Heather

In order to avoid any unpleasant instructions on her way to school, Tanya popped a pair of earphones in and turned on her iPod. Turning up the volume, she figured at least this way she’d be safe until she got to school. Her plan seemed to work too. As she could see people talking and gesturing towards her but apparently without her hearing what they were saying her curse had no effect. “This is a tiny loophole I’m definitely going to try and exploit” she thought to herself.

Thusly, her trip to school was blissfully uneventful. As she entered the school building, she caught a bunch of curious glances her way, but most students were busy enough getting ready for their classes to pay any real attention to her. However, when she felt someone tapping her on the shoulder she felt her gut sink only to be happily surprised when she turned around to find Heather.

“Oh my god Red! Where were you yesterday? You like totally skipped town.” Heather said hugging Tanya.

Shrugging it off, Tanya replied, “I was here, but I passed out after lunch and missed half the day.” Holding up her hand, she added, “Please don’t ask Heather I really don’t want to talk about it.”

With a concerned look Heather looked like she was about to press further but eventually nodded. “Okay; but what about after school? I thought we were going to meet up like always?”

Shaking her head Tanya answered, “I’m not allowed to talk about after school.”

“Why?”

“Someone asked me not to.” Tanya responded not looking at her friend.

Surprised Heather replied in a disbelieving tone, “Someone asked you not to?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Chambers.” Tanya said still not looking at Heather.

“What the hell were you doing talking to Mr. Chambers? The guys an absolute creep!”

“He asked me to! And can you please just drop it Heather? I really don’t want to talk about it!” Tanya said slamming her locker door closed and spinning to look at her friend, pleading in her eyes.

After a moment, Heather sighed and hugged her friend, “Alright, alright.” She soothed, “I’ll drop it for you.”

Sighing and hugging her back Tanya spoke, “Thank you.”

After a while Heather spoke again, “So if you don’t want to talk about school yesterday can I ask you what happened when you got home?”

The memory of last night brought an easy smile to the Redhead’s face, and this time she gladly told her friend, “I had a date with Mark.”

Shocked, Heather slapped her arm and exclaimed, “Shut Up! I thought you and McDreamy were going out Friday?”

Still smiling, Tanya explained, “That was the plan, but he showed up at my house yesterday concerned that I he’d missed me at school. He asked me if I wanted to start the date early and I said yes. So we went out.”

Tanya proceeded to tell her friend all the juicy details of her night out with her new boyfriend, the end of which had both the girls smiling. Too soon however, the bell rang signaling students to get to their first class. The two said a quick goodbye promising to meet up at lunch, and hurried off to their respective rooms.

So distracted by her conversation with Heather, Tanya forgot to put her earphones in. And as she approached her first class, too late did she notice a group of boys hanging just outside her classroom door waiting for her.