"So, do you two have anything to say in regards to your outrageous behaviour during the lesson?" Ms Rose folded her hands over her belly and leaned back in her chair and it creaked dangerously. Please fall, please fall, my mind chanted on repeat. Yes, I was incredibly annoyed at Ms Rose and I had no qualms about showing them.
Melanie and I were standing in the classroom in front of the teacher's desk. Besides us and Ms Rose, the entire room was empty. The class poured out through the door while Melanie and I were staring at each other. Me, in shock, and her with contempt.
"Well, I am waiting," Ms Rose said with a bored voice. "What do you two have to say?"
"That I still find it unfair how you gave us no time to prepare for this test," I said.
There it was again. That strange light in Ms Rose's pale blue eyes, her facial expression changing to one of understanding for a second and then transforming back into an angry sneer. "As far as I am concerned, I have taught you everything you needed to know."
"That's not true!" I turned to Melanie. "Come on, Melanie, I know that you hate my guts right now, but help me out here!"
She stayed quiet and stubbornly stared at her shoes. I can't expect any help from her anytime soon then. I turned to face Ms Rose again. She was looking at me with her eyebrows raised. I had no patience left for her.
I raised my left eyebrow triumphantly (purely for show; I am still proud of that skill) and pressed my hands onto the desk and leaned forward. "Oh, so if that were the case, then that would mean that you were lying last week when you said that we still had a lot of topics to learn before the test, which is why you wanted to do it on the last week of school. Or maybe you were lying just now. In either case, that means that you were lying in some point in time, which is setting a bad example for us. After all, you are a teacher and you are basically teaching us to be disrespectful and a liar."
At that moment Ms Rose's own share of patience seemed to have shattered. Her eyes had that weird ethereal glow to them again. I blinked as she started yelling at me in full volume. I had no idea how her vocal chords kept up as her voice became higher and higher pitched. She stood and glared up at me. I was taller than her by half a head. "How dare you! You disrespectful, uneducated little girl!"
"Little?" I smirked. "Wow, that's rich coming from you." I stood on my tiptoes just to demonstrate my point.
Her face flushed red all the way down to her neck. "Disrespectful, rude, no manners! You should be sent to the Principal's office for this! If I'm lucky, you would get expelled for the outrageous behaviour you have displayed today! Yes," she smirked with glee when she noticed my shocked expression, "I could get you expelled for so many things. Talking rudely back to a teacher, snipping up your test, throwing a tantrum in class and disrupting the lesson. I wouldn't mind it one bit if you were expelled."
I froze. Expelled? Could that happen? Would that happen to me? My parents would be so disappointed in me. They probably wouldn't even be angry, but that was even worse. I still clearly remember that feeling. I was 5 years old and I didn't want to go to kindergarten that fateful day. So I faked a cold and my parents were so concerned about my sudden 'illness' that they allowed me to stay at home for that day. The acting went really well for the first half of the day, but then when it was time to eat lunch, I forgot about the fact that I was incredibly sick and had trouble swallowing food without my throat hurting. I came hurtling down the stairs at breakneck speed because I was starving. I hardly ate anything for breakfast. My parents were too worried about giving me too much to eat. I was so busy gulping down food, that I didn't notice my parents staring at me. When I did though and I looked like a perfectly normal kid with a full mouth, I could see the realization dawn on their faces. They didn't yell at me. They didn't scold me. They didn't beat me. They were so furious at me, that they couldn't even be angry anymore. They were just so very disappointed. And that was ten times worse than any punishment they could have given me. I started crying when my parents told me how disappointed they were in me, which then in turn caused baby Dylan to cry as well. I eventually made it up to them and they forgave me again, but I made a promise to myself to never lie or hide anything from my family again.
"And I bet that I can march to the Principal's office before you even got out of this room and get you fired for what you did." I snapped my head around in surprise. I didn't even expect Melanie to say anything at all. I tried to grab her attention but she continued to look fixedly at Ms Rose. This time it was Ms Rose's turn to go pale, but then her face heated up again. Remarkable, how she was able to switch colours just like that. She reminded me of a chameleon.
