Revenge and Its Thrills

Jack’s POV

It doesn’t take long for me to get ready in the mornings – and by that, I mean it takes at least an hour. But hey, gotta look good for school; you never know when a cute new guy’s going to show up.

Yelling goodbye to my mum, I grabbed an apple and strolled out the door. I was in no hurry since my school, Millburn Academy, didn’t start until 9:30. It was 8:45 now.
I stopped by my friend Gerard’s house and we walked the rest of the way together, joking around as per usual. It wasn’t long until we arrived at the school.

Millburn Academy was a big, well funded school. You could tell as soon as you saw its bright red paint, wide windows and tall buildings that the kids who went there would be going places in life. All my friends were musically talented – Patrick could sing, Tony was a mean guitarist and Gabe killed it on the drums – but there were students in our school who won awards for being Maths geniuses and the likes. I was currently taking guitar lessons off Tony, but I wasn’t great.

Gerard and I greeted our friends Jenna, Mike and Pete, who were lounging by the school entrance. A bunch of other kids were milling around, and occasionally one would stop and say hi, but generally they left us alone.

Our school was the reverse of most others – here, it wasn’t the jocks that were popular; it was the musical kids. The populars here were funny, witty and outgoing, and everyone loved us for our bubbly personalities. I wasn’t exactly very musical, but I had worked my way to the top with my famous dick jokes. To this day I am still proud.

We hung out outside the school for a bit, Jenna telling me about a new song she had written and me demanding to be the first to hear it. Then the bell rang, and the crowd of kids gradually dispersed until it was just me and Mike.

“Coming with?” He asked, gesturing with his head towards the doors, and I nodded and followed him in. Our maths teacher had given the class a free period to study since we had an exam later.

However, Mike and I didn’t study very much. We just wondered around the halls and mucked about. By the time the bell rang, I’d lost a shoe – Mike had dared me to walk barefoot, so I did, but then he took my shoe and hid it in his bag. I didn’t want to go in there to look for it, I had no clue what else Mike kept in that shit tip. Probably mouldy pizza and other un-hygienic stuff.

We split up as the halls flooded with students and I hurried off to my next class, French, smiling warmly at everyone who greeted me. One of the great things about this school was that I didn’t get any crap whatsoever for being gay. Everyone here was just so accepting, and I loved and appreciated that so much. The only homophobe here was my art teacher, but I made sure I always gave him a hard time in lesson to make up for it.

French was boring, but I put up with it because the teacher was lovely. She was a widow, but she was super nice to all of us. I felt like she didn’t deserve any bad attitude, so I never gave her any.

Break and the next couple of lessons went by in a blur, and soon I found myself strolling out of the front doors and sitting on the stairs. I’d arranged to meet up with Jenna, her best friends Hayley and Tay, and one of my close friends Vic for lunch. Vic was also gay, but he was dating my friend Kellin, and I didn’t like him in that way anyway.

Tay was the first to walk up to me and I gave her a friendly hug. We chatted about stuff until the others arrived.

“Fucking finally, guys,” I teased, and Jenna poked her tongue out at me playfully.

“So where are we going then?” Vic asked, sitting next to me on the stairs.

I shrugged. “No clue. What shops are open?”

“I think McColls opens a-“ Hayley broke off, her eyes widening in amusement. “What happened to your shoe?”

“Mike took it,” I laughed, glancing down briefly at my shoe-less foot. Vic shook his head.

“I’ll get it at home and bring it back tomorrow,” He said. He was Mike’s brother, and probably one of the only people brave enough to go through Mike’s bag.

I gave him a nod of thanks and stood up, brushing myself down. Then I turned to Tay, who was staring appreciatively at some new girl passing by. I think her name was Becca.

“Checking her out?” I teased. She gave a start and her cheeks turned slightly red, but she laughed it off.

“So what? She’s hot,” Tay defended herself breezily.

I laughed. Tay claimed she was bi, but we all knew that she was actually just lesbian. She refused to admit to that though.

I was jerked out of my thoughts by Jenna jumping at me, causing us both to fall onto the stairs. This girl was so hyperactive and weird sometimes, but I loved her all the same.

She sat on my stomach so I couldn’t get up. “I’m not moving until you figure out where we’re going!” She laughed, poking me in the ribs. Hayley, Tay and Vic just looked on in amusement.

“Urm, right, okay . . . my house?” I couldn’t think of anywhere else.

Jenna shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

She got off me and reached out a hand to help me haul myself up. Vic got up as well, and we all started walking off down the road away from school.

