Spinning at the Seams

Class went by in a blur, and as I was leaving Mason grabbed my arm.

“I have a plan,” He announced rather loudly, I looked at him wondering if he planned to tell me or just leave me here guessing. “So you know how your brother hates classical music and all things relating to Hannah Montana?”

“Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?” Mason looked incredulous.

“You know for someone so smart, you can be so stupid sometimes,” he responded shaking his head, I just shot him a look, and he quickly got back to business. “Anyway, my friend Ryan has been messing with some tech stuff lately, and I think what he’s created will be the perfect revenge for you.”

“Great, what do I have to do?” I asked wondering what exactly this entailed.

“Just get me your brothers helmet, and cleats the day before the game.” As if seeing my confused face he continued, “in the helmet we can plant a speaker which will play a hated song every time he takes a step, and when he kicks it will play a specific Hannah Montana song, any you prefer?” I cracked up, my brother was the designated field goal kicker, and watching him kick and knowing he’d be listening to Hannah Montana would just make my day.

“Hmm, lets see, I believe he particularly hates G.N.O., Party in the USA, and See you again,” I stated calmly looking at Mason who was grinning about how this would work. “I hope you realize that with me doing this, you’re going to lose,” Mason turned to look at me.

“Toni, we would lose anyway, at least this way I can lose with a smile on my face. And if when writing your summary of the game you could be so kind as to be nice to me, it would be greatly appreciated.” I nodded, I could do that, and it wouldn’t be hard to make him look good. I already make Chris look good for Mal; I can make him look for helping me to do this no problem. I waved and watched as Mason turned to go into his next class, when I thought of something.

“Mason, what about Adam?” Mason looked confused and walked back towards me.

“What about Adam?”

“Well, I kind of need revenge on him to…” Mason looked at me shocked, but shrugged.

“Okay, your call, I still owe you one for that English quiz, I’ll take care of it for you. Though Adam’s a pretty nice guy if you give him a chance Toni.” I looked at him tempted to tell him what Adam had done to me but decided better of it. I just smiled and waved goodbye before heading to my next class.

The next two classes breezed by, and I now found myself paying for my lunch and heading towards my regular spot. Shannon, Kyle, Kelsey, Danielle, Mallory, Ben and Hunter all were sitting down, and I plopped myself between Shannon and Mallory stealing a fry from Hunter in the process.

“So, how was your weekend Kyle?” I prompted waiting for Shannon to continue the conversation, which she did thankfully, leaving me to talk to Mallory. “So want to know what happened after you left with Molly this morning?” Mallory nodded her head vigorously and then held up a finger.

“I think everyone should hear this,” she said watching as Mel, her brother Luke, Molly, Brooke, Tristan, Allison, Sophie, and Madison all walked towards us taking their respective seats around the table. “Okay now spill, what happened this morning?”

So I once again launched into the story of what had happened that morning, Danielle, Kelsey, and Brooke just nodded their heads in agreement having already heard this when trying to figure out how to help me escape Adam. Just as I was coming to a close, Mallory grabbed my arm.

“Speak of the devil,” she muttered, and suddenly I felt someone tugging at my ponytail, I refused to turn around. Instead I sent glares at Tristan, who just sent me a confused look, probably wondering what he’d done. But there was something I’d learned in my years of knowing Tristan, if something went wrong just blame him, he had probably already done something wrong that you hadn’t blamed him for, so blaming him for things that weren’t really his fault just evened out the score.

“Hey everyone” came his voice from behind me, “how are your days going?”

“They’re going,” said Allison icily, I looked at her shocked that was a new tone of voice for her. Adam didn’t seemed deterred though as he glanced at the group, his eyes settling on the non-newspaper kids who sat across from me to my left.

“Hi, I’m new here so I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Adam.” He said simply holding out the hand that wasn’t playing with my ponytail out to Danielle. She glanced at it before turning her gaze to Melinda.

“So Mel, how’s the column coming this year? Am I in it?” Mel laughed, her eyes sweeping the table, glancing quickly at her new editor before stopping on Danielle’s brown eyes.

“Oh but of course my Danni, how could I leave you out, you make band so much more interesting!” Everyone at the table except for Danielle laughed at that. Danielle was a screwball, constantly doing and saying random things, she sat scowling at Mel for that, but I watched the corners of her mouth turn into a slight smile.

“Speaking of the game,” I started, still ignoring the hand that was weaving its way through my pony tail, who’s coming with me?”

Shannon looked at me, as did Hunter and Mallory, their eyes held curiosity and caution, but I knew what I was doing. “Well,” I prompted. Shannon held up her hand, as did Hunter, Mallory, Danielle, Mel, Tristan, Sophie, Madison, Allison, Luke, Kyle, Brooke, and Kelsey. “Yay, a group, now I won’t be so lonely. Shut up Tristan.” Tristan sent me a look, and then laughed, most likely at whatever comment he had been about to say. Suddenly I felt the hands leave my hair, and heard footsteps walking away. Hunter turned to me suddenly, but Mallory beat him to the punch.

“What are you doing?” All the eyes at the table turned to look at me.

“Trust me,” I said simply, I was saved from further explanation by the sound of the bell signaling the end of lunch. I got up and waved to my friends and headed towards my only class without a single one of them in it.

One odd thing about me is, I’m amazing at science, I prefer to write but the topics of science come quite easily to me, so here I sat in the back of the class at a lab table for Advanced Placement Chemistry. There were only 19 kids in my class including me, and we sat a lab tables spread out through the room. I had one to myself, the other kids in the class were all seniors, and I was the lonely junior stuck in this class because I could sleep through the regular one and still end up with an A. I had set my stuff down and was reading my book, when I heard the teacher say my name. I looked up; only to see the one person I wanted to avoid walking straight towards me.

“Looks like we’re lab partners” he said with a grin. How was I to know that this very statement would make the rest of my life completely different?