Triplets

I kicked the chair at the table Andy was sitting at before throwing back the chair next to it and sinking down into it. He was stuffing his face with a sandwich but stopped for a second to watch before resuming. "What's up, Gabe?" he asked with his mouth full.

"The stupid bitch tried to give me a detention because I didn't do the work that I told her I wasn't going to do," I muttered.

"English?"

"Yes."

He took another bite of his sandwich before speaking. "Man, I'd do the detention if you don't want your parents called into school. She's got this method of scaring her students into doing detentions that were set for no reason by telling them that she'd phoned their parents, thus them turning up to the detention before finding out that their parents actually hadn't been called," he explained.

"So how would that end up with my parents being called?" I asked.

"Because then she'll actually phone them if you don't turn up to the detention."

I shrugged at his words and picked at the second sandwich that Andy had. If I were honest, I didn't care if my parents got called to the school. This teacher means nothing to me and whatever I fail at doing while in school, I can just catch up with whenever I do my own work when we travel. I work better alone like that than I do in school but as of right now, my parents prefer me to be in public school. Their reasoning was understandable but it didn't mean that I had to like it.

While I was at public school, I rarely did any work except for some of the lessons where I couldn't really get away with not doing the work – although they were few because I am such a fluent liar, not to mention great at talking myself out of situations that are potentially damaging to my ability to travel with my parents. It was my gift, and my parents even agreed that I had an marvellous gift at talking my way out of things with them. Even though they know my ways they still get caught up sometimes and I manage to get out of a situation scott-free before they realise what has happened but by then they can take it back and I succeed.

Andy noticed I was picked at his sandwich and punched my arm. "Dude, get your own food."

"Your food looks nice."

"Piss off, Gabe," he muttered, sliding the sandwich back towards him and placing it on his other side, not trusting me with it anymore.

A few moments later he wrapped his uneaten sandwich up and shoved it in his bag before we both left the canteen with plenty of lunch left. Instead of spending it on school grounds, we went off and down the road nearby that wasn't too close to get us caught but wasn't too far that we couldn't make it back within two minutes. There, he pulled out his bottle of brandy and grinned.

I grabbed it. "You're brill, mate," I praised, taking the lid off and taking a quick swig.

He shrugged and zipped his bag back up. "You wanna finish that?"

"Now? Nah, I can't. I'll get in so much shit if I go back in drunk. Can I take it home with me?"

"Sure."

I grinned and shoved it in my bag, patting the fabric once I'd closed it to make sure it didn't make a noise so that no one would think I had anything I wasn't supposed to have in it. I didn't know what my parents would do if they found out that I'd just taken a swig of alcohol before school had ended, but I figured if they knew I'd been in possession of a bottle of alcohol during school then I would never be allowed to travel with them again because they'd see that as a privilege and they'd feel like they had to take all those away. I knew the way they thought, especially when it came to travelling with them. They knew that it was the highlight of my life being able to travel with them which also meant that it was the easiest punishment that they could use. It'd kill me to have to stay home while they went off to a country I wanted to go to. I don't think I'd ever forgive them if they did that.

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty quickly and I made some notes in the class I didn't have with Andy, but in all the ones that I did I tried to catch up on my sleep in them, something which I'd noticed others near to the front of the class also taking their chance with. But then the teacher we had wouldn't call someone out for sleeping because so long as he had at least one student paying attention and taking notes, he didn't care what the rest of us did in our class. He said that when we first started and I concluded that he was going to be my favourite teacher.

By the time the bell signalled and we were allowed to leave, I'd managed to catch up on at least half an hour's worth of sleep and still not miss anything significantly important that I'd need to know for my life. As I pulled my bag on, I was reminded of the bottle that rested inside of it and I grinned again. This brandy was going to be my company in my room tonight. But when I got home I found that neither of my parents were in so instead of it being my company in my room, it was my company while I stood in the kitchen and ate some of the pie that my mum had brought and left in the fridge for me to finish.

Sometimes school wasn't that bad. It was the people that made it have its good points, although the only person who I would count as a good point is Andy and he's such a bad candidate to even be considered to be a good point in any situation. But he brings alcohol whenever he wants and that makes him a good point in my eyes.