Heartbreaker In Disguise

Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

"WHAT ARE WE DOING, THEN?" David asked, staring at the blank poster in front of us.

It was Thursday, two days after having been caught cheating. We were forced to do the poster, as the teacher had explained. The idea was to do a creative welcoming post for the entrance of the school. Unfortunately, neither of us were good at arts and crafts.

At all.

I was making little balls with the drying glue I had irrigated all over my hands. I had tried to wash it off, but there were still some remains on them. All we had was colored paper, markers, posters, scissors, tape, orange paint, and, well, glue. I stared down at our materials and tried to come up with something great, but, nothing came to mind.

As always.

It was an after school activity. We would start detention the next week, but we had to stay until late to do the poster. The sooner we finished, the better. The teacher had just told us to make a good poster that welcomed people into the school. Maybe add a quote too if we liked. It shouldn't be too hard, really. It seemed like they assigned it to us just because they needed to get it done and thought punishment as a good excuse to get someone to do it.

"Why don't we just write welcome and leave it like that?" David suggested, raising his eyebrows and looking sideways at me. We were both standing in front of the blank space where the poster was supposed to go.

"That seems like a good idea." I muttered lowly.

~~~

It was awful.

Orange paint dripped from the bulky letters, covering the borders. I traced the black lines with a piece of toilet paper to make sure the orange didn't cover them. I stepped back after finishing and narrowed my eyes at it. It read welcome and we had left a wide space beneath it to add a quote of our choice, that would obviously have to have something to do with education or some bullshit of the sort, David was looking for one in the meanwhile.

"Here's one." He called out "'Education is the movement from darkness to light.'" he read.

I shook my head, it didn't really call my attention. It seemed too simple, it didn't seem like something one would see upon entering the school for the first time. It didn't 'inspire' me. I put my thumb against my lower lip and tried to think of anything else we could do to the poster for it to not be so crappy.

"What about this one?" He said "'A child without education is like a bird without wings'"

"Meh." I muttered simply. It didn't seem like the one either.

"Okay, I'll keep looking."

I started picking up the materials we were given in a green plastic box speckled with differently colored paint. David sat on the floor against the opposite wall while scrolling on his cellphone, thin lips pursed and brows furrowed. He looked better than the other day; he looked rested. That must have been because he had probably been awake until late the day before the test. Which made me feel even worse for getting us caught.

"This one's good. 'Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world'," he read, "by Nelson Mandela."

I narrowed my eyes and turned from looking at him to look at the poster. I liked it, I thought it could fit and it was better than the ones he's read before. I nodded and smiled.

"That's the one." I said enthusiastically.

He gave me a side smile and stood up, approaching the poster. He zoomed into the picture on his screen and made me a silent question whether he should write it on the poster or I did while pointing at the empty space. I'd already seen his handwriting and it definitely wasn't pretty, so the decision was already made. I took a black marker from the pile and kneeled in front of the poster, laying on the floor. I started writing down the words slowly, making sure I didn't make any mistakes or had an ugly handwriting.

I put the apostrophes at both sides of the sentence, wrote Mandela's name at the bottom and was finally done. I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding and looked at the finished work.

"It's pretty good to have been done in an hour." David stated, tilting his head to take a better look at the poster.

"Yeah." I agreed "You're actually right."

It might not have been pretty or good, to begin with, but it was okay. We had done a relatively good job for such a short time. The corrections I had done get on the borders had definitely fixed it a little. The quote made it look a lot more elaborate and the orange paint was easy to catch the eye, it was okay. The only problem in that moment was that we couldn't leave until five o' clock and it was just a quarter until four.

We finished picking up the materials and hanging the poster on the space we were told. Some more disasters (that ended up with my hair being stuck to a chunk of tape and it being almost impossible to pull out) took place while doing so, but we were finally finished. We were then supposed to go to the art room and leave the materials there.

I picked up the heavy box and frowned while doing so. David offered to help, but I said it was okay, I could handle it. The art classroom wasn't too far away, anyway, it was actually really close.

"Have you studied for the test on Monday?" He asked after multiple seconds of silence.

"Have you?" I asked instead.

"Yeah, I've revised a little. Mostly just reading."

I nodded in silence, not sure what to say. I was beginning to feel the awkwardness rising.

"Do you want me to help you study a bit?" He raised his eyebrows and looked at me with a questionary stare.

"Really? You'd do that?" I realized it came out too excited and looked up at him in awe. He wasn't much taller than I was, just a couple of inches.

"Yeah, sure." He said nodding slightly "It's really no problem at all."

I smiled at him gratefully. The truth was that I really needed some help. I had been very lucky given Mr. Evans had given us another chance to do the test, but I had to take advantage of it.

I had to admit, I didn't know how to study. When I did I just read and thought I was prepared. On exams I'd have to be helped by my friends who would quiz me often and I'd pass with an okay grade. The only way I passed the school year was through the homework I exchanged and the exams I was helped with.

"Want to go to the library then?" He asked.

"Oh, what? You mean now?" I asked in awe.

"Well, yeah. We still have some time to stay in school. We have around an hour."

We entered the arts classroom and I left the box on the table roughly, all the materials in it moving and hitting each other. I sighed and started exiting the classroom; David had stayed outside. I locked the door from the inside, as I was instructed, and then closed it from the other side.

"I mean, isn't it too soon or something?" I said as a lazy excuse.

I was tired of school, waking up early was tiring enough itself, all I could think about in that moment was throwing myself on a soft surface and drifting into sleep. The thought of studying for another hour just made me cringe.

"We're lucky enough Mr. Evans gave us a second chance, most would just give us an F. We have to get a C if we don't want our grades to lower too much." He explained.

As if mine could get any lower, I retorted internally.

I groaned, giving up to his suggestion.

"Ugh, fine."