Everyday Combat

My knuckles were red and sore. Nobody but Johnny and the other sirens had really cared I had punched Siren McSlut-Face numero whatever's lights out; but now we were sat in our last period - English - on the last day of full school days before we let out for summer, I cared.

Stupid bitch.

"Brian," I whispered as I lay my head upon my desk and he looked across at me curiously.

"What?"

"My hand hurts," I pouted, sticking my hand out showing him the redness across my knuckles. He grabbed it in his hind and kissed it and I grinned. God, getting people to kiss stuff to make it better because your mom could make it better by kissing it. Being a child rocks.

"Now before I let you go run riot and terrorize the world for two months I have been given your final reports to issue," Mrs Knobflopper spoke up. Suddenly the entire class perked up; I guess this was the only thing everyone got excited about because they wanted to know what was said about them.

When the teacher reached the gap between me and Zack she glanced between us both at our expectant hands, waiting for our reports to be placed in our hands.

Instead she held only one up which led to Zack pointing at me. Mrs Knobflopper understood and placed the brown envelope in my hand. I turned it over and studied the front to see two labels attached to it.

Name: Baker, Zachary James
Homeroom: Mr A. Butler / 9AB
Recipient(s): Mr and/or Mrs Baker

Name: Baker, Faith Annalisa
Homeroom: Mr A. Butler / 9AB
Recipient(s): Mr and/or Mrs Baker

Why the hell were they giving us one report? We were two separate people last I checked, not fucking Siamese twins. I was still pondering this as we made our way back up our street where I had no doubt mom would be ready to pounce and grab our reports from us.

Surprisingly enough, however she wasn't. And neither was dad.

"Do you think I should open it?" I asked Zack, looking up at him where he stood on yon side of the sofa watching me whilst the guys helped themselves to various seats around the room. After a few moments he nodded. Moving back into the hall, I rooted in my bag for my glasses then stood beside him and opened the envelope before pulling the report out.

Overall report.

From reading the reports, teaching Zachary and Faith has been like trying to teach a couple of overactive three year olds who were allowed to let loose in a Skittles factory. In their first year at Huntington Beach High School they have demonstrated how short their attention span is, how easily distracted they can be and just how proud they both are of their Italian heritage.

On record they have served up 6 suspensions between them and innumerable detentions, one of the highest counts from their year group, all down to distracting behaviour within the classroom.

However, and after reading the reports this came as a big shock to me, the teachers couldn't help but show how impressed they were with the consistently high grades Zachary and Faith produced. Although showing enthusiasm to work was never above 10%, the twins produced excellent essays, assignments and produced high quality answers for their end of year exams, putting them top of the year group, giving them a high grade point average.

Zachary has shown to excel himself and exhibit school spirit this year by being nominated by his gym teacher and then picked for the high school baseball team. Having such a determined player as him on the team has boosted school spirit tremendously and also raised the turn out at games.

Faith has also shown a great talent for baseball in her gym class however the greatest praise - and her own contribution to school spirit - is from her art teacher Eloise Kingston who, at various staff meetings, recommended Faith for her amazing skill and keen eye for art, resulting in her artwork being chosen to decorate school property.

Overall the year for Zachary and Faith has been a mix between both hard work and praise, and "goofing off" and detentions. For their sophomore year, we all here at Huntington Beach hope that the twins will knuckle down a bit more and use their brains for hard work as opposed to being practical jokers and spending so much time with their social group.

"God, Mr Hardy could even talk forever in writing couldn't he?" Zack said scratching his neck as I placed the report back into the envelope and placed it down on the coffee table for mom to find when she came home from wherever it was she had gone to. I only wanted to see the overall report. I'd read the others later.

"Yup," I replied as I stretched my arms over my head, meaning my top rose up my stomach slightly before dropping back down. "So what did you guys have on yours?"

"He thinks you are all bad influences," Matt grinned. "Well, he doesn't actually say it but you can tell that's what he is hinting at."

"Makes a change from Mrs Renton actually saying it in our middle school reports," Brian shrugged.

"And actually saying it in class," Jimmy added.

"And indirectly in assembly," Matt B and Jason grinned.

"And on the field trip to the museum in LA," Matt said.

"And at parents evening to the parents of everyone in our homeroom," Zack and I mumbled. I can still to this day hear those words coming from that evil woman's mouth. To be honest I didn't really care if the teachers thought we were bad influences; the parents of all our friends loved us and argued the toss to the death.

"...for all the work your children have been doing I would encourage you to not allow them socialise with the bad influences in my class. Those being Zachary and Faith Baker, Matt and Jason Berry, James Sullivan, Brian Haner and Matthew Sanders who are well known trouble makers in the school..."

We didn't speak to anybody else in our class anyway so we didn't care if they talked to us even less, and though our respective parents had blown up at us right there and then in the classroom, it had only been an act and they had all laughed about it later in the bar.

Oh yeah, our parents were all big friends which led to us all being big friends.

Except for Sarah's parents because they hated all of us.

"Nothing new there then," we all chimed simultaneously after a moments pause when we had obviously all remembered that moment, before laughing.

"Anyway, imma go find my bikini and board shorts and then we can go," I smiled round the room before disappearing upstairs, not helping but laugh at what had been said in our joint report.