It took about 20 minutes to get to my house. Hayley and Tay walked up front, and Vic and Jenna walked either side of me. These two were probably my closest friends – I don’t know what I’d do without them.

I knocked on my door and waited. When it opened, my mum stood there in a messy apron with a look of pleasant surprise on her face.

“I was painting, you didn’t tell me you were coming home for lunch!” She smiled.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know.”

“Right. Well, come in, I’ll make you guys something,” She offered warmly, and my friends all thanked her and headed up to my room.

Jenna jumped on my wheely chair and started spinning around, her bright green hair flying, while Tay and Vic took the bed. I sat on my desk with Hayley.

We sat in comfortable silence until Jenna suddenly stopped spinning and stood up. “I’m gonna puke,” She announced, and staggered dizzily out of the room.

Tay giggled. “She’s so cute.”

I gave her a curious look. “What was that?”

Her cheeks turned red. “N-nothing,” She stammered, not meeting my eyes.

Vic elbowed her lightly and wiggled his eyebrows. “Someone’s got the hots for Jenna,” He teased, and Tay buried her head in his shoulder in embarrassment. The great thing about our friendship group was that we could do whatever and it wouldn’t be awkward; I could turn around and kiss Hayley right now, full on the lips, and it wouldn’t cause any tension because we’d all know that it was for a joke and there were no feelings involved. That just made truth or dare more fun, because no one was hesitant to do anything like that.

Vic and Tay had started a tickle war now. Tay had one of those laughs that was so infectious it made everyone else want to laugh too, so Hayley and I soon joined in on the giggling. I got off the desk and picked up a pillow, then threw it at Tay’s head. “Stop making me laugh!” I demanded humorously.

Tay glared at me with a glimmer in her eye and stopped attacking Vic. “You’re an asshole, Jack!”

I gave her a lopsided grin. “I know.”

Hayley and Vic had stayed relatively quiet, but Hayley had always been the quiet one. I wasn’t sure what was up with Vic though. Jenna, Vic’s boyfriend Kellin (Who I was also quite close friends with), my friend Patrick, Vic and I were generally the loudest in the school and we were known for our somewhat boisterous behaviour. Letting us hang around together was practically begging for destruction. Once all five of us worked together on a Science project, and it ended with the whole class having to evacuate the room because we’d accidentally mixed the wrong stuff together and created a mini explosion. The teacher’s were fine with it, though. Out of all of us Jenna was definitely the craziest though.

Speaking of the devil, Jenna skipped into the room at that moment. Her face was alight with mischief. Crap, what was she up to now?

She bounded forwards and embraced me, throwing her arms around my shoulders. Tay was looking on with slight jealousy, which was odd. Jenna and I always acted like this, and she never usually cared.

However, just as I was about to pull away, I felt something cold squirt down my back under my t-shirt. That bitch!

“You bitch!” I shrieked, voicing my thoughts and barely containing my laughter as I pushed her away and pulled my shirt off quickly.

Jenna jumped onto the bed out of reach and cracked up, throwing aside the can of shaving cream she was holding and clutching her stomach. The others joined in, and after a second I did too. I still wanted payback though, so I got my shaving-cream-covered top and whipped Jenna in the face with it.

“You did not!” she squealed, launching herself at my torso and littering my stomach with light-hearted punches. I just laughed and pushed her away from me.

“Come on, we gotta get back to school,” I told everyone, fishing through my drawers for a clean top. I didn’t particularly care that my Mum forgot about lunch; she was normally like that, and I couldn’t blame her. Raising two kids on her own must be hard.

We walked back to school and I said my goodbyes; I didn’t have my last two periods with any of them, which kind of sucked, but at least I had Jaime and Josh in my last period art class. We were just mucking around with our paintings when suddenly the school echoed with a bing-bong noise. The class fell silent.

“Assembly will be first thing tomorrow morning,” The rector, Mr. Armstrong, announced. His voice rung out from the mini-speakers in the ceiling. “Remember to come to the hall for first period.”

Another bing-bong, and he fell silent.

“What’s that about?” Jaime asked our teacher curiously. I could understand where he was coming from. The school never had assemblies, like, ever. They didn’t like to inconvenience our learning by interrupting our classes.

The art teacher looked up from where he was helping a student with their painting. “I think it’s something to do with a school trip Mr. Armstrong’s arranging,” He told us. “Something to do with Inverness Royal Academy.”

My blood ran cold.

A school trip?

Cool. Sure. Awesome. Whatever.

A school trip with Inverness Royal Academy?

Fuck no.