Delaney Blake's Guide to Detention

Step #2: Have A Staring Contest With Your Reflection

While I'm here for detention, Emma 'Your Junior Class President' Conroy is here to get extra credit.

She smiles from the front of the classroom like she's a new student Mr. Dennison has to introduce to the whole class. Except, the whole class is me. I'm the only one in this stupid classroom after last period on a Monday afternoon.

I slump. I slump aggressively. I can be teenage goo puddled on the floor. Even if Emma Conroy and I were both puddles of goo on the floor, Emma would still be a better one. She's just good at everything. School, sports, clubs. 

"I've got a special assignment for you. The school's converting the old science lab. You get to clean it out. Emma's already been working on it," Mr. Dennison says, "she'll fill you in."

"What are you going to do?" I ask. It's not like Mr. Dennison is my favorite person in the world, but he ranks a whole lot higher than Emma.

"I've got essays to mark," Mr. Dennison says.

That's it. He doesn't care the Emma Conroy is basically the anti-Delaney. When Emma looks in the mirror, I'm her evil alternate reality. Light and dark. She is in control of her destiny and I can't even control myself. 

"You might want to put on some rubber gloves," Emma says. Oh, God. This just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?

This is how Emma and I end up walking down the hall, side by side, donning matching yellow rubber gloves up to our elbows, carrying a bucket of cleaning supplies. Emma has perfect posture. It's only walking next to her that I realize I am slouching. My muscles don't know how not to slouch. They complain when I try, confused by this sudden attempt to... what? Why do I care about being anything like Emma?

We don't talk. I want to ask how bad this is going to be, but I can't bring myself to. I'll find out soon enough, I guess. We walk until the very end of the hall in a wing mostly used for science classes. I've never been this far into the void. I just remember the rumors. This has to be Ms. Isaakov's room.

Emma flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder as she unlocks the door, being the exact kind of person a teacher would willingly hand a key to.

The door creaks when it swings open, like it knows Ms. Isaakov's science room is the closest thing the school has to a haunted house. For a second, we peer into the darkness. The blinds are drawn over the windows, making it feel like we are stepping into nighttime when it's only 4 o'clock.

"What are they converting this into? A morgue?" I ask.

"A photography dark room." If Emma recognizes a joke when she hears one, she doesn't show it. "We have to clean out all the cabinets, rinse out all the lab equipment, and box it up for storage."

Great. I look around the room. Above us, most of the fluorescent lights are burnt out. The one left is flickering so frantically Mr. Dennison should've made me sign a waiver promising I'm not epileptic.

It buzzes. For once, I'm silently praying that Emma will just say something so I'll have something else to listen to. She doesn't. We just stand there, soaking in the fact that this is clearly the job nobody else wants. It's the work that's been shuffled off to the unwilling detentionee and the girl who'll later write about the hardship in her college application essay.

"Well," Emma says, losing enthusiasm fast, "I guess I'll start on these cabinets." We both look. She's graciously volunteered to sort through the inventory of plain old beakers, leaving me the option of, oh look, fetal pigs in jars or goat eyes staring lidlessly at me. Awesome. Thanks for taking one for the team there, Conroy.

I shrug, like it's no big deal, like a cool girl. Yeah, no problem. I have no qualms about having a staring contest with disembodied eyeballs. I have to clench my teeth together just so I won't make any expression.