Detention Buddies

Melly's in Korea right now so I'm posting her story, yo.

----

Usually, summer is my favorite time of year; after all, there’s no school, which means there are no teachers, which means there are no classes, which means there’s no homework, which means there’s no detention – all of which sounds awesome to a kid who’s not that into all that education stuff.

Usually, I get started right away with the fun and games: the pool parties, the beach days, the movie marathons, the mall hang-outs, the carnivals – all the typical summer festivities that, eventually, get old but still happen anyway for lack of better things to do.

Usually, summer means I go to bed late and wake up late. It means I don’t eat lunch until I feel like it (which could mean I won’t eat until 4:30 in the afternoon), and it means some days I’ll just sit around and do nothing but watch cartoons from the 90s.

Usually, summer is my favorite time of year.

But not this year.

[Click "read more" to continue...]

“KEVIN HARRISON. FACE FORWARD; ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?!”

This year, I have summer school, which means there are teachers, which means there are classes, which means there’s homework, which, ultimately, means there’s also detention, and though I told myself I’d get through the summer without so much as one detention, I knew it was impossible.

“Sorry Mrs. Pierce,” I groaned as I turned my head slowly from window to chalkboard. It was another sunny, 86-degree Monday in the middle of being sacrificed to the horrors of Sophomore American History. Still, I thought I was lucky; after all, five weeks had already gone by, and I had yet to be given the pink slip.

“Young man, you better get your act together,” she scolded, bobbing her pointer finger up and down in front of my face as she spoke – my eyes followed lazily.

A chuckle from the back of the room distracted her.

“You’re not off the hook either, Ms. Millers.” Curious, I turned around to see who “The Piercer” (we call her that because of her knife-like eyes that strike through the very depths of your soul) was talking to. Sure enough, it was Serena Millers: my archenemy and next door neighbor.

She winked at me mischievously. I glared.

We’d been neighbors since the second grade, enemies since the fourth; we WERE best friends until she told all her friends, not to mention our best mutual friend and my lifelong crush, Sara Horton, that I was a booger eating, cootie infecting, rumor spreading, secret blurting, lie telling boy, subsequently causing all of them, including Sara, to stop talking to me.

Needless to say, a grudge blossomed and bloomed.

Half of me thought it’d be over after we all went to Jr. High, but I guess once you stop talking to someone, it’s hard to pick up the friendship again.

“Ms. Millers, I’m not sure why you’re sitting back there when we have all this room in the front of the class anyway…” the Piercer’s eyes poked and prodded at Serena until she reluctantly grabbed all her books and dropped them on a desk in the front – or more specifically, the desk to the right of mine. Of course. “That’s better,” Piercer nodded in approval and turned her attention back to the chalkboard, “Now, let’s continue…”

This isn’t going to end well, I bit my bottom lip.

See, what the Piercer didn’t know was that the administrators would purposely put the two of us in different classes, because when the two of us are in the same classes, somehow everything tends to go wrong. And now, here we were not only in the same class, but also sitting right next to each other.

I took a deep breath and glanced over at Serena.

A sly smile spread slowly across her face.

--

Minutes later, we were in detention.

I’d tell you exactly what happened, but instead I’m just going to tell you to combine a gum spitball, three chalkboard erasers, Piercer’s wig (that we didn’t know was a wig until 6 minutes ago), four thumbtacks, a bottle of pink lemonade and two rubber bands. Make of it what you will.

“Well! Here we are again, eh Kev?” she asked in that light, sing-song voice of hers.

“Don’t call me that,” I huffed and laid my head on my desk. “You’re the one who got us in here anyway. All I wanted was to get through the summer without any trouble.”

Though we never talked in or outside of class, somehow we’d always get to talking in detention. Maybe it was because we were always the only ones in there, or maybe it was because there, we were the same. Just two kids in trouble. I guess it’s actually a combination of both.

“You and me? No trouble? Impossible,” she laughed.

“Hey you two! Quiet!” We winced together at Mr. Boris’s loud voice, rumbling through the room.

Silence. As it should be.

