33Daredevil Darren
I've got to be honest with myself; the moment I saw Cheri Avenue walk inside the classroom with that miniskirt I wanted to bury my head in my hands and swear into the wooden desk. It's just I am so, so sick of everyone fluttering around the new teacher and the only girl in class to which I can actually hold an intelligent conversation with is now bloody in love with him, like all the rest of them.
Cheri walks down the aisle, and scooting the chair out from behind the desk next to mine, she sits down and stares straight ahead. Straight ahead at our English teacher, who is obliviously reading through a motorbike magazine while the entire female population drools all over their school work.
Looking around for any of my male friend's in this class I find that they're all nonexistent. Wagging. Again. Some day they're going to get caught, and no way am I going to be there to account for them. Hell, if they're going to leave me in the room with a bunch of drooling, masochistic (by way of wearing short skirts on a freezing cold day) girls then I'm going to testify against them.
I'm going to tell the principle they're pissing on the walls and smoking up the chemicals from the science lab, if it gets their asses back in class again. Because no matter what, they will never know the pain brought on to me by Mr Paul Hudson.
"Hello Darren," a hand touches my arm, and the inside of me is lit on fire; Cheri Avenue just touched me. I give her a sideways glance, looking disinterested. "Can you help me with this?" she gestures to her book and tilts her head at me, copper wire curls falling in front of her eyes out of her pony tail.
"Why don't you just ask 'Paul'?" I use air quotes and raise my eyebrows at her. I mean, why doesn't she? She's already wearing a skirt for the guy. Just look at the thing, I find my eyes lower to the pink, plaid miniskirt and find myself frowning at it, despite it's obvious superiority to the rest of the miniskirts in this class.
For one thing, it covers more than half her thigh and I really think I'd get detention if I saw that teacher staring at her legs like that. But for another it's just...it's not her, Cheri doesn't wear skirts. Cheri wears jeans, track pants and camos, with these t-shirts with cute little sayings on them. She doesn't wear skirts, most certainly not mini ones. Most certainly not for her teacher.
Sliding my eyes away from the skirt I casually transfer my gaze back to her face to find her biting her lip. Cheri's looking at me uncertainly, and she gives this little sigh and looks right back away. "Fine. I will go ask Mr Hudson..." she plants her hands on the side of her desk and starts to push up from her chair when, cursing in my head at myself, I grab her hand and stop her.
"No, I'll help you," Her eyes dart to mine and she rests back down in her chair, smiling at me. I feel my heart give a tremor, and I let go of her hand and bring it back to my desk, "what do you need help with?"
"Nothing." she says blankly before letting out a titter when I raise my eyebrows at her. Cheri flicks around in her book, peach coloured nails fast and quick at work, "I mean this. I need help with this," she picks up her book and sets it in front of me.
Hello, I'm bored!
Snorting, I shake my head and put her book back, unanswered, "Tut-tut, no distracting me for no reason miss Avenue," I mean, distracting me more than usual, "get back to your –" Cheri puts the book back in front of me.
Your loss, I'll go talk to Paul instead.
She picks her book back up from my desk once noticing that I've stopped reading, and she gets up from her chair and starts heading towards Hudson. With wild eyes I look on, setting my jaw. Okay. Now she's started calling him Paul. Crossing my arms I lean back in my chair and glare at my teacher, and at that moment he looks up from the motorbike magazine and captures my eye, captures Cheri walking towards him –
And smirks.
Oh my God. I'm not lying. I'm going to punch that guy in the face! In the FACE! I uncross my arms and bring my fists down on the desk not so subtly. Cheri doesn't look back, though. But he smirks even more at me, and his hands reach out for her book. I want to throw my chair in his smug ass face. I think...I think I hear someone singing behind me.
Looking over my shoulder my heart floods with relief and rage at the same time. My friend, Sam, is sitting behind me. But he's singing, "Young teacher, the subject...of schoolgirl fantasy...she wants him so badly –" my pencil case goes flying into his face and he lets out a spiel of laughter.
Cheri is looking at me curiously over her shoulder when I turn my head back around. But I just glare at her, and a little bemused, she looks away and continues on her conversation with the teacher, leaving me highlighting similes in our work and ignoring the laughter from Sam, behind me.
I'm glad he finds it so funny. But she can't know how much I like her. It'd be masochistic like the girls with the skirts, it'd be the ruination of my ego and bringing down of my pride, it would bring down all that makes me, me. I'm not the guy who pines after the girl. I'm the guy who sticks thumb tacks on the girl's chair. It's going to freaking stay that way, too.
As flat as road kill. I'm halfway through highlighting another word when my pencil case is slammed back over my head and Sam lets out another spiel of laughter behind me. Growling under my breath, the pencil case falling to the floor my thoughts are; I'll show him who's as flat as road kill.
