Steam Punk Goggles and Ink Stained Hands

DREW’S POV

~

The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully. Lessons dragged, students mucked about and teachers lectured us about the importance of staying away from Wikipedia when doing our homework until the reasons why we should never copy and paste were ingrained into our heads. The last lesson of the day was RE, much to my friend Laurence’s displeasure.

“How long do we have left now?” he whined at me, impatient and annoyed at the dreary pace and content of the lesson.

“Exactly five minutes less than the last time you asked me Panda, so 30 minutes” I smirked, watching my raven haired friend slam his head on the desk in front of him in frustration.

“This really is a cruel and unusual torture! What I want to know is why the school hired a teacher who refers to herself in the third person?! She is clearly mentally unstable!” he exclaimed, waving his hands around in annoyance.

“I don’t know Panda, I don’t know… the only thing I do know is that forcing us to wear these stupid ties as part of the uniform is a joke!”

Kier – my red-fringed friend- sat on the other side of Laurence and giggled at us as we ranted, earning himself a signature death glare from ‘Witch of West Suffolk High’. He shook his head lightly at us before continuing to scribble down notes on a piece of paper he ripped out of his book. They weren’t of any relevance to the lesson of course, they were some song lyric ideas for some material he’s been working on lately.

When the bell finally signalled the end of the lesson I said goodbye to the Laurence and Kier, explaining to them that I wasn’t walking home today since I had earned my self detention.

“Really Drew? You never get detention! What did you- HEY! PILNAHN!” and with that and a rushed good bye Kier and Laurence ran off in the direction of our friend Luke, who had just come out of the art block with a girl I knew from my French lessons called Victoria.

“Well, see you later then” I said jokingly to the backs of my running friends.

Detention with Barrone next…I thought and smiled. This should be interesting…

~

I walked into the theatre where detentions were being held and immediately started looking around for Barrone… what? I came here with a purpose; I’m not going to dawdle around!

I spotted him sitting in the top row of seats at the back of the room, does he always sit at the back? I walked up the stairs and passed numerous rows of thinly cushioned seats until I got to the one Barrone was seated along. I moved passed the seats before finally settling into the one to the right of him near the stairs and placed my notebook on the long desk in front of me.

“Hey” I started, avoiding saying ‘um’ and trying to sound confident.

“Hi” he replied and smiled at me slightly, this was already going better than earlier today where he basically ignored me.

He nervously played with his fingers and didn’t continue on, he just looked down a little awkwardly and then – to my surprise- spoke up.

“Sorry I’m not great at conversation, I don’t talk to people a lot” he said, then winced as if silently berating himself for saying that. I decided to reassure him before he lsot whatever confidence he gained.

“That’s okay, don’t worry about it” I told him gently, “so, what sort of stuff do you like?” I asked, giving him an easy opening for a conversation so he wouldn’t feel so pressured to think of something to say.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you like writing? Sports? Play an instrument? Like movies? That sort of stuff” I explained and watched understanding dawn on his face.

“Oh… well I’m not massive on sports, I’d probably die if I was put in a rugby game…” we both laughed and he continued on, obviously more comfortable talking to me than he was earlier.

“As for the other things I love movies, I like classic stuff and horror along with the occasional thriller or sci-fi. I also play guitar” he added.

He plays guitar? That’s so cool!

“Really? That’s awesome! I play bass” I told him, glad that we had a common interest.

We talked about music for a while and before I knew it the hour detention was nearly over with just 10 minutes left. I decided that now would probably be a good time to ask him about what happened earlier in art. After all, why would he be happy about detention?

I questioned him lightly, not wanting to seem too demanding of answers. He tensed up and bit his lip, just like he did earlier when he was focusing on his art. This time though, it looked nervous.

“Nothing in particular… I just found it slightly funny… I always end up in detention” he said eventually, laughing nervously towards the end.

“Okay… why exactl-” I started to ask only to be cut off.

“No particular reason, I just find school boring. Sometimes I do stupid shit to amuse myself…” he interjected quickly. Deciding that he clearly didn’t want to talk about his reasoning I let the subject drop.

We walked out together as the teacher dismissed us, when we reached the gates I turned to him.

“So, maybe we can chat again sometime? It was fun talking to someone who liked the same sort of stuff as me besides the friends I chat with all the time”

“Yeah, maybe” he smiled, “bye…” he murmured and gave me a small wave before heading off in the opposite direction, wrapped up in his oversized hoodie which he’d put on over his school clothes to keep himself warm in the harsh British weather.

I want to be the one to keep him warm…