Chapter Seventeen…
My first lesson was one that I had with Mel, making me a loner already. I was surprised, however to see a new, anxious looking, face occupying Mel’s seat. She smiled nervously as I sat down, eyeing her curiously.
We hardly ever had new students here, so I could guarantee she would be the science project for the next couple of weeks. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone - except maybe Leonie.
“Hey.” I said, smiling politely at her. “I’m Jessica.”
She smiled back, seeming to become slightly more confident. “I’m Grace.” She replied, offering her name as well. “Do you prefer being called Jess?” She asked tentatively.
I shook my head viciously. “Oh hell no.” I replied. “Only one person is allowed to call me Jess, and that’s only because I can’t get him to stop it.” Truth be told, I had gotten used to Mr. Armstrong calling me Jess, and I wouldn’t want him to stop now, it would be weird.
Grace opened her mouth to respond, but before we could continue our conversation, the teacher came in and handed out our copies of Macbeth. God, I actually hated this play. I was clever and even I only understood half the language. When we would ever need to be able to know about Macbeth I had no idea.
After listening to her recite part of the play we could read perfectly well and ten times faster, she set us some work to do. I held back in my ability, obviously, but Grace didn’t. She began working straight away.
I peered nosily over her shoulder, without trying to look really obvious. She had written tons already and it looked like it was pretty good. She might even be almost as smart as me. “Whoa.” I whispered aloud to her. “You’re really smart.”
She shrugged. “I’m not that clever.” She replied, looking rather sheepish.
I chuckled, but didn’t say anything else to her, partly because she was still acting rather shy, and partly because our teacher was giving me a particularly hate-filled glare. I scowled back at her, before carrying on with my pretty crap paragraph.
It turned out I had most lessons with Grace and we sat next to each other in all of them. She was actually really nice and funny when she had come out of her shell a bit. I was right when I had thought she was clever. She excelled everyone except me in all the subjects. She obviously didn’t know how smart I was and I let her believe I was an idiot happily.
When it got to fourth lesson and maths, I was laughing and joking with Grace. We sat in mine and Mel’s normal seats at the front and carried on chatting until Mr. Armstrong sent us a warning look. I had a pretty good feeling he wouldn’t punish me, but I didn’t want to test him.
Instead of punishing me, he asked me to answer the equation on the board, hoping that I either hadn’t been paying attention or I was going to answer it wrong on purpose. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of seeing to me do either, however.
I answered easily, causing him to visibly hold back a smile as I looked at him smugly. “Well done Jess.”
Grace raised an eyebrow at me. “So he’s the one who calls you Jess.” She whispered, leaning over to talk to me.
I fake grimaced. “Yeah. It pisses me off to no end.” I lied. She chuckled, but didn’t add another comment when she noticed Mr. Armstrong looking our way again.
The lesson passed quickly, like it always did, and I told Grace I would sit with her at lunch. As I was going to leave the classroom, Jord asked if he could speak to me for a second. I told Grace to just wait outside for me and that I would be done in a couple of minutes.
“I was going to say that you could spend lunch in here, but it looks like you’ve befriended the new kid.” He said, smiling at me.
I chuckled. “Thanks for the offer, if I hadn’t told Grace I would sit with her I would be gladly accepting it. Oh, and thanks for asking Matt to pick me up this morning, walking would not have been fun.” I thanked him.
He grinned. “No problem. It was funny making Matt get off his lazy arse so early in the morning anyway.” He joked, smirking.
I laughed. “I had better go and get Grace, she’ll be wondering what I’m doing.” I said, rather reluctantly. I always enjoyed Mr. Armstrong’s company.
“Of course.” He said, walking over to the door, getting ready to open it. “And if you want a lift home, you need to come here after your last lesson.” He informed me.
“I will, if you don’t mind.” I said, feeling slightly guilty that Mr. Armstrong seemed to make a habit of running around for me.
“Its no bother. You know my apartment isn’t that far from your house anyway.” He shrugged it off. “I’ll see you later then.” He finalised, before opening the door for me and ushering me out.
“See you Jord.” I responded, grinning as he groaned.
Grace was looking at me funnily as I walked out of the classroom and over to where she was standing, opposite the door. “Did you just call Mr. Armstrong Jord?” She asked, looking puzzled.
I chuckled. “He calls me Jess, I call him Jord.” I answered. “The pissing each other off works both way.” I offered by way of explanation.
She looked puzzled, but dropped it. “So what did he want?” She asked.
“To know why I had done so badly on the last test we did.” I lied easily. That had become my regular excuse when Mr. Armstrong kept me behind after class.
We walked to lunch talking about unimportant things. After getting some food and sitting on an abandoned table, we looked around the dining room. “So, who is everyone? I’ve picked up a few names, but I don’t know what people are like.” Grace explained.
I grimaced. “You’ll be lucky not to know most of them.” I muttered. She raised an eyebrow, asking for an explanation. I gestured to where Leonie and my so-called friends were sitting. “They’re all bitches.” I stated blatantly. “Leonie is queen cow and I hate her.”
“Why?” Grace asked, almost hesitantly.
“My ex-boyfriend Zack cheated on me with her. Then we got into a bitch fight and I broke her nose.” I said, proudly. I had decided that was one of my finer moments and a memory I would cherish.
Grace looked shocked. “Well, she definitely does seem like a cow. I’ll stay away from her.” She decided. “Who’s this Zack guy? I haven’t heard of anyone called that in my classes.”