"Cheri, will you watch them for a sec, it's so nice of you to volunteer to help with detention," Hudson smiles at her and she looks at her shoes, laughing a little. My pencil breaks in my grip, and I let it roll off in two different directions off of my desk, sucking in a deep breath. Just count to 5, count to 5. "I'll be back soon."
Hudson walks out of the classroom and Cheri looks at the floor and the half-pencils underneath my desk and quirks an eyebrow, "Looks like you need a new pencil there, Darren," she observes, "would you like to borrow one of mine?"
She pulls out a pink grey lead with little tweety birds all over it and I snort, "Thanks, but no thanks," she shrugs and puts them back into her pocket, sitting down in her chair and looking away with a thoughtful expression on her face. I wonder what she's thinking about. Watching her, I pick the half-pencils back off of the floor and rest them onto my desk.
Cheri's gaze returns to mine and mine returns to looking out the window. I hear her snort and out of the corner of my eyes, see her cross her arms and glare at me, eyebrows arched. I don't know what she's so annoyed about, though. It's not as though it's her dream guy, Paul, ignoring her. He's been pleasantly doing the opposite, talking to her, and even having his arm around her shoulders at one point.
Sam shoves my shoulder from behind and whispers, "Hey man, no hard feeling about the black eye, right?" I growl under my breath and narrow my eyes. "Just like I have none about you nearly snapping my arm off, right? She's looking at you."
"I noticed." I whisper back through the side of my lips, and he's quiet a moment before talking again.
"I reckon she's got the hots for you, even if you're pretty face isn't so pretty with that dark circle around the eye. I hit you good, didn't I? My arm hurts too. Good job, man." Sometimes – no, all of the time, I wonder if Sam's got some kind of mental disability. But my gaze returns to her from the window, warily, only to spot her, head in hands, staring at the teacher who's returning through the door. "Guess not, huh?"
Sam starts guffawing behind me and I raise my eyes to the heavens. It's not like I was getting my hopes up, anyway. Not that there's any hopes to get up. I mean, my only concern is that she stays away from older guys like him that can take advantage of her. It's not like I want her for myself – guys like me, we don't have a girlfriend, we have girlfriends.
"Hey sir, they've all been very good." Cheri smiles at him, running a hand through her messy red curls, which she's all but taped to her head in a bun since this morning, only to have them all sticking up in random directions. But I think that's the style. It looks good on her, anyway. "Except for Darren, he's been awful, really loud. I think he needs to stay an extra ten minutes. Maybe fifteen."
What the hell? I haven't been saying or doing anything! My eyes fly to her in incredulity but she just smiles at me, evilly, and runs her hand through her hair again all innocently, eyes all a flutter to the teacher. He eats it up, you can tell from the way he's looking at her, smiling and winking with a nod. Sam falls out of his chair and onto the floor behind me, and I can hear him wheezing.
"If you're having so much trouble breathing, Sammy, maybe I can put an end to it." I mutter darkly but he just inhales air down the wrong pipe and starts coughing, spitting saliva all over my bare legs from where he lies on the floor.
"What was that, Darren?" Cheri wants to know, smiling sunnily. I just glare at her. I can't get her in trouble for lying. The teacher would never believe me, and then I'd get in more trouble for lying. Even though I wouldn't really have been lying about it. Besides. I don't want Cheri getting in trouble and having to stay in here involuntarily with him. I'd have to go get myself detention again to keep an eye on her.
"Nothing," I mutter, and sinking my head into my desk I spend the rest of the class thinking conflicting thoughts about Cheri.
Slamming my locker door shut I sling my bag over a shoulder and am about to walk down the hall and out of the school finally – when I discover Cheri is on a crash course right for me, her eyes boring into mine. I stop, my arms hanging by my sides, helpless. I don't know what's going on in that mind of hers, but she's on a mission. I just don't know what it is. All I know is; it has something to do with me.
"Don't come near me, I'm committing crimes, being bad," I pull my lighter out of my pocket and hold it threateningly close to the wooden floor, bending, "I'm going to set the school on fire."
Cheri puts a hand to her mouth and starts laughing at me. I flick the lighter on and raise my eyebrows at her, drawing it even closer to the floor. But her expression doesn't change; she still looks mighty amused at me for a good girl watching a bad boy draw a lighter on a building.
"Oh please, like you'd do it." she drawls, her voice dripping with sarcasm. I stare at her like she's a moron. Of course I'd do it. I am Darren Preston, Darren the daredevil. Last year I spray painted the principal's car and got suspended. This year I lead a whole heap of goats onto the field on school sports day. And got suspended. I, more than anyone else in this school, would do this.
