It Can Only Get Better

"Sophie, come on wake up. Do you have to do this every Monday morning?" I opened my eyes.
"Mike, I don't do this every Monday morning. This is my first day back at school today, remember?" I answered as I got up to get a shower.
"Hurry up in there Soph. I have to be at the studio for nine and I'll have to drop you to school first. You've already missed the bus." Mike yelled banging his fist on the bathroom door.

I stood under the falling water for a few minutes, to waken me up, before I got out, dried and dressed. Black pants, and a red top, how original. I didn't realise it but, you get more stares for having a shaved head and wearing bright pretty clothes, which I usually wear, than if you have a shaved head and wear 'guys' clothes. I walked downstairs, after finding my backpack under a pile of stuff in my closet.
"Well, you ready to face your public?" he asked smiling as I came into the kitchen. I laughed and nodded.
"Come on then." He said grabbing his keys.

I walked down the hall to homeroom. I was five minutes late for school so there were still a few people in the hallway. Three people asked me if I was new, or lost, or both. I paused at the door, and then pushed it open. Everyone stopped talking as I walked through the door. Mr. Kelser stared at me.
"Sorry I'm late sir, traffic problems." I said and I walked down the back towards my seat, and Joey. The stares followed me down the back, Joey smiled showing his support. For the next five minutes everyone was still staring and the whispering had started. I looked at Joey and then stood up.
"Sorry sir, but I can't take this," I interrupted Mr. Kelser, "Listen guys I have gone through five weeks in hospital, brain surgery, heart failure, and practically stopped breathing. I shaved my head cause I didn't want a bald patch when I found out some guy would be poking around in my head, so if you want to talk about it. Talk to me but don't whisper behind my back and listen to stupid rumours. Now please, I'm sure that all of you have more important things to do than gossip" I paused, "No, wait, you're all preppy bastards. You're lives are about mindless gossip, cause your own lives are too boring for anyone to care." I sat down and looked around.

Everyone had shocked faces, even Mr. Kelser. I apologized to him again and turned back to my conversation with Joey, "So, what are they doing about that dude?" he asked,
"The cops said that since it was six years ago, they can't do much, but they'll look into it. But on the up side, he's going to jail for breaking and entering, and assaulting you and Billie."
I smiled. It may not be forever but it's something.
"The cops said that they're gonna look into his background. Try to find out if he did it to anyone else, cause people like that are likely to be repeat offenders, so he could be charged with that eventually." I was trying not to give too many details cause I knew that there were still lots of people eavesdropping on our conversation. Joey smiled at me,
"You okay with being back here so soon?" I looked up at him, "Yes, I'm okay with it. I can't stand being in the house on my own. Dad said, if I don't feel okay with today I can stay off a while later." The bell went and we all left homeroom.

We walked into sex ed., which we now had for an hour every Monday morning, since the start of the year, according to Joey. He grabbed my hand and pulled me down the back, to where he sat. He saved me a seat since the first class so I wouldn't be stuck up the front. A little, short, balding man walked into the room and sat down behind the desk. He lifted his roll book and paused,
"Ah shit, this is way too familiar, Armstrong and Pritchard in the same class. Stand up both of you."
We shrugged and stood up. "Oh, a girl. I take it you're Pritchard cause you have to be Armstrong," he said pointing at Joey. I smiled and nodded. He walked down towards us, and Joey slinked his fingers into mine.
"Please, tell me you two are nothing like your fathers." He said looking a little scared. Joey and me looked at each other and then back to the teacher,
"Well, actually Joey is very like Billie, in every way," I started, "And even though I've only known Mike a year and a bit, everyone comments on how alike we act." I said with a smirk, the guy looked scared by what I said, but also a little confused, probably by my Irish accent, which I hadn't managed to get rid of yet.
"Okay then," he said.
"Oh, and you won't find anyone 'Wright' on your register, Ramona lives in New York, and Frankito isn't that old yet." Joey said smiling.
"Wait. Are you telling me that Frank Wright has kids?" Joey smiled, "yeah, two." he paused, "And it's 'Tré Cool' Frank Wright junior doesn't exist anymore." And with that we both sat down. The teacher shook his head and walked back up to the front and took the roll.
"Okay, now I know who's here, we may as well start the lesson. I am Dr. Adrite, and today's lesson is about relationships and peer pressure." That's all I heard, why do we need an hour of this crap every week, when most of it's common sense?

