Did You Get What You Deserve?

I put my head on my arms and let my thoughts wander. Suddenly I saw fingers snap in front of me.

“Alecsandra, can you please pay attention?”

I scowled. I hate my Maths teacher. She’s the only one who still calls me Alecsandra.

“Perhaps you’d like to demonstrate the problem, Alecsandra.”

She handed me the whiteboard marker and shooed me up to the board. I examined the problem, thinking.

“Okay, this is easy.”

I started working it out. 4(2x+3)=28. Solve for x.

“So what you do is you work it out like this...”

4(2x+3)=28
8x+12=28
8x=16
x=2

I smiled and held out the marker to Mrs Mendell.

“That look right to you?”

She nodded.

“Glad to see you were paying attention.”

I grinned.

“Okay, you may sit down now, Alecsandra.”

As I sat down, the bell rang. I jumped out of my seat and was first out of the classroom. As I reached my locker, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around.

“Lin! You’re back!”

Lindsay grinned at me. Her skin was a lovely bronze, and her coppery brown hair was sun-bleached. She opened her locker, which was next to mine, and dumped her books before taking out her lunchbox.

“How was Singapore?”

“Fuck, man, that kind of heat made me appreciate skirts all the more. I only took one, and it was kinda heavy, so Mum and I went shopping. And two nights in, the aircon in my room broke.”

I groaned.

“You poor thing.”

She nodded.

“I know. I woke up in the middle of the night with the fucking thing dripping on my head.”

“Oh no.”

At that point James appeared beside me.

“Oh, hi Lindsay. I thought you weren’t coming back until the day after tomorrow.”

She grinned.

“Me too.”

I opened my locker and filed my books away in order of subject and height before retrieving my lunchbox from my bag. Some of Lindsay’s other friends came running up and she waved goodbye to me before following them. James coughed self-consciously.

“So, um, do you wanna go sit out on the field?”

I smiled.

“Sure.”

We made our way to the far end of the field, where there were trees that provided much-needed shade. As we sat down, James put his hand into his pocket.

“Um, I got you a birthday present.”

“Really? Thank you!”

He pulled out a small gold chain.

“It’s a charm bracelet.”

“Wow, thanks!”

He grinned and blushed as he clumsily clipped it onto my wrist. His hands lingered for a moment on my arm before he snatched them away abruptly. I smiled at him.

“I really like it, James, thank you.”

He blushed even more.

“No problem.”

I reached for my lunchbox just as he reached for his, and our hands collided. We both giggled. He pulled his hand back so I could grab my lunchbox. I pulled off the lid and took out the container of fried rice.

“Mmm, leftovers.”

He grinned.

“I take it your mum cooked?”

“Of course. Dad can’t cook for shit.”

He laughed.

“Oh, Uncle Gerard came over on the weekend, with Rob and Tom.”

“Ooh, Robbie and Tom. How old are they now?”

“Five.”

“Really? Wow, it seems only yesterday they were babies.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Double trouble.”

“Yeah... you can never fully comprehend the power of twins until you’ve had them in your
house.”

Gerard’s twin sons, Robert and Thomas, were cute, adorable little demons. Not that they weren’t sweet and nice, but they did know how to get their way. And they knew how to destroy stuff.

“Ooh, Dad said Bob and Annabelle are coming in the holidays.”

He sat up.

“Really?”

Ten-year-old Annabelle was kind of like another little sister to me. She and her dad Bob lived in Chicago. Since Annabelle’s Mum died they had been coming to Newark more and more often, and were probably going to move here.

I laughed at James’ eagerness.

“Yeah. What, do you have a crush on her or something?”

James’ response snapped me completely out of my thoughts.

“No... It’s you I like.”

**Author's Note: Ha ha, there you go. That's it for now.

CUTE FLUFF!**