Kid in a Locker (REWRITING)

6. Shameless

I had nothing but a minor concussion from the party Saturday, when Carson decided to ram my head against Nick Rainer's fence. The boys were not as lucky.

Romul had a split lip and his knuckles were bruised from punching the guy, but besides that he was okay. His anger was still boiling within him even two days later, when we returned to school that following Monday.

Peter was the one who worried me. He had never been in a serious fight before, besides when we took the self-defense classes with Dad. Those instructors had a little mercy and weren't pumped full of alcohol. Carson pumelled Peter but he still insisted on going to school. He though his black eye, split lip, and two bruised ribs would get him a girl.

I hadn't seen anything about the condition of Carson until I got out of the car. There he was with his other friends, shooting daggers at our car. Nick and Troy were among them but weren't looking at us quiet head on. They glance at us out of the corners of their eyes like they were guilty of something. For what, I don't know. Nick could be reasonable, since it was his house. Troy was a different story.

We walk into school with heads held high, shoulder to shoulder. We pass football players who glare at us and the band kids who gawk at us like we've grown three heads. A few girls I pass look at me like I'm a goddess, praise and gratification lighting their eyes.

"Oh yeah, the girls love me." Peter says as he winks. He couldn't see that they were in fact looking at me but I let him have it.

Chuckling, I ruffle his hair. "Sure they do."

He scowls and fixes back his hair. It didn't look much different than how I had it, except he situates the straight peices so that his brown roots come shining in through the golden hair. His hair has been like this for as long as I can remember, but only recently has he stopped hiding the darker roots and has let them start showing. Without dying them they actually became more noticeable, slowly creeping towards the ends of his hair.

Romul and I made a bet. Romul thought that by the time we graduated college his hair would totally brown, like his own. I didn't think that was the case and challenged him, saying his hair would be brown by the time he graduates. Four years would be plenty long enough for Peter's full transformation to be complete. While he walks across the stage to get his diploma, I'll be walking over to Romul and collecting my fifty bucks.

Soon enough the bell rings and kids usher themselves to their own respective classroom. Romul and I drop Peter off at Chemistry and go to our class.

Mr. Varshavski is sitting at his desk, his glances already perched over his nose as he looks over today's lesson plans. At the sound of us walking in his looks up, clears his throat, and takes his glasses off so that they hang by his chest on a chain. We waves both of us over with a single finger, a neutral expression on his face.

"Yes, sir?" I say. I resituate my bookbag strap on my shoulder as I glance over at my brother. You could tell he got into a fight, but I hope Mr. V wouldn't put two and two together. No one knew who beat up Carson Saturday. The teens there only stated that it was too dark to see, but it looked like the news kids. The new kids, meaning us. This meant that we were also in danger, not only from Carson and his gang of apes, but from the teachers as well. It seemed that every sports player in this school had the teachers under their thumbs, claiming anything and getting away with it.

"You two were the ones who gave Mr. Smith the beating Saturday, were you not?" He folds his hands under his chin and gazes up at us from under droopy eyelids, his face still giving away nothing.

"Sir, we didn't-"

"Nonsense." Romul gets cut off by the old man. He stares at us and with stand with our tongues bitten, unsure of what to do or say. After a few seconds of making us squirm, the guy cracks a smile and stands up to shake our hands. "No one here has the backbone to stand up to those fools. I would say what you did was a job well done."