School

James stiffly awoke and pulled himself up from his bed. He had been rolling around in his sleep and the cover and blankets were now all situated on the floor. James got dressed into a black t-shirt, covering it with a black hoodie. He donned grey jeans and socks similarly coloured to his hoodie.

He emerged from his room, yawning and wiping his eyes. He walked into the bathroom and began to brush his teeth, making sure to spend 10 seconds on each tooth. After he had finished that, he began to style his hair. James was tall and fit, his hair was a darker brown styled as a quiff. He had no facial hair and looked younger than he was.

He walked downstairs, deciding to look at his watch to survey the time. It was 8:26

His bus was leaving at 8:30.

James swiftly said goodbye to his mom, forgetting about breakfast entirely. He sprinted through town, apologising even to the people he wasn’t bumping into. He made it to the bus in the nick of time, 8:29 am.

James slowly shuffled his way through the bus, until he eventually came across an asian girl sitting by herself in the window seat. He timidly asked her if he could sit next to her and she responded in a rather uninterested voice, “yes.”

James got a bit of homework he didn’t finish over the weekend done, and by the time he had gotten to school, he had finished his work.

James’s school wasn’t unlike most other public schools in Florida, meaning it was a dirty, shitty school made up of staff who wanted to go home just as much as the children. The children were an absolute joy to be around. They were some of the nicest people in the entirety of America, though the school had a tragic drug abuse problem, meaning every few hours you would be politely offered drugs. With how nice the children were, it was a little hard to decline.

The building itself looked like a hospital. The floors were a horrible yellow that clashed heavily with the beige walls and ceiling. The lights were dim and made a constant buzzing sound. The doors were a depressing grey and their frames a dark green.

James made his way to locker 3942, where he took the books he would need for the next two periods. He walked around the corner and happened upon his two friends, Matthew Greengrov and Joseph Mann, who were both looking for him.

Matthew looked very indian. He had a dark skin tone, though it was not dark enough for him to be considered black. His hair was black with a fringe. He was wearing his usual white v-neck jumper, with jeans similarly couldered to James’. Despite him looking very Indian, he sounded very similar to James, though his voice was slightly deeper.

Joseph was relatively fat. Despite him having an Irish name, he was asian. Well, he was really American, as he was born in America. Though his parents were both purely Asian, he inherited their appearance. He wore black, square glasses, and had a haircut almost identical to Matthew’s.

Most people would fall under the impression that Joseph is just a perverted degenerate, though he was actually a very caring and supportive person. Matthew however, was the complete opposite; being very selfish, sarcastic and cynical.

“Hey James! what's up?” Joseph asked.

“The roof. That’s a bit of a stupid question,” James replied.

“No he meant like, what's up with you. Like, how are you doing?” Matthew explained.

“Oh well uh, I got this new manga! It’s really good,”

“Oh yeah?” Joseph said.

“Yeah, it’s called: Oroka Nani Neko No Onnanoko,” James told the both of them.

“Wait, I think I know that one. Isn’t it porn?” Matthew asked.

There was an awkward moment of silence between the group. But the silence was swiftly broken by Matthew.

“BRO I FUCKING LOVE PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Matthew screamed

“I know right?” James said happily.

“Yeah it’s so awesome,” Joseph stated.

The bell began to ring and the group walked to their first class: homeroom. Their homeroom teacher was an obese woman with black hair tied up in a bun named Ms. Brophy. She had black eyeshadow and seemed to be always vaping, when you walked in there was always a dreadful smell.

She was most of the students' second favourite teacher, as she was always on her phone and didn’t really care what they were doing, and also let them smoke weed in class.

It was a pretty standard homeroom. All the kids smoked while James, Joseph and Matthew tried to hold their breath. They were known for being “the school bullies” because they never accepted drugs when people offered them.

After homeroom was English. The English teacher, named Ms. Kerr, was the nicest teacher in the school. She was very passionate about the subject she taught and wanted to pass down her knowledge onto the longer generation. She was a very gentle woman, in personality and appearance; she had long, fair light-brown hair. Her face was quite slim, with freckles dotted all over it. Because of her, most students had a very high score in English.

The next class was Spanish. Though the teacher didn’t show up, meaning they had a free period. James and his friends advanced to the library as they planned to get started on the homework their English teacher had given them.

As they were walking to their destination, some kid came up to them and offered them some crack. They declined and thought nothing much of it as this was a common occurrence. As they walked off, the kid opened his mouth and screamed:

“YOU KNOW WHAT? I’M SICK OF YOUR SHIT! BEING SO RUDE TO US WHEN WE’RE ALL SO POLITE! I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS YOU SHITS!”

“How about you don’t?” James proposed.