My eyebrows furrowed together. Where was Zack today? I hadn’t seen him once. As I opened my mouth to voice my confusion, my phone buzzed against my leg from inside my pocket.
I told her one second and read my text whilst hiding my phone under the table so it wouldn’t be confiscated. It was from Jord.
Just thought I’d let you know that I found out a minute ago Zack is off school because he’s at the police station for questioning. I’m not sure if he’s being arrested.
I felt my face drain of colour. Zack was at the police station being questioned, that meant it was serious; especially if he’d had to have the whole day off. They must be really laying into him. I quickly typed a message back.
Are you sure? I didn’t think he’d need the whole day off for questioning. How come they haven’t just come to the school like before? Do you think they will arrest him? What about the charge he’s trying to put against you, does that mean it’s not going to come to anything?
I knew I had asked many questions Mr. Armstrong couldn’t possible answer, but I needed to ask them anyway, just to hear his opinion on things. He was the only person I could talk to about this stuff.
“Who are you texting?” Grace interrupted my train of thought. I had forgotten she was even there.
“My friend Mel, she’s off sick today, that’s why there’s been so many spare seats next to me in class.” I half-lied. I wasn’t texting Mel, but the rest of it was true.
“Cool. Is she okay?”
“Er…yeah. She’s feeling a bit better. She’s not sure if she’s coming back to school tomorrow though.
I felt my phone vibrate and instantly diverted my attention from Grace to my phone, which was displaying one new text from Jord.
I’m not sure why they’ve done it at the police station, maybe they just didn’t want to cause all the gossip through school like they did last time, or perhaps they didn’t want us to find out. I don’t think they’ll arrest him, they need more evidence. He’s more than likely still trying to press charges against me.
I almost groaned aloud. Of course Zack was still pressing charges, I was stupid to even think that he might not be. Then there was the question as to why he was at the station. Jord was right when he said they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him, so why did they want to keep it from us.
I tried not to ponder it, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted desperately to know the answers. I text back quickly.
Thanks for letting me know. Your right, they won’t arrest him. I wish he had just taken the deal and not gone to the police with this. I hope there’s no particular reason they wanted to keep it from us. We can talk about it when you give me a ride home later. See you then. X
I had sent it before I even realised I had put the ‘x’ on the end. It was a habit I had, but I had managed to remember not to put them on Mr. Armstrong’s texts. Damn. I felt my cheeks tinge slightly pink. This was so embarrassing. My phone vibrated almost instantly.
No problem. Don’t worry about it. It will all be okay. X
He had put an ‘x’ back again. Butterflies instantly formed in my stomach, but I tried to push them down and make them disappear. It had been a slip-up - something that wasn’t meant to happen. It didn’t mean anything. Mr. Armstrong will have just done it because I did it. Nothing worth even noticing.
I put my phone back in my pocket, knowing I wasn’t likely to be receiving another text anytime soon, and turned back to Grace. “I don’t know where Zack is today, he might be ill as well. Perhaps there’s a bug going round.” I suggested, half-heartedly. I wasn’t really in the mood to anything but ponder Zack’s location of the police station.
She nodded. “Yeah. Probably.”
I was glad when the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. Only one more lesson until I could go home. It was also a lesson that it turned out I didn’t have with Grace, that meant I could ponder in silence, without looking odd.
The lesson passed quickly and I had come to no further conclusion. I tried not to let the possibility that they had started believing Zack over me plague my mind, but the thought wouldn’t leave.
I walked to Mr. Armstrong’s classroom once school had finished. I wasn’t surprised to see him sitting at his desk marking class work. I didn’t bother knocking and just walked in, sitting on one of the desks near the front, swinging my legs back and forth.
He put his pen down and began to gather up his things. “I don’t mind if you want to stay and mark things here.” I said, quickly.
He paused. “Are you sure?” He asked, hesitantly.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” I assured him.
He paused again, before continuing to mark some more sheets. “Do you want to help? I have some of the younger children’s sheets here. I’m sure you know whether these questions are right or not. I’ll be done twice as quick if you do.” He suggested.
I nodded. “Sure.”
He pulled up a chair right next to his own where there was a clear area on his desk and grabbed a pile of papers and a pen identical to his own. “Here.” He said, gesturing for me to sit down. “It’s pretty simple, you just need to mark the questions right or wrong and then give a mark, percentage and grade.” He directed.
I nodded again and began to work on them. He was right, they were easy and we talked whilst we worked. I was very aware of how close I was to him and that our arms occasionally brushed, but I tried not to be. He was still my teacher.
We finished quickly, after I had marked some of our own classes papers as well. “Come on, let’s get you home.” Jord said when we had finished.
“Thanks for helping me out with the marking. I might enjoy being a teacher, but the marking is tedious.” He complained.
I chuckled. “Everything’s better with my company.” I teased.
He grinned. “Nothing like being modest, eh Jess.” He joked.
I shrugged. “You can’t say that you didn’t enjoy marking tests more today than normal.” I stated confidently.
He smirked. “You have a point.” He gave in.
I grinned smugly. “Of course I do.” We both laughed and carried on making our way to his car.
When we reached my road, I glanced ahead of us and gasped. “Pull Over.” I ordered.
Outside my house was a police car.
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Next chapter guys!
Tell me what you think of Grace, I'm not sure how predominant her role in the story is going to be yet.
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