Broken Strings

Chapter 1

Carlos Garcia sighed thickly as he sluggishly made his way along, squeezing past a crowd of students and out of the crowded hallways of Shakopee High School. As he entered the classroom reserved for Mrs. Jones 11th grade English class he smirked, raising a skeptical brow as the minute-warning bell echoed over the intercom.

"Can one of you please tell me how all three of us got stuck with the same hard-headed English teacher? For the third time in our three years at this school?" muttered the short, stocky Latino with a quiet chuckle as he moved to take his usual back-row seat. His two closest friends, James Diamond and Kendall Knight, followed, each shaking their heads about at Carlos's remark. Most of the time the shortest of the three boys was extremely happy-go-lucky and energetic to no end, but today in particular – it being the first day back from summer break and all – he was really quite exhausted, and it showed.

Kendall grinned as he slid into his respective seat between each his friends' desks, and chuckled a bit as he clapped a hand over each of the two boys' shoulders.

"Hard-headed is an understatement, Carlitos. She's the most uptight woman in this entire building." he said in a hushed tone, shaking his head as well as he dipped a hand into his already-cluttered book bag to extract a few sheets of lined paper as well as a half-sharpened pencil.

"No kidding, dudes," James sighed exasperatedly. "I heard from Jenny that we're stuck doing some stupid project already." Each one of the boys, as well as any student near to them who may have overheard the tall, pretty boy's comment either sighed audibly or uttered a discouraged sort of groan.

"She cannot be serious!" Carlos whined, hunching forward in his seat and thumping his forehead rather dramatically upon the carving-embellished surface of his desk.

Kendall, Carlos, and James were all headed into their junior year of high school, which, to the three hockey players, meant nothing more than the fact that they were a mere two years away from breaking free of what seemed to be their own personally designed hell; the hell that every student walking the face of the Earth was forced to refer to as high school.

As if on cue, Mrs. Jones snapped to attention at the sound of her students groaning. Standing from behind her desk with a taut, impish sort of smirk, she cleared her throat, making her presence known to her last group of students for the day. The hellish atmosphere of the stuffy classroom only seemed to be intensified by ten as the elderly teacher spoke up.

"You bet your life's savings that I'm serious, Mr. Garcia," she leered, taking her predominant stance before the room of young adults. A heavy chorus of sighs echoed throughout the classroom at the appearance of the woman in charge. At nearly the same moment the tardy bell sounded, silencing any conversation that had still been taking place with its shrill ring.

"Alright, class. As Mr. Diamond and Mr. Garcia were saying, we will be working on a review project for the duration of this coming week, so I do hope that all of you kept last year's Language Arts notes on hand." At this particular statement, seemingly every last pair of teenage eyes in the room widened; it was the first dayof school, and already, this so-called teacher was making an attempt to pulverize their grade point average?

"What normal 16-year-old kid keeps useless English notes over an entire summer vacation?!" James whispered heatedly to Carlos and Kendall as he ran a hand through that notoriously perfect head of hair. Kendall chuckled dryly… for once, James was absolutely right.

"Anyhow, you'll be able to work in pairs. Hopefully you are all willing to work, so that you will all get a decent first grade…" Mrs. Jones spoke in a tone of voice that sounded almost bored, waving her hands about absently. The way that she was acting, it was as though she was reluctant as could be to make the jobs of her students easier in any way. However, as she went on, the room full of young people came to realize that making this project easier for them was nowhere near her true intention. "If I were you, I would start brainstorming ideas now – the project can include absolutely any material from last year's curriculum, whether you want to write an essay or make a poster board. Your partners, however, will be chosen by me."