The Dark of the Night More Inviting Than the Sunlight

Dawn's Point of View

The days flew by and before I knew it, it was Thursday again. Which meant getting up extra early to run lapses with Mr. Howard.

"Come on Sky, Dawn, you can do it!" Howard encouraged us from where he stood with a stopwatch. Right after I ran past him I plumped down on the wet ground to catch my breath, exhausted. Sky was right behind me and copied my movements. It was cloudy that day and it started to drizzle every now and then. "Well done girls! You're in much better shape now than you were in the beginning of the term," he smiled at us.

"I better be," Sky muttered, lying flat on the ground. Howard chuckled and helped her up.

"Both of you have improved your time by just over six minutes!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"Yes!" I laughed in relief. "Do you remember what you promised? If we improved our time by over five minutes you would consider giving us a B for effort." He laughed.

"Yeah, I promised I would take it to consideration. But it's not easy to get a B in my class, so I expect a little more from you before I can give it to you," he explained causing Sky to groan.

"You can't be serious! I can't possibly run any faster! I gave 110% today! What more do you want from me?" she exclaimed with dramatic gestures, looking at him like he was insane.

"I don't expect you to run any faster. I'm talking about taking it to the next level; Thursday mornings jogging and Friday mornings strength and flexibility," he said. We both looked at him eyes wide with horror.

"What did we do to deserve this? God must really hate me!" Sky groaned. "I might as well go and hang myself right now!"

"Oh, come on Sky don't be such a drama queen. It's really not that bad. Don't you want a B in physical education?" Howard said as we started walking to the changing room. I sighed deeply, running my hands through my damp hair.

"Of course she does... but come on, seriously! Strength! Please shoot me," I said and yawned.

"You could always join the rest of the class in PE, it's your choice," Mr. Howard smirked and unlocked the door to the girl's changing room for us. "You did a great job today girls, you should be proud of yourselves," he said before he left.

"Let's kill him at English class today," Sky proposed as she laid down on one of the benches, using her messenger bag as a pillow.

"Yeah, let's do that," I agreed as I rummaged through my bag for the shampoo and hair conditioner.

"Skylar Stevens and Dawn Jones, outside!" Mr. Howard shouted at us, pointing at the door.

"But si-" I was about to object but Howard interrupted me by yelling "Now!" We sighed, got up from our seat and walked out of the classroom. A short moment later Mr. Howard came out, slamming the door shut behind him. He crossed his arms above his chest and glared at us.

"Outside of the gymnasium after school," he informed us simply. "Bring your gym clothes. Now get back to work and I don't want to see any more of this nonsense." He walked back into the classroom before we had the chance to object. We just stared at each other blankly for a moment before we went back into the classroom.

I admit that we had been acting kind of cheeky and disturbed him in teaching the class, but still, he didn't have to get that mad. I guess we had chosen a bad day to provoke him.

"And I thought he was loosening up! Argh! I hate him!" Sky complained as we walked our way to the gymnasium after school.

"I guess he's just having a bad day. We shouldn't have provoked him that much and stopped the tenth time his told us to stop..." I said.

"I can't believe that you're defending him!" Sky gasped. "You're into him, aren't you?" I stopped at once and just looked at her in confusion.

"What the fuck are you saying?" I asked, looking at her in disbelief.

"I don't know, I'm sorry it just slipped out," Sky apologized holding her hand up to her mouth.

"What made you say something like that?" I demanded.

"We're going to be late," she stated beginning to walk but I held out my arm to stop her. "Your face shines up every time you see him, you look at him when he doesn't see, avoid looking him in the eyes and sometimes you even blush when you talk to him," she blurted out. I stood there staring blankly at her. "Dawn, I'm sorry..." she started to say, but I just ignored her and steered my steps to the gymnasium. I couldn't believe she just said that, it was partly my own fault but still.

"You can start with running two lapses around the hall, outside the red lines. No cheating," Mr. Howard informed us. I started running my lapses, on my second one I cheated a little rounding a corner. I was convinced that Howard didn't see me, but apparently he has eyes like a hawk.

"Don't think I didn't see you, Dawn," he told me as I finished. I sighed deeply and rolled my eyes. "I want to see you do fifty sit-ups, now." I was about to object when he said "Now Jones." I shot him a glare before I got down on the floor and did my sit-ups.

"Now, run another lapse around the hall but this time backwards." We both sighed and started to do as told. I couldn't help but giggle at Sky as tripped over her own feet, falling backwards.

"Are you okay?" I smiled, holding out my hand. She smiled back at me and nodded as she accepted the hand.

"I'm sorry about before," she said as we started jogging backwards again, this time next to each other.

"It's okay, I guess I just overreacted. You know I can't be angry with you," I smiled at her. "You're so damn clumsy it's funny," I teased, sticking out my tongue and she pouted at me. Mr. Howard threw us a jump rope each.

"I want you to jump for two minutes," he explained, looking at us. I made a funny face at Sky causing her to laugh and Mr. Howard to clear his throat. We started jumping, it was really tiring after all the running, so by the time we were done we were really tired.

"I hate you!" Sky glared at Mr. Howard as he told us to do one hundred sit-ups each. We lay down flat on the floor to regain some strength.

"Come on, no slacking." We both groaned and started to do those damn sit-ups on the mats he had put out for us.

"Can we go now?" I asked him irritated once we'd finished the exercise.

"Before you can go I want to see you do ten push ups," he told us crossing his arms over his chest.

"Why are you being such a bitch?" Sky asked angrily.

"Watch your mouth Stevens!" he snapped and looked away from us taking a few shaking breathes. I frowned. What was wrong with him? He seemed so upset. When we both failed miserably at our first attempt to do a push up he laughed and told us that we could do them on our knees instead. After five my arms gave in and to judge from the sound next to me, so did Sky's. "Come on girls, you can do it. You're half way there," he encouraged us.

When we finally finished he smiled at us and said. "Well done! I'm sorry for being so hard on you, I've had a really bad day and it was wrong of me to take it out on you. So I decided to give you some free time tomorrow morning for doing your best. How does that sound?"

"Thank you!" we said in one voice with the widest smiles upon our faces.