"Jenna, pass it!" Jackson yells. I smoothly pass it over to him, and he passes it over to Owen, who shoots it straight into the goal. The sound of a building door draws my attention away from the game for a second before a cheer erupts from our team, and a groan choruses from the other.
"Rematch. Tomorrow." Alex calls out. He's not happy, probably because this is the third time his team have lost to us this week. It's Wednesday. Owen jogs over to me and kisses my forehead.
"Nice pass." He says through my hair
"Good goal." I return, looking up and grinning. He looks down at me and smiles too. I stand on my tiptoes to try and shorten the size difference, and he leans over to close it completely. We kiss for a few seconds before Jackson mutters "Get a room, you two." I pull away from Owen, pick the football up from the floor and aim at Jackson's head. Direct hit. He's caught off guard and turns round to confront me. Everyone else starts whooping in a silly high-pitched voice, and I resist the urge to throw the ball at all their heads too. It would be a pretty unfair game of dodgeball though. Mrs Parker is jogging over to us, and saying something, but we can't hear until she gets closer.
"-bell's about to go. Throw me the ball and I'll put it away for you, so you hopefully won't be too late for lesson." I love Mrs Parker. She's probably my favourite teacher in the whole school, mainly because she's the only female who likes football as much as I do. Jackson picks up the ball from the ground, mimes chucking at my face and then tosses it lightly to the teacher. Mrs Parker watches our banter with an amused smile before catching the ball.
"I guess I know who won." She jokes before turning around and jogging back to the PE shed.
"Go on, off you go to lesson." She calls over her shoulder.
I go to pick up my bag and have a quick glance at my phone.
"Shoot." I mutter. "How'd it get so late?" I throw my bag over my shoulder and start to run towards Maths, but the bells rings before I can run ten paces. "Shoot" I say again. I would swear, but I always have been brought up to never swear, with the threat that I'd go to hell if I did. My mother is heavily superstitious and religious and is always saying things like "don't put new shoes on the table" and "if you break a mirror, you'll have seven years bad luck". By the time I was five I knew the magpie rhyme by heart, and I still repeat it every time I see them. I know that they're just superstitions, but 15 years of habit is hard to break.
"Jen, stop running." Owen's voice breaks my train of thought. "We're late already. Doesn't matter by how long, right? Late is late." I can't stop though. Being late is one of the most humiliating things ever. When you walk through the door and all your classmates stare at you, and you have to explain why you're late in front of the whole class. It's even worse when you don't have a valid excuse. I break into a cold sweat just thinking about it. I run to the door and don't stop until get outside my classroom. I count to three and push the door open. As I expect, everyone looks up. Most people go back to their work again, but it's still enough to freeze me on the spot for a second. I don't think I'll end up pursuing a career as an actor.
"Why are you late?" Mr Yearwood demands. I don't have a good excuse, that he will approve of anyway. He doesn't care about football or follow any sport. The only excuse that he will accept other than being out for an appointment is that the computer science and technology club ran overtime. I can picture him at my age, with dark eyes from staying up all night playing computer games and coding and a smaller pair of glasses that his eyes are glaring at me from behind now. "Well?"
"Umm," I try and think of what to say next. I could say that I went to coding club and that it ran over, but then he'll expect to see me there every week, which is something I'm NOT doing. Plus, two boys who do actually go are already here, so he'll see right through that lie. I could say I was out for an appointment, but he always needs a doctor's note as proof. Something I do not have. Or I could just tell the truth. That might be the safest option. That's what I do. "I'm sorry, sir, my football game ran overtime."
I can tell what he's thinking without him saying anything. 'How dare you spend valuable time doing quadratic equations playing football!' He just glares at me and speaks through his teeth.
"Go and sit down. Now!" I walk quickly to my seat, sit down and get my supplies out within the space of twenty seconds. I realise that in my hurry, I never said goodbye to Owen. He always gets annoyed when I don't say goodbye to him. Great. Something else to have to face.
"Right, class. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, you have to substitute all the numbers in..."
My face flushes and I try to concentrate on the lesson.
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