Life As I Know It (Completed)

Chapter Ten - Detention

         I was bored out of my mind. I was dying of boredom. This was mind-numbingly boring. I was... well, you catch my drift.

         Kelley and I were in detention with Mr McKenzie. If handing out detentions like they were leaflets wasn't bad enough, Ms Miller couldn't even be bothered to supervise us during our detention and had instead dumped us on Mr McKenzie. She was probably at home, relaxing or maybe getting a massage from the lover we'd all seen in herphotographs.

         Mr McKenzie had told us that we could do whatever we wanted, so long as we kept the noise down. He probably thought he was being kind, but to be honest, I'd rather have written lines as I had nothing to do. He'd made us all sit separately from one another, so I didn't even have Kelley to amuse myself with.

         There weren't many of us in detention. Kelley was in the far corner of the room, frowning ferociously at the laptop screen in front of her as she typed away. There was a guy at the front who had his headphones in his ears and his foot was tapping the floor in rhythm to whatever he was playing on his neon green iPod, as he read from a textbook. There was also a big burly guy in front of me who looked like he had been pumping steroids for years. He was eating a sandwich and was slouched in his chair.

         There were four of us in total, plus Mr McKenzie. One of my elbows was on the table in front of me, and I had my hand under my chin, supporting my head. I'd been finding it hard to open my eyes again after each time I blinked and in an attempt to distract myself from drowsing off, I rolled some pieces of paper into small paper balls and began using the hood of the guy's jacket in front of me as a makeshift basketball hoop.

          "Kelley, what's the network connection like back there?" Mr McKenzie suddenly asked. He had his laptop in his hand and was moving it around, trying to catch a better signal.

          "Not that good sir," Kelley replied distractedly, immersed in whatever she was doing. That was a first. Normally, she would have been beside herself to have caught his attention. She'd have been chatting his ear off.

         I went back to my lone game of basketball with my substitute props, but I jumped a little in my seat as the smell of cologne hit me when Mr McKenzie slid into the seat next to mine. I turned and blinked at him innocently whilst putting an arm over some of the little balls of paper to hide them.

          "I think that's called littering." He smiled at me, amused. Drat. "I hope he doesn't decide to put his hood on anytime soon though. I'm sure he won't be too happy when the contents of it are showering over his head." He looked pointedly at the guy in front of him.

         I looked too and couldn't help but swallow a little nervously. He was just... well, awfully large. "You'll protect me though, won't you sir?" I joked.

          "Ah, I think I'd rather not get involved. My face is too pretty," he teased back, opening up his Internet browser.

          "As a teacher aren't you duty-bound to intervene? I think I may just antagonise the wannabe wrestler in front of me just to see you get a little roughed up," I smiled at the mental image in my head as I leaned back in my chair.

          "Please don't." He pretended to look scared. I shook my head at him, sighing as I stared out of the window. I wished I'd brought the novel I was currently reading with me today, but I'd left it at home, on my bedside table when it could have been curbing my boredom.

            "Why are you sitting here anyway?" I asked, turning to look at him. "Shouldn't you be up there?" I nodded to the front of the classroom.

          "The signal's better here," he explained.

          "I'd put up with the crappy signal so long as I got to sit in the comfy recliner at the front. Of course, if you prefer having your ass fall asleep on these hard chairs..." I trailed off, shifting in my seat. I was bored, and hungry and it was making me irritable.