It was ten past nine when I finally got to school, so I ran FULL PELT through the door and along the corridor to my tutor group, almost crashing into a FRIGHTENED-LOOKING DINNER LADY on the way past.
Unfortunately, Lukas isn’t in my form, so I didn’t get to see him at registration, but I thought I better show up in case Mr Rogers noticed anything suspicious was going on and reported me to SOCIAL SERVICES.
Mr Rogers didn’t even seem to notice my late entrance as I sat down just as he had started to call out the names on the register. Once I was firmly settled in my chair, I checked my timetable. It was going to be a VERY LONG DAY.
Double maths and double history. I couldn’t believe it. What a total SNOOZEFEST. And I had so many more important things to be doing like FINDING MY MUM.
To make matters even worse, if they could get ANY WORSE at this point, I didn’t have any lessons with Lukas that day, so I wouldn’t get to see him until break time at the very earliest. This really was a TOTAL CATASTROPHE.
I hoped I wouldn’t run into Neil before then. That was the last thing I needed on a day like today. Neil was a VICIOUS, BIGHEADED NINCOMPOOP and he always got away with everything as he had the teachers WRAPPED ROUND HIS LITTLE FINGER. Anyway, more on that later.
The rest of registration was quite boring and not vital to the story so let’s get on with it.
I was finally able to track down Lukas at morning break. Double maths had seemed like FOREVER and an ENTIRE ETERNITY. I managed not to get into too much trouble by copying most of Ben’s answers. I just didn’t have time for maths today and Ben, who sits next to me, is really brainy, and doesn’t mind a bit of well-meant PLAGIARISM (copying), now and again.
We only had ten minutes at break time, so I tried to be as CONCISE and TO THE POINT as possible. Unfortunately, Lukas didn’t seem to get the message and wanted to know how my day was going so far and where I had been that morning before school.
It was nice that he seemed so concerned but that is what I had been trying to tell him if he’d let me GET A WORD IN EDGEWAYS. Trust Lukas to choose a time like this to become a TOTAL CHATTERBOX.
Given what had happened at football on Saturday, I had half thought he would have been too busy with his NEW FRIEND NORA to worry about me. And I still hadn’t had a chance to find out what was going on there.
All I knew was that if I wanted Lukas to help me now, it probably wasn’t the best time to raise the subject of him REPLACING ME with SOMEONE ELSE. I needed to swallow my pride and press pause on the WAVE OF JEALOUSY I felt when I imagined Lukas and Nora spending loads of time together without me knowing.
We had already wasted APPROXIMATELY FIVE MINUTES of our TEN-MINUTE break time, so I tried to steer the conversation back to the matter at hand ASAP (as soon as possible). Lukas had just started talking about what had happened in his lessons so far that morning when my impatience got the better of me.
‘Lukas, can I come to yours after school?’ I interrupted. ‘It’s very important.’
‘Err, I think that should be OK,’ said Lukas, looking puzzled by my sudden outburst. ‘Why? What’s up?’
‘It’s Mum. She’s missing. She wasn’t at home this morning when I got up for school and I think something terrible might have happened to her.’
At that moment, the bell started ringing so I told Lukas I’d have to FILL HIM IN LATER and without waiting for his response headed off to my next lesson.
It goes without saying that double history was pretty dull, so let’s skip that bit of the day and get on with the rest of the story.
I sat and ate my lunch ALONE, as Lukas has football practice at lunchtimes, so I wouldn’t get to see him until the end of the day. I kept checking my phone nervously but there were NO UPDATES from anyone. The lifeless blank screen stared up at me.
In the afternoon I had PE. Regrettably, I am not the ‘athletic type’ and spent most of the lesson narrowly avoiding being hit on the head with a giant basketball by Neil.
Unfortunately, Neil is not EXTREMELY UNATTRACTIVE like a school bully is meant to be, but DISARMINGLY HANDSOME which means he gets away with MURDER, or in this case GBH (grievous bodily harm). All I can say is that looks can be deceptive and behind the face of an angel lies a COLD HEART OF STONE.
None of the teachers seemed to notice the SIGNIFICANT DANGER I was in and just carried on shouting at me to ‘GET ON WITH IT’, whilst Neil smiled and looked innocent and continued to TAUNT ME MERCILESSLY.
‘Oi, Loser!’ he shouted, throwing the ball in a rather AGGRESSIVE FASHION in the general direction of my head.
I survived by spending most of the lesson playing dodgeball, when in actual fact this was a BASKETBALL GAME. Needless to say, my dodging skills are SECOND TO NONE. I’ve had a lot of time to practice.
Harry had taken pity on me and passed me the ball and I was bouncing my way down the court like a young Lebron James when Neil stuck out his foot and I went flying into the ground.
Still the teachers did nothing, and I was forced to literally pick myself up off the ground and GET ON WITH IT. Luckily, I survived the rest of the lesson without any further injury. I even managed to avoid having my head dunked in the toilet in the changing room as Neil has a VERY SHORT ATTENTION SPAN and had already moved on to his NEXT VICTIM.
I wished momentarily that I was more like my best friend, and brave enough to step in and help, as his new target was Tiny Tim who is unfortunately a bit challenged in the height department, but school was FINALLY OVER and I had to go and find Lukas.
‘Good luck,’ I shouted to Tim, as I quickly made my escape before Neil could change his mind and start ANTAGONISING (picking on) me again.