9Oh God, I totally fail. Seriously, I don't deserve reviews with the amount of time I take to update! Perhaps I can buy forgiveness with another chapter ;P
"Its too warm in here," Vivian said suddenly. For some reason, his eyes were green tonight.
"I know," I replied, dropping my can of coke on the floor. I didn't seem to care though.
"Do you want to go outside?" I nodded eagerly, and he took my hand (which was covered in rubies and emerald rings) and pulled me outside.
The moon was hanging like a giant orb in the sky (literally, there was string holding it up) and it was crisp and not too cold for an Autumn evening. It was how you'd imagine 'perfect'. Vivian put his arm around me.
"Grace..." He moved his face closer and closer to mine, until-
"GRACE! Get up! JJ's coming in fifteen minutes!" I groaned, and blearily cracked open my eyes to see Florence burst through the door, clad in a bright cherry-print dress with so much bling around her wrists and neck, I wondered how she could even stand up (or how I wasn't blinded by the glare of it all).
"I'm coming," I groaned, and dragged myself out of bed. Hm, seem to have pretty much adjusted to the time difference now...I thought absent mindedly to myself, throwing clothes on in a mad hurry.
"Grace! JJ's threatening to leave without you!" Florence shrieked from outside. I was still inside, hurriedly stuffing my things into my bag, and raking a hairbrush through my hair at the same time.
"I'm coming!" I shrieked back, glancing at myself in the mirror for maximum two seconds; I was wearing one of my old blouses and worn out jeans that probably wouldn't score many points with 'The Fashion Police', a.k.a Maddison and co, according to Ruchira yesterday: if you didn't own something from 'Hollister' (which, for the life of me, I'd never heard of in my fifteen years of existence), you'd be deemed uncool. I really didn't care as I stuffed toast down my throat and ran out the door.
JJ and Florence were already in the car, Florence leaning over the side of it calling to me. I clambered into the back, mumbled an apology for being late, then sat down as we began to drive off.
"Do you have gym first, Grace?" Florence asked me.
"Umm..." I pulled my schedule out of my bag. "Umm...Yeah, yeah I do."
"Good, 'cause I've got that as well."
"Oh, coo-"
"Can we talk about something interesting?" JJ snapped from the drivers seat. I looked down and shuffled back in my seat- JJ seemed in a bad mood this morning...His face was blotchy and his hair was matted and a bit ragged, like it hadn't been styled properly. There were dark smudged under his eyes, and he looked awfully worn out. Florence, instead of coming out with a witty remark, just sighed, and leaned back in her seat and pulled her sunglasses over her eyes.
We drove on in silence until we reached Dec's, where the silence continued. I was starting to think maybe things weren't that interesting, until the car in front braked suddenly. JJ wasn't ready for it, and lightly bumped into the back of it, sending us jolting forwards in our seat belts (even Dec, who continued sleeping). Florence gasped.
"That's Maddison's gang!" She hissed, and I realized it was the car that was in the driveway yesterday. JJ raised his eyebrows.
"You're gonna have to be way more specific there, Flo," He sighed. Unfortunatly, since we were on an odd sort of road where the others cars could drive past, the driver's door opened, and a boy I'd seen in my homeroom class stormed out.
"What the hell do you think your doing!?" Ooh, not nice. I flinched, Florence looked a little nervous, and JJ sighed like he really couldn't be bothered.
"Wondering why you randomly braked in the middle of the road?" He tried, only seeming to anger the boy (I think he was called David or something, then I remembered that he was Willa's boyfriend) more than he was already.
"You hit my car, jackass!" If anything, JJ is not a jackass. JJ Sighed, and got out.
"Look, its not even scratched-" Then David aimed a fist at JJ's head. He missed, and Florence seemed to snap inside.
"What the hell?!" She shrilled, and clambered out of the car. I stayed in the back, and shuffled over to Dec for some means of protection. He carried on sleeping. Now, Maddison herself had gotten out, followed by the girl called Imogene, then Conor. I wondered where Willa was, but was more concerned at the fact Maddison had hooked her arm through David's and was kind of hanging on to him. Okay.