"My God, Cheri, just get the hell away from me okay. I'll set your shirt on fire. I'll set your pretty hair on fire. Just get away." I start walking backwards, as she walks towards me, holding up my hands in defence. What is the stupid girl thinking? I'm scary. I'm a wild man, I'll – I'll pull her hair, or something to that extent. She has no idea what she's getting into going near me. "I'm serious."
Cheri smiles at me and puts up her peach coloured nails in a zombie-like fashion, heading towards me with crazy eyes; eyes rolling into the back of her head, "Raahh, Darren is scared of me, raaahh."
What? I am most certainly not scared of a girl. Not Cheri, definitely. She is the least scary girl in the whole planet. She brought her teddy to school one day, that day our old English teacher told us to bring one thing we couldn't live without. I brought rat poisoning, as a bit of a joke – but she brought this pink, little old teddy bear she said she'd had since she was five.
Cheri Avenue is generally not a very scary girl. On paper. But right now, I'm starting to realise, she's scaring the absolute crap out of me – and I don't know why. Not one clue, not one teeny, tiny little clue. I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach, this fluttering...it's like, it's like someone's got a feather and they're tickling me on the inside of my stomach.
"Cheri, I'm warning you, I'll stalk you home and burn up that little pink teddy bear of yours. I'll harass your mum I'll –" I feel my back bump into the back of the hall and discover only a heap of plaster, and a window, behind me. I contemplate jumping out the window, even knowing the fact that the halls two storeys up. "Cheri. Back. The. Hell. Off."
Sliding sideways against the wall I find myself moving forward again, planning on dodging her and running out of the school with my bag and what's left of my bad guy toughness intact. I don't know who she thinks she is, backing me into walls and smirking at me. It's not right. I'm the one who should be doing stuff like that. Not her.
"No," she says, marching right up to me, and before I can dodge out of her way, grabbing a heap of my shirt and dragging me down to her level. I blink confusedly into her stormy grey eyes, and go to stand back up straight, but she tugs me back down and takes the lighter from out of my other hand, flicking it off and sticking it in the front pocket of my jeans. "I have to talk with you."
"I don't have to talk to anyone." I say, and reaching up I take her hands in mine, feeling the feather inside my stomach move in rapid, fast and knee weakening motions, and detach them from my shirt. The look in her eyes doesn't change though, and her hands tighten around mine. "Let go of me, I don't do touchy-feely crap. I do not like being touched."
Giving her hands a shake, I all but get her hands off of mine, and she tugs on them, "You do too. I'm sick and tired of you acting like a jackass when I know it's not how you feel about me."
The feather stabs at my insides and I suck in my breath, letting out a loud hoot akin to the kind Sam always lets out, and inwardly cringing, "Um, hon, I am a jackass and you," I give one final, huge tug at my hands, freeing them from her grasp, "are in love with the teacher like everyone else. You are not supposed to care whether I, Darren Preston, have feelings with you – which by the way I don't."
Moving her gently out of my way I start to walk towards the doors, but she follows me, her shorter legs quickening their pace every time I quicken mine. Narrowing my eyes I lock them in on their target, and there's only about five metres to go. Five metres, and then I can close the door in her face, and run the hell out of here. But it doesn't work that way.
Quick, rushing steps I can hear from behind, and then I'm pushed right into the door, my face slamming against the glass and my body drooping against it. I curse and go to yell at her, spinning around, when she places her hands on my chest, steps up on her tiptoes and plants a soft kiss upon my lips.
I feel myself drooping back against the door again, my eyes lazily dropping with me, as her hands run up my chest and around my neck, and she presses herself to me. Her fiery red curls are getting in my face and I pull up a hand to brush them to the side – only then really realising what she's doing to me, I push her right back away and stand up straight, face burning the same colour as her curls.
"What the hell, Avenue?" I bring my hands over my mouth trying not to think about how nice that'd been and trying to think about my reputation, and how much she was going to ruin it if this ever got out. Oh and that's not all, what is she going to be doing to her reputation? Her friends are going to laugh at her. Laugh at me. I mean, she's not the kind of girl to like my kind of guy at all. "Didn't your mum teach you better than to kiss me? I mean, guys like me?"
"She also taught me better to kiss teachers but you still think that's more possible than my liking you." she spits out, bitingly, glaring at me like I'd done something even worse than threaten her teddy bear, or threaten to set the school on fire. Which I'd done. But she didn't seem to care about that – no, she just cares that I interrupted our one-sided make out session.
"But you don't like me." I say, hands still over my lips, and eyebrows raised up, way up.
"Oh God you're an idiot," she punches me in arm, "I don't like the teacher you retard, he's my uncle. He was helping me try and get you to notice me, I wore this skirt for you, I got you to stay later in detention so I could confront you. I wore my hair in this bun for you – I kissed you, for you."
