Chapter Four

Detention with the She-Devil

‘Mom, have I ever told you that it kinda freaks me out when you corner me like this and block all my exits?’ Shane asked, carefully.

‘Shane, I need to you to sit down and carefully listen to me,’ his mother wearily answered.

‘You know what? I would love to. The thing is, I have some, uh, other things to attend, and as much as I would love to have this conversation-’

‘Shane, we’re moving.’

‘Really?’ asked Shane, suddenly responsive. ‘No, no, I don’t mind. I don’t like this house much anyway. I mean, not that it’s bad or anything, but it would be nice to move. Where are we moving? Beverly Hills or something?’ He sure hoped so.

His mother frowned at him. ‘Of course not, Shane, don’t be ridiculous. I think I’m spoiling you too much.’ Right. He was spoiled.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ said Shane hastily, not wanting to start up an argument. ‘Where are we moving?’ He didn’t really think moving was such a bad thing. He was getting sick of his old room, anyway.

His mother smiled. Shane would have thought that she was hiding something wonderful, a fabulous secret, but he knew better. That smile was the one where she made the decision herself. And Shane could tell it was a bad, bad decision.

‘Well,’ started his mom, ‘I think this is an opportunity for both of us. I will have company, you know? And you. Yes, you will be able to get over any, well, differences in the past.’

Shane narrowed his eyes. ‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’

His mother dodged his stare. ‘Guess who’s going to be Layla and Jennifer’s new neighbors?’

You know the kind of shock you get when something totally unexpected happens? Like you know something bad is going to happen but you didn’t know that it would go to extremes? Like the time when Shane took one of girlfriends for the third movie of Pirates of the Caribbean and how she shrieked and spilled popcorn all over herself when William Turner got stabbed, she clearly wasn’t seeing it coming. Of course, he did get some popcorn on his shirt too, but the perfect boyfriend never complains. Well.

Shane wasn’t seeing his wonderful news coming anytime soon either. He was speechless, disturbed, outraged, dismayed, shocked and repulsed all at once. However, the two words that slipped out of his mouth (which proved nothing had happened to Shane’s larynx as his mother feared) seemed to have said it all.

‘No. Way.’ The words seemed oddly lacking, yet perfect. How wonderfully ironic.

He was surprised he had managed to speak, seeing as his mouth was opening and closing with no sound coming out like a fish in water. His mother looked slightly apologetic, but it didn’t really make a difference. Shane couldn’t believe it; he didn’t want to believe it.

‘Shane,’ said his mother quickly, ‘you need to realize how this situation can benefit both of us. You can stop all the childish arguments between you and Layla; who knows? You may even become friendly with each other.’

‘Hah!’ Shane scoffed. ‘Friendly? That isn’t possible, mom. Why? Why do we have to move there? This sucks!’ Way to state the obvious, Shane, he thought to himself.

‘Shane,’ said his mother, in a warning tone. ‘You’re behaving like a spoilt little girl. You should be happy we’re moving. It’s a new beginning!’

‘No, it’s not!’ argued Shane. ‘It’s the end! It’s nowhere close to any beginning!’

‘Stop it, Shane!’ snapped his mother. ‘End of discussion.’

‘So, let me get this straight,’ said Shane, frowning, ‘you called me down here before I went to school for one of the worst days of my life where I have to sweep floors with a devil, just to tell me that I’m going to be living next door to that devil, and this wonderful piece of information also resulted in my being late for school- ’

No sound. Or movement.

Everything was eerily silent. Then it hit Shane.

‘Oh crap, I’m late again!’

He could practically hear a television news anchor say in a tone befitting the ‘We’ll be right back after the break’ tone: Please wait as Shane finishes running his daily marathon to school…again.

Shane was gasping for breath and panting when he reached school. He looked around.

‘Dude! You made it on time!’ said Jeremy, whacking Shane on his back.

‘Really? I’m not late?’ asked Shane in surprise.

‘Well, actually, you are, but that’s okay. You just missed one class…I don’t think Fisher noticed. Oh, by the way, he practically grabbed me by the collar and told me to tell you not to forget about your detention. What’s up with that anyway?’ Jeremy asked, in a befuddled tone.

‘Don’t ask,’ muttered Shane. ‘I have worse news. Guess who’s going to be my new neighbor?’

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. ‘Could you give me a clue?’

‘She’s pissing off and goes nuts over Ginger Beer. Do the math.’

