68Because Rain Drops Always Fall
By Tanya (Rains)
Chapter 2: Grave's End College
Maybe I should give a better explanation. Why do I hate Milton? Well, partly because it's just second nature – the Evers hate the Miltons and vice versa. Of course, there are all sorts of nasty stories and rumours about them that get passed down the generations of our family. I'm not quite sure when they started and I have absolutely no clue why we originally started hating them.
But the real reason has never really been an issue for me – the other part of why I hate Milton is because he's, well, him. 10 reasons (to clarify things a little):
1) He randomly appears when I'm doing pranks. Admittedly, it's because he's usually doing some sort of prank of his own, but it's very annoying. The chances of being found out when he's around are somehow at least 50 per cent higher than usual – take yesterday, for instance – and he always seems to make a point of bumping into me somehow, so I have to talk to him.
2) His middle name is Kingdom. Like Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Okay, I know it's not his fault, but it just irks me. It must be part of the reason why he's so bigheaded.
3) He is one of those people who occasionally thinks it hysterically funny to push me in the lake.
4) He tends to grin when I'm pissed off about something.
5) If he is standing in front of me in the dinner hall he always takes the last one of whatever I happen to be craving, meaning that I either have to wait a while or go without – usually the latter, particularly if it's breakfast time – I'm usually running late or I get too impatient.
6) When I am forced to work with him in AS Law (we both got forced to take an extra AS this year) he always does things in his own odd way – leaving me completely confused.
7) I am sure he winds me up on purpose.
8) He swaggers.
9) He's bigheaded.
10) Wait; did I already say number 9? I don't know. Either way, he always, always manages to get me in a foul mood and I don't particularly like being in a foul mood.
Anyway, Alice and the ice cream definitely helped last night, but the whole issue was still annoying me as I got closer and closer to this evenings dance lesson, so I was ranting to Stuart in double Maths.
"It could've been worse."
"Worse? How exactly?" I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Well, you might have had to do litter picking, for example." He was trying not to smile and not doing a very good job of it.
"Oh my god, you've been talking to Milton, haven't you?" I accused.
"Milton?" Stuart screwed up his face in thought. "Milton, no. James, yes."
"Since when have you been friends with Milton?" I asked, scandalised.
He gave me a you're-an-unobservant-idiot face. "Since ages ago. What does it matter anyway?"
"Because it's Milton. He's so bigheaded and-"
"He's not. You don't really know him that well."
"He takes the piss all the time!"
"And so do you, but we all love you anyway. Seriously, you should give the guy a chance before you diss him."
Stuart is a nice guy and he usually gives great advice, but today? Well, enough said.
I stacked up my books and hauled them into my arms.
"Now I have to dance with him. Please give me a little sympathy?"
Stuart grinned and decided to humour me. "Awwww. Poor Ruby. Quick, lean on me and pretend you've busted your ankle."
I lent to my right and limped and grimaced accordingly. "I'm dying." I feigned tears of pain.
We reached Stuart's locker (albeit a bit slower than we usually do) and I lent against the locker to the left of his, while he shoved all the Maths stuff that we didn't need for homework into his locker. I stood on one leg, still pretending that the other one was far too painful to put any weight on.
"I need to brush my hair." I told Stuart, whilst running my fingers through it. My hair is dirty blonde, medium length and untameably curly – I've attempted to straighten it before, but it has never worked properly and if it did, only for half an hour or so. Also, there's the fact that I don't get up any earlier than is absolutely necessary. Brushing makes it look less awful.
"Do up a shirt button," Stu commented after briefly looking up from his locker, where he was rearranging everything so that it didn't fall out on him next time, "you look like a tart."
"Oi." I looked down and realised he was right. "Shit. It's broken again. I hate wearing shirts." I was showing more of my breasts than I would've liked – my shirt buttons kept popping off despite the fact that my shirts weren't even tight.
"I need button reinforcement or something." I told Stuart.
"No you don't." A different voice replied. Stuart's head popped up once more and turned from my glaring face to Milton, who was just opening his own locker.
"Perve." I crossed my arms across my chest, but it only had the effect of pushing my boobs together like a wonder bra, so I quickly uncrossed them and held one of the Maths books in front of them instead.
"I just said what everyone was thinking. You'll have to get changed for dance soon anyway." He smirked.
"Guys, can't you at least try to get along?" Stuart requested, a slightly pained expression on his face.
"I am not dancing with you, due to an unfortunate ankle injury and the fact that I feel it would make me feel physically sick." I turned to Stuart. "What have I done anyway? He was the one who was eyeing up my bust."
Milton raised an eyebrow. "I saw you walking down the corridor and your limp is definitely the worst fake limp I have ever seen."
"Shut up, both of you! Ruby, you're dancing. James, so are you – and I'd suggest making less comments that make it seem like you've been, er, observing Ruby, because people might start thinking the wrong thing. You'll be close up in a few hours anyway."
