Young Writers Society

Chapter One:

Misfortune has Conspired

We reentered the school building. You could smell the lingering smoke throughout the hallways. Burning rubber made all the people gag on their own lungs as they passed to get to their next class. The firemen slowly cleared out after rolling the tub of disgusting back to its original position after being doused with water.

I just stood there. Looking.

Who would set a trashcan on fire? What purpose would this serve to them? What lesson have we been taught? What did we do? So many questions, so little time to answer.

The bell clanged loudly as I quickly dodged into my classroom, unnoticed by the teacher. I took my seat and laid my head on the pile of books I tossed onto my desk.

“Did you hear about the fire?” asked somebody. My ears pricked open as I eavesdropped.

“Only that somebody set the trashcan on fire.”

“I heard the teachers talking and they said any of the students who showed up late during this period are suspects or something.” Close call for me then, I was planning on lingering around the trashcan.

The teacher stood at the door and slammed it shut as everybody jumped up to full alert. He slowly walked to the front of the room, gazed at us with wearily angered eyes and announced a deep and thunderous, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” we all replied in unison. I wasn’t sure if it was in fear for which we answered but all the same we did.

“As you all know, the incident concerning today’s fire shouldn’t interrupt with the fact that your writers notebooks are due,” he announced as he gently seated himself in his small child-sized desk in front of the grimy rug to which we all have become accustomed to.

A couple people sighed as they began to search for their writer’s notebook from under their desks. I took mine out with a straight face and glanced all around me. Everybody was shook up, I could tell.

After a strong lecture, due to the fact that barely anybody turned their notebooks in, we were let loose like a herd of stinking cattle to our next class.

I dreaded this next class. Algebra. I shuddered at the fact that the room would make anybody uncomfortably sad, it was the furthest from the heater and the windows were always shut and it was the middle of January. How much coldness could anybody endure?

"Hey look everybody, Andrew has done it again! He pissed his pants!" Mocking tones echoed through out the hallways. I

turned in my trail and watched. I didn't do anything, not like there was much to do anyway, because it was the way things were that made me realize that if I helped then I would be badgered. I couldn't bear it but I still forced myself to turn and walk closer to the action.

A boy tossed drinking fountain water at Andrews pants and made it look like he had indeed had an accident and the cackling grew louder.

Just when you thought this commotion would never clear up a teacher and hall monitor came and broke it up. They sent the boy on his way and took Andrew down to the nurse’s office. It looked like he needed a new pair of uniform pants as well as an icepack for his eye.

I headed to my classroom and took a seat.

“Attention all students, please head to the nearest exit without panic. I repeat, head to the nearest exit.” The words “without panic” had caused panic within me as I left all my things and followed a bunch of jabbering classmates out the door. It was freezing and I left my sweater in my locker.

There we stood, in collared white shirts and preppy black pants in the snow with our breaths soaring upwards. I rubbed my arms and walked in place as I waited for that lovely, yet horrid, sound of the teachers shouting to us that it is all right to head back into the building.

“Hey,” I turned around and came face to face with Sam, the absolutely repulsive chunk of human being ever to be brought up. He was handsome on the outside, I once even caught a peek of his abs and those were delicious, but inside he was a wretched old hag and was more jealous than an attention stricken child. I shuddered. Siren wails pierced the frozen air.

“What do you want?” I asked between clenched teeth.

“Heard there was another fire in the building. Pretty cool unless they burn up my locker, I got some pretty neat pictures of you naked in there.” I attempted to kick him, turn around and elbow him hard in the stomach but he moved out of the way and took my hands and constricted them.

“Whoa, take it easy, it was only a joke! God, you take things way to seriously, I wonder how your boyfriend can take you,” he cackled as he held his firm grip on my wrists.

“Never question my boyfriends actions or mine!”

“Why, are you going to dump his ass and get a nice good man like myself?”

“Don’t you ever quit?”

“Not until me and you get together for, say, a little ‘fun time’,” he laughed harder.

I kneed him in the crotch and stepped back as he fell to his knees, squeaking like a mouse, and people began to laugh at him. Know he knows the torment that Andrew has been having, I knew he loved to mock Andrew as well with his slime bucket of friends.

I sauntered away to leave that jerk alone and to look and see if my boyfriend was around or if any of my friends were there. I only had three friends anyway so I knew that the chances of me finding one of them were slim.

I slithered around and around people and I came across Alec, my boyfriend’s best friend.

“Hey, I saw you over there kicking Sam hard,” Alec smiled at me with a warmness that could only be expressed by song.

And I wouldn’t break into that, not now or ever.

“Why does everybody have to hate Donovan and I because we are together? It’s not fair,” I complained as I looked around. It had been a half an hour and we were still outside.

I loved seeing the little skinny girls huddle up against each another. Sam called it a lesbian orgy and nearly drooled on his shirt. I called it sad. After all, by my motto, it’s survival of the fattest.

“They are just jealous. Come on, when we get back inside we’ll write a letter to all the gabble headed dip-sticks who made you mad,” Alec smiled. I wish I could have had him. I wanted him more than I wanted Donovan, but they both must not know of my hidden fantasies.

Misfortune has conspired against the school two times in the day, and as we headed into the building after forty minutes we could see why they had forced us to get outside.