“… So…” Regardless, she’d always interrupt the silence. “We’re gonna be seniors next year… You excited?” she whispered, grinning.

“I guess…” I replied, musing, “Not really sure what I wanna do afterwards…”

“Not going to college?” she asked, leaning closer.

“I said I’m not really sure, didn’t I?” I must have sounded annoyed because she immediately sat back into her chair. “Why so curious?”

“Well, I don’t know…” she stared at her fingernails as she spoke, “I was just thinking about what it’d be like if we both moved away.”

I didn’t think much about what I said next: “I mean, it wouldn’t be much different anyway.”

She stopped staring at her nails and sat up straight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“S’not like we act much like neighbors now. I just don’t think it’d be very different,” I said, flatly.

She paused; from the corner of my eye, I saw her take a deep breath, then release. She turned towards me. “Kev. C’mon. Is this about that thing… From elementary school? It was ELEMENTARY SCHOOL,” she moaned, dragging her chair towards me. She leaned back, “I’m really sorry, I swear!”

“Sorry?” I hissed.

SHUSH.

We both smiled apologetically, bowing our heads to Mr. Boris, “Sorry.”

“Sorry?!” I repeated a third time, making sure to take it down to a whisper. “How exactly does getting me into detention tell me that you’re sorry? God, girls make no sense.”

“Hey, what do you think I’ve been trying to do all these years?! It’s not like I LIKE going to detention…” she stated defensively, averting her gaze from mine. She shyly brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s the only place you’ll ever talk to me anymore…” she mumbled under her breath.

I gaped. “Wait, wait, wait. So you’ve been getting us in trouble on purpose?”

No response. She still wouldn’t look at me, either.

“Well, what about summer school? You couldn’t have known that we were both gonna come…” I said, dragging my chair closer to hers, “Could you?”

“I mean… I didn’t definitely know, but I was pretty sure about it. Neither of us have really good grades, y’know?” she said quietly, looking up at the ceiling

“Girls. Make no sense,” I repeated, sinking into my hair as I grabbed at clumps of my hair. I turned towards her, my voice growing louder, “So, basically, I’m spending my summer vacation here because you’ve been plotting how to hang out with me in detention rather than talking to me about doing normal summer vacation things?”

“Well, how else was I supposed to talk to you?” she insisted, “I mean… Ever since elementary school you’ve been ignoring me… We’re neighbors and you don’t even give me the light of day.”

“HAH,” I laughed out loud and got a glare from Mr. Boris. Didn’t care. “Me ignore you? Rena, you were the one who didn’t want your friends to think that you had a ‘boy as your best friend’ and said all those things.”

“That was so long ago! And you know I didn’t mean those things,” she frowned. “You said it, you were my best friend… And you still are.”

“Hey, you didn’t make it seem like I was,” I rolled my eyes.

“God, I didn’t think boys were so sensitive,” she muttered and crossed her arms, sinking into her own chair.

“Well, you kinda just told me that I get in trouble on a daily basis at school just because you never had the guts to actually come up and apologize to me outside the detention room,” I muttered back. “Excuse me for being pissed.”

“Look… I never intended for it to happen on a daily basis… It’s just… The first day of detention, we were back to joking because we were laughing about what happened in the classroom…” she said pulling at her hair, still not looking at me. “… It was nice, and then I got used to it. So sue me.”

“HARRISON. MILLERS. LAST WARNING,” Mr. Boris yelled, causing us to jump.

For a while, we sat in silence, again. Suddenly, it felt uncomfortable. Not like the silence from before.

“… Kev,” she whispered again.

I looked over. “What?”

“… I’m sorry,” she said, her blue eyes looking straight into mine. She gulped. “And… I’m sorry that it took me so many years to apologize.”

My eyes lingered in hers for a few seconds, but I quickly pulled away to face the front board. I felt my lip curl out into a pout as I sank further and further into my chair.

I could feel her eyes staring at me for a while until I heard her move in the chair; her eyes had found the front board too.

“Hey…” she turned to look at me.

“I’m getting a detention tomorrow too.”