Jeremy laughed. ‘Layla Smithson?’ As if it could be anyone else.

Shane rolled his eyes. ‘Bingo.’

Shane knew it. He knew the day would suck – right from the beginning. From when his mother dropped the bomb on him, to when he got kicked out of class again, to the end of school (which was approximately now).

Sometimes teachers come to school in a bad mood, turn all their irrelevant problems into anger, and then take it out on the innocent students, as if they have perpetual PMS. Because, in a way, Shane was only trying to help the Chemistry teacher to get over her fear of frogs. She should have thanked him.

And it really wasn’t Shane’s fault that frogs were slightly undisciplined. But no, she had to get all pissed off and take her anger out on Shane. And he was sent to the Fishers’ office.

Surprise, surprise.

Secondly, did all teachers have to get so annoyed if a student didn’t do their homework? So, Shane didn’t do a bunch of sums (the teacher knew that he could do them in his sleep). But he didn’t want to, so he didn’t do it. Wasn’t that reason enough? But, no, she got really annoyed with him and didn’t buy his Brownie story, so he got sent to Fishers’ office. Again.

Second time in one day.

It also wasn’t his fault that his history teacher was into false accusations (as if being into drugs wasn’t enough). He was calmly seated in class, not doing anything, not saying anything, when she suddenly pointed her finger at him and started telling him off. Mostly crap like ‘don’t cut classes…blah blah blah…you never do anything...blah blah blah… you don’t have a dog named Brownie…’ and all that kind of nonsense.

As a matter of fact, he did have a dog named Brownie. The only problem was that no one could see the ferocious monster except him. It was an Emperor’s New Groove kind of thing. He refused to think it was like having an imaginary friend. He grew out of that when he was five, okay, well, maybe not.

But of course, after standing there and pretending to listen to his teachers’ ranting, he was sent off to the principal’s office. Again.

Third time.

Shane swore to himself, that once Fisher retired, he would throw the party of the year and invite everyone, even people he didn’t know. Everyone would be allowed to come, except Ginger Beer of course. He would have drinks, music, dancing, and tons and tons of food.

The sound of Fishers’ approaching footsteps brought Shane back to reality. He knew why Fisher came – Fisher wanted to make sure that Shane would be going for his detention. It actually wasn’t the first time when Shane and Layla had to clean up something together. Shane could still remember every single detail of what had happened. A while ago, though. The horrors of the day still seemed as bright as daylight.

‘Shane, I’m telling you, don’t touch it,’ Layla warned. ‘It’ll burst and then there will be flour all over the floor. And then our moms will make us clean it up! And it will be your entire fault!’

Shane rolled his eyes. He was thirteen, who was she to tell him what to do? And also the fact that he outweighed her by quite a lot should have been enough to scare her. But no, nothing fazed her. ‘I think I can do it myself, okay?’’

‘Shane, I’m telling you: Don’t do it. You’re a disaster in the kitchen. You know that!’

‘I’ll do what I want, Ginger Beer,’ said Shane. Like she knew anything about him anyway.

Just to annoy her, he went and touched the bag. It exploded with a loud ‘Bang’ and all he could see was white. For a brief second, he thought he might just have landed in heaven, but then he realized that it was only flour. Ginger Beer and he were both covered in flour, but even though she had so much flour on her, he could see her anger.

‘Shane!’ she said, angrily. ‘What the hell is your problem? You piece of shit, I told you not to touch it!’

‘Whatever,’ said Shane uncaringly, ‘you look better now that I can’t see your face anyway.’ Like it was his fault the bag was so damn fragile, anyway.

‘Oh shut up,’ she said, ‘stop talking as if you’re Brad Pitt.’

‘You’re right,’ said Shane, thoughtfully, ‘I’m not Brad Pitt. I’m better looking.’

Before Layla could answer (though the answer would doubtlessly be a retort), Shane’s mother opened the front door and stepped in, followed by Layla’s mother. They both seemed engrossed in conversation, but unfortunately, it wasn’t long before they noticed the flour.

Shane could remember his ears going almost hoarse. Who knew women could scream like that? They were so, unbelievably, loud. And they had very powerful vocal chords. It was like a baby hollering its lungs out. Maybe women hadn’t matured at all.

Fisher cleared his throat again. ‘Pay attention, Mr. Wells. Ms. Smithson is already in the lab. You are to go there as well. Whatever you need for the cleaning will be given to you by Mrs. Wright, who will also be watching over you two so you don’t try to do anything funny.’ Right. Something funny with Ginger Beer. That was a riot.

