For a moment, everyone was perfectly silent, staring at me, shocked. Then someone broke the silence, and whispers spread like ripples the crowd. I glared at Nathan, daring him to rebuke.
Nate blinked at me, rubbing his jaw. Then, unbelievably, a smile started to spread over his face.
“Feisty. I like that.”
I gaped, shocked. Was he making fun of me? I pulled my fist back, about to hit him again.
“Run!” Keri hissed at him, pushing him slightly. “Run, before she gets all Godzilla on your ass!”
Before anything else could happen, Mr. Hale stormed out, from behind the curtain he was apparently hiding behind, his comb-over crazy, and his glasses askew. He weaved through the tables, and he grabbed my arm before I could punch.
“Adrianna!” he screamed. “What have I told you? Why don’t you ever listen? Detention room, now! And every day, for the rest of the week.”
“But –” I protested, pointing at the smirking guy next to me.
“No, Adrianna, that was the last straw! You’ve put too may people into hospital! Our star quarterback, in a coma! The captain of the chess team, unable to father kids –”
“It’s not as if he would’ve fathered many, anyway,” someone muttered, in the crowd. Everyone laughed.
Mr. Hale shot a glare at the person, and turned back to me. “Adrianna,” he said. I recognized this tone, after many, many years of fighting the system, as his “dangerous” tone. “You have ruined this event. Please leave.”
I opened my mouth, about to say that I’d never wanted to come to this stupid event anyway, because it was lame and stupid, when Nate opened his mouth.
“Don’t worry about it,” Nate said, flashing a charming smile at the forty-year old teacher, who blinked, instantly dazzled – just like all the girls. I clenched my fist. There was something about this guy that made me want to beat his face in. But when he turned his dazzling smile to me, even I couldn’t help but gape a little. He winked. “We were just playing, weren’t we?”
***
Keri shook her head at me, sighing like a disappointed mother.
“All you had to do, was let him take the fall for you,” she said, staring at me. “Mr. Hale was going to back down, you knew he was. He was dazzled by Nate’s charm. But you had to freak out when Nate winked at you. You had to hit Nate again. And now you have a month’s detention.”
“He was patronizing me!” I protested.
“And now he has a black eye.”
“Well, that’s what you get when you patronize me!”
“He was flirting. He liked you.”
“Yeah, right.”
I finished my lines, and read through them, making sure that all the words were legible. There was a very special policy in our school – all the words had to be perfectly readable, or we had to do it again. Our teachers were a bunch of sadistic, power-hungry miserable gits, who enjoyed torturing innocent students barely into their delicate school years.
We left the detention room (another policy in our school. We could talk or mess about or whatever in detention, because if we didn’t finish the lines, we didn’t go home. This meant they didn’t bother to stick a teacher in the detention room, but had a guard at the gate instead who would only let you leave if you had a special pass), and I gave my sheet moodily to Mrs. Sandy, who glared at me, before handing me and Keri the special pass.
