Cliche

The Writing Club

"Hand your papers to the front," their new English teacher Mrs. York announced to the class. 

Everyone in the room groaned and quickly looked over their papers to re-read their answers. 

Conner Bailey sat at the very end of the row looking pleased with himself. The teacher had surprised them with a pop quiz about fairy tales to see if they had revised over the summer holidays. Fortunately for Conner, he didn't have to revise at all since he knew this topic off by heart. And he sometimes thought he knew more about fairy tales than the entire school combined. 

Once the teacher had collected the class' papers, she began introducing herself and briefed about this year's English class with her. 

"So," the teacher continued pausing to build up suspense. "We're going to have a writing competition for the first term!" 

No one shared her enthusiasm except for Conner, a girl with dirty blonde hair, and another girl with a purple beanie (and not to mention, lots of bracelets). 

"For the rest of the term," the teacher continued. "You will all have a project of making an original short story. At the end of the term, I will eliminate students from the sixth to eighth grade until we are left with 6 people  to team up in 2's to be competing in the regional writing competition!" 

Again, the rest of the class were bored out of their minds, twirling their pens like anime characters do or just staring at the teacher although blankly; as if they were daydreaming.

"Bree here," Mrs. York gestured to a girl in the front row wearing the purple beanie. "Will be my teacher's assistant for this year and will help me with all the short stories being entered by students alongside our dear Principal," she paused. "Mrs. Peters." 

Conner made to look at the beanie-girl. She was pretty not doubting that. Conner had seen many pretty women in his life but looking at her sent a weird feeling up to his spine. What was it he was feeling?

Mrs. York then proceeded on the topics she planned to discuss that year (which the students thought boring) and a couple of start of term notices. 

By now, no one in the class was listening. Even the Bree girl looked tired, and she started fidgeting and playing with one of her charm bracelets. 

Rubber bands. Conner thought. Do that rubber band trick... 

The school bell rang. The class gave a collective sigh and headed out to get lunch in the cafeteria. Chattering quickly rose as the students rushed to get out of the classroom. 

"Campbell? Bailey? White? Can I please have a word with you?" Mrs. York called through the crowd. 

Conner stayed back sighing. It was the first day of school. The cafeteria was serving pizza only for that day of the school year and he was probably getting detention. Great. 

"What did I do now?" Conner asked at once when the rest of the class left the room. 

"I marked all of your papers for the pop quiz just now," Mrs. York said ignoring Conner's question completely. 

How did she mark the papers that fast? Conner and Bree thought. 

"And what does this mean?" the dirty-blonde hair girl, Britney White said rather impatiently. 

"You guys all got full marks for the test." 

Conner stared at her in shock, Bree looked pleased but kept herself together, and that Britney girl looked not at all surprised. 

"I just wanted to say that I expect that you do well for your short stories. I also expect you to join the Writing Club." Mrs. York each handed them a piece of paper that contained information about the Writing Club. "You have permission to go to lunch now."