The Explosion
The Explosion
11:00AM
As the ringing alarms and hysterical screaming from students continue in a relentless battle with one another the cries for help from the injured people go unheard. Shapes and figures of people staggering can be made out through the choking smoke. James, who was closest to the blast, lies unmoving on the floor, his body in an arch from the backpack that he is wearing. The first blast came from a nearby bin, James was waiting for Harry to move on to their third class of the day, biology. Harry, was running late owing to an encounter with the headmaster. Harry arrives onto the scene in a coughing stagger; he spots James through the smoke by identifying the flashing of his iPhone that is clutched in his lifeless right hand. As Harry attempts to make his way towards the unmoving James, he is grabbed and dragged away by the newly arrived firemen. Harry kicking and screaming attempting to break free of the fireman’s hold is eventually taken into the air and rushed outside for medical care. The walls and ceiling around James’ body are beginning to crumble, bits of debris are falling all around, a crashing locker narrowly missing James’ right leg. His left leg was not so lucky, the impact of the locker crushing his leg. James doesn’t even flinch.
09:58AM
Sitting here in my advanced mathematics class with both my earphones in, Mr. Jenkins prattles on and on about stuff that I will never need to repeat when I leave this god-forsaken secondary school in three months. I notice Harry trying to attract my attention, I have to take out my left earphone to listen to what he is saying. I just hope it isn’t about those damn terrorists again, it’s all he ever seems to go on about lately. “James, did you hear?” Harry asks enthusiastically whilst completely ignoring the fact Jenkins just asked him a question “Our school is on high aler-” “MR DOLT! WHEN I ASK YOU A QUESTION I EXPECT AN ANSWER! I don’t expect you to turn to your friend and completely ignore me!” Mr. Jenkins has a number of veins on his head that appear when he is angry, through these veins you can gather a good idea of how angry he truly is. The vein above his left eyebrow makes an appearance whenever he shouts, that’s a standard two out of five. When both the vein above the eyebrow and the one on the left side of his neck appear which is the case now, he is about a four out of five. I have only ever seen the third vein appear once, which is located on his forehead, that was when Lilly Royce told Jenkins to go fuck himself. I haven’t seen Lilly since that day. Rumour has it that Jenkins had her killed. Personally I think she found somewhere better to waste six hours of her day five days a week. Harry answered the question correctly, as usual, making Jenkins cool down a bit, just as the bell rings for the end of our first lesson of this wonderful Friday.
The next lesson we have is Physical Education that lasts one hour. Harry and I usually skip the lesson and go and hide behind the bike shed with Carl and Alex. Carl and Alex are the resident big men, who are only in school because they have to be. You need to be careful what you say near the couple though, because they don’t know how to take a joke. Rumour has it once, Carl was found forcing Little Jack (he is small, his name is Jack, the creativity of the children of tomorrow) to eat red paint until his piss turned pink, because he said that Carl and Alex were gay lovers. I never truly understood why he thought red paint would make pink piss but that’s why Carl doesn’t go to lessons, because he’s stupid. However, Alex is a whole different character. This time last year he was in a private school where you had to wear a blazer, then his dad left his mum. The private school was first to go, then the blazer. Alex used to get bullied for the first three months of his life here at Brant High, until one day he turned to Carl and punched him in the face. Instead of Carl reacting, Carl took him under his wing. Since then people have tried to copy Alex in taking a swing at Carl, but it has never ended well for them.
As Harry and I settled down with Alex and Carl, finding the most comfortable position which usually contained the least amount of cigarette butts, Harry tried again “As I was saying earlier until that knob, Mr. Jenkins interrupted me, our school is on high aler-“ just before Harry can finish his sentence Carl backhands him around the back of the head, “hey! What was that for? I was only saying, our school is on hig-“ Carl smacks him again, this time it’s a punch, “we don’t talk about school, isn’t that right Alex?” asks Carl as he still has his fist raised if Harry protests, a subtle nod from Alex sends our group into a silence, with the occasional sound coming from the spitting noise of Carl. As Harry begins to talk, Carl raises his fist again, “ok! Ok! I wont mention that… word, or anything to do with that word. James, you should have a cig lad, don’t be a puff” as Harry attempts to force the cigarette into my hand Carl smashes his hand out of the way, “no! you don’t peer pressure someone into smoking, they can chose to do it or not, you can peer pressure someone into drinking though” at that moment Carl pulls out a litre bottle of Frosty Jacks. Frosty Jacks is well known by the entire teenage population for being the most bitter tasting cider, it is also the cheapest and one of the strongest of the ciders making it a favourite amongst the teenage park drinking culture. “Come on James, I’ve never seen you drink alcohol” as he keep thrusting the bottle towards my hands expecting me to grab hold of it. “I don’t drink alcohol Carl, that’s why you don’t see me drinking it”, as I attempt to push away the bottle Alex grabs hold of my hands and Harry grabs my legs, in unison they flatten me out on the floor as Carl positions the litre bottle above my head. There is a torture technique called water boarding, this involves a person having a towel over their head and being submerged in water, I saw it once on 24 with Jack Bauer just being Jack Bauer. What was happening to me was a lot like that, except the water was a cruel acidic liquid that burned my eyes and tasted vile.