"Ah yes. Melanie Campbell. I'm still not done with you, either. Do you also want to pay the Principal a visit in his office? Because I think I can arrange that for you when you continue with that attitude."
"Do it then." Melanie lifted her chin slightly, as if challenging Ms Rose. "I am pretty sure that I would be able to tell the Principal the true story. You can't just expel students for stating the truth. Even you should know that."
I could tell that Ms Rose was seething on the inside. She gritted her teeth. "You two will meet me in the Principal's office during your lunch time at one o'clock sharp. Then we will talk to the Principal and see what he has to say about all this. Understood?"
Her glare was actually quite intimidating and all the fight had anyway left me already. I bowed my head and looked at the floor. "Fine, whatever."
"Excuse me, Ms Ruby Tinkers?"
"I mean: of course, dear Ms Rose." My voice was dripping with sarcasm.
"Sure." Melanie shrugged. She could be annoying at times, but I admired how she stayed calm throughout the entire discussion.
***
"How did it go, Ruby? Are you in trouble? Why did you talk back to her like that? I was, like really worried!" Lena bombarded me with questions as soon as I dropped my bag off at a table in the school cafeteria she secured for us. Her little sister, Anna, was sitting next to her.
"I'll fill you in as soon as I get something to eat. I'm so hungry I could eat a whale," I said and scampered off, but not before I could hear Anna giggling.
I grabbed a tray and stood in line at the back of the queue. I looked at the menu selection on the screen above our heads. Spaghetti with tomato sauce, stir-fried vegetables with braised beef and the completely vegan option. The cooler also offered sandwiches and some of those small, miniature cereal boxes as a snack. I shuddered. I will probably never trust cereal of any kind again.
I took the pasta and pushed my way through the throng of indecisive students all the way to the cashier. I looked over the head of a tall guy standing in front of me and looked for the table Lena was keeping empty. I smiled; my brother just arrived at the table and sat down in an empty chair. I paid the cashier and bee lined straight for the table. Lena was just scooping another spoonful of pasta into her mouth.
"How was the test, sis? I heard you got into trouble from Ms Rose." My brother was munching on his sandwich and talking at the same time.
"Yo, it's not polite to talk with your mouth full. You'll never get a girlfriend at this rate, Dylan." I lightly smacked the side of his head and looked pointedly at Anna. "You wouldn't want to date someone with manners like those, would you?"
Anna blushed and furiously shook her head. "See, Dylan? You've got to learn from her; she's polite at least. Then you could finally have a social life."
"Sis!" he complained. "I'm not interested in getting a girlfriend. Besides," he grinned, "you aren't exactly setting the best example for having a social life. You only ever hang out with Lena."
Lena made an affirmative sound and ate more pasta. I chewed thoughtfully. "Yeah, and that's enough!" I defended myself. "And because of that I am trying to prevent you from doing the same mistake as well."
"You aren't doing a very good job at it."
I took another bite. "Yeah, I'm not. But at least you have an awesome sister like me to keep you company, right?"
"An awesome sister who is in serious trouble," Lena interrupted. "I still want to know what happened. What did she say?"
And so I explained what happened. Lena added in some comments here and there when I was talking about what happened during the test, while Anna and Dylan stayed quiet most of the time. I of course never said anything about the shifting letters on the paper, how something burned it or how Melanie couldn't pick up a pencil and that it smashed itself into a thick concrete wall. Lena was just recounting exactly what I said to Ms Rose and reprimanding me for not remembering exactly what I said, when Anna spoke up. "Wow, that's so brave. Although we have math next with Ms Rose and she will probably let out her anger on us, it's still cool."
Lena patted her sister's shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry, Anna. She has no reason to start yelling at you. At least, until you do something as stupid as Ruby here."
