20/02/2019 – tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice

Written for OLWG#90

Rachel sat apart from the others in detention. Detention, at her school, was like a forced study period that you attended after your class or during your lunch period. This was a lunchtime punishment that Rachel had earned, along with a five dollar fine, for being tardy to Mrs Gaughan’s Civics class and, she passed the time by wadding sheets of notebook paper and trying to toss them into the scoop light mounted high on the wall.

Sometimes she would shoot spit wads at Amanda Bishop through the yellow barrel of her fine point BIC pen. Sometimes she would stare out the window or draw pictures on the covers of her textbooks. Covers made from brown paper shopping bags, cut and folded with the Piggly Wiggly logo in the middle of the front cover.

Amanda Bishop was a bitch who thought she was better than everyone else, smarter than everyone else, prettier than everyone else, but she wasn’t. She was just “dumb ole” Amanda Bishop.

Rachel had just nailed Amanda with a spit wad right near the corner of her left eye when she noticed that there was a tendril of smoke rising from the scoop light where two sheets of paper had actually gone in. She smiled and sat back to watch things unfold.

Amanda Bishop screeched and spun around to look for her assailant at almost the exact moment Mr Pittman noticed the smoke curling up from the light. Pittman panicked and jumped up from his seat behind the desk where he had been reading a newspaper as he oversaw the band of delinquents serving their time in detention. No one had ever seen him move so fast; their attention was immediately drawn to the front of the room.

“Miss Bishop,” Pittman exclaimed, “Go pull the fire alarm.”

“But, but,” Amanda protested wiping the soggy ball of chewed paper from her face.

“NOW, Miss Bishop!”

Amanda stood and moved to the door and out into the hallway. Four or five seconds later she was back and more smoke was coming from the light fixture.

“I can’t get to it, Mr Pittman,” she said, “it’s behind a piece of glass and someone’s taken the little hammer that used to hang there.”

Rachel laughed aloud when Pittman actually grabbed his hair and began pulling, “For God’s sake, Miss Bishop – just break the glass!”

Amanda snatched up her purse and dug out her compact then rushed back into the hall.

“Students,” Mr Pittman addressed them all as he gathered his wits. “Slowly, calmly and, in an orderly manner please exit the classroom and leave the building. If anyone becomes separated from the group, meet at the tennis courts.”

Amanda apparently got the glass broken because the fire alarm pierced the warm spring day with three blasts, “aaagh, aaagh, aaagh,” it sounded.

At the tennis courts, Mr Pittman was pacing nervously back and forth. Amanda Bishop was fussing with her broken compact. Lisa Sullivan and Nicky Shaver were sitting in the grass, making out. Everyone else was just standing around. Rachel made her way over to Amanda Bishop.

“OMG, Amanda,” she said, “you were so brave to go out and set off the alarm. You might get a medal for this; God only knows how many lives you saved today. Did you break your compact?”

“Yeah, I did,” Amanda replied, “It must have broken when I hit it against the glass.”

“I hope you didn’t break the mirror,” Rachel said, “that would be seven years bad luck.” She turned away to watch Lisa and Nicky. Lisa Sullivan was such a slut.

This week’s prompts were: