Guarding the Angel

Chapter 2

As I feared, staying awake during the school day proves impossible. Despite repeatedly prodding my wrists with my sharpened pencil and physically trying to pry my eyes open with my fingers, I doze off every few minutes. On the bright side, my first class of the day goes by faster than ever before --- mostly because I was out for at least a third of it. 

"Harimanne, please stay after class for a minute," Ms. Jenkins says disapprovingly when the bell rings ending her class.

I sigh and pack up my bag before heading over to her desk. "What's the matter?" I ask.

"As of late, it seems that you are not paying attention in my classes. I let it slide when all you were doing was doodling or staring out the window, but today you crossed the line. If my class is so boring to you that sleeping is a better use of your time, I think it's time you re-evaluated your outlook," Ms. Jenkins explains.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Since when has staring out the window been cause for concern? As for doodling, I actually don't bother with it. I'm not great at drawing and would prefer to write bad poetry instead of squiggling lines. "I'm sorry. I stayed up too late yesterday. It won't happen again." As long as that weird winged guy pulls himself together, that is. 

"I wish I could believe you," Ms. Jenkins says in an overly cheery voice, "However, you have done nothing to make your promises hold any merit for me. To make sure this lesson sticks, I am giving you detention during lunch. For the next week, you are to eat isolated in the school's administrative office rather than in the lunchroom with your peers."

For a moment, I can't quite believe what I'm hearing. I get to eat ltunch away from my peers? Somewhere I can eat all by myself? "Can you repeat that?" I ask.

Ms. Jenkins gives me a glare. "You heard clearly enough the first time. Now, be quiet unless you want the sentence to become two weeks."

This is the best news I've heard in a long time. The lunchroom at our school is over-crowded. You're lucky to even find a place to set your food down, much less a chair to sit in. Then, you are stuck eating with a bunch of barbarians. For a private school like ours, one would think that manners would be important. The one thinking that would be dead wrong. On the good days, slurping of noodles and ketchup getting splattered everywhere is the worst of it. On the bad days, it's best not to look at the people sticking green beans up their noses.

"Thank you," I say genuinely to Ms. Jenkins.

She takes my statement as sarcasm and lengthens my sentence to three weeks. If only I'd slept through her class long ago. For the first time, I feel appreciation towards the guy from yesterday. All through the rest of my classes, I'm in a great mood. I slept enough during my first class that I can stay awake and the burden of navigating the lunch room for the next month has been removed from my shoulders. 

I'm in such a good mood that I even participate in Mr. Rhalone's Religious Theology class. Usually, I make faces at the content and get kicked out. He, however, doesn't believe in detention. On school days, I don't work at the cardboard box making plant, so I head straight home. I hum to myself a little bit.

As soon as I enter my house, all of my energy and good vibes die. The entire kitchen is completely coated in flour. No, this is not because our pet cat got bored. Actually, our pet cat died four years ago. This is not because one of my siblings accidentally bumped the bag off of the cupboard shelf while reaching for cereal sugar. I glare at the culprit standing in the middle of the room. He's covered from head to toe in white. "What have you done to my kitchen?" I demand, crossing my arms.

The guy I have regretted rescuing many times over turns to look at me. If I was not about to get in a ton of trouble, the way the flour clung to his face like medieval face powder might have been funny. Maybe even funny enough to spare him from my wrath. Under other circumstances, I may have thought the way the flour puffed out around him with every movement was befitting. 

However, the circumstances are as they are. "What do you think you are doing?" I shout and then run straight for him.