Cheers to "Friends"

"Such rebels we are!" I replied sarcastically.

"Tara, don't give me that tone. You’re the biggest boffin I know." Anna retorted in a matter of fact-ly voice.

I didn't reply. It wasn't that I didn't know what to say. Believe me I know what to say. I've always been the one to know what to say. So why don't I just gob smack her with my own come-backs? Well there is an easy answer to that. I'm not all down for verbal fights. Yes, it is the battle of the wits, and I was prepared to draw an armistice due to the fact that I had other things on my mind. Such as Sara, and most of all Kane.

Man, how stupid was I? I mean what girl in their right mind, would just say "Uh... I have to go."; when a guy separates you from all of the rest? Oh yeah that's right, Tara Simms does. Idiot, Idiot, IDIOT! I started smacking my head lightly against my book which was on my desk; both Anna and Sara were staring at me probably thinking "What the Hell is this girl doing." I didn't care though. It wasn't anything different from what I usually do.

"Hey I think they're all back from chapel." Sara said as we heard foot steps equivalent to a stampede; going on underneath my room. By that time, I was already standing brushing the imaginary dust off of my already ripped at the knees track pants that was Millfield's sports uniform. Just impatiently waiting to leg it out of the room. I couldn't wait to get out of the room. Every time I was with those two they're usual one woman freak show was cubed to a journey through purgatory and back. I'm sure you all know Sara to be a fawner, from the escapades of last night; well that trebles when she's with Anna.

Anna Diaz, she's definitely something. You know what's funny? My mom has always said by looking at someone's facial features you could tell what type of person that person is. I was never the type to be able to be able to tell; but even a blind man could see I mean hear what type of person she is. She had this thick light brown hair that frizzed out, she almost looked as if she was just electrocuted by 300 volts. Though she usually kept it in a bun, she didn't want all the guys to look at her in awe saying:

“Hey, isn't that Elsa Lanchester; the woman who played The Monster's wife in the "Bride of Frankenstein"

"No, dude that's Anna!"

Though thinking about it now... that would make my day. Anyway, back to the point. She had black eyes, and I'm not talking about her pupils here; her whole iris was a dark shade of black. Nothing to you people out there, I'm sure, but if you've watched a lot of scary Japanese movies, you will know what I mean. When a girls get's possessed in those movies, she always has the black eyes. The wild untamed mane adds for the affect of a bush child. She was always opinionated, she was like a mini-Hitler. When she believed in a theory she would carry it out, and to full throttle as any secondary school girl could take it. Plus, she always talked about people behind her back.

I remember one school trip; we went to Devon for Geography. I think I brought some of my Art notes to finish so when I came back to school I didn't have to do it. Anna saw me going over my notes, and she said in these exact words, "Tara, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

Nowadays I would just ignore her, but I replied with, "I'm doing my Art."

That whole weekend she wouldn't let go that I did some of my homework on a 6 hour bus journey, at night in the hostel, and the 6 hours back. She kept on saying "Tara, you're a geek. And Geeks deserve to be bullied." As a groveler that Sara was she kept on agreeing and even joining in, even Joy was laughing. I pretended like it didn't get to me. But all that time it was building up, every single thing she said to do with a nerd, I wanted to just pounce on her and rip out those possessed eyeballs and punch her right in the nose. I never really talked about this whole scenario to anyone, until of course yesterday, with Kane. He made me feel so much better as well; with soothing words that brought smiles to my lips. You know I always thought that girls were supposed to be good at that crap; but he was better than any other girl that had tried to console me.

--

As soon as I legged it out of my room and into the chemistry lab I was happy, relieved, and most of all tired due to the lack of sleep I had last night (Moments of last night were rewinding through my head. This time though I had choices of doing whatever I wanted, so I amused myself. Throwing Sara in the fridge. Actually kissing Kane. You get my drift.). People were filling in. One by one, but I didn't take care to notice as my head was in my crossed arms on the table.

"So today class, we will be making monoclinic sulfur" Mr. Brody announced as soon as everyone was in the room, sitting at their tables.

I looked around trying to seek out Kane. I spotted him across the desks, and as if he noticed he turned towards me. Feelings of embarrassment and stupidity crossed my mind, and I turned my head around as quickly as anyone's reflexes, to avoid finding out what his next reactions were.

