2.3 | Notorious ✓

02 | treacherous

0 2

t r e a c h e r o u s

  

The hours passed at an excruciatingly slow pace that day, each minute seemed to take an eternity. All of that day, I heard, felt, the unsettling hush in the hallway, the classrooms, the cafeteria. It was a silence you never got comfortable with; the tension ate at me with a vengeance. I could hardly wait for it all to be over.

But it wasn't. It was already Day Three, and yet, the worst was yet to come. I continued to watch, helplessly, as Jason and the others committed offence after offence against the guys from the popular crowd.

Gregory Simons wasn't the only one who was dumped into the trash can that day. He was just the first of many. And as I watched each popular kid being thrashed, then bundled up, then dumped into their respective bins, the fear in me escalated, grew until it became almost overwhelming.

I wasn't just worried for Callum - whom I hoped was going to be safe after getting my note. It was Jason and Dave and my other friends I was worried for, terrified for. Because Hell Week lasted for only a week. A terrible week, but still a week, seven days.

The thought of what was going to happen after those seven days scared me half to death - when my friends no longer ruled the school and terrorised everyone in their path, when things were back to status quo.

Who knew what was going to happen us then?

  

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Class for me ended at four that afternoon, a full hour after Jason and Dave ended. One of my other friends, Henry, took the same class as me, and we headed out of the classroom at a more leisurely pace since we hadn't anymore lessons after that.

It was safe to say I was pretty much 'one of the boys'. Apart from a few other acquaintances I had made in school, I barely knew any other girls. Molly was the closest thing I had to a girl-friend. After befriending Jason at the beginning of high school, I got to know his other friends, all of whom were guys.

Not that I had a problem with that, either. People always said that guys were much easier to handle - less emotions, less backstabbing, more trustworthy. They were right, for the most part. Hell Week had made me realise how hell-bent on revenge guys could actually be.

"What's gotten you so happy?" I asked, curiously, when Henry began chuckling at a text he'd seen on his phone.

Draping a casual arm over my shoulder, he showed me the text. "Check this out," he laughed, "They got him good. Too bad I couldn't be a part of it because of Algebra."

I glanced at his cell, and froze when I saw the words:

Took us a long time, but we got him anyway.

- Jason

Below that was a picture of a boy sprawled on the gravel road - a rather blurred picture - but the familiar mop of dark hair was distinct enough for me to recognise exactly who it was.