Saturday mornings are for sleeping, not manual labour. This particular Saturday though, I was woken up at an ungodly hour by the alarm Tyrone made me swear to set on my phone.
Walking down the street, I wondered how so many people were up and about at this time of the day.
Morning people, I thought. Then I saw the one person I knew would have a smile on their face at half past six in the morning. She was wearing a gray sports bra and leggings. The earphones she was wearing the first time I saw her were in place as usual.
She slowed down as she approached me, till she eventually stopped right in front of me.
"I didn't think you were a morning person,"
"I'm not. I- where are you going?"I asked. She did not wait for me to finish the sentence, but attempted to walk right past me. I had to stop her and question her, of course.
"I'm walking away like you did when you saw your friend yesterday."
So that's what this was about. I completely forgot about Taylor yesterday, and she was right to be upset, but I needed to get somewhere and I needed to get there fast.
"I'll make it up to you, I swear. Now, I have to go."
"I like the overalls. Brave choice," she said, teasing me or complimenting me. Either way, I felt uncomfortable, but I knew it was the perfect outfit for what I was going to do.
______________________________________
There's nothing quite like the feeling of being at school. The second you see the building, your mood suddenly changes to something in-between depression and boredom.Coupled with the fact that I was here on a Saturday morning, I was understandably in a sour mood. . I know I said I missed this place just yesterday, but one day here made me remember why I used to take it for granted in the first place.
At least I did not have to go through this alone. Ty and Jason would suffer through this with me.
"I like the overalls. Nice touch," Ty said the moment he laid eyes on me. As always, Jason and he had beat me here. He said it mockingly, even though he was wearing the exact same outfit.
"I think they're ridiculous,"Jason added. He obviously was not thrilled about having to wear overalls. Then again, he was hardly ever thrilled about anything in life. In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't seen him smile in all the time I have known him.
"At least it's better than being suspended,and you don't even know how close we came to suspension."
Eventually, our secret had been revealed. Our continued absences from class had attracted the attention of the headmaster, and from what Tyrone told me, he wanted to suspend us for two weeks. Somehow, Ty had struck a deal with him, and even though he refused to tell me the details, he did tell me the dress code was overalls.
As we stood outside the building, waiting for the headmaster, Ty and Jason got into a petty argument about who was better dressed,even though they were both wearing the exact same thing. Even their workbooks matched. Listening to them argue was fun. Besides, it was the most I had heard Jason say in a long while. I began to wonder why he didn't speak much. Could it be that he was going through something much worse than the rest of us? Of course not, I thought. If he had a problem, he would told us by now. We had grown pretty close over the years, and I was pretty sure they didn't hide anything from me.
I couldn't say the same thing about myself though. I had been hiding my deepest, darkest secret from them for so long, but now I began to wonder why. If they really were my best friends(well they were my only friends), why did I feel insecure trusting them with my secret?
I decided if I had to tell anyone, it would be them,and now was the perfect time to do it.
"Guys! Guys!" they ignored me and went on bickering. "There's alien ship coming down."
"What? Where?"
"Now that I have your attention, there's something important I have to tell you."
"Whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait. The headmaster is coming," Jason said.
And just like that, I was shut down. I honestly did not know if I would ever gather the courage to try and tell them again.
Anyway, the headmaster approached us, and unlike us, he was wearing a suit. Who dresses up in a suit at 7AM on a Saturday?
"I do."
I said that out loud, didn't I?
"And if you're wondering why you're here, you three are going to be painting the east wing of the second floor of block C."
"Aren't there professionals you can hire to do such things?" I asked. Tyrone elbowed me in the stomach.
"The school has been looking to cut costs in some areas due to budget cuts this year. Besides, the grounds keeper will be supervising you, and he's about as qualified as any professional out there."
"Where is the grounds keeper though?" I asked again.
"I'm right behind you."
I wondered how long he had been there and I hadn't noticed.
Our first task was getting the supplies we needed from the basement. The grounds keeper explained to us that each individual unit had its own basement.
