- T H E R E J E C T S -

M O N D A Y S S U C K

- Diesel -

I woke up to the blaring of my alarm with the sun beating down on my face through the battered curtains in my room. I groan and throw my hand towards the dresser, hoping to get a lucky swipe at the screeching device. My fist connects with the hard plastic and the box goes flying at the wall, smashing into pieces. Another groan escapes my lips. That was going to get me in a lot of trouble. Pulling my covers back I make my way towards my wardrobe, pulling out a pair of jeans and my camo jacket. Grabbing whatever shirt was closest to the door before making my way to the bathroom for a shower. Freshly dressed and scrubbed I head downstairs. The sound of metal clanking on metal and the smell of oil invade my senses. Dad stood hunched over a car, working on something under the hood. He is in the same position every morning when I walk down for school. All the man does is eat, work, sleep, repeat. Though I am a little sceptical on the whole 'sleeping' thing, he's always awake.

"I'm going to school dad"

Silence. Same as always.

"I'll see you later yeah?"

Nothing.

"Love you too" I mumble as I walk out of the little blue door next to the huge rolling doors of the garage. I grab my bike that was leaning against the wall and make my way down the road. The morning was quiet, with a few birds singing in the trees as I pass. As I make my way uptown the houses start to get bigger and fancier, stone statues lining driveways and big iron gates to stop unwanted guests. Pulling up to the big jail-like gates of the Williamson estate, I unmount my bike and ring their super high-tech doorbell. As soon as Mr Williasons face appears on the screen it's gone again, not without a string of profanities and an "it's he's stupid dirtbag friend again". Richy rides down the drive and joins me on the other side of the gates.

"Your old man's in a good mood this morning"

"Don't even get me started, it's not even 8 o'clock and I've already had the "you need to stop hanging with those useless street rats and find yourself a worthy profession" speech" Richy mimics his father in a posh accent as we ride towards the lower side of town.

Hitting the dirt road we start pedalling faster, wanting to be gone as soon as possible. Here there are three classes, the upper class; where Richy lives, the lower class; where Mustang, Yeehaw and I live, and then there's the lower-lower class, home of one King Jones. The lower-lower class is the kind of people that make their living off drugs and crash in a trailer. In short, King lived in a shithole. Pulling up to the rundown trailer, we waited. Neither of us dared to knock in the fear that it wasn't King who answered. The sound of yelling caught our attention, the door to the trailer slamming open with a heavy breathing King stomping through. A beer bottle flew past him and smashed against the rusting car to our right, us scrambling to get out of there before anything else happened. Richy and I both knew better than to probe at King while he was in a mood, so we rode on in silence. Heading to the centre of town we passed friendly faces, all giving a polite wave but not the time of day to be 'associated' with the three. Rounding a corner we found ourselves face to face with our favourite store. The towns general store, super affordable and the owner is the only adult that tolerates the gang. So naturally, it's our favourite spot. Two figures come into view leaning up against their bikes, the one on the left had a black cowboy hat perched on his head, the one on the right had a guitar case strapped to his backpack. Stopping next to them, I notice the deep blue bruise situated on Mustangs jaw.

"Rough night?" I question.

Mustang rolls his eyes and puts an arm over my shoulders.

"You have no idea"

Kings and I make eye contact and he gives me a look we both know too well. It was gonna be one hell of a week. For all of us. 

_____________________

Parking our bikes out front of the school we made our way inside. Anyone could tell we didn't want to be here from the way we were goofing off. Mustang was up the front prancing around pretending to be on a horse swinging around Yeehaw's hat. Said boy was hot on his trail attempting and failing, to get his hat back. King followed after them head held high and, as usual, completely oblivious to the many eyes placed on him. Richy was walking beside me keeping his head low and freaking out over the two boys up front, he may have been a Reject but the boy was still very disciplined. I wandered along chuckling every now and then when Mustang made a stereotypical cowboy statement ahead of us. The bell went signalling the start of the school day. Yeehaw finally grabbed his hat from the other boy's grip, both getting into a fight over the item. I walked towards my locker while King tried to pry Mustang off the cowering bronco. A teacher eventually came out and personally escorted us to our first period English. All eyes turned to us as we made our way to our seats in the back. On my way up one of the many aisles, my eyes fell onto an unfamiliar face in King's seat. The new boy had sandy coloured hair that fell down past his ears, he sat slouched like he couldn't care less about anything. The class was waiting to see what would happen when our hot-headed leader saw the clueless newbie. King looked the boy up and down before placing a hand on the desk and leaning down to be eye level with him.

"This is my seat"

"I don't see your name on it" Both boys stared at each other for a moment before King let out a sigh.

"This can either go easy or hard, it's up to you" He deadpanned.

"Try. Me" 

King swept his hand across the desk scattering the adolescents' books on the floor. Another intense staredown later the new boy picked up his books and moved before the teacher could intervene. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. The class sighed in disappointment. They don't call new kids chum for the sharks for nothing. Before anything else could happen the teacher started our lesson. 

"Your project for the next few weeks is to write, in groups, a persuasive piece on the social expectations should be dropped. Now you can either agree or disagree it's up to you and your group and keep in mind that this piece will be equal to 50% of your grade. You will be allowed to choose your own groups."

Everyone whooped and hollered. I looked around at my friends and we all had the same idea, all five of us would 'study' at the manor and hand in whatever we felt like completing. Easy.

"However each group will be of six"

Damn it. Mondays suck.

A/N: and there it is folks, chapter one.