Three thirty, I had made it a whole day without screwing up, or picking a fight, or pissing off the teachers, a new achievement for me, and Joey hasn't got himself any detentions either. Joey and me walked out of the school hand in hand, and went over to sit under the tree to wait on Mike. Joey was sitting up against the trunk and I was leaning against him, with my eyes closed, listening to him ramble on about random stuff I had missed, I only caught a few words every once in a while, 'suspended' 'broken collar bone' 'fucked' 'slimy bastards of a bitches whore' etc. I had no idea who, or what he was talking about, I just liked the sound of his voice.

The sky seemed to get dark suddenly, and Joey had stopped talking, so I opened my eyes and looked up to find Jack, Sam, and a new goony, standing over us. I squinted up to see his face better,
"And who the fuck are you?" I asked, almost politely, but not quite. He screwed up his face,
"He's Jimmy," Jack answered. I stood up and looked him straight in the eyes, "can he not speak for himself, or is he just letting you feel important?" I asked, quite patronisingly. Joey noticed the friction and stood up beside me. Ever since I broke Jack's nose, he's lost interest in beating up Joey, and now tries to pick on me, emphasis on 'tries' though.
"I missed you the first week of school, I had a big plan to get you back for breaking my nose, and you little bitch, you weren't even there." He snarled, "Try," I interrupted nodding,
"What the fuck you on about 'try'?" he asked,
"Oh," I laughed, "you actually believe that you could beat me up. Ach Joey isn't that sweet. Jack thinks he's all big and stwong." I said putting on a childish voice. Joey smirked beside me.
"You little fucker," the guy Jimmy shouted, and threw a punch at me, I just about missed it by leaning back. I turned to face him.
"Oh, baby, now I'm not very happy with you." I smiled at him. My ethics don't usually include violence, excluding breaking Jack's nose cause that was under special circumstances - he pissed me off badly, so every punch Jimmy threw, I just ducked or dodged, he wasn't that good at throwing punches, then pinned him to the ground by pushing him a little, so he fell, and sitting on top of him, holding his arms behind his head. Only problem with that was that it's a compromising position and Joey was getting jealous. I let go of Jimmy's arms, slapped him lightly on the cheek, and stood up. He stayed lying on the ground, but rolled over quickly, and stood up with his back to us. When he turned around he was blushing slightly, and stood behind Jack.
"Oh, I'm sorry darlin' did you enjoy staring down my top?" I asked innocently, and put my arms around Joey's waist. Jimmy blushed more, "and by the way, these," I said looking down, "are for Joey's pleasure only. Kay?" I said. Jack turned around, hit Jimmy a slap, and the three of them walked away. I turned around to face Joey,
"Sorry baby, you know I don't believe in violence anymore, except for Jack." He smiled at me, "What?" I asked, "As long as you meant what you said, I don't mind." He smirked. I slapped his arm and pulled him in for a kiss.

Beep
I pulled away and looked around to see dad parked in his usual spot. Joey and I lifted our stuff and walked over to the car, jumping in the back seat.
"How long have you been sitting here?" I asked as we began to move off,
"Long enough young lady." Tré answered turning around to face us,
"Are those three guys your friends?" he asked,
"No," I shook my head, "the one in the middle is Jack."
"Oh, how's his nose?" dad giggled from the drivers seat.
"Fine, well it's healed, but it's still as ugly as ever. And then the guy that just stood there the whole time is Sam. He doesn't really do much other than that," I added.
"And who is the hunk o' meat you were straddling?" Tré asked,
"That is," I looked at Joey, "what was his name babe?" he looked at me,
"Jimmy." I smiled,
"That was Jimmy, he's a new face." I smiled, "and I wasn't straddling him, I was pinning him down, you must have seen the pathetic punches he was throwing." Tré and dad laughed and Tré turned around to look out the window again.

