Heart | N.H.

eight - friends

"You look like a raccoon," Niall told me first thing when I opened the door Monday morning.

I glared at him. "Thanks. I was trying to do my eyeliner for today."

"Well, could you hurry up? Unless you want to be late and get more detention."

I chewed on my lower lip, debating for a second. Then I sighed and held up a finger. "Gimme a sec. I'll wash it off."

Niall nodded, crouching down to scratch King behind his ears. I raced into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, yelped, picked up a vase to use as a weapon against the deranged black-eyed intruder, then realized I was looking at my reflection. 

God, Niall wasn't kidding. I'd even managed to get black smudges on my nose, and my eyes were totally not salvagable. I rubbed off all the make up I'd attempted to apply, tucked my hair into a loose side ponytail, jammed my feet into my boots, and went out into the foyer. "Bye, King," I said, leaning down to kiss my dog between his velvety ears. 

"I think I'm growing on him. He likes me," Niall said proudly as we made our way out to his car.

"Whatever you say," I said, buckling my seatbelt with a snappy click.

Niall turned on the radio, and we sang along heartily to every song--whether we knew the lyrics or not. We were belting out a wonderful rendition of Blank Space ("Got a long list, Starbucks lovers--what the hell do you mean that's not right, kitten?") when we arrived at St. Stephen's. I groaned and reached for my backpack, mumbling, "I don't wanna."

"Sorry 'bout that," Niall said dryly. "But millions of other kids are going to school, and they'll survive."

"How do you know that," I said, but I wasn't feeling as grumpy anymore.

Just because driving with Niall put me in a relatively good mood, however, didn't mean it applied to the rest of my teachers. Mr. Martin gave us a pop quiz and assigned us a practice essay for homework because apparently we'd failed our last one "more miserably than the German attack on the Soviet Union". Mr. Dunham had misplaced the box of frogs we were supposed to be dissecting and nearly hyperventilated, afraid he would be fired when the dead things turned up in some crazy place weeks later. Mrs. Nawbridge shouted at us so much that her face was the color of a tomato and she had to sit down for the rest of the lesson. 

So yeah, I was even gladder than usual to be out of school when the bell rang. To make things even better, I didn't have detention, and Niall wasn't going in for conditioning with the basketball team today. We met up by the water fountains and walked out to the parking lot together. I heard someone call my name; Albert Pickenstein fell into step with me, saying, "D'you happen to know our History assignment, Miracle?"

"Essay," I reminded him despondently. "Rubric will be reposted online for reference."

I didn't have a problem saying that much to him, but unfortunately, he was as overspoken as usual. He spiraled off into a tangent about what topics he was considering for his essay, different thesis formats, and how much it annoyed him when people's pronoun disagreed with their antecedent--something he assured me most heartily he would never make the error of doing.

As for me, I hadn't given a single thought to essay topics, had lost my rubric for thesis formatting two months ago (a day after school had started), and was quite sure all my pronouns disagreed with their antecedents. I nodded half-heartedly in response to Albert's rambling, chipping in with a "Yes" or "No" whenever he fixed me with an expectant look. After what seemed like an eternity, he said apologetically that he needed to go. I tried not to be too heartbroken about this and said my good-byes without breaking into a grin, something I was proud of.