Ashley on the other hand…

“This is fucking ridiculous.”

… is a bucket full of sunshine.

                In front of me, I hear someone clear their throat and I look to see Carlin staring with a mordant look on her face. Right eyebrow arched and the corner of her mouth pulled up in a hesitant smirk. Good cheer girl is all hot and bothered by something, and when I look back at the weird girl, Rachel, I realize why.

 I was still holding her hand.

As if her exceptionally pale skin was made of fire hot coal, I drop it as if I had been burned. Rachel only looked at me with a blank face and shrugged turning to look back straight ahead and again her leg is bouncing up and down. My face deepens another shade. I hang my head and become unnaturally focused on my hands.

“Ms. Woods and Mr. Dennison, both of you.” Principal Donnie Fish gestured for Aiden and Kyla to be first on the chopping block as they were the first to start the hall running fiasco.

Ashley leans close to me and whispers with a sneer, “Poor bastards.”

Little Donnie Fish, our fearless leader and principal, had ears like Dumbo and was able to pick up a noise five miles away. If you were having too much fun, he heard it. If you were skipping class, he heard it. If you disrespected a teacher by looking at him the wrong way, he…uh, somehow heard that too. Call it a freaky sixth sense, and this time he heard Ashley too.

“And you.” Fish was still at the door when he snapped his fingers at the both of us and we brought ourselves to attention. “Don’t talk.”His voice came out as a sinister hiss that made Aiden and Kyla go through the door double time, and Fish closed it shut with an abrupt click.

Ashley let out a disgusted sigh, “He’s a fussy little woman, isn’t he?” Again, I heard that weird uninhibited giggling reserved for the clinically insane and people stoned out of their skull, otherwise known as Rachel.

I smiled at how funny it sounded in spite of myself.

“Oh God, would you stop that.” Carlin looked agitated and shown with how she said it, short and abrupt with a harsh tone that made Rachel quit.