Shadows of the Night

Mr. McBrennan leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. He tapped his foot in the air along with the beat. Through the cacophony of the classroom you could barely hear the sound of guitars pouring out of his head phones. His eyes were closed. Anyone could tell he was relaxed.

The other students were talking about random nonsense. I couldn't understand one word of their noise. I turned to Batty, "So tell me what's going on."

Batty just sighed and put her head on her desk. In front of me, Thorn was twiddling her pencil. She turned around, "Tell us what's the problem!"

Thorn growled when Batty didn't move. She got up, walked over to her desk, and shook her, "Tell us!"

The other students were looking at Thorn like she was about to commit a mass murder. Then one of the girls in class remarked snobbishly, "What she can't decide when your next orgy is going to be?"

That assertion made all of us angry. I got up and starting walking towards the girl until, without even realizing, I had pushed her out of her desk and was holding her arms behind her back. She struggled against me, but I held her in place. Thorn got up and punched her in the face. Blood jetted from her nose on to the floor. Everyone sat silent shocked by what had occurred. The girl screamed so loud Mr. McBrennan fell out of his seat. Thump!

He got up from the floor and dusted himself off. He then took off his headphones while everyone was yelling about what happened. He didn't look angry, just confused. He saw the blood on the floor and a dark smile broke across his face. He looked right at me and said, "I would like to talk to you after class. Kathrine, you can get one of your friends to get your stuff and walk you to the nurse's office."

Kathrine and her friend left the room. Everyone continued conversing amongst themselves as usual. Mr. McBrennan screamed at them, “Will you kids shut the fuck up?”

Everyone froze. He hardly ever spoke let alone shouted like that before. He tried to concentrate while he called the office to have a janitor come clean up the blood.

Thorn and I walked back to our seats. Batty hadn't moved the whole time. Then the janitor came in and cleaned up the mess. The class kept quiet as Mr. McBrennan watched intently. As the janitor was leaving he told Mr. McBrennan that there was a trail of blood out in the hall he had to clean up. Mr. McBrennan just said, "Okay, thank you for coming so quickly."

"No problem," the janitor said while he closed the door and went back to mopping. Soon after that the bell rang. Thorn said she'd wait for me in the bathroom. Batty didn't say anything, she didn't even look at me. She just walked out of the room like a zombie. When everyone was gone Mr. McBrennan asked me to take a seat in the front. I got my bag and walked up the row of desks to the front, then I sat where he gestured me to.

He smiled at me with the same dark smile and said, "I'm glad you did that."

"W-w-w-w-ha-a-at?" I stuttered.

"I'm not telling my father about it so don't worry. I'm just proud of you, and Jessica, really, for sticking up for yourselves! Just don't tell anyone I let this go. Okay?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Alright, I won't keep you. But here's a pass just in case so you're not late to your next class."

He handed me a light blue crumpled piece of paper with his signature on it. He patted me on the shoulder and closed the door behind me. I walked over to the bathroom where I knew Thorn was waiting. Right as I walked in the bell rang. Thorn was sitting in the corner smoking. She offered me one but I declined it.

"What did he say?" she sounded worried.

"He said he was proud of us," I smiled.

"Really?"

"Yeah, weird huh? Oh and I guess those rumors are true. His dad is the principal! I seriously cannot believe it!"

"No way that is too weird," she said tossing her cigarette in the toilet and flushing it.

"Yeah, he even gave me a pass so I won't be late to class. I can say it's for both of us."

"Sweet."

She grabbed her stuff and we walked to Science class. I handed the teacher the note Mr. McBrennan gave me and said that it was for both of us. We walked over to the lab table that Batty and Moon were both at.

"Batty told me what happened, that's so awesome guys," Moon said.

"Yeah turns out those rumors about Mr. McBrennan are true. His dad is the principal."

"That is so weird," Moon sounded shocked.

None of us were listening to what the teacher said to do. It sounded like the teacher was a Greek speaking robot. But some how Batty completely understood and when the teacher came around to our table she talked to the teacher for us. I guess seeing the future had it's perks. Her white eye didn't seem to bother us anymore. That's just what her face looked like it was just normal now. Class seemed to take forever to be over to be over. We still had to get through Home Economics and Art. School always seemed to take forever to get over with. While Batty mixed the chemicals and Moon helped her, I just sat there and drew in my notebook some more. Thorn just looked at me, she was bored out of her mind too. "This class sucks, at least before we could make messes and screw up a lot," she said.

"Yeah," I sighed.

Eventually the class ended and the rest of the day went by pretty fast in Home Economics we started cooking. We made biscuits and we got to eat them. They came out pretty good. Then in Art class I started on a painting. Thorn was working on a magazine cut out thing. Moon was doing a drawing of Pelle Almquist, the singer of The Hives. Batty wasn't sure what to do for once, so she just did a painting too. Art was one of the few classes I liked. But once it was over, so was school.

We all walked home together, except Batty her parents were coming to pick her up. So we all left her at school. Moon said she was going to take the short cut to her house and walked around to the back of the school. Thorn walked with me down the highway. When we got to my house and she said, "I'll see you later I have to get home."

"Okay later," I said while she walked away.

This was the first time, since Tuesday, that I used the front door. But I walked in, no one was home yet. I just walked down stairs and started up my computer. My room was still unbelievably cold.