A Rose as Black as your Heart

(45) Twenty-four Hours

Chapter 45

It was the middle of Geography – and Travis and Rose were singing.

“There was a crazy moose!”

“There was a crazy moose!”

“Who liked to drink a lot of juice.”

“Who liked to drink a lot of-”

“Guys,” I half-pleaded, dropping my head to my hands. “Seriously, what the hell even is that?”

“You mean you haven’t heard the crazy moose song?” Rose sounded shocked.

“It’s one of those campfire ones – y’know, where you sit around toasting marshmallows and have to sing so you forget how cold you are.” Travis’ voice was almost drowned out in the noisy classroom.

“Wow.” I shook my head. “Just wow.”

“Poor, unprivileged Canadian.” Rose sounded generally sorry for me. “You don’t know what you missed out on.”

I sighed as they broke into song again. Usually, I didn’t have a problem with them singing, but last night had been a long night- I’d skateboarded down to Dad’s “Demon sleighing house” and exhausted every muscle in my body practising. It made me feel slightly less useless - and a lot more tired.

“Guys! Jesus, shut up!” Our Geography teacher, Miss Rivets, was one of those cool, young teachers who mucks around with the class yet can somehow manage to control everyone too. She grinned as one of the smartass guys hollered something back, and the rest of the class laughed before settling down.

“Okay. I’ve prepared a little pop quiz for you guys – oh, don’t complain!” She rolled her eyes as the whole class groaned. “You’ll be fine. It’s just to see the areas you need to improve on. It doesn’t matter.”

I nudged Rose. “Teamwork?”

Miss Rivets heard me. “No cheating!”

“I said teamwork,” I told her. “It’s not the same. Cheating is when you copy someone’s work without their permission.”

“Fine. No ‘teamwork’.” She rolled her eyes again.

“Oh, come on. Teachers are always trying to make you work together, and then the minute you offer-”

Miss Rivets pretended to hit me lightly over the head with one of the sheets of paper she was passing round. “Travis, Rose, make sure she can’t see your work.”

Travis saluted, looking gleeful. I hit his arm. Some of the class snickered at our antics.

I failed the test. Seven out of twenty; big surprise there.

“Nice work, guys,” Miss Rivets called out, just as the bell went. “See you next week.”

There was the usual scrabble as everyone shot out their seats, hastily packed their bags and rushed out the room to lunch. I followed Rose and Travis (who had started singing again) and crumpled up my test, ready to lob it in the bin on my way out.

“Aren’t you going to keep hold of that, Alexis?”

I unravelled it, and flashed the score at her. “Oh, yeah. I’m going to treasure this for the rest of my life, I am. Maybe I’ll pin it on my wall.” I pretended to put a pensive finger on my lip. “Or maybe I’ll frame it.”

Miss Rivets laughed, which I liked about her; she didn’t take things to seriously. “I thought you’d be proud.”

And she could dish the sarcasm out, too. “I’m very happy with my 35%, thank you.” I smiled at her and turned to leave. “Thanks, miss.”