Threat Level: Teacup

Molly
“Threat level?”
“High School,” I stated, ruffling my little brother’s hair. He’d noticed my bruise at the breakfast table the next morning as I’d made my attempts at avoiding my dad. Threat Levels were how we determined how bad an injury was and/or how we’d gotten it. It was our way of asking how the day went without ‘sounding like Auntie Nina’, as Ollie had so kindly put it when he made up the system. Ollie had come home one day with the insistence that his Threat Level was higher than mine, even though he’d come home with a bruise on his knee with a response of ‘Threat Level; Little Girl’. My Threat Level was much higher than ‘Little Girl’. “High School sounds terrifying.”
“It is.” I said, rubbing my head and taking a bite out of my toast, ignoring the violent buzz of my phone on the counter. Who could possibly want to talk to me at seven o’clock in the morning? “Don’t scare him before he even gets there,” Dad muttered, shaking his head and grabbing his car keys from the kitchen counter. “Come on. Jackson will be waiting.”

Since the end of primary, Dad had been picking up Jackson on the way to taking me to school and he’d drop us both off; an agreement we’d made after him and Mum had refused us the sleepovers we’d wanted after I’d hit eleven. This was the best we were going to get. I took my rightful place in the front passenger seat and sighed, looking up at my dad. “Do I have to go to school today?”
“Unless you’re literally bleeding from the eyes, yes.”
“What about the ears?”
“All right, maybe we can compromise with the ears. What’s wrong?” Dad slowly pulled out of our drive and onto the road; he was honestly the most cautious driver I knew and Mum was always moaning about how slowly he drove whenever we went out as a family – Oliver, being the adrenaline junky he was, agreed with her. “Threat Level?”
“Teenage Boy.” He automatically straightened at this, his eyes ballooning and chest puffing up. Dad had never really been comfortable with the mention of boys, but he was completely okay with my ten-year-old brother and his obsession with unhealthily large breasts. “What do you mean? Has someone done something to you? If a boy has done something to you, you need to tell the school. We’ll go home right now and phone them.” Always assuming the worst.
“No, no. A guy hit me with his locker. Accidentally!” I rushed to Michael’s defence at the end, not wanting my dad to hate my new friend before we’d even really become friends. I pushed my blonde hair from my face, showing off the pooling bruise, red and raised at the centre. Flimsy metal doors really could do some damage, apparently. “Where was Jackson when this happened?”

My dad had some warped idea in his head that Jackson was obliged to protect me at all times, as the male best friend. “Sorry he interrogated you.”
“Sorry you got hit in the face with a locker,” He responded, prodding the bruise as lightly as he possibly could, sacrificing swapping his books before maths for standing over me, ensuring no one could hit me with their locker. “I wish I’d have been there. How funny was it?” I swatted at his leg from my place on the floor, looking up to see him grinning down at me. The worst part was that he’d have found it hilarious, regardless of the circumstances. I rolled my eyes and shut my locker, making a point of standing on his foot with my entire weight as I got up from the floor. “Little bitch.”
“You love me.”
“You’re my best friend. I have to love you.” I shook my head and pushed him away; he’d had me encased with his hands pressed to the lockers either side of me. “I don’t have to be your best friend, though.”
“Who else would give you a lift to school every morning?”

Michael
Why did couples have to be so overpowering in the hallway? I’m sure they could cope for seven hours of their day without needing to grope each other against the lockers – against my locker. Apparently, since I’d been gone, they’d given my locker away and now I was stuck trying not to hit a girl in the face every day (accidentally – she wasn’t so irritating I couldn’t control myself) and watching a too muscular to be in High School guy loomed over some girl, pressed right up to my locker. I couldn’t imagine Molly, the poor girl who’d been subjected to the floor locker, would be overly impressed at the show, either.