Shane rolled his eyes. ‘It’s all right, sir. I’m not James Bond or anything. I’m not going to take a rope and jump down from it, and somehow escape in some crazy way. I’m going to take the mop, clean the damn thing, and get out of there. Happy?’

Fisher led him to the lab (more like forcibly dragged him to the lab), where a very grumpy Layla was standing. She glared at Shane as he entered, as if the whole thing was his fault.

‘There you are,’ Fisher gestured to a pile of things usually found in a broom closet.

‘Mops, fabric and everything else you need. As you can see, the lab is in quite a mess after a particularly worrying chemical mixture going unstable... It will take quite some time to get it sparkling clean. You may start now. I’ll be in my office.’

Sadistic fiend. He had probably arranged the so-called ‘worrying unstable mixture’ just to torture him. The swine.

‘This is your entire fault, you know,’ Layla muttered to Shane, once Fisher had left.

‘Of course it is,’ said Shane sarcastically, ‘I forced you to boss around the nerd, didn’t I?’

‘No,’ said Layla, ‘it’s your fault because I bet you scared Brett so he complained. You should be castrated for that. I got into trouble for that too.’ Maybe he’d just agree with her for kicks. He certainly didn’t want to be castrated. Luckily, he had better judgment.

‘Well, that’s too bad. I really don’t care.’ He meant that he didn’t care about her getting into trouble. He certainly did care about getting castrated.

Layla frowned at the mark which was on the floor. ‘Damn these chemicals. Watch out, this thing is pretty slippery. Actually, wait, don’t watch out, it would be nice if you slipped and fe-‘

‘AAAH!’ A vaguely horror--ishque scream emitted from her mouth and when Shane looked down, he happened to see an angry, blushing Ginger Beer in a position that was laugh-out-loud hilarious. Obviously she had stepped on whatever it was she had been warning (or not warning) him about, slipped and fell.

Shane burst out laughing. ‘I have got to take a picture of this,’ he said, bringing out his cell phone from his pocket. Handy things for such inopportune moments.

‘NO!’ shrieked Layla, her face beet-red and her eyes wide.

Shane gave her a look, as if to say ‘What were you high on, again?’

‘What the hell is wrong with you? I’m not going to shoot you; I’m just going to take a picture of you looking like an idiot. Which you do most of the time. But now, you’re a fallen idiot. And I’m lucky enough to have a camera on me,’ he grinned, knowing it would anger her further.

Layla narrowed her eyes and scrambled to her feet. ‘For your information, I saw this really gruesome movie yesterday called Final Destination 3. So if you take a picture of me, I’m going to die falling.’

‘Okay,’ muttered Shane, ‘I was right all along. You are retarded. That movie seems lame. Almost as much as you are.’ Trust Ginger Beer to watch a movie and think she’s going to die. Almost as pathetic as Friday the Thirteenth.

‘It’s not lame,’ she retorted, ‘there’s this girl who has this vision and sees everyone dying and she kinda manages to save some of them in the beginning, but there are photographs taken of the people who she saved. And those photographs show her how they’re each going to die.’

‘So it’s about a psychic babe? Is she hot?’ Shane asked, almost laughing at her outraged expression. He could practically hear her thinking Typical.

‘That’s not the point! It’s about the pictures which show you how you die.’

Shane frowned. ‘I’ve taken so many pictures with uncountable girlfriends. Wait a second, are they all going to get together and kill me?’ He hoped not, but then a lot of them seemed hostile when they saw him the next week. And he didn’t even want to know how he died. He was perfectly fine here.

Well, not really. He wasn’t fine here, to be specific. Not in a lab, cleaning up mess with Ginger Beer.

‘Ha ha,’ mocked Layla, dryly. ‘Could you scrub this mark on the floor?’

‘No, I can’t. You can, though. Wait, why are you wearing an apron?’ Maybe she liked pretending to be Miss Betty Cook, or whatever that was.

‘Because I’m going to keep falling. Hopefully, I’ll end up dropping something on you as well. Maybe I can take a glass and smash it on your head or something.’

‘Stop being so jealous of my good looks,’ said Shane, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t as if she could have them anyway. He was pretty sure girls didn’t like chest hair.

‘Stop talking as though you’re Johnny Depp,’ Layla commented.