You see, the was not one building. It was a collection of buildings, each of which served a different purpose. Whiles that is a cool design, it does students no favours. The buildings are well-spaced, and that means if your next class is in another building, you better have lightning speed or you're going to be late.
The basement we were going to was in block C, the closest building to the entrance and also the building where most of my classes were.
As was to be expected, the place was dark and damp. We could hear the sound of water dripping, and we had to flap our arms about every now and then to avoid entangling our faces with webs. What made it even more unsettling was the fact that it smelled like something had died in here.
"Not something, someone,but that was over thirty years ago," the grounds keeper replied, after Ty had commented on the smell.
That made me wonder how long he had been working here. Maybe he heard it from someone else, I thought.
After walking around for a while, the grounds keeper finally found what he was looking for. To get a better look at the labels on the paint cans, he put on a flashlight. After looking some more he said, "Alright boys, take these out and we'll be on our way." He pointed to some cans and two ladders.
After we had brought them out, he led us to the second floor, to the very wing where we had been hiding. That was when he told us he had forgotten about the brushes and rollers we would be using. He wanted two of us to go back down there and get them. Tyrone immediately exempted himself,leaving Jason and I to go back to the basement.
After grabbing the keys, we headed downstairs with me complaining all the way down. Jason was quiet as usual. Unfortunately for us, we did not ask which keys opened the three padlocks on the basement door. I spent five minutes trying key after key till I finally gave up and gave Jason a try. Of course, the first three keys he used opened the locks. Getting the brushes and rollers turned out to be an easy task since they were not far from the door. We hurriedly locked the place and headed back up with the supplies.
"Took you long enough," Ty said.
"Someone couldn't figure out which keys to use."
"In my defense, there are lot of keys. I don't even know how Jason here figured it out."
"I just matched the teeth on the keys with holes in the lock. It wasn't very hard."
Show off.
Looking at what we had gathered, I wondered how we were going to paint am entire wing with so few supplies. Apparently, we weren't. Even before we started, the grounds keeper informed us we would be doing only the ceiling today. We would come back every week at the same damn time until we were done. At least it still beats suspension.
Our first task was cleaning the ceiling. That meant getting rid of cobwebs and a hornet's nest that was concealed in one corner. Luckily for us, no one was home.
Then we had to scrape off the old paint with a putty knife and sandpaper. That alone ate a couple of hours, even though there were three of us working. The grounds keeper was perched comfortably on an old desk eating an apple.
He got up only to teach us how to prime the ceiling and how to use tee rollers.
"Don't dip the whole thing in the paint. You'll make a mess," he scolded.
"Rhian, you're doing it wrong. Paint in a zigzag pattern. Look at how well Jason is doing."
I turned my head to look, but I did so too fast and ended up falling off the ladder and knocking over a can of paint on the floor. Tyrone got his phone out to take a picture, and I don't know if this was a hallucination caused by the smell of the paint or something, but I could swear I saw the corners of Jason's mouth rising as though he were smiling. A blink of an eye later, he was back to his usual bored expression.
I was having a field day about getting paint on my skin, but the grounds keeper shut me down almost immediately.
"Just have good rubbing with warm water when you get home. If that doesn't work, try turpentine. I think that's enough for today, you're not bad for beginners. Go home. I'll pack things up here."
We had done a good job today. Most of the ceiling had been finished, and it was only late afternoon. I wondered if I could spend every Saturday like this though.
"Rhian, before the headmaster came, you wanted to tell us something?" Ty asked when we had walked far enough for the grounds keeper not to hear us.
I began to panic. The confidence I had in the morning had vanished. "It's not important," I replied.
Maybe I'm not as close to them as I thought.
I was a little behind schedule on this update, and I'm very sorry. A lot has been going on with me recently. Anyways, thank you guys for a hundred reads. This is the fastest anything I have written has reached that milestone and I am really grateful to everyone who has supported this story up till this point. We will achieve more and more with this story,God-willing.
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