“Excuse me?” I coughed, awkwardly. My friend, Calum, snickered beside me. Not one for maturity, I was sure he had something vulgar on his mind. I just wanted to get to my locker. The brown haired boy in front of me removed his hands from the lockers flanking my own to reveal a little blonde girl, her cheeks flushed a light pink. “Molly?”
“This is Molly? I know Molly!” Calum’s face lit up as mine fell in confusion. This must have been Jackson; I’d heard Molly’s friend talking about him. “Hi!”
“Hi,” Molly smiled, moving herself away from my locker to give me access, pulling Jackson off to the side. “How have you been?” She asked, sweetly, Jackson’s arm flung around her shoulder.
“Great, thanks. Finally started that band I was telling you about. You need to meet our drummer,” Calum gushed. Ashton, our band’s drummer, was great but he wasn’t great enough for out and out gushing. “What about you?”
“I’ve been better. Michael’s a bit rough with doors.”

Michael’s a bit rough with doors? I wanted to die. I’d thought she was cute, and I was going to make up for hitting her in the face with my locker and destroying her forehead by taking her out for ice cream; apparently, that wasn’t going to happen. “Aren’t Molly and Jackson too cute?” Calum nudged me as he took his seat on the floor, next to Luke, at the front gates of our school. I rolled my eyes and nodded. I hadn’t even known they’d existed until I’d come back here. Clearly, Calum had some different experiences. “Milling and Melville?” Luke asked. He towered over us both, even sitting down. He wasn’t an overly intimidating person but, when you’re quite tall, someone even taller can make an interesting impression. “Yeah! Never would have pegged those two together.”
“They’re like… Skittles and M&M’s,” Luke said, rubbing his chin. “Kind of similar on the surface, but they absolutely do not belong together at all.”
“When did you become a matchmaker?” Ashton said, wandering up the path and placing himself between Calum and I. Ash didn’t go to the same school as us and, due to a certain… incident, the boys and I were no longer allowed off campus for lunch, so Ashton had to come to us every day now. “He’s been watching too much MTV,” I muttered, shoving half a sandwich in my mouth.

Molly
“So, he’s kind of attractive,” Jackson nudged me as he placed his food on our lunch table, sitting across from Amber and next to me. I ro9lled my eyes and moved my pasta around the plate with a fork; it had looked a lot more appealing when Mum had been preparing it before school. “Who’s attractive?” Amber piped up; she’d never miss a chance to talk about cute boys, whether or not she had a chance with them. Usually, she had a solid shot. Standing at five feet and seven inches, Amber was quite tall for a fifteen-year-old girl, but her figure accented her height very well, lanky yet still overly feminine. Her hair always fell perfectly (I always wondered how much product she needed to use to get it that way) and she never seemed to have to re-apply her lip-gloss. And, most importantly, her school uniform didn’t make her look like a little girl – it made her look attractive. “That kid who left and came back.”
“Are you sure you’re straight?” Jackson swatted at my arm, tugging on the hem of his jumper. I had absolutely no doubt that he was straight, not that I’d have had an issue with him being gay (maybe Mum and Dad would have let him stay of if he’d been gay). “You really need to stay away from him, Molly.”
“You really need to stop telling me what to do. Relax. He’s just some kid whose locker sits above mine.”

Just some kid who kept hitting me with doors. “I am so sorry,” Michael floundered, blocking the doorway in the middle of the school corridor to pull me up to my feet. This time, we’d been going in opposite directions and he’d opened to door just as I’d reached for it, effectively slamming me against the wall and probably forming another array of bruises. At this rate, my dad was going to think Jackson was pushing me around in his free time. “You need to stop hitting me with doors, Michael.”
“I blame you. I’ve never hit anyone with a door before now.” He said, walking alongside me, seeming to have forgotten where he’d been heading in the first place. He should have been going in to opposite direction. I rolled my eyes and rubbed at a developing bruise on my right arm. “I’ve never been hit with a door before now! My brother will die laughing at this.”
“I’d die laughing, too, if I hadn’t watched you fall to the floor so many times within two days of knowing you,” He chuckled, opening a door for me. It was finally the end of the day, so I was headed home by this point. “Are you getting a lift home?”
“No, I walk.”
“Would you like me to walk you home?” I smiled at his courtesy.
“Only if it’s not out of your way. St Andrew’s Road?”
“Yeah, that should be fine. Not too far from where I live.” His grin wavered.
“You don’t know what that is, do you?”
“I’ve not got a clue.”