Chapter 9: Chapter 07

Harry Potter book series is a thousand times better than its movie adaptation, agree or not?

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They say all's well that ends well.

But that's not applicable in my case. After spending eight torturous hours in school, I get to meet the devil's face in after school detention.

Along with his followers. He grins the moment he sees me.

I try my best to stay away from him. So I grab my worksheet from the teacher and take a seat farthest away from them.

After a minute when I devote myself to the worksheet, the chair beside mine creaks, followed by a heavy weight falling on it.

"We meet again Snow White," I look up and find Ashton's jerkface right in front of me. I don't make any comment on his nickname for me.

Ashton smirks mischievously. I see his friends moving in the seat behind us.

"Can you please leave me alone? I'm sorry for something I haven't even done, happy now?!"

His smirks just broaden.

"Sweet that you have it in you to apologize, but I'm not done with you."

I groan but keep it low so the teacher doesn't hear me. "What else do you want from me?"

"A moral advice for your future from the goodness of my heart Miss White, never give everything away to a stranger like that."

I blink, is he trying to be a nice guy?

"Noted," I say anyway.

He looks pleased and leans back on his chair. I see his worksheet is still untouched. I look behind and find the same with his friends.

"You know you aren't allowed to leave this room until you complete your worksheet," I tell them. Well, that's what Mrs. Glenda told me before coming here.

Ashton shakes his head. "No it's when the teacher leaves after calling our names is when we're allowed to leave."

"And you know that because-"

He looks amused. "My friend there, Nyako is an expert in this case."

I finally look at the curly hair guy beside Owen properly. He has clean-cut short black hair with emerald slanted eyes hidden behind his glasses. Who could tell this is the troublemaker of the group.

"But weren't you in the team with them?" I ask.

"He still is. But he has no intention of getting a sports scholarship and has daddy's recommendation to at least get him in some college," Owen answers all my unspoken questions.

Oh yes, how can I forget their Daddy's money?

"I thought you all had it," I mumble.

Ashton seems to get amused and amazed every time I open my mouth. "I don't know what you think of us, but not all of our parents are willing enough to write a recommendation letter for us."

I blush. I don't want them to think that I'm a judgemental type.

So I get back to my worksheet.

After a while, Ashton spoke, "I hope you know you're the reason I'm here."

I gasp. "How could you say that?" I shout-whisper at him. "You're the reason I'm here! If- if you hadn't held me back in the first class, I wouldn't be here."

"Well if you haven't written that article, the coach wouldn't have been mad at me and kicked me out of the team and then I wouldn't have to spend the whole day trying to convince him that I'm innocent."

"First you're not innocent. And second, how many times do I have to tell you it wasn't me who wrote that thing?" After a moment, I realize what he has said. "What? The coach banned you from the team?" Ashton nods. "But why?! You're like the most important player in the team."

I can't believe I'm saying that but it's no secret he's one of the major players of the team. The team will be almost lost without him.

And this all can't be just because of that photo?

As if he read my thoughts, he says, "I know, after giving it a thought, it can't be just that one article to make such a big decision, someone must've spiked up something to make him more furious at me," he says. "I've spent the whole day trying to convince him to let me at least stay in the team, dad also talked to him, but he wouldn't budge."

He looks at me. "Do you know what got Mrs. G today? Three of us were at the principal's office all day trying to clear out my name and convince the coach. I even missed lunch today, all the teachers gave us a hallway pass, except Mrs. G." Ashton frowns. "And here I thought she was the easiest teacher to walk around with."

I gasp. "Mrs. G gave you detention too?"

Ashton raises a brow and looks around. "Other than me and Nyako, who received Mrs. G's detention?"

I raise my right hand. "Right here, sir."

His face broke into a grin. He gives me a high five, followed by Nyako.

Wow, now who's becoming buddies with who?

"I got detention from Mr. Gomez of mathematics," Owen contributes enthusiastically.

"No one asked," Nyako snorts.

Owen pouts and crosses his arms like a toddler. "I won't talk with any of you ever again." The only reply he receives is a chorus of our laughter.

Fifteen minutes later, just as Ashton said, the teacher called our names and left for a washroom break. Almost instantly, everyone else starts to pile out of the room.

"Are you sure it's safe to go?"

I look at the boys. "I mean what if the teacher came back?"

Ashton slings an arm around me. "Trust the expert Snow," he lasts my shoulder and stands up. "He's not going to come back. He never did."

With that, Ashton leaves with his friends.

I sigh and stay for another five minutes, before realizing I'm the only person left in the room.

I make my way towards our committee's meeting room, praying Ashton was right for once and the teacher is not going to come back.

