breathing in for the air necessary to reply, but she goes on without waiting for an answer. "I think there's been a mistake. I know it's detention, but, um…I don't think I belong in here." Her hand falls and she presses an index finger on her desk as if to emphasize her point.

I look at her and resist the urge to roll my eyes, outstretching my arm to pull my gray coat and black Oxford up so I can see my watch. I press my own index finger to its glass face, bringing my wrist closer to my face.

"It is now seven-oh-six."

Brian Johnson fidgets, checking his own wrist to check the time on his own watch. Really, kid? Do you think I'm lying to you? My twenty dollar Timex isn't broken just yet.

Out of another corner of my eye, I see Standish exchange glances with Andrew Clark, who sits next to her. She gives him a look that says, Ugh, what a bitch Principal Richard Vernon is, making us stay here in detention. We should've run off scot-free just because we're popular.

Well, that's not the way it works, missy, I want to tell her.

He returns her look with his signature side grin and shrug.

I see the smallest hand on my watch pass the twelve, and I continue, "You have exactly eight hours and fifty four minutes to think about why you are here. Ponder the error of your ways."

John Bender, who has so far been playing with a stray string from his red scarf, coughs and tilts his head up. He hacks, spits up into the air, and catches it back in his mouth. Standish shudders and makes a disgusted noise.

I point at them all, holding a batch of pencils wrapped together with a rubber band. "You may not talk." Standish, staring at her lap, looks up at me in shock. Johnson shifts his olive green backpack farther away from him and tries to transfer himself from the chair he's sitting in to the one that his backpack is sitting on. Seeing him, I say, "You may not move from these seats." Johnson looks up, scared, and moves back to his previous position.

I move up the aisle that splits the six tables into groups of three. Seeing Bender, my nemesis, makes a new type of anger flare up inside of me. "And you," I growl, jabbing my finger in his face and pulling the chair his legs are lying on out from under him, "will not sleep." I toss the chair back to where it's supposed to be.

Johnson takes his yellow scarf off and sets it on a chair next to him. Seeing him move, I look back at him and see the fear in his eyes again. It makes me feel better about myself. I know that at least he'll listen. At least he, if not anyone else, has at least a sliver of respect for authority.

I pull up the papers I have in my other hand to place in both. "Alright, people, we're gonna try something a little different today. We are going to write an essay." I head to the back, towards Allison Reynolds, whose body is faced away from me and towards the west windows, head hanging low. What a pathetic girl. "Of no less than a thousand words." I set a sheet of paper and a pencil down in front of her, and her head whips up as she turns to me. I can't comprehend the tumultuous expression on her face. It stirs up something deep in my heart, but I ignore the odd, unfamiliar feeling and quickly move on. "Describing to me who you think you are."

"Is this a test?" Bender asks.

I don't bother to answer him. "And when I say essay―" Bender slings his legs up onto the table and crosses them― "I mean essay." I continue around the room, distributing a pencil and a sheet of paper to each student. "I do not mean a single word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear, Mr. Bender?"

"Crystal."

"Good. Maybe you'll learn a little something about yourself." The last words come out as a growl. "Maybe you'll even…decide whether or not you'd care to return."

Johnson timidly gets up from his seat, raising his hand. "Uh…you know, I can answer that right now, sir, you know, that'd be no, a no from me―"

What an idiot. "Sit down, Johnson."

"Thank you, sir." He nods and obliges. Bender smirks at him, probably wondering if he's the only student in the history of this school who's ever paid any attention at all to rules or authority.

"My office is right across that hall." I point, making my message as clear as possible just in case they didn't get it the first time. Bender whips his rebellious long hair as he sarcastically turns in that direction. "Any monkey business is ill-advised. Any questions?"

Clark shakes his hanging head as if the question wasn't rhetorical.

I give the students one last hard look before taking a step towards the exit and hear Bender's voice.

"Yeah, I've got a question." I hesitate, even though I know I don't want to hear what he's got to say. "Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?"

Immediately, I imagine the frilly sleeves and shiny fabrics that have characterized Barry Manilow's trademark style. The other kids suppress laughs. Obviously this was not meant as a compliment, and I don't appreciate that. I turn my pointing finger to him.

"I'll reveal the answer to that question, Mr. Bender, next Saturday." The sneer on his face fades, which comforts me. "Don't mess with the bull, young man, or you'll get the horns."

I stride out before he can make another snide comment to infuriate me further.

John glances at me as I look at Principal Vernon's receding back. "That man," he says, thrusting a finger to point in his direction, "is a brownie hound."

I fiddle with the pen in my hands nervously, uncomfortable by the fact that the school criminal has acknowledged my presence in the room, but I twitch my face hoping that it'll tell him I totally understand where he's coming from.

Meanwhile, Andrew releases a breath and unbuttons his varsity letterman jacket, loosening up as if Principal Vernon's leaving has relieved all the stress in the world from this room.

I, for one, beg to differ. John Bender is sitting only a small aisle away from me, and that makes me unbelievably nervous.

Then, I hear this weird noise that I can't identify coming from behind me. I slowly turn around, hoping not to make anyone uncomfortable. I feel everyone else turn around about the same time as me.

The source of the noise is Allison, who is noisily biting her nails. She stares at the thumb she's been nibbling on before glancing up. When she sees all of our mouths parted in shock and our wide eyes, her gaze flickers over us before returning to her work ― completely demolishing her cuticles.

Finally, John says sarcastically, "If you keep eating your hand you're not gonna be hungry for lunch."

Allison bites one last chunk off of her thumbnail and spits it out in his direction.

John's face is a picture-perfect depiction of shock, but he doesn't really look surprised, not like I am, because it doesn't quite reach his eyes. His eyes look slightly curious, but mostly analyzing.

"I've seen you before, you know," he says, as if he's letting her know that the fact might not be a good one, and the biker-gloved hand clenched around his red scarf moves, the index finger outstretched in her direction.

Principal Vernon aligns his head in the doorway so we can clearly see him.

John moves himself to a more forward-facing position, hanging his head so his long hair dramatically hangs in his face. Allison turns sharply away from him, her face contorted in a pout.

Principal Vernon, appeased, straightens himself back to his desk so his eyes are not on us anymore.