“Uh, wait, sorry? What?” The boy muttered confused.

“Yeah, what about like, you just like, don’t kill us?” Matthew asked.

“Huh?” The boy muttered.

“God you’re dense,” Matthew stated.

“Wait what? No, I… Am going to kill…. You? Why are you like… Huh?”

“Thanks man for not killing us,”

“Yeah thanks dude,”

“Wait what no, I am going to kill you. What are you doing?” The boy announced.

The group readied their fists in anticipation of the upcoming fight, the boy mimicking them.

They stood and looked at each other menacingly, James and his friends occasionally glancing at each other followed by grunting.

“Um wait, are you like?...Gonna hit us or are we going to hit you first?” Matthew asked.

“Oh no, you guys can like…yeah,” the boy responded.

“But we like, don’t really want to,” Matthew continued.

“Oh um…well…”

Anybody who walked by just stared blankly at this odd sight. Nobody moved or said anything for a good 10-or-so minutes.

After a while the bell rang, announcing that it was break time.

“Oh shit no way, it’s break. Well uh, see you around,” the boy said to the group.

“Yeah see you man!” Said Joseph.

The group waved goodbye to the boy and walked off. They began to walk towards the cafeteria, making chit-chat about their hobbies along the way: video games they were playing, things they saw on the internet, anime they watched, the sort.

The cafeteria was somehow even shitter than the rest of the school. Dirt and grime was to be found in every crevice of the room’s walls and floors. The entire room was covered in a grey that made it look not unlike a prison. The food was just as poor as the room’s hygiene levels.

The group waited in line to get their food. There were TVs above the little window where you would grab your food, displaying things such as: what the special of the day was, the new food available, the not-so new food available. Most of the TVs were displaying food items that had been able to be purchased for upwards of 7 years as “new.”

James always tried to avoid looking at the TVs or the food in order to keep his appetite, as a singular viewing of the food available could send any student to the nurses office. Somehow, the TVs made the food look even worse, and to make the situation more awful than it already was, the images were in 180p and looked like they came out of some sort of abstract art piece.

Without even taking a glance, the boys grabbed the food they “wanted.” James got pizza with a cartoon of milk, though nobody in the school was even sure it was milk, as it tasted nothing like milk, looked more like some sort of glop than milk, and on the carton, the word “milk” was surrounded by commas.

Matthew had picked up the exact same thing and Joseph followed.

The group examined the room from afar in an attempt to find a spot to sit. Though as usual, there was no space and they resorted to sitting on the dirty, grimey floor.

They continued to talk about the same topics they were talking about in the hallway: video games they were playing, things they saw on the internet, anime they watched, the sort.

The bell eventually rang and the group temporarily disbanded to go to their classes. James walked to the classroom where, if you were standing exactly where he was standing, you would need to walk straight until the next right, then turn right, turn left at the next left and then turn left one more time to get there.

This was of course: THE GEOGRAPHY CLASS.

Geography was the only class that James dreaded. Geography class was a competition, a competition to see who could survive the longest.

This was because the geography teacher; Mr. Ryan, could never remember anything about the subject he was teaching. So he would end up standing there for the entire class just stuttering and stroking his pathetic attempt at a beard.

It was so boring that the students would have rather a teacher that just taught the subject, as Mr. Ryan didn’t even allow them to talk. It was so boring that students regularly actually died of boredom. It became a challenge, not because geography was difficult, (well it was to them because they knew nothing about it as they were never taught anything about it) but rather because you had to make sure not to die of boredom.

Deaths had become a little less frequent over the years, as the students had adapted, and the freshmans already had heard about Mr. Ryan before they had joined the school so they knew what to expect but, once in a while someone would die. Though the nurses were so used to students dying in this way that they didn’t even bother to check the cause of death every time a corpse was sent down to them, and they usually just instantly threw the body out the window.

The school frequently told the students that in case of an emergency, run to the nurses office and jump out the window, as the pile of bodies would break your fall.

The class was the same as usual and James made it out alive. Moving onto his next class algebra.

There isn’t much to say about algebra. The teacher is a normal teacher with normal rules. She isn’t too strict though would never be considered nice. It’s just a pretty normal class. Algebra happened to be given the nicest classroom in the whole school. There is plenty of natural light and the only electronic whiteboard mounted with a projector in the entire school.

The teacher was just as normal in appearance as she was in personality. She usually wore a long, dark green, robe-like thing, though it was sleeveless, and was a lot tighter than a robe. She usually wore a white leather jacket over it. Her hair was a light brown usually in a bun. She always wore red lipstick and had a narrow face.

***

Break had come once again. The group met back up at the cafeteria, though were so preoccupied with talking to each other, that they had forgotten to give their orders any thought. So when the time came to decide what they wanted, they realised that they would have to look at the food.