It's good in a way, the sooner my work is done, the sooner I can leave. Moreover, Kat said she'll be waiting for me in my car after her trial for the swim team finishes.

When I walked inside the meeting room, only Jason was left there.

"Oh, for a moment I thought you won't be able to make it," he says when he sees me.

I grin. "Have you ever seen me breaking my commitments?"

Jason shakes his head and chuckles. He shows me the sales rate of the paper. Oh my! It's been only a day and we're already running out of stock.

"This Fellan thing has gotten too far," Jason mumbles. "Someone even posted it on Facebook."

I gasp. "What?"

This can't be a good sign.

"But I didn't submit the article."

"I know, you showed it to me," he says. "Let's check the draft again."

We check the rough copies of this week's paper. It's the Uganda one here.

"Do you think the press guy changed it?"

He shakes his head. "I don't think so," he says. "I mean what grudge can an eighty plus guy have against you or Fellan?"

Not to mention how nice that old man is. Typical sweet grandpa type.

"You're right," I tell him. "He can't do such a thing unless someone else paid or threatened him."

Jason gives it a thought. "Hmm, but we still can't accuse him of doing it just because he's poor," Jason says. "Moreover, he's been doing this job since the beginning. He does all the other printing for our school. Principal Samatha wouldn't have hired him for the job if he wasn't trustworthy."

We look through the piles of paper again, hoping to find the Fellan fiasco one.

"I feel bad for Ashton," I say after a while. "I mean, I know that article has gone kind of viral but the coach shouldn't have done what he has done. I mean, it's not like the coach didn't have it coming. Everyone knows about his reputation with girls."

Jason stops doing whatever he was doing. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" I furrow my brows.

Jason's eyes widen. "How? The whole school was talking about it after lunch."

"Uh...I might have blocked them all out and said that I don't want to hear another word about the Fellan fiasco to whoever approached me?"

"That explains," Jason shakes his head. "Anyway, the coach didn't suspend Ashton because he was having sex in Africa. Come on, what does the coach have to do with his reproduction life?" He snorts. "Apparently, the coach gave them a lecture on self-advertising. Ashton made a pun or two about it. But knowing Ashton's usual joking-around habit the coach brushed it off," he says. "But after the article came out this morning, a rumor around has been running around that Ashton did it himself to challenge the coach and paid you to do it."

I blink. "Isn't that a bit suicidal?"

Jason shrugs. "Their coach heard it and went furious. He exiled Ashton from the team immediately."

"And are you sure it's not Ashton who published the article? You know his usual prankster ways." Maybe he wanted to see the coach's reaction this time.

"You think he would've been throwing tantrums around the school to clean his name from the mess like this?"

That's also true.

I shrug. "In that case, all we need to do is find the person who started the rumor and make them confront it."

"It's not that easy," Jason says. "No one knows who started it."

I sigh. "Then I can go and tell the coach that Ashton didn't pay me to write that article?"

Jason freezes and turns to me. "Are you freaking nuts?!" He yells. "The photo has gone viral on Facebook too. If you turn yourself in, they will think that either someone paid you to do it, or you wanted to take revenge on him for not making Derek his running back. Then Derek will get in trouble too because of you and both of you can say your going-to-college dream goodbye, forget about Ivy Leagues," he says. "Do you want that to happen?"

I shake my head. "Of course not."

"Then keep your mouth shut," Jason continues his search.

I let out a deep sigh. "So there's nothing we can do? I'm starting to feel bad for him."

Not because I feel bad for him. It's because it was me who took that photo.

"For now, all we can do is keep our mouths shut and let people forget about it," Jason says.

Anger boils in my blood. Yes, Ashton is a prankster, he's a bully and heartbreaker, he has broken too many people, knowing or not knowing.

But still, they could've gone a bit easy on him. Ruining his whole career, it'll just make them as bad as him.

But as Jason said, there's nothing I or any of us can do for him, at least not yet.

"Nothing's here," Jason says after we look around for any kind of evidence for another five minutes. He looks at his wristwatch. "It's getting late, we should leave."

I nod and pack up my things. When I go to the parking lot, I find Kat jamming the radio inside my car. Thankfully I gave her the spare key this morning.

"Guess who's sister has been the talk of the school all day?" She asks sarcastically when I get inside the car.

"How long have you been waiting?"

Kat rolls her eyes at my attempt of changing the subject. "Five minutes," she says. "The trial took longer than I thought it would."

"I almost forgot to ask,"

I say reversing the car backward. "How was the trial?"

"Fine, I might be getting in the team. The coach said she'll announce the final list by the end of the week."

"That's my sister." I ruffle her hair.

"Eww, don't do that ever again," Kat grimaces and swats my hand away.

I laugh and I drive us home.

All's well that ends well, indeed.

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