Chemistry has always been a mediocre subject for me, I always averaged at a B+ never anything higher or lower. Today though was not my day, I could hear people whispering about my decided strategy towards Sara. And some of these comments were completely absurd, like one girl was whispering that after I left the party; I went into Sara's room and trashed it. That was more of a milder remark, some even said I had the "guts" to to threaten Sara. First of all, I don't need "guts" to threaten Sara; I'll just do it... but only if I have to. To tell you the truth, I hated it every time one of these rumors were spread. I mean 98 of those things aren't even true, so what's the point in listening to them? For example now, what they were saying was a bunch of bullcrap, and all these girl's were prepared to listen to it because they had nothing better in their lives than just to listen to fibs. So in the end I wasn't paying too much attention to anything.

Whilst thinking up of good reasons of not going up to these nosey cows and telling them to go where the sun don't shine, we all heard glass shattering. Hah! Which idiot in this room dropped a bottle?! I looked around curiously trying to see who did it, but all eyes were on me. Being the paranoid person I was; I looked around me and realized that I had managed to drop a brown bottle that had a big corrosive and poisonous sign on it which was supposedly "xylene".

"Shit" I muttered. I walked a foot away from the escaping brown vapors and into Mr. Brody's chest.

"Everyone get out of the room, now!" Mr. Brody urged, through a controlled tone. I knew the man wasn't angry at me, but just incase I rushed out of the room with a solemn "Sorry".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank god it's the last lesson of the day! No more hearing people talk about me at the party, and no more hearing people saying that I tried to burn a hole through the chemistry lab. To make it even better; my last lesson was History. The only subject that I liked doing, and that liked me back; unconditionally for that matter. By this time I had forgotten about all about Kane, as my mind was too emotionally distraught on other matters.

"So class could you please explain to me, why the Big three had so much problems getting along after the war?" Mr. Duff asked.

I waited for everyone to ponder over the question, and when no one shot their hand up I had the audacity to raise my hands automatically. He pointed at me.

"Everyone had different ideas, of peace. Like Clemenceau wanted revenge out of all. Lloyd George was more engulfed in colony matters. Wilson was stuck on the 14 points, where it really consisted of self-determination and a just peace. As both France and England were imperialists that idea didn't go down so well; and France really didn't want a peace they wanted Germany in tatters."

Mr. Duff nodded approvingly at my apparently correct answer. With a hearty smile.

That's how it went throughout the whole lesson; I would listen to what he said whilst I did some of my other homework. When he asked a question and no one could answer I would raise my hands once again to supply noise that was usually welcomed with a "correct" or "very right".

By now it was already 4:55, and our lesson was wrapping up, everyone was already dashing out of the door. Me like the rest, did so too.

"Tara can you please wait a second." Mr. Duff said quickly before I left.

When a teacher asks you to stay behind a lesson that is never a good sign. I stopped in my rushed tracks and swiveled on my heel to face the cute teddy-bear like man. I was nervous, I didn't like the feeling of getting in trouble. Everything around me seemed to close in, my breathing got heavier, and I started sweating.

"There is no doubt in my mind, that you're probably one of the most capable students I have."

"Uhmm, thank you?" I asked more then said. Along with my other symptoms I started feeling like I was going to black out.

"Your probably thinking that your in trouble don't you." My mind was nodding like hell. But I didn't reply so he continued.

"I know that you are a very capable student, but I also think you need to consolidate all your work adding more facts so you get a higher percentage in your exams."

"Ok, sure, I'll do that." I started to feel better, losing the signs of getting into trouble-phobia.

"Well, you can do that in your spare time if you want, but I had a different idea in mind. "

"Ok..."

"I think you would be a great tutor for another boy in the other class who needs to boost his grades."

My body stiffened, "So you want me to tutor someone?"

"Yes."

What was I going to do? I couldn't refuse. "Ok, when and where?"

"Whenever you feel; he is a boarder as well."

He wants me to waste my weekends teaching a jerk-off. "Ok, I can do it this Saturday at about one o'clock at the library."

"Ok I'll tell the other teacher to tell him. Thank You Tara"

I conjured up a smile and walked down the stairs, making sure the heel of my flats slammed into every single step. This was going to be interesting. I was known to blow up at anyone that made stupid comments in Biology; and i wasn't even teaching. I have no idea if I could handle this.

The real question is, who am I teaching? Mr. Duff did say he was a "he", so that cuts half of the girls in the other class. He was also in the other class so that crossed out people in my class. Fuck! He’s probably James! Eurghh! No! He's disgusting!

I got back to my dorm room, hurling my back-pack across the floor and jumped onto my bed ready for my thoughts of the day to engulf me again. Sara, Anna, James, and Kane were automatically thrusted in to my head.