Trouble Makers

Kadie Allard hated World Studies class; in her opinion it was one of the most boring and unnecessary classes in the history of boring and unnecessary classes. It was taught by none other than one Ms. Jarey; a tall, thin women with the nose of a pig and the eyes of a hawk. Ms. Jarey loved the sound of her own voice; even though it was high and scratch, she talked all through the lesson, highlighting recent world issues and encouraging the silent seniors in her pointless class to share their opinions.

Kadie sighed pushing her heavy, black curly hair out of her face, smiling softly to herself when she spotted the bright blonde highlights that were strung throughout her hair. A friend of hers had done them for her about a week ago, and Kadie still couldn’t get over how good they looked.

“Miss. Allard?” Ms. Jarey suddenly squawked, placing a claw-like wrinkled hand on Kadie’s desk. She hadn’t even noticed Ms. Jarey make her way to the back of the classroom. “Do you have an opinion on the subject?”

Kadie’s right hand came up quickly to cover her nose, trying her best to make the jerky gesture look nonchalant. Her school’s dress code was pretty rigid, but most teachers didn’t bother to enforce the ridiculous rules; they somewhat remembered what it was like to be in high school and took pity on the teens who weren’t a loud to wear t shirts with slogans or have any unnatural colours in their hair. Ms. Jarey however took unnatural joy in calling her students out on their dress code infractions, so Kadie was extremely paranoid that she would notice her new piercing.

Facial piercings were unfortunately on the schools list of ‘not to be worn during school hours’, and the weekend before last Kadie had gone with the same friend that had died her hair to het a ring put into her nose. So far the teachers either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care enough to tell her to take it out, but Kadie had a feeling that her luck was running out.

“Uh, what subject?” Kadie asked weakly, rubbing her left nostril self-consciously, trying to hide the black ring that sat there.

“The oil spill down south.” Ms. Jarey reminded her shrilly, clearly unhappy the Kadie was not paying attention to her lesson. “What is your opinion on how the White House has handled it?”

Kadie gulped, her brown eyes roaming her classmates bored faces, frantically hoping any one of them could help her out. It wasn’t that Kadie didn’t care about the environmental destruction happening to the oceans that very minute, but she had been busy. Her finals were coming up, so she was studying like mad, she had an overdue paper in English that she was rushing to get done, and From First to Last was coming to town, and Kadie and her friends were working double shifts at their after school jobs in order to buy tickets; so least to say Kadie hadn’t taken particular notice on how the White House was handling BP’s fuckup.

“Uh, I guess I don’t have an opinion yet.” Kadie said nervously, hoping that she could bullshit her way out of Ms. Jarey’s question. She just wanted her teacher to return to the front of the class and not notice her piercing.

“And why not Miss. Allard?” Ms. Jarey inquired, raising a too thin eyebrow at her jittery student.

“Uh, I guess because I don’t think they’ve had enough time to respond to the disaster yet?” Kadie said, hoping that she sounding like she knew what she was talking about. “I mean, shouldn’t we give them some more time to put their plans into action? We should at least give them a chance before we shoot them down and say their handling it badly.” Kadie kept her hand firmly over her nose, hoping Ms. Jarey would be satisfied with her answer and leave her the hell alone.

“Fair enough.” Ms. Jarey nodded, folding her arms behind her back. “Does anyone else have an opinion on the matter?” To Kadie’s extreme dismay, Ms. Jarey did not return to her desk at the front of the room, instead she pulled up a chair from the desk in front of Kadie and sat down.

None of Kadie’s classmates responded to Ms. Jarey’s question.

“No one?” Ms. Jarey crowed, “Are you sure? One of you lazy adolescents must have an opinion on the oil spill!”

Again, not a single student showed a flicker of interest. Ms. Jarey sighed in defeat and stood up, and Kadie’s heart leapt with joy at the prospect of Ms. Jarey not noticing her piercing. Kadie relaxed her hand, but didn’t take it away from her face. She wanted to wait until Ms. Jarey was far enough away not to notice.

Just as Ms. Jarey was walking away, her beady, predatory eyes zeroed in on the gap between Kadie’s fingers, where her black nose ring was peeping through.

“Miss. Allard,” Ms. Jarey said, her voice strained, “Please remove your hand from your face.” Her left eye was twitching and her mouth was set in a hard line. Cold dread gripped Kadie’s heart as she slowly lowered her hand, her nose piercing visible to the world.