Cheri, looking really pissed off as I find my jaw slacking, hisses, "But you don't even seem to notice at all, you're hot and cold, like that song by Katy Perry. God – I hate you," she shoves my stunned self out of the road and heads out the door, leaving me to slide down the ground and stare at my feet.
Cheri Avenue likes me.
I stand outside her balcony, feeling a bit like a cheesy Romeo, but there's no way I'm going to knock on the door of her house – therein lies the risk of me bumping into her mother way too early for my liking. Starting to pace, I rip my hands through my jet black shaggy hair, and glare at the grass. I don't even know what I'm going to say to her.
I don't even know why she likes me. Like she said; I'm a jackass. I'm no good for her. I'm a bad influence. Her mum is going to hate me.
"Hey son, what are you doing in my back yard in front of my balcony?" I look up to see a pretty middle-aged woman with black hair and pink streaks strut out onto the balcony, looking confused and a little bit angry. Oops. I guess I guessed her room wrong, then. I bury my head in my hands and curse. "Hey, you little shit, you're that guy my daughter likes. What did you do to my baby? You got her real mad; she slammed the door when she came in tonight."
I have never been called 'a little shit' by a mum before. I never really expected Cheri's mum to call me one for sure. She doesn't even look like she should be Cheri's mum. She looks like she should be mine – my mum would suit Cheri more than her mum did. The lady just stands there, tilting her head, fingers through her pant loops, chewing on some gum.
"I'll get her out here, CHERI," she calls for her daughter and I let go of my head and mouth no. I'm not ready for this. Not one little bit. I don't even know if I would have done it in the first place, I probably would have stared at her balcony – or her mums, now I know, for a while before just running off back home like a chicken. Her mum ignores my silent pleas though. "CHERI! Come here honey!"
Cheri comes out, looking annoyed, in her pyjamas. "Wha –" she spots me and blinks, looking down at herself and slapping her forehead, muttering something under her breath at her mother in annoyance. Mrs Avenue looks at her, winks, and smiles before walking back inside the room with a wave over her shoulder. Cheri just stares at me.
"Uh, hey Cheri nice...nice pyjamas," I start out a little nervously.
"Are you mocking me?" She demands, crossing her arms over her chest and looking a little more than embarrassed.
"No. I'm telling the truth, scouts honour." I salute, and it's true, I've been a scout before. Got kicked out though, so maybe I'm not so honourable...but it still counts, right? "I'm also telling the truth when I tell you this; I like you. But just. Look at me, and look at you, we're totally different."
"I can be a dare devil too you know," she says and drops her arms, staring at me, a smile starting to form on her lips. "I'll show you."
"What?" I say, bemused, watching as she runs back a bit, and then turning around only to sprint right back – and leap over the balcony, right towards me. I widen my eyes and hold my arms up, as she squeals and giggles at the same time, crashing into my chest and bringing me to the grass, winding me. My chest is on fire, both with pain and of that awful fluttering. I squeeze my eyes shut. "I think...I think you broke a rib, Cheri."
Cheri laughs and presses her hand against my chest and it protests, and I wiggle underneath her, opening my eyes and glaring, but she just smiles sunnily back, "I'm a daredevil. We're not totally different, see? So it wouldn't be such a shock to everyone when we turn up to school tomorrow, and you're holding my hand, carrying the books with the other, pressing kisses all over my cheeks."
"You're crazy if you think I'm holding your hand at school. No PDA, thanks." I say and attempt to wriggle away again, but she just presses her other hand against me also, and leans her face close to mine, her breath pluming into my face. I taunt her for her cruelty, "You're a jackass."
"I'm not a jackass like you, but if that's you think about the PDA, I am crazy." She says and then her mouth moves down over mine and presses against it. I reach up with my hands and cup her cheeks, eyes drooping lazily for the second time that day. But this time, I'm kissing her back.
Walking through the glass doors everyone stares at me when I go up to Cheri, who's about to walk to class, grab her books and her hand, squeeze it lean down;pressing a kiss to her lips. "I decided to change the rules. See? No kissing on the cheeks," I press my lips against hers again in demonstration before straightening. I can feel everyone's incredulous gaze on Cheri and I, but I frankly don't give a damn.
"You daredevil," she laughs, and squeezes my hand right back.
Damned Straight.
ooohlalala
I wrote this all pretty much in one go. And soon, I shall finish that stupid literature homework and fix up the prologue for stupid cupid. I swear I will. But I wrote this for you, and have half-written another one for you. So I hope you like! It's from a boy's perspective, for once. Did you NOTICE? Huh? Huh?
'Course you did. Youse are smarts.
Love you all! Ames xoxo