This was going to be hard. This would be a challenge. They had to make sure they survived.

The boys braced themselves for the challenge that laid ahead of them. They first did a few mindful exercises and then turned their heads and looked down at the food that stood menacingly in front of them.

And then they realised.

The food really wasn’t as bad as they thought. It actually looked the exact same as it did when they took their meals every break and ate them. They chose out the usual: pizza with a carton of “milk.”

For the first time ever, there was a table free. They didn’t even have to fight 600 guys or run at the speed of light to get it; they just walked over and sat down.

When they inevitably finished their food, they got up to throw the remaining scraps away. After they had finished doing that, they took notice of the fact that nobody was in the cafeteria.

The group walked out of the cafeteria, they had decided that they would go to the computer classroom to dick around on the internet.

But then they saw a very peculiar sight.

James’s school, like many others, was divided into cliches.

There were:

1: The drug-addicted jocks

2: The drug-addicted nerds (who were always telling everyone off for doing drugs, despite the fact they did them themselves)

3: The phone-addicted girls (please note: this book takes place in 2007. They must have found something special in snake)

4: The non-drug-addicted bullies (composed only of James and his friends. They weren't actually mean, they just said no to all the drugs they were offered, which pissed people off.)

The group witnessed all the other groups fighting.

The nerds were using books and the salvia that came out of their mouths whenever they talked to fight the jocks. The jocks didn’t even have to fight them to win. They were heard saying phrases to the nerds such as: “Good story, but in what chapter do you shut up?” and, “You’re so full of shit, you make the toilet jealous,” which was more than enough to send the nerds into tears and make them give up on fighting.

The jocks still kicked and punched them though. They didn’t have to, but it made it more fun for the jocks.

After the jocks had brung down their first opponent, they moved onto their next: the phone-addicted girls.

But they were even easier to bring down than the nerds, as they were too invested in their game of snake to take notice of what was going on around them. They didn’t even try to fight back against the jocks. In fact, they didn’t move at all. So the jocks just kicked them until they died.

Now there was only one more group left to defeat: the non-drug-addicted bullies. (A.K.A James’s group)

But by now, the group had left to go to the computer classroom.

The jocks searched all around the school. Until, they found them.

They bursted to the computer classroom, emitting an intimidating aura. The air was still, the room was quiet, except for the noises coming from the computers. The boys were too preoccupied with their weeb-stuff to notice the jocks.

The jocks knew this fight was going to be as easy as the rest.

They walked over to the group, raised their fist and-

“FUCK OFF WE’RE WATCHING ANIME YOU DICK!” the boys collectively screeched as they punched all the jocks in their neck, causing them to fall unconscious. They didn’t even bother to look at who they just beat up and just stared at their computer screen, as they cared a lot more about the anime they were watching than what dude they just punched.

Without even knowing it, the group had won: THE GREAT BATTLE OF A BUNCH OF TEENAGERS WHO DECIDED TO BEAT EACH OTHER UP TO PAD OUT THE RUN TIME OF THE BOOK AND OH SHIT THE AUTHOR HAS TO COME UP WITH A REASON TO JUSTIFY THIS SEGMENT UH… THE JOCKS LIKED WEED AND EVERYONE ELSE DIDN’T I GUESS?

Break had come to an end and the bell rang, announcing the next class. Which conveniently, was computer class.

The computer teacher: Mr. Korn, was by far the student's favourite teacher; as he never taught them anything about computers themselves, but rather all about video games. He was a professional esports player and taught them everything they needed to know about games such as: Counter Strike: source, Team Fortress 2, ect.

Sometimes he would show off his skills to the class. He was the best video game player anyone had ever seen.

He didn’t look anything like an esports player though. He had grey hair and was balding. He had a few wrinkles, though not enough to make someone think he was old. He wore black, square glasses and usually wore a striped blue polo neck with light-blue jeans.

All the teachers also loved him. As he always made the tests himself and corrected them himself. They were always obviously about video games and, not only because the students were enthusiastic about gaming, but also because he was very good at teaching them about video games, the students always scored very highly.

They actually scored the highest in computers in the entirety of America, winning the school multiple awards in computer science.

While they were in the class, James asked one of the nerds why they were fighting. The nerd explained that there was a disagreement between the nerds and the jocks about if crack or cocaine was better. The jocks got kind of pissed and after they were finished with the nerds, decided to beat up everyone else for the fun of it.

After computer class was home time. James and his friends packed up and, since they weren't a part of any after-school clubs or anything, went home.

The walk home was nicer than usual. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and there was not a single cloud in the sky.

The group was uplifted.