He She It

two: a slip for homicide

(on the odd occasion that i log back in to read my comments, i usually see at least one new one concerning the comment about muslims made in this chapter. while it was supposed to read sarcastically - lilly is suggesting that thinking all muslims are terrorists is just as stupid as homophobia - i understand that it was not written as well as it could have been, and were i to be writing this now, two and a half years later, i would have refrained from making that comment altogether. just something i wanted to clear up, sorry for any offence caused!) 

For the first time in her sixteen years of life, Lilly was experiencing desperation, and had been for the past three days.

She was so desperate, in fact, that she had taken to trying to recruit twelve years olds to model for her (Lilly, as a general rule, could not stand preteens of any variety, and the only ones she could find that were not entirely bogged down by pre-adolescence awkwardness were proving both insufferable and impressively mean). She'd given up after one girl had whacked her in the thigh with a One Direction bag and then burst into tears when Lilly had threatened to pull her plaits right out of her skull - which, in hindsight, was probably not the best way to deal with a girl with just the right big, blue puppy-eyes to get exactly what she wanted.

It was thanks to those eyes that Lilly found herself sat outside the deputy head-teacher's office when she should have been eating lunch and trying to force Amara to reconsider (apparently, terrorising small children was not a large enough of an offence to warrant a visit to the actual head-teacher, who dealt with the more important things, like drug-use and skirts that were a centimetre too short).

It was also thanks to those eyes, however, that Lilly met Adam Hiller.

He exited Mr Hades' office with an ice-pack held over his left eye and a split lip, which might not have been so surprising if it weren't for the fact that this was a) Adam Hiller, who Lilly knew only as the boy that had stopped their Maths teacher from swatting a bee, and b) Edgley High, which was famed for its zero tolerance approach to all kinds of violence, an approach that was effective if not bordering on extreme. The school had both successfully banned dodge ball a year ago and hired a pacifist student counsellor, who was under the impression that the best way to deal with bullies was to get them to 'write their feelings down on rainbow-coloured paper and then throw them away,' which had, admittedly, stopped them from bullying, but only because Ms Carlson was the type of sweet that gave you a mental diabetic coma.

So naturally, Lilly was curious.

"Hey," she said, and Adam turned to look at her with the eye that wasn't currently under a bag of ice. "What happened to you?"

He sighed and took a seat opposite her, dropping his bag at his feet. "You know Michael Brooks, right? Complete dickhead, built like a brick wall...?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Lilly replied, grimacing slightly. Michael Brooks had been dating her friend Brianna for a few months, now, which was surprising not only because it required him to display some sort of affection towards another human being, but also because he'd publicly announced his preference multiple times for 'sexy, busty blondes that know how to get freak-ay," of which Brianna was none. "What did you do to piss him off? Disagree with genocide, or something?"

Adam snorted. "Worse. I stood up for gay rights."

"What kind of animal are you?" Lilly asked, winking. "Jesus, next you'll be telling me that not all Muslims are terrorists!"

"We'll have that conversation another day," Adam said, nodding towards the office door. "You should probably go in now. Good luck."

"Please, Mr Hades adores me. I don't need any luck," Lilly told him as they both stood up and shouldered their bags. "Try not to get punched again today, yeah?"

"I'll do my best."

And with that, Adam went to seek out painkillers and Lilly fixed a guilty smile on her face, swallowed her pride, and prepared to do a thing that Lilly Martin does not make a habit of doing: apologising, and apologising hard.

***

She'd been wrong. She had needed luck. A lot of it, in fact, because Mr Hades did most certainly not adore her, and seemed intent on demonstrating that. He'd started writing a detention slip the moment she opened her mouth, and nothing she said - not even 'if that hit had been any harder she might have crippled me for life, sir!' - would convince him to throw it away.

"Sorry, Lillian," he'd said, sliding the paper across to her. He'd written: 'unprovoked threats of violence to a member of year seven' under her name. "Lab four, tomorrow lunchtime. Don't worry, you'll be in great company. I've just told Michael Brooks the exact same thing."

"In that case, then, you'll be seeing me again tomorrow," Lilly had said, finally admitting defeat and standing up. "Write me a slip for homicide."

Now, sat across from Michael while they waited for the teacher to arrive, murder seemed a very likely possibility. He'd kicked off the conversation by blaming his current situation on 'that fag, Adam' instead of his lack of anger management skills, and had been getting increasingly offensive ever since. He was just getting started on how Brianna could be a whiny little bitch when the teacher came in.

"Okay, people," she said, dumping a massive pile of books on to the desk and shooting them all looks of varying degrees of disappointment. "You know the rules: there's to be absolutely no talking unless it's a matter of life and death, which is unlikely, and you're all either writing letters of apology or redoing work. Any burning questions, ask me, but no, you cannot go to the toilet."

Lilly was contemplating just how passive-aggressive she could make her apology letter without having to miss another hour of model-recruiting when Michael flicked a bit of gum at her from across the table.

"Hey," he hissed, "did I mention that Adam wears dresses?"