I couldn't make out proper words thrown back and forth, apart from the odd swear. David aimed another punch at JJ, who simply leaned to the side. He appeared to have amazing patience; I'd expect anyone to lash back by now. Swear, swear, insult, swear back, insult...I glanced at the clock behind the steering wheel. We were going to be late if they didn't get back in soon...I jumped a bit when David once again swiped at JJ, hitting the side of his shoulder. Florence seemed to fly into a rage, and then, from my rather pathetic position cowering in the car, I could make out...Some rather nasty actions.
Florence yelled something, that sounded a bit like 'yoo funin preppy tastard', (however somehow I doubt this), and Imogene said something that sounded like 'yoo kitsch', then slapped Florence (I jumped again at this). Florence seemed to get really mad and tried to either: a) pull Imogene's hair out, or b) Scratch Imogene's eyes out. Perhaps it was both. By the amount of noise being made, I wondered how Dec was still sleeping; then realised that Florence and JJ were coming back.
The 'fight' appeared to have ended before I'd even looked properly, with Florence raging back to the car, storming into her seat, and JJ rather forlornly slouching back with a nasty looking bruise around his eye. He sat back down, and we drove on as if nothing had happened. I looked, confused, from Florence to JJ, then again.
"Um..."I started. "So...?"
"We won." Florence replied.
"Oh. Right. Good..." I said awkwardly. This whole situation was awkward. I (rather stupidly) pressed on. "So...Um, what does that mean?"
Florence sighed as though she didn't want to bother with anything else. "It means that we are now potential victims of the Fitch-Bitch."
"Um...Fitch-Bitch?" I repeated, again, rather stupidly. Today was not my intellectual morning.
"Maddsion. Maddison Fitch...Maddison Fitch is indeed, a bitch, therefore we call her the Fitch-Bitch," Florence explained.
"Ah...Right..." I smiled, then stopped, remembering what she'd said. We are now potential victims of the Fitch-Bitch? That can't be good...
"You WHAT?! Crashed in to WHO!? WHAT?!" I physically flinched as Crissy's shrieked questions, her jaw looking like it was about to hit the floor (this actually seemed to be her default expression). We were sitting on the desks where we'd been yesterday, except only Crissy was here at the moment. The others had gone to do something that Crissy didn't listen to/remember (helpful).
"JJ bumped his car into Maddison and friends car," I answered, as Anna appeared next to us (dressed in appropriate marshmellow attire).
"What's happened?" She asked in her soft marshmellowy voice. Crissy gawped, like her face was permanently stuck that way.
"Oh-em-gee, y'know JJ in the grade above?" She didn't wait for Anna to respond,"Yah, well, Florence is friends with him and Grace was in the car and like JJ crashed into Maddison's car!" Crissy gasped in air.
"Oh, right. No one was hurt?" Anna questioned me, and I shook my head. She smiled. "Swell then."
"Noo, you don't get it! Now, she'll," Crissy pointed at me (I do have a name), "Have to live through like, the rest of high school in eternal humiliation for crashing into Maddison's CAR!" Crissy shrilled at Anna. I scoffed.
"JJ didn't even scratch it," I defended, "Besides, its not that big of a deal-" This was apparently a sin to say.
"OMG! Of courseit is!" Crissy insisted, and I frowned at her. I noticed Vivian appearing in the doorway, Mick and Natalie in tow. I smiled a bit, remembering my drea-
"OMG GUYS! GUYSSS!" Crissy almost bowled over Vivian, an expression that said 'an atomic bomb has exploded' on her face. I was so thankful for the bell to sound.
"Grace! Pay attention!" I snapped back to reality from my daydreaming (i.e staring as subtly as possible at the back of Vivian's head). My Geography teacher, Ms Walker, was the most miserable person I'd probably ever met in my life. Her hair was scraped and slicked back into a tight bun, and she had a pinched up face, probably from years of frowning.
"Sorry, M-" She'd already moved on. I sighed, and glanced at the clock. Almost lunchtime...The day had whizzed by, the only really interesting event being Mick exploding a can of Coke all over himself. It was quiet amusing, he had to change into his gym kit.
"Grace?" I turned around as the girl next to me, Linda I think she was called, tapped my arm. "Maddison wants to talk to you."