We dropped Tré at his house first, and then headed home. Joey and me headed upstairs and Mike headed for the kitchen. We were halfway through the geography homework when Joey threw down his pen. "I'm so fucking bored with plate tectonics and volcanoes." He said looking grumpy, I smiled at him, "I have an idea." I said putting down my pen and walking over to him, "Why don't we do some other homework?" I said kissing his neck, "and what homework would that be?" he groaned, "well... " I said kissing up his neck and claiming his lips, while pushing him onto the bed. Five minutes later Mike walked through the door, "guy's dinn... what have I told you two before." We broke apart and sat up. "I know dad, but we are sort of doing homework." I smiled, walking past him. "Wait, what do you mean, sort of doing homework." I smiled again, "Well, this year we have a new class, and we were doing that homework." I said walking past him again. He grabbed my wrist lightly and pulled me back into the room. "And, what class would that be?" he asked, "You should know, the teacher remembers you and dad." Joey answered, "What class?" he asked getting all protective and fatherly, "sex ed." I answered and walked out of the room, followed by Joey, leaving Mike behind.

Mike didn't really say much during dinner, but as we were clearing up he turned to Joey and said that he should go home, so I had to finish clearing up by myself. I walked into the living room, "Dad, are you okay?" I asked, he was very withdrawn all evening. "What? Yeah, I'm okay. I just think we need to have a little chat. Come sit down." He said tapping on the sofa, so I sat down beside him. "Listen Soph, I need you to be completely honest with me now, okay?" he looked deep in thought, I nodded, "Yeah, sure." I added. "Sophie, have you and Joey ever taken that further step?" I looked at him, "No, we haven't." he smirked a little, "okay, good, well, just so you know, I do trust you, and Joey. Don't get me wrong, he's a great kid, but... it's just little boys his age have a lot of hormones running around his body, and they usually think with their, ahem head, instead of their head." He smiled a big grin, as my face turned a little pink, "and you're growing into a really pretty girl too. You'd be able to wrap any guy around your little finger if you really wanted to. I mean look at the effect you had on that kid Jimmy." He smirked,
"So, this little chat, summed up is that Joey is a horny little dude, and I'm a pretty girl, and to not have sex until I'm older, and ready." I smiled. He laughed stood up and nodded his head, "and legal. Oh, and don't listen to that old asshole Adrite, he doesn't know anything about sex other than what me and Billie and Tré showed him in class... " Mike slapped his hand over his mouth and looked at me with wide eyes,
"I did not just tell you that." His face went absolutely bright red. I looked up at him with a smirk on my face and crossed my arms, "care to explain, daddy?" I asked, he didn't move his hand from his mouth, but just shook his head, "Dad, I think we need a little chat." I said patting the seat beside me. He looked down as if the say 'ha ha very funny' but sat down anyway and slowly removed his hand away from his mouth. "Dad, what did you, Billie, and Tré do in Adrite's class? He has a very vivid memory of the three of you, his exact words were 'ah shit, this is way too familiar, Armstrong and Pritchard in the same class' it was quite funny, he searched the register for one of Tré's kids for ages. What did you guys do?" I asked again. "Okay, if I tell you, you can't tell anyone, follow what we did, or take the piss... okay?" I nodded, "Okay, I swear." I said, crossing my fingers behind my back, and smiling, "okay, well, it started off as mindless stuff, like asking if we could do practical classes and stuff, and... " I looked at him, "and what? What else did you do?" He looked away from me and mumbled something, "Sorry, what was that dad?" he turned to face me again, "when he said no, we'd pretend to make out down the back of the class and stuff." I couldn't believe this, "You, and Billie, and Tré, made out." He nodded, "yeah," I looked at him again, "you say that like it's a natural thing," he looked down, shy, "well... you know Billie's little ritual of kissing either me or Tré, or both of us, when we win an award or something, well, it had to start somewhere... " and with that he walked out of the room. I had to tell Joey about this, but it could wait... I wanted to see his face when I told him.