The Great Pretender

17.2: Bloody

He laughed! He laughed and laughed and laughed. He freaking laughed! Cherish stared indignantly into the principal's face. Well she would have if it wasn't on his desk, fist pounding the table to demonstrate just how funny he found the situation. How unoriginal, she thought.

Beside her, Seven balked at Mr. Stallman, "Sir, how exactly is this funny?"

She was thinking much the same thing but didn't voice her opinion, too shocked and angry to do so.

"Oh dear!" Mr. Stallman said as he finally settled down. "I told her she could use any means necessary, but I didn't realise she'd do this. She's a smart girl, your sister."

Cherish grunted, "Yeah, and that's why she lost the key?"

Mr. Stallman broke down into laughter again. At least there was one more thing the two of them could agree on. Mr. Stallman was an idiot.

"Listen, Sir, could you just get the janitor to cut them so we can get to class?"

The principal looked at Seven through the silver rimmed lenses on his face, one eyebrow awkwardly askance, "So you can go to class?"

Cherish bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at both Mr. Stallman's eyebrow and Seven's insinuation.

"Mr. Stallman, I need to get to class, and I'm sure as hell not taking him with me!"

He chuckled again, "Well, Miss McKinley, you will have to do exactly that. We have had one such situation before- don't ask- and I am in no way allowed to have the janitor cut those off. There are too many ways for you to get injured in the process. You two will have to wait till Arida finds the key."

Because they were sitting much too close together for her liking, Cherish could feel Seven tense up angrily. "So, what? We're just supposed to wait until that airhead finds the key? We don't have the same classes- we don't live in the same place, and if you haven't noticed, Mr. Stallman, I hate this bitch!"

She had never seen him lose his cool so many times in one day. She congratulated herself inwardly for having this effect on him. Mr. Stallman looked sufficiently irate at Seven's choice of words, but he simply said, "You two share a large amount of your classes. You can decide which of the others you want to attend. Now get out of my office!"

Cherish was given an insignificant second to get her bearings as Seven abruptly stood and stalked from the office. As she slammed the door behind her, she shrieked and took off in the direction of her English class.

"Uh. No, no, no... we're going to my Media class."

Cherish whirled around on him suddenly, "Right. Sure. Okay. Lead the way... NOT."

"So is this gonna be all your classes and none of mine."

"Isn't that the way it always is?"

He didn't argue. It was true- she went to all her classes while he picked and chose at random. He supposed he could give up a few classes he wouldn't have otherwise attended... But that was exactly the point- he wouldn't have otherwise attended, and now he had to. Grunting his less than willing reply, he stuffed one hand into his pocket and let Cherish drag him off to the English class she shared with Ian.

-.-

Thankfully the weather was getting cooler, cool enough to excuse her wearing a sweater all day long. She was beginning to bruise already and didn't quite feel like answering all those stupid 'how did that happen?' questions. Then again, she couldn't take her sweater off even if she wanted to. Partially, yes, but then it would hang from the wrist that was inconveniently attached to Seven's. As the snickers continued around her, Cherish sighed heavily and pulled her hood up over her head. She took her eyes off the question that was mocking her from the board- the one that was clearly a cop out on her teacher's part- and began scribbling a response to it.