Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

The corridors were packed, as always. The college had a stupid one-way system that everyone deliberately ignored, so that the whole college went the wrong way. Well not the whole college…otherwise, that would have made it easy right? The few people there that actually abided by the rules went the right way and so the wrong way. This annoyed teachers and ‘rebellious’ pupils alike, as they clogged up the corridors. It was all very confusing. First years got snapped at by teachers for going the right way down the one-way system, and then moaned at by the same teachers for not abiding by college rules. It had grown itself a reputation for being a very backward college, but it also achieved excellent results and was very popular.

Anya walked the wrong way (or was it the right way?) down the one-way system, her head down and trying to avoid eye contact with the Dylans she saw everywhere. It had shocked her when he had said it; she hadn’t been sure how to react. She knew she had in fact over reacted, it was only a simple question he had asked…she just hadn’t been aware that it had been so obvious. She didn’t like to think of it at all, although it was a demon refusing to leave her mind.

That was another thing that annoyed her. She knew she should be able to talk about it, after all it was all in the past and nothing could happen about it now, but the thought of relieving the horrid memories still scared her half to death. The more than tense atmosphere when she had walked into the room and the look on her mother’s face…well it was quite frankly too much to bear.

She arrived at her classroom, and found her usual seat near the back in the corner. She liked it there; she had a good view of the whole class, and the light seemed to paint pictures on the wall. She retrieved her sketchbook from her bag, and placed her paints and pastels next to it. It was going to take a long time to fill the book, as every item she created had to be perfect. However, she would get there soon enough.

She shuffled into the classroom, and sat on the floor with the other children at the front by the teacher. 62 eyes were drilling holes in her appearance, and she knew she would always be the girl who walked in late on the very first day at school. She found herself next to a little boy sucking his thumb, slim plastic frames already circling his eyes, and giving him the look of a child much more intelligent than his age. He gave her a nervous smile (which was very difficult to do, what with the thumb in his mouth and everything…) and turned back to face Teacher.

Teacher started going round the room and asking everyone’s names, encouraging them to say something interesting about themselves. The boy next to her said his name was Dylan, and that he already knew how to read. There was an envious murmur go around the classroom, and it was obvious he would always be known as the geek. It seemed that children always have and always will like to label people. It was now her turn to stand up and she mumbled that her name was Anya-May and she liked chocolate ice cream with sprinkles.

Teacher smiled at her, and told her that chocolate ice cream was her favourite too, and did Anya-May like fudge sauce with ice cream. Anya-May said she liked fudge sauce a lot, but she wasn’t allowed both sauce and sprinkles on her ice cream, and she liked sprinkles much better. Teacher said it was good to only have one; otherwise her teeth might go yellow and fall out.

From that moment she liked school a lot, and she made lots of new friends through the day. She decided that her best friends were Dylan and Marie, and would be forever.

That evening she turned up at the North Star pub dressed in what she thought was her most flattering and most revealing outfit. Nathan’s band, ShoutBox, was playing tonight, and she wanted to look her best for him. He was there to meet her at the door and show her through to the function room, and then he went to get a drink for her.

If she had gone with him, she would have seen him slip some powder into her drink, along with an extra shot of vodka. Unfortunately, she was chatting to some of his friends she had met before, and so saw none of it. As it was, she didn’t even notice the extra strength of her vodka and coke, although if she did she probably wouldn’t have said anything about it.

ShoutBox took to the stage half an hour later, and were in all honestly quite crap. She had expected something more of them…they looked like a good band, with their combined good looks, piercing, and tattoos…but as the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. The drums and bass guitar started off out of time with each other, and that threw the lead guitarist right off. Nathan had a good voice, but he jumped around the stage too much, and all anyone could hear was him breathing heavily from lack of oxygen, and his body weight slamming into the make-shift stage.

Overall, probably not the effect he was going for.

After a painful hour and a half, they finally came of the stage, grinning and obviously proud of their poor efforts. Everyone congratulated them and told them how amazing they were, and how they got better every time they played. Anya found herself wondering how bad they had been last time, to be considered better this time. She didn’t voice her query though.

