Beacon High and what changed me

Chapter VI

"Excuse me, honey..." A woman with quite the hefty Brooklyn accent looks at me. "Could you please tell me where the principal's office is?" I nod and show her the way. She looks at the secretary. "Heather? Oh my goodness, it's been years since I saw you last!" Mrs. Munblé, the secretary, gets up. "Fran, what a pleasure to meet you! What brings you around this neck of the woods?" She laughs. "Oh, it's just a little thing, I'm supposed to go meet Mr. Kawasan, I got a whole week's worth of complaints and I of course need to talk to him." The substitute principal comes out of his little room. "Ah, hello, and who might you be?" The Brooklyn-accented woman holds out her hand. "Fran Leynol, from the state's school commission. We need to have a quick talk." She heads into the room and I leave, to go to the cafeteria to meet up with my friends. "So Penelope, what took you so long?" I smirk. "I had to show a certain Ms. Leynol from the state school commission the way to the principal's office. I hear a week of complaints gets you a 'wee chat' with a woman with a Brooklyn accent." Lyle laughs. "Was her accent terrible?" I flick my hand, imitating her accent. "Appaling, Lyle darling, she chats your ears right off. Would be perfect at kaffeeklatsch, honey..." Skyler nearly tips over from laughing. Meanwhile I see Chloe run frantically over to us. "Sorry I'm late, I had a dentist appointment. And there was a woman who really had a grating voice telling the secretary that she would be in touch with her very soon, oh and Mr. Forlan, the old principal is back!" Yes. We win! "So what do you think's gonna happen?" She smiles. "Well I noticed a lot of the old posters were missing. Sad to have them only be used for two weeks... and there's talk of the school newspaper being reintroduced." Lyle takes a sip from his bottle of Snapple. "Who says that?" Chloe smiles smugly. "None other than Mister Forlan, of course." We all fist pump. "Victory is ours! And we couldn't have gotten away with it if it weren't for Penelope's meddling mom!" The bell rings and we rush to class. Mr. Garcet introduces himself for some reason and proceeds to, you know, teach. This isn't television where everybody has a five hour school week. "You will see that I have marked your creative writing exercises, and I am not really pleased. Lena, yours was bland and uninspired." He hands her her paper. "Amelia, your story was tired and clichéd." He hands her her paper. "Chloe, admittedly, I'm rather impressed." He hands Chloe her paper. "Trevor, your story was quite creative." Rinse and repeat. I get my paper with the comment 'Very good, rather creative.' Well I can't say I'm underwhelmed. Chloe slips me a piece of paper. "Brendan's looking at you." I mock frown. "I haven't got time for men, I've got a contest to win." I hand it to Chloe and she scribbles down something onto the paper. "You sure? Because I heard from Justine that she heard from Austin that he heard from Bernadette that she heard from Thomas that Brendan wants to ask you out." Be still my beating heart. "Oh, goodness, I need a man, someone hold me." I try to scratch it out but it's still readable. I continue. "Who's Justine? Who are these people?" I hand her the paper and she scribbles down. "Why do you need something that you don't have time for? Anyway, Justine is a friend from my job, and the rest are her friends, but Thomas, I know him, he's Brendan's GBF and they are real close. It's a shame that Thomas is such a gossip though, can't keep a juicy secret well if he tried." Before I get to write down a possibly witty and clever remark, the intercom crackles with the well-known voice of Mr. Farlon, telling us all to come to the Eastern Hall for an announcement. Mr. Garcet tries to get us all rushed out of the classroom in a compact manner, but we all run to the hall anyway. As we all quiet down, Mr. Farlon taps the microphone. "Hello, dear Students. I have heard only bad things about Mr. Kawasan and frankly, I am not pleased with his work. First, the posters. They were the least appropriate things for a high school that we have ever showcased. Second, the school newspaper incident. Editing, censoring and outright banning it is simply not okay. The youth has a voice too, but if we suppress it, this voice will grow violent and lash out at who supresses it. The Beacon Newshound will resume printing as of this evening. Third of all, the battle of the bands incident. All edits and disqualified bands are now rendered null and void, and the lyrics will not be published on the school website. Those that were disqualified by Mr. Kawasan are now no longer disqualified. Fourth, what will happen to him. And for this, I ask Ms. Leynol to speak." He steps back and the Brooklyn-accented woman steps up to the microphone. "Well, since we got so many complaints in such a short time, we are forced to send him for review in front of the state school board." The crowd roars with applause until Mr. Llewesere steps forward. "Settle down, please. We have one last thing to say. And that is that we formally thank Mrs. Anne Grayson for highlighting this and for letting us right our wrongs, and we wish to apologise to all of our students. Now, if miss Penelope Grayson could please come up and take these flowers in place of her mother..." I'm shellshocked. He just called me up to the stage. I walk up and take them, and we all leave to get back to our classrooms. How the hell am I going to carry this around all day long? I know, I'll just text mom, she can probably take a short break from searching for loopholes, I mean, that's what Google's for. "Penelope!" Chloe pulls me towards her. "There you are, dear, we nearly lost you. I hate to be a gossip, but in this crowd, who's gonna hear us. So I saw Brendan staring at you as you got those flowers! I think he really likes you!" Oh. My. Gosh. "Chloe, stop, you're telling the world." She lifts an eyebrow. "Well, like they always say, when the opportunity arises, one's inner gossip girl takes over." I stare at her. "Chloe, who in their right mind says that?" She shrugs and we return to our advertised class. Mr. Garcet teaches us some stuff that will surely come in handy whatever the situation. Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen. All I can hope for is to pass those darn standardised tests. Or at the very least, beating Tracey Bebe at the battle of the bands. Shouldn't be too hard, after all, she's not getting any younger. The bell rings, bringing an end to my intellectual thought and calls for me to go to the cafeteria, calling mom on the way. "Great, she's gonna pick this up. To be honest I really didn't feel like lugging this around with me all day. A girl has her limits!" I run to the carpark and give mom the flowers, and rush back. "So what do you think we should be doing for the battle of the bands, I mean, it's coming up so soon!" Skyler leans in the back of his chair. "Don't worry, Penelope, it's all going to be okay. I was thinking of starting out with 'Breaking the shards' and then, after that, I have no clue. No doubt we'll manage it all on that day." Phew, and I was getting worried that we would have to plan it all out long-term, oh gosh what a relief, I won't even have to plan anything, we'll just fail horribly in style! Live in the moment, as they say. "So we'll just wing it. Classy. Hello Skyler, meanwhile in reality all the other competitors are plotting their attack plan through and through, even those dumb cheerleaders are using their intellectually malnourished brains!" I point to a squad of cheerleaders plotting something. Probably their next manicure date but who knows. Brendan walks past and says hey. I attempt not to melt and ask him how he's doing. "Well, I'm fine, just a little excited about this battle of the bands thing. Say, wanna go get a coffe at Starbucks later?" How on earth can I say no? "Sure, Brendan, how about at four?" He smiles. "Sure, here's my number, you know, incase something goes wrong. See you later..." I melted. Oops. "...Penelope." He walks away and it's official. I have a crush. "Penelope, close your mouth dear, you'll catch flies." I glare at Lyle. "Yeah thanks mom." I can't wait until four! Just a shame that there's that awful, timewasting thing called school in between it. And someone's gonna blab about it like it's the very latest. Please, there must be more to some people's life.