"The wrong thing?" Milton asked, a look of feigned innocence on his face. "Pray tell, Stuart."
Stuart slammed the door of his locker and turned to Milton before turning back to me.
"Come on, let's get dinner."
Dinner was lovely…shepherds pie with an assortment of vegetables to choose from and then various desserts. Dinner was lovely because it was time when I wasn't in a dance lesson. Dinner was lovely because I had a gorgeous mug of tea with it.
Eventually I had to put away my dinner things and make the trek back to the dorms to change into some more comfortable clothes for dancing. It was raining and I was glad that I had had the sense to put my jumper back on over my shirt – rain and white shirts are not a good mix.
Uniform. I hate wearing uniform. Blue blazers and jumpers and crisp white shirts all with the school logo on the left side. And then regulation skirts or trousers – the girls usually wear skirts because regulation trousers are not exactly flattering on a woman's figure.
Skirts are not good for running through the rain to the dorm building – your legs and shoes get completely soaked. Sometimes I like the rain. In summer when it's too hot and when you just get that feeling that you need to dance in the rain, even if you look like a nutcase. However, I don't like it when I'm feeling like crap already and it's October – it just got too cold to get rain soaked.
I braced myself and ran across to the dorm building, catching a couple of puddles along the way that made my shoes heavy to lift. I stepped in and slammed the door behind me, relishing the echo that it made.
"Fuck." Not only were my shoes soaked, but my legs too. My jumper was horribly damp and my hair had gone completely to pot.
"I see your ankle's healed."
I span around to see Milton casually leaning on the wall next to the lifts, annoyingly rain free.
He looked down at himself. "Just missed the rain."
I walked past him and into the one of the lifts, which had just opened next to him. He followed me in and pressed the button for the top floor.
"Wahoo, dancing." I reminded myself.
"Should be fun." Milton replied, nodding.
"I was talking to myself." I said, coldly.
"So? Should be fun anyway, even if you do talk to yourself."
"Yes, I'm sure we'll have fun. I've always wanted to dance with my worst enemy."
I think he caught on to the sarcasm, because he replied:
"Really? It's always been one of my dreams to dance with you, Ruby."
The two evil dance teachers partnered everyone up straight away, starting with me and Milton. It wasn't too bad – the first section of the dance was good, because we didn't have to touch each other. Milton wasn't too bad at it either; he didn't go the wrong way at all and only took a few tries to get it perfected. True, the first section is the easiest, but hopefully it meant that he wouldn't be too awful with the other sections.
I wasn't going to add any more to his ego, so I didn't say anything about his dancing. I could foretell that Tuesday wouldn't be any fun – at least there was only one week left before half term though. Two dance lessons and then ten Milton-free days at home. Bliss. Sort of.
Alice came and found me at the end of the lesson and we walked back to our room together (thankfully, the rain had stopped).
"So, it wasn't that bad?"
"No, but next time we'll have to touch." I reminded her.
"Ooh, his hand on your waist and yours on his shoulder and you'll have to hold hands! Shock horror! Come on, Ruby, it's not like grinding or anything."
"It's bad enough." I replied, grinning as Alice's words led me elsewhere. "Speaking of grinding, we have to go to Rate in half term."
"Indeed. What days? Tuesday and Thursday are best for me."
"Monday and Thursday?"
"Sure."
Rate is a club near to where Alice lives. It's the best we've found since acquiring fake IDs (though we'll have the real thing soon), so we go there and then I crash at Alice's house.
Tuesday evening arrived far too quickly for my liking and all too soon I was standing with Milton again, biting my lip painfully as I watched the evil dance teachers demonstrate the hold and the first few steps and then told us to try it for ourselves as they showed us again.
"Oh God."
"Right. Erm…" Milton gave me a nervous look.
I moved a bit closer and we took up to hold, rather uncomfortably. His hand on my waist was a bit unnerving and he seemed to be completely tensed up.
"For Christ's sake, relax a bit. If you over concentrate you'll go wrong and I happen to value my feet."
He looked down at me, grey eyes glinting mischeviously. He must be around a foot taller than me, but the look on his face still made him look like a little kid.
"I'm not dance retarded, you know."
"I don't know."
"You will."
"I might."
The evil dance teachers chose that moment to call out the steps as they did them and we both followed their shouted instructions without any major mishaps. My feet remained intact. We had to repeat the steps a few times, then to music and then with the section we had learnt on Friday before it.
"See? It was fun." Milton congratulated himself in the lift.
"Only watching the other people."
"Who?" He asked.
"The awful ones…there were quite a lot of them, but then I guess it's more of an achievement if you start off like that and then dance perfectly at the actual end of year dance."
"Maybe. Or maybe you'd be crapping yourself before the dance and then just be relieved at the end."
"Hmmm."
"I wasn't really watching them anyway."
The lift came to a stop on our floor and we went our separate ways.
R&R?