I huffed. "Stupid? I was—"
Lena payed me no attention and kept on talking. "And if Ms Rose does start yelling, then just imagine her with a shocked expression on her face. It's the best," she continued, "I just didn't have any time to appreciate it myself. I was shocked myself that Ruby cut up her test. That's drastic, even for you." She directed the last sentence at me.
Dylan chocked on a mouthful of his sandwich. "You what?" Anna was also staring at me with giant brown doe eyes. Her mouth was gaping.
Lena smacked her forehead. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you both about that." She turned to me. "I have no idea how you managed to snip up your test and hide the scissors so well, I didn't even notice you doing it at first. I think that you will get into trouble because of that though."
Dylan shook of his shock and started shaking my shoulder. "Oh my god! That is so epic! I want to be like you! I also want to cut up test papers! It sounds like so much fun!"
"Dylan!" Lena and I shouted. But he was not about to stop anytime soon.
"No, seriously! Anna, we must try that sometime. Maybe with the upcoming science test..."
Anna had a thoughtful look on her face and Lena wagged her finger at her warningly. "Anna, I swear that if you do that, I will personally make sure that you can never—"
"What are you on about, Lena? I didn't cut up the test! Why does everybody think that?" I threw up my hands exasperated.
Lena faltered in her tirade and her sister breathed a sigh of relief. I winked at her. "Well, the paper looked cut up... What did you do then if you didn't cut it?"
Lena was sitting the closest to me in the math classroom; how could she mistake ashes as cut paper? I hesitated and then said slowly: "The paper wasn't cut. I touched it and it scorched until it became ashes." Lena and Dylan opened their mouths to say something but I cut them off. "I know it sounds crazy and I have no clue how it happened, because I didn't do anything. The paper must have burned by itself. I swear I'm not lying; I saw the ashes myself."
"Umm, sis? Are you sure about that?" I kept my head lowered and focused on my food. I finished the last bite of pasta. Now that I thought about it, it did seem ridiculous. Who could burn paper with their bare hands? And shouldn't the palms of my hands have left at least some mark behind that I did something like that? I turned my hands over and inspected them closely. No burn marks, no red skin, nothing unusual. They looked like they normally did. Even the tingly sensation I felt before had disappeared completely after I was sent out of the classroom, making me question whether my hands even had the tingling feeling in the first place. I remembered that my eyes were pretty blurry and that my head hurt when all of this happened with Ms Rose; maybe I even imagined the ashes. After all, everyone else seemed to think that I somehow cut up the paper. Although that didn't really explain how I did it and why Melanie saw the same thing as me. Maybe she was also hallucinating. Oh no. That's bad. That would mean that I was hallucinating as well. Was I going crazy? I frowned at that thought.
Dylan gently prodded my arm. I glanced at him and my expression softened when I saw the obvious concern in his blue eyes. Despite us constantly bickering and teasing each other, it was always apparent that we cared about each other a lot. At least I do (although I don't say something like that to Dylan; he would never let me live it down). I sighed softly and wrapped an arm around him in a side hug. "Nah, it would make a really good story though." I tried beaming convincingly at my brother, but I had a feeling that it looked very brittle. I tried to lighten the mood. "Wouldn't that be cool though? If you had an awesome sister like me, who could burn stuff." My smile faltered when I noticed that he was still looking at me gravely. Lena and Anna were caught up in their own conversation at that point. My palms were starting to become sweaty; Dylan shouldn't think that I was crazy even though it was almost as bad that I was keeping that from him and telling him a half-truth. I let out a relieved sigh when I saw his mouth twitch until it stretched out into a full on smile. I immediately felt slightly guilty that he believed me so willingly.
"Sure, I wouldn't mind that, if that could actually happen."
I laughed and ruffled his hair affectionately. He squirmed. Grabbing my plate, I stood up a looked around the table. "Right! Does anyone want to go to the library with me for the rest of lunch?"