‘You’re right, I’m better looking,’ he laughed and said. It was like déjà vu. Except one thing happened which didn’t happen last time.

Layla took her mop and shoved it into his face. A filthy mop. On Shane’s face. Why did she seem to want chest hair?

In return, Shane took the bucket of water and dumped it on Layla. To reveal a dirty girl, with hair sopping wet, dripping on the already dirty floor.

‘The best things in life really are free,’ said Shane, smirking. He was staring at a shocked Layla who was obviously wet and had eyes so wide, as though she was stunned into silence.

Well, I finally figured out how to shut her up.

‘Are you crazy?’ yelled Layla. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, you moron?’

‘Well, looks like the apron has finally come to use, huh?’

Layla lunged at him. Yes, lunged. Dictionary meaning: a sudden strong attacking movement forward. She actually lunged at him. As if she was an animal or something.

Shane tried to get the idiot off of him, but she was so pissed off that she was whacking him over and over again. Damn, she had a strong fist. He couldn’t hit her back of course, his mother would have a coronary, but she definitely deserved it.

‘How. Dare. You? Don’t. You. Have. Any. Manners? I’m a woman, for god’s sake!’ Each word was punctuated by a heavy blow, that left Shane reeling and wincing. As if she were a woman, anyway. Woman implied elegance and grace. All he could see in her right now was a mother lion, only sopping wet and about as clumsy as an orangutan.

A little girl, more like.

‘You’re clearly not!’ said Shane, speaking what he was thinking. Heavily edited, of course. ‘Women don’t behave like this!’

‘Well, I do!’ So, obviously, she wasn’t a woman. She was basically contradicting her own point!

‘Stop it, you’re choking me!’

‘Well, that’s the point!’

No it wasn’t, Shane wanted to say. The point is, I’m innocent and you can go off and drink Ginger Beer or whatever!

Just then, Mrs. Wright saw them and immediately came to stop them.

‘Stop this nonsense!’ she said, sounding shocked. ‘Both of you are nearly adults and you are acting like seven year old children!’ Adults. That was like saying Layla was a woman.

‘It was her fault!’ said Shane, pointing a finger towards her. ‘She shoved a mop into my face!’

‘Well, he said he was better looking than Johnny Depp, and I think Shane’s ugly, so that means he’s indirectly implying Johnny Depp is ugly, which means he totally deserved that!’ As if. She was just denying the fact that she was jealous of him. Like she wanted chest hair.

‘That is it!’ said Mrs. Wright. ‘You clearly aren’t even mature enough for a simple thing like cleaning. Do not worry; I will let Mr. Fisher know about the whole incident. I suggest the both of you go home now, and maybe think about how you’re behaving. Go.’

Do not worry, Shane mimicked in his head. Right. More trouble for him not to worry about. Fabulous.

‘You suck!’ muttered Layla to Shane.

‘You do too, Ginger Beer.’ He was appalled by his own lame insult.

This was wrong. Really wrong. Shane knew that being neighbors with Layla would be awful.

But, unfortunately, no one ever listened to Shane. All the women in his life (if you could count Layla as a woman, which he didn’t, but at any rate) seemed to be part of a great master plot, designed by the FBI to ruin his life.

A/N – Hey hey! Much thanks to my fabulous new editor Listerine (who rocks, by the way) for all the help! I owe you big time! I actually got the idea for the Final Destination 3 thing because a couple of days ago, I watched it with my friends, and it REALLY freaked me out! And the reaction to Shane’s ex-girlfriend spilling popcorn all over herself was actually my reaction while watching the movie. Hmmm….they’re still not very friendly with each other, are they? Anyway…thanks a ton to everyone who reviewed!

Chocoholic13 – Haha…thanks so much. Glad to know you liked it! Thanks for the review!

Ciiirce – Nice to know you like Layla! She’s a little crazy, though…Shane will be moving in soon so you’ll be able to see how the neighbors’ thing worked out! Thanks for the review!

Pixxidust – Thanks for the review! Here you go!

Hypa to hell and back – Good to know you like it! Thanks for the review!

Writing4Eternity – Thanks a ton! Glad to know you like it!

Austheke – Thanks a ton for the review!

Burgerfreak – Here’s your update! Thanks for the review!

Thegistofitall – here you go! Thanks for the review!

SooooGONE – oh wow! Thanks so much! Here you go!

Well, anyway, ummm….I think that’s all I have to say...oh wait!

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