“Are you aware that facial piercings are against the dress code?” Ms. Jarey asked, a thin vein on her forehead slowly becoming more prominent. Kadie nodded mutely, a little scared of her shaking World Studies teacher, who looked like she was about to burst with rage.
“So this is just a cold-blooded rebellion then?” Ms. Jarey screeched, stomping back to her desk and pulling out her bright green pad of infraction papers. “So you’re purposely being disrespectful?” She whipped out a threatening black pen and scratched a quick note onto the paper before ripping it off with grim determination. She waltzed back to Kadie and stuffed the infraction note into her hand, “Go visit the dean.” She hissed, “Maybe that will teach you some respect for the school’s dress code. It’s there for a reason Ms. Allard, I hope you realize that.”

As Kadie packed up her things and walked to the dean of discipline’s office, she found herself wondering what exactly the reason for the dress code was. She couldn’t come up with even one explanation.

The dean’s office was surprisingly quiet, except for the muffled yelling coming from inside the dean’s office. Kadie walked over to his receptionist and handed her the infraction slip, watching boredly as she scanned it and told Kadie to wait two minutes until the dean was free.

As soon as Kadie made herself comfortable in the office’s rickety green plastic chairs the door of the dean’s office slammed open and the dean himself walked out, his fat, meaty hand wrapped tightly around a boy’s upper arm. The boy’s round face and bright, inquisitive eyes hidden behind a pair of black glasses were enraged, his sandy blonde ringlets bouncing all over the place.

“Mr. Steger.” The dean said, nearly throwing the boy down into the seat beside Kadie, “You will stay here as I talk with Ms. Allard. If I come back and you are gone, I swear to god you will be facing expulsion. Understand?”

The boy nodded sulkily, pulling out a first generation iPod from his pocket and jamming the worn buds into his ears, blocking out the sounds of the dean.

“Now Ms. Allard.” The dean said, leading Kadie into his small office, “What seems to be the problem?”

Kadie slumped down deeper into the chair opposite his desk, handing him the infraction slip. He read it over slowly before crumpling it up and tossing it lazily into the trash bin beside his chair.

“Now Kadie,” The dean sighed, rubbing his temples tiredly, “A dress code infraction is a small offence, but it is my duty to punish you. You have after all, broken the rules.”

Kadie rolled her eyes; the dean and Ms. Jarey were the only teachers in the school that actually gave a shit about the dress code.

“You will join Mr. Steger after school for the next week and a half washing graffiti off of lockers. If you do not show, the time of your punishment will be doubled.” The dean walked over to a cabinet pushed against a wall and pulled out a spray bottle filled with an unknown blue liquid and two pairs of yellow rubber gloves. “You may start now. Tell Mr. Steger that the warning I gave you goes the same for him. That is all, you may leave.”

Kadie grabbed the gloves and bottle from the dean roughly, making sure to sneer at him as she left the room.

“Uh, Mr. Steger?” Kadie said, tapping the waiting boy hesitantly. She felt weird calling him ‘Mr. Steger’, but she didn’t know his name. The boy looked at her, pulling the earbuds out of his ears.

“Max.” He grinned at her, “I’m Max.”

“Kadie.” Kadie smiled at him, self consciously tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. When he smiled at her.... well, as corny as it sounds, Kadie got butterflies. “So Max,” Kadie said, handing him a pair of gloves, “Looks like we’re both cleaning lockers for the next little while.”

“Together?” Max said, fidgeting with the plastic gloves.

“Uh, yeah,” Kadie said nervously, “If that’s a problem I can-”

“A problem?” Max laughed, cutting Kadie off. “Are you crazy?”

“Uh, not that I’m aware of, but don’t ask my friends, you might get a very different answer.” Kadie joked, following Max out of the dean’s office.

Max laughed, throwing his knapsack over his shoulder. They walked in silence for a while, heading towards the section of the school where the lockers were covered head to toe in pen graffiti.

“You know,” Max said suddenly, breaking the silence, “If my punishment is spending time with such a pretty girl, I should get in trouble more often.” He shot a sideways glace at Kadie, a mischievous smirk playing at his lips.

Kadie was speechless, unsure of how to respond. A hot blush crept up her neck, and she muttered a self-conscious thanks. She tried her best to smother the frantic butterflies that were climbing up her throat.

Max inwardly grinned, enjoying the fact that he had that effect on Kadie; he hoped that he’d be able to make Kadie feel special like he just did for years to come.

He did, and Kadie enjoyed every waking second of it.