The Way I Am

2. The One With the Smart-Mouth

"I want to congratulate you for being on time," Vernon expressed before Claire cut him off by raising her hand up.

"Excuse me, Sir. I think there's been a mistake. I know is detention, but I don't think I belong in here," she explained, making Mara roll her eyes. Mara and the rest of the school knew that the princess had a bad habit of skipping school to go shopping. It wasn't the first time she's done it, but it was the first time the principal had caught her.

Vernon ignored Claire's words completely by looking at his watch. "It's now 7:06. You have exactly eight hours and fifty four minutes to think about why you are here to ponder the air of your ways," Vernon explained, and at that precise moment John was distracting Mara by his actions that clearly repulsed Claire. Mara found it funny, and while she kept observing the bad boy sitting in front of her, Vernon words became a blur up to the point where he removed a chair from Bender's feet. That single action let Mara wake up from daydreaming.

"Alright people we are going to try something different today," he expressed, holding a few papers on his hands.

As he walked around, giving the students a blank paper and a pencil, he said, "We are going to write an essay of no less than a thousand words, describing to me who do you think you are."

"Is this a test?" John Bender asked. Vernon ignored him as well and kept talking. "And when I say essay, I mean essay."

John put his feet on top of his table, surely getting comfortable and not caring that Vernon was giving instructions. Mara kept observing him and she couldn't hold the small laugh that escaped her lips at his actions. She found herself smitten by the bad boy, because somehow they had something in common. Sometimes, they had problems with authority.

She already knew who she was. She was Mara Sanders and she was a young girl who preferred to help her mother serve dinner at her job than to spend a Saturday morning and afternoon at the library. She was a girl that loved to paint and listen to her favorite rock and roll tunes. She was a girl who couldn't hold her opinions to herself. She blurted out whatever she thought without caring about the repercussions of her actions, which led her to be in detention.

She knew her mother disapproved of her behavior, and Mara tried to change, but sometimes change was inevitable. She was who she was, but it didn't mean that she didn't need to learn there was a time and place for everything.

"I do not mean a single word repeated a thousand times. Is that clear Mr. Bender?" the principal asked, looking at John whose only response was, "Crystal."

"Good, if you learn a little something about yourself, maybe you will decide whether or not your care to return," the principal expressed, looking at the students.

"I doubt it!" Mara blurted out, getting the attention of all her detention classmates. When Vernon was about to say something to her, he was interrupted by the nerd kid who stood up from his chair.

"You know I can answer that right now, sir. That will be a no for me, because..." Vernon caught him off by saying, "Sit down, Johnson."

"Thank you, Sir," Johnson replied, sitting down. Mara nodded her head and smiled at herself, because the nerd kid had some guts in him to speak his mind even if it sounded like he was trying to get on Vernon's good graces.

"My office is across that hall. Any monkey business is ill advice, any questions?" Vernon asked. When he was about to exit the library, John decided to speak.

"Yeah, I got a question," Bender said, stopping the principal from walking back to his office.

"Does Barry Manilow know you raided his wardrobe?" he asked, making Mara and some of the others laugh.

"I'll give you the answer to that question next Saturday," Vernon said. Richard Vernon was an uptight man, and Mara as well as others in the school knew this.

"Oh come on man, it's a good suit, for an old guy I mean," Mara said, making the kids laugh. John turned around and stared at her as he smirked. Before he turned his face to the front where Vernon stood, Bender winked at her, making her nod in acceptance.

"Well I guess you wouldn't mind sharing your opinions with Bender next Saturday as well," Vernon said, pointing towards Mara, who only rolled her eyes and cursed inside her head, while she thought about missing another Saturday with her mom working at the diner.

"Don't mess with the bull or you will get the horns," the principal demanded, looking at the rebels in the room. After he said those final words, he left.

"That man is a brownie hound," John tilted, pointing towards Principal Vernon. After a few minutes of silence, everyone turned their stares at Allison who was cutting her nails with her teeth very loudly. She stared back at the kids looking at her and stopped, but soon continued her action.

"If you keep eating your hand, you are not going to be hungry for lunch," Bender said to Allison who stared at him before she spit one of her nails towards his direction, missing the hit.

"I've seen you before, you know," John said, ignoring Allison's attempt to spit her nails on him.

Mara suddenly turned her attention to Johnson who was mumbling different things while he stuck a pen in his lips. Pretending to be a walrus, and asking the same questions Vernon wanted them to answer in their essays, Johnson got the attention of the rest of the students. Mara laughed and shook her head, thinking maybe that Saturday wasn't going to be so bad after all.