The Girl Across the Street

The Girl Across the Street- 8

Finally, at 1:05, lunch is over. Chris isn't in drama with Kate and I so I won't have a constant reminder of what slut my ex-girlfriend can be. 

I walk alone to drama and sit down in the first convenient seat. Kate sashays in just a minute after me and takes a seat across the "u". Emma walks in right after Kate and searches for a seat, finally sitting down in a one that is kind of isolated away from the others. Both seats on either side of her are empty and will probably remain that way. 

The bell rings and Mr. Hayden stands up and begins calling seniors up to preform the sonnet. There are six and after about fifteen minutes, we get through all of them.    

Once the seniors finish, Hayden had us do improv for the rest of the period. A few people go and I raise my hand as Mr. Hayden announces he is going to change the activity. He needs one boy and one girl. Kate has her hand raised as well. Hayden selects both of us. He asks Kate to leave the room and wait in the hall. 

Clapping his hands together, he turns toward the class. "Alright, Mr. Barnes is is going to be asking Miss Manor out on a date. Now, he has to act a certain way he does it. For example, he is madly in love with her." Hayden explains, I groan inwardly. Ask Kate out? I've done that way too many times in way too many ways already, outside of drama class. 

"Arrogant." 

"Shyly." The class shouts. 

"Paranoid." 

"Schizophrenic!" 

"Alright let's go with shy. Seems easy for the first time we do this one." Hayden agrees.

I groan as Mr, Hayden waves Kate in. I look down at her brown boots and rub my hands together. I take a deep breath and whisper, "s-s-so, um, Kate, I was, um, well I wondering if you, um, if you would maybe go out with me sometime?" I glance up at her before quickly looking down and wiggling around a little. 

"Oh, well, are you sure I don't have to prove myself to you first?" She asks icily. She glares at me, I stay looking at the ground, the class is dead silent. No one moves for centuries. Finally, Kate storms back to her seat. Everyone in the room is stuck in a deep silence, trying to figure out exactly what just happened.

For the rest of the class period, neither of us get up for another improv and I feel the lasers coming out of her eyes burning two holes in the back of my head. 

At the end the period, I rush out not wanting to run into Kate. 

I trudge to my locker after the last bell at 2:45. I text my mom, telling her that I am staying after school to work on a project, she can't know that I have detention. She would ground me forever and I would have no life at all until I was done with college.

I see Simon wave to me when he leaves his locker. I back nod and walk to Mrs. Olivers' room for my detention with Emma. I walk in and see Emma sitting at a desk, reading from her notebook. She is waiting for Mrs. Olivers to come in. The detention officially starts at 2:50 but I can't imagine anyone, not even Emma, would dare to come in late. 

I check my watch, 2:48, two minutes until detention starts. I walk over behind Emma and crane my neck to read over her shoulder. He walked past my table, his arm around a pretty girl. I wonder what they had-

Suddenly, she looks up and grasps her notebook to her chest. "What are you doing?" She asks quietly, not looking at me.

"I was just reading. I wanted to find out what you were writing about." I say, throwing my hands up defensively. 

"Don't. It's my business and it's private." She whispers harshly.

2:50, Mrs. Olivers walks in and breaks the awkward moment. I grab the seat next to Emma as Mrs. Olivers places her bag on the desk. She turns to us and clears her throat with a little hem hem. "You both realize the reason you are here I should hope."

Emma straightens up. "Actually ma'am, no, I really don't understand why Dylan is here, or why I am here either. Dylan was only trying to help me by making me aware of a rule no one had previously notified about. Frankly, if I had been told that we weren't allowed to have anything out during morning announcements, I would not even be here, nor would Dylan. Neither of us would have gotten in any trouble at all if you had simply said to me, 'Emma, seeing as you are new here, I will tell you about a few of my rules. One of them is that you cannot have anything out during the announcements.' I have a lot of respect for rules however, I can't follow the rules if I don't know the rules.

"In fact, if anything, it appears as though you are punishing Dylan for trying to help me." My jaw drops on the floor. Did she really just say that?

Mrs. Olivers doesn't know how to react for a moment. I don't think she truly believes what Emma just said either. Disbelief is written across her face as blatantly obvious as her nose. "Excuse me?" She asks. "Excuse me? Are you telling me how I should be disciplining my students? You certainly are audacious." 

Emma and Mrs. Oliver's have a stare off for a moment. I clear my throat and they both look up, breaking the moment. "Can we just start detention so we can get it over with please? No offense." I request. "I have to get home soon to help my little sister with her homework."

"Well that all depends on how Miss Moore behaves. If she can hold her tongue, you can leave earlier." 

"But-" Emma starts before clamping her mouth shut. She glares at Mrs. Olivers and I grab her arm, trying to focus her attention on something else. I can already tell this is going to be a long detention. 

"Well, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, you are here because you." She turns to glare at Emma. "Were disrupting the class during announcements-"

"How is reading disrupting anyone?" Emma protests. 

"Therefore, because you interrupted the class," Mrs. Olivers continues, now just ignoring Emma, "you two are going to have to grade posters from my freshman classes. Lucky for you, they just handed the projects in today. It will be perfect to keep you occupied."

"So you're just going to have us grade papers that you should be grading? You want us to do your work for you?! Emma interjects. 

"No, you will be grading papers and I will use your grades as a suggestion or second opinion on the projects." Mrs. Oliver's replies evenly, trying to contain her temper.

"So-" Emma starts but I tap her shoulder, trying to stop her from continuing to argue with Mrs. Olivers again, making this detention even longer.

Mrs. Oliver's leaves the classroom for a moment to get the projects,ordering us to not move or talk at all. Of course, Emma gets up and slides on top of a desk and crosses her arms over her chest defiantly. "I can't believe her! She is so unfair. What the heck did you even do wrong?! And she's making us grade her papers! I can't believe this! I am going to report that woman to the school!"

"Emma calm down. Arguing with her won't get you anything besides more detention for the both of us. It's also giving me a headache listening to the two of you." I mediate. "I can't get any more detentions. My mom doesn't even know I'm here. She thinks I'm working on a project for school, not grading them. If she ever found out, I would be in so much trouble. I would lose a lot of privileges."

"My mom doesn't even care. She's never home anyway, she doesn't know half the stuff that goes on with me. The other half of the time, she really doesn't care. There aren't many rules at my house."

"That has to be hard. Are you all alone at home? Any siblings?" 

"Nah, just me and sometimes my mom." Emma shrugs.

Mrs. Oliver's walks back in before I can reply. Her eyes narrow when she sees Emma sitting on the desk, slowly kicking her feet back and forth slowly under the desk. Emma ignores her. Mrs. Olivers walks over to the desk in front of me and drops the large stack with a loud bang. Great, this is going to take all night. It's already 3:00. 

By 4:00 we are almost done and no one has said anything for the past hour. Mrs. Oliver's has been grading tests at the desk up front, ignoring Emma's constant glares in her direction. 

I grab the last poster with a long sigh. Ms. Oliver's looks up and narrows her eyes. She laughs haughtily, "that's only one class. I have enough for the next two days, excluding all of the late projects." Emma groans loudly. "Once that poster is finished, you may leave for tonight."

I grade the last poster quickly, collect the pile and dump them on the teacher's desk. Then I walk back to my desk, grab my backpack and leave the room without a word.