She let Nathan buy her yet another spiked drink, and then settled into a corner booth with him, and chatted away about everything and nothing. She could tell that Natalie was getting annoyed at not having his attention, and she was relishing the fact. She would turn to him, lean in close, and place her hand on his arm, and then smile at his girlfriend out of the corner of her eye.

She came marching over, and demanded a word…Nathan rolled his eyes and excused himself, and then let himself get dragged to the opposite corner of the room; as far away from her rival as possible.

Natalie was the kind of girl that used giant hand gestures and pouted a lot when she was pissed off…that evening, her hands were flying, and her lips appeared to be twice as big as normal. Anya kept having coughing fits as she tried to hide her laughter, and decided that since moving back to the city, this was the best night she had experienced. The argument started to heat up, and soon the whole room was able to hear it. She shrunk back into the corner as everyone turned to glare at her, and quickly changed her mind, thinking that maybe it wasn’t the best night ever after all.

The argument came to a close when Nathan seemed to lose himself in a rage, and punched Natalie right across her head.

She chose a book bag, and joined the line of her new found friends by the closed classroom door. Teacher told them she hoped to see them all tomorrow, and then opened the door so that they could go and find their anxious parents. The first day had come to an end, much to the children’s dismay. Her Papa was right at the front of the herd of grown-ups, with a massive grin on his face. She had been worried that Mama would pick her up from school, but when she saw Papa’s friendly face, she ran over and leapt into a great big bear hug.

They walked home from school, and on the way she told him all about her day. She had made lots of friends, and they had done painting and stitching, and had been given a bag to take home that had a book and a tape in. She told her Papa that he had to read her the story, not Mama, but that she wanted to listen to the tape first, as soon as they got home.

He smiled down at his daughter, and new straight away that mixing with other youngsters would do her the world of good. He had been very worried about her…she had become closed and quiet, quite the opposite of her old bubbly self. But it was already starting to poke through again, and he hoped that the other children would encourage her to try new adventures.

Everything happened so quickly after that. A fight broke out between Nathan and his friends and Natalie and her friends, and Anya tried to fade into the tacky woodwork of the booth she was still sitting in. Blue lights flashed through one of the windows as the police arrived to help the barman. The sirens cut right through her head as everything started spinning, and the room tipped to the side as she slid to the floor.

She felt pressure around her waist as a man and a woman tried to pick her up, and then two police badges blurred their way into her line of sight.

“You’re coming with us, young lady.”

What was happening? She didn’t quite understand…she had only had two drinks and she could usually handle her alcohol, and she had never felt like this before. Her arms flailed around as she tried to get free from their strong grip, and she yelled out for Nathan to help her. For anyone to help her. She was scared, and wanted to go home, but instead she was getting gently shoved into the back of one of the police cars.

In such a state as she was, it is very unlikely that you will be able to make sense of anything. But when there’s a radio going on and off like traffic lights at junctions when you are in a rush, it makes things ten times less clear. She could just about hear that the man was talking to her, most likely asking questions. She picked up a few words like ‘underage’ and ‘spiked’, but they floated around in front of her eyes and eventually joined into the jumble of other words that were mumbling their way around her head.

She tried to reassure them that she had only had two drinks…she wasn’t drunk. They didn’t seem to believe her though, even when she attempted to tell them that she thought she should go to hospital. Typical grownups she thought, they just won’t listen. She knew there was something wrong with her; she shouldn’t be feeling like this. She couldn’t see anything now except for the dull, multi-coloured haze that seemed to fill the car.

The sickening motion stopped, and then everything spun in the opposite direction while she tried to make sense of her surroundings. They had arrived at the police station, and this time she was getting pulled out of the car rather than shoved into it. The fresh air hit her hard, and she stumbled to the side and threw up on the pavement.

The man and woman escorted her into the building, and made her sit down while they tried to take some details. She just about managed to let them know her name and address, although anything apart from that she couldn’t remember. She didn’t know where she was anymore, and she was scared. She couldn’t remember what had just happened, and how she had ended up in such a plain, uncomfortable room…and she definitely didn’t understand why she was being locked up behind a metal door.