"What?" I asked, leaning forwards to see Maddison. She was sitting with a weird expression, and whispered 'I'm talking to you at lunch'. Okay...I nodded, confused. Um, why would she want to talk to me?
The bell trilled, and I headed towards Vivian and Ruchira, but was stopped by someone calling my name.
"Graace, Grace!" I glanced backwards. Maddison was approaching me, in all her Hollisomething glory.
"Um...Yeah?"
"I have to talk to you, mmkay?" She was talking to me like I was five years old. I hate it when people do that.
"...Okay," I replied slowly. She stood there for a minute, blinking her big blue eyes expectantly. "Well, what do you wa-"
"After lunch," She cut me off, and then disappeared. ...Okay...Ruchira walked over to me.
"Hey, Grace, we were wondering if you were planning on standing in the middle of an empty classroom for the rest of lunch," She deadpanned, and I smiled.
"I'm coming," I said to her, and followed her out of the classroom.
"Last time you borrowed 'a couple of dollars' off me, I never saw them again, and to this day, I am still 'a couple of dollars' poorer."
"Aww, come on! Its for a good cause."
"What, refilling your already filled stomach?"
I laughed as Mick pulled a face at Ruchira and huffed. We were sitting at our usual seats in the cafeteria, and Anna was nowhere to be found (Conor?).
"Hey, Grace?" Natalie spoke up so quietly I almost didn't notice her over the noise. She was almost invisible- having finished her sandwiches and now buried in a book, not having said anything all lunchtime.
"Yeah?"
"Um...I didn't know whether to tell you, but," She paused, pushing her glasses up, "I overheard Maddison and Imogene talking today, and, well..." I frowned. What was going on?
"What were they saying?" I asked, while Natalie looked away. "Come on," I encouraged. I was intrigued.
"Well...Its just..." She gulped. "They were talking about Willa...And, well, weren't saying too nice things about her."
"Oh...Really?"
"Yeah...And, they said, they were going to have to talk to you today, about something I couldn't hear."
"Oh...Right."
Lunch was over, and we were making our wake back to the homeroom. I felt slightly nervous, then got a hold of myself. Come on. They probably just want to know...They might want to ask...Maybe it was about Willa yesterday, and smashing her phone. Yeah, maybe that. Maybe even the car thing this morning...My head was starting to hurt from thinking and over-thinking too much. By the time we walked into our homeroom, I felt ready to pass out.
Maddison was obviously talking about me; Her and her group immediately stopped as soon as I walked in. I wavered for a moment. Sit down? Go over to her? Jump out the window?
"Grace!" Maddison called to me. Oh noo, I have to go over...I worried to myself, as I slowly walked over to her, the rest of her gang glaring intimidatingly at me. It struck me then- Willa wasn't with them. "We need to ask you something," Maddison continued, with her weird fake smile plastered across her face.
"Okay..." I replied. She stayed with her fixed expression for a while. "Your face might stay like that if you keep doing it." WRONG MOVE.
Maddison's fake happy front dropped immediately. Imogene's eyes widened slightly, and smirked, while the rest of Maddison's crowd anticipated what she'd do next.
"Hahaha," She fake laughed, "So not funny. See Grace, when you first came here, I though you were kinda cool." I stood there, slightly confused. "But, now I've come to realize," Cue plastic grin, "That I totally couldn't have been more mistaked."
"Its mistaken-"
"I don't care, Grace," She drew out her words. "Also, what happened this morning was totally, like, not cool." She sighed extravagantly. "Don't think that anyone'll forget it for a long time." Something inside of me snapped.
"What the hell? He didn't even scratch the car! I don't know why your making such a big deal out of it! That was in the past anyway, forget it!" I exclaimed. Maddison's gang snickered.
"Ooh, Grace, don't get so feisty," She giggled, which made me even more angry, "And its past. Not parrst." Oh, that's it. Now she's insulted my accent! For a second, I thought about replying with a posh British expression, just to spite her, then thought better of it. But 'I don't think so, Sonny Jim' would've been very funny.
"Get over yourself," I snarled, and stormed away to my seat, my face burning. On the way, I caught a glimpse of Willa, staring wide eyed at me. I walked on past her.
R&R Pleeease!