Three in the Morning (very slow updates)

four

I stare up at the clock. 4:10pm. Only ten more minutes to go of this torture. Groaning silently, I slouch onto the table, trying to fall asleep. As soon as I let my head droop though, I feel a jab in my side and I look up to see that Essie is trying to get my attention. I give her an unimpressed look before she passes me a note.

Herr Brown was picking his nose and he ate it omg

I try to suppress my laughter, but it is unsuccessful as Herr Brown glances up from the essay he's marking and sees my hand clasped over my mouth, my crinkled eyes and red face.

"Casey Morrison, detention is not the time to be laughing with your friends. One more squeak out of you and you'll be seeing me again after school."

When he looks back down, I roll my eyes at Essie and go back to trying to sleep. I still don't understand why I have to stay in the detention any longer, seeing as all I've had to do is write a one hundred word piece of text in German about holidays, and it only takes about ten minutes to write some bullshit about how I went to Italy and ate pizza and visited museums. It isn't as if I enjoy writing out paragraphs in German, but I'd rather have piles of work to do than have to stare into space for fifty minutes until the detention ends.

I don't even know why I have a detention. In fact, I swear Herr Brown just hates Essie and me for no reason, seeing as we got a detention for talking when he told us to be quiet during our last German lesson, when other people have gotten away with doing no work and talking all the way through his lessons while flicking their hair at him because they think he's cute.

He isn't cute. He's probably about forty, if you ask me. It's one of the reasons why I dislike most people in my year, seeing as they all appear to have crushes on a man over twice their age.

After ten more minutes of utmost torture, we're finally let out of the detention. Essie and I walk together into the deserted corridors of our school, with only the cleaners for company.

"I haven't actually told my parents that we have a detention yet," I murmur, paranoid that Herr Brown is going to appear behind us and eavesdrop on our conversation (which has actually happened before, and believe me, it is not fun when a teacher overhears you making comments about their nose-picking habit).

"Aren't you still giving your dad the silent treatment anyway?" Essie points out.

"Not really. My mum made me and him go shopping together, and it's hard to communicate about how you need to buy stuff for Food Tech when you're giving someone the silent treatment, so I gave up." I shrug. "He and my mum are probably going to kill me for coming home an hour late, but I don't really care."

"Casey the rebel," Essie teases. "God, I hate Herr Brown."

"I really don't understand how people like him," I complain. "He picks his nose and makes rude comments about my German ability. It's not my fault the school forced us to take a foreign language for GCSE and I'm even more pathetic at French than I am at German."

"I'm considering dropping German and switching to French just because of Herr Brown. He's such a dick."

We turn a corner, and in my peripheral vision, I think I see Dan leaving a classroom a few metres down the corridor, rucksack hauled over his back and walking towards the other school exit.

I blink a few times and it really is Dan. He must have had a detention as well today. Judging by the hard expression on his face, he looks like he would rather be left alone, so I turn back around and don't bother approaching him. He doesn't see me anyway, so I carry on conversing with Essie and forget I ever saw him. I dislike social interaction, and would prefer to avoid talking to every acquaintance I see.