Commando Joe

Chapter 4

It's now Saturday, I've been invited to go swimming with Sarah and all of her friends. Some of them I don't know others I do. I wasn't going to go and make up an excuse like always, but it was either go swimming or go with dad to B&Q and I'd rather go swimming.

When I get there, I see them all talking outside the sports center. By the looks of it she's invited Abbey, Saidie, Tessa and some boys that I recognize from my classes, and of course she invited Alex. Sarah has had a crush on him since year nine but would not admit it until he broke up with Mia. He's got a nice smile but acts like every other boy at our school. A roadman.

"Hurry up slow coach you're the last one" shouts Sarah, then everyone starts laughing at the comment. I know they're not laughing at me in a mean way but it still makes me feel uncomfortable. There is one girl there I don't recognize. She looks a little younger than us maybe she's in year nine, I can't really tell though. She's wearing black mum jeans and a black nirvana top with a checkered black and grey shirt. She doesn't really fit in the rest of the people that are here because all the girls are wearing crop tops and Nike pro shorts. Its literally April and freezing. I couldn't be bothered dressing up so I'm just wearing grey jogging bottoms and a black hoodie.

"Sorry I'm late" I say. I look over at the girl wearing the nirvana t-shirt. "who's that" I ask Sarah. "oh, that's Fins younger sister Olivia, I said she could come because if not Fin wouldn't be able to". "does she go to our school?" I ask. "yes, she just in year nine". To say she's one year younger she's taller than most of the girls here including me.

Then I realize Sam's here oh god! He comes up to me putting his arm around my shoulder. I don't like him because he had something to do with the bullying of my brother last year. My brother won't admit it was him but I can tell it was. "Yo Jess I haven't seen you in ages". "well you moved schools so that's probably why" I hate talking. "yeah I'm glad I got out of that school innit" he says. Why when boys talk why can't they make a sentence without saying yo, mate, innit or bruv. He didn't exactly move schools he got excluded permanently for starting way too many fights.

I push his arm of me and go over to Olivia. "hi" I say. Olivia turns around "hi are you Jess?"

"yes, I heard your Fins sister". "yes, but I promise you I'm nothing like him aha". "okay good because Fins horrible" I say laughing. "I heard you was doing math's tutoring to help out people at school" she says. "oh yeah, I am only doing it because Miss Jones thinks I would be a great tutor". "are you tutoring anyone at the moment?". "nope". "would you be able to tutor me I'm shocking at math and Miss Jones keeps complaining that if I don't improve I won't get anywhere in life". "yes course, I can" I say before we go into the changing room.

I'm apparently the best in my year at math's, I don't mind math's but it's still really boring. I mostly offered to be a tutor because Miss Jones pressured me into it. Teachers are good at that sort of thing, pressuring you into doing stuff to help them.

I get changed and then wait for everyone outside the changing rooms. Most of the girls are wearing bikinis but I'm just wearing a black swimming costume. I feel quite lonely even though I'm with 12 other people. Everyone starts walking through the door into the swimming pool. Then I see Olivia and wave, she sees me "have your heard of this app called commando joe?" I ask. I know I've already found out some stuff about it but I'm still interested. It's like me when I watch a TV series I get obsessed and watch it nearly every day for the next 4 weeks I then get bored and start watching another series and the same thing happens.

"I have, I don't have the app but my friend Shelby has it. It's really weird because she has been acting so strange since she got it" says Olivia. "What do you mean by acting strange?" I ask. "well yesterday we were crossing the road and she said she had to run across and without looking, she ran right in front of a car and it had to do an emergency stop. I asked her if she had a death wish but she just smiled and said she now has 30k followers. I'm honestly scared for her as I have no clue what she will do next" Olivia said. I was right Commando Joe is dangerous. "That's not good. whoever invented the app is a psychopath" I say. Whoever invented this app definitely is up to something, but who would do such a thing? and how would I find out who made the app. They could live miles away. They might even be from a different country.

I try to put it to the back of my mind, I'm supposed to be having fun. Which I'm not. I try to talk to Sarah but she's purposely ignoring me. She's starting to get on my nerves. "Why are you ignoring me?" I ask Sarah. "what do you mean, I'm not I'm just busy Jess, not everything is to do with you". What is her problem, I haven't done anything to annoy her, "I'm only trying to talk to you and if you didn't want me to be around then why did you invite me? I would so rather be at home than here with all your fake friends!" I shouldn't have said that because now everyone's looking at me, including Sarah she has a scowl on her face "go home then if you really want to. I haven't done anything wrong so I don't know why your acting like this". I get out the swimming pool and storm off. I don't turn around I don't want them to see I'm crying. I guess they probably wouldn't be able to tell because I'm wet from being in the cold water.

I call my dad. "dad can you pick me up" "yes sweetheart I'll be ten minutes", "that's fine thank you". I put the phone down and get changed wiping the tears from my face. Why every time I'm with someone I make them hate me? Is there something wrong with me?

I see my dad pulling up in his car outside and I quickly get in. I have puffy eyes from crying so I know my dad will be able to tell I've been crying. "Jess what happened?" he asks, "I'm fine, can we just go home?" He looks at me, sighs then drives us home. My dad knows I won't tell him why I'm upset so he doesn't ask again. I'm not good at hiding my emotions, I'm a bit like an open book. A book, which has an unexpected twist at the end. I seem lost and just another boring story nobody can be bothered reading, but then in the end I'm a trapped playful child stuck inside the body of a pessimistic teenager. I didn't always used to be so...dull, I'm pretty sure at one point I loved school. I had lots of friends in primary school. I was still quiet but I still found it easy to make friends. But because my parents split up when I was leaving primary school and my dad moved to the other side of town I ended up going to a different high school that none of my friends were going to.

I get home and go up to my bedroom "don't you want anything to eat? Its 12:55." My dad calls from downstairs. I turn around to face him on the stairs "I'm not very hungry but I'll have a slice of toast". "okay darling I'll call you down when its ready". I nod at him and walk into my bedroom. My bedroom is right next to the stairs. It's not the largest bedroom in the house but it's still pretty big. My bed is next to the window on the right. I have white walls and a grey carpet that has a black and white striped rug on it. I say my walls are white, you wouldn't be able to tell because of all of the posters on my wall. Most of them are movie posters or pictures of my friends. Some of them are pictures of my artwork. I've always liked how I put up posters mostly because the wall is how I see myself. In the corner, next to my wardrobe sits my guitar and piano. I'm better at piano but I can play a few songs on the guitar. On the wall where my door is, is a desk but I also use it as a dressing table. My bedroom is never tidy. My tidy is another person's messy.

I launch myself on to my bed and pull my phone out of my pocket. No new messages I throw my phone onto the bed and sigh. Dad calls me my toast is ready. I go and get it and bring it back to my room. I'm still not really hungry, I pick at it before throwing it away and then falling asleep on my bed.