10:30 AM
As I kept hold of James’ legs to stop him from kicking out at Carl I couldn’t help but feel a sense of guilt. James doesn’t drink because the taste of alcohol makes him be violently sick, despite this I couldn’t help but laugh when I kept glancing towards his little frightened face, the litre bottle was half empty when Carl finally stopped and ordered me and Alex to let go of him, James ran of with his hands on his stomach and his body making the shape of Golem from the Lord of the Rings, as Carl has intervals of laughing and downing the Frosty Jacks, Alex states quite cheerfully, “quality, absolute quality, I just love the fact we didn’t need to communicate to each other which role we were going to play, it was as if we were all connected and knew exactly what the other was thinking”. As we all began to dust ourselves down, Carl draining the last of the bottle we just went back to sitting in silence, the sound of crackling tobacco could be made out amongst the spitting sounds from Carl. “What lesson do you have next Carl?” expecting to get a smack I began to flinch and brace myself at the same time, except no smack came, instead Carl actually answered my question about school, his forbidden subject. “I’ve got biology with you and James you daft bastard, you know this. We have the same lessons each week every week” as Carl finished the last of his cigarette and flicked the remains of it towards the bin Alex began “I’ve got English with that stupid substitute teacher, what’s his name… Phil? Josh? No, no, Arnold! That’s the one, yeah Arnold. He can’t keep the class under control and usually I just sit there talking to that stunner Alice.”
10:46 AM
I can’t believe he just did that to me, of all the people, for Harry to be involved in the attack which forces me to drink alcohol, I am ashamed to be his brother. As I spewed what remained of the content of my stomach, I couldn’t remember having carrots today, then I remembered what my dad told me a few years ago. He said “Son, when you are sick, you will quite often see the return of your dinner however, you will almost always see carrots, these carrot looking substances in your vomit are is In fact bits of your stomach lining”. He told me that just as he was on his way to catch a plane to New York, I haven’t seen him since, mum wont tell me if he is dead or if he just up and left us.
As I slowly made my way toward the mirror to look upon my pale face I could see the colour returning in my cheeks I began to splash water on my face, luckily I was not feeling the effects of the Frosty Jacks which had been force fed down my throat so I was able to move around freely and within five minutes I was feeling fine just as my phone rang. It was Harry sounding out of breath with a steady panting down the phone “Hello? James are you there? Are you alright?” “Yes” I groaned “I am fine with no thanks to you” the whistling of wind through the phone indicated that Harry was still running “You’ll never guess what just happened to me” he began “as I was walking back from being outside with Carl and Alex, guess who walks round the corner.” Trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible “Who?” I replied “it was only the bloody head teacher Mr. Biggit, he grabbed me by the shoulder asking where I was going, then he instantly caught the smell of smoke and cider on my clothes. He was going to drag me down to his office and ring my mum and have me suspended for a week.” Still trying to sound enthusiastic I replied “oh no, that’s awful” as I made my way outside to lean with my back against the wall next to a bin which smelt oddly like a science lab. “yea that’s awful! I did what came into my mind first and just legged it, looking back on it, it’s the most stupid decision I have ever made, it’s not like he requires me or my permission to ring my mum, he is just gonna do it anyway” as some of the lessons were being let out early and the hallways started to fill “well, I’m just outside biology, near that bin. Get down here quick time and then we can just go home and you can try and explain it to mum” “Ok brother see you in a seco-“ at that moment the nearby bin exploded the blast instantly sending the lockers open, a second blast to the left of me threw me to the floor and the third blast made everything go black.