NaNoWriMo: Day 1 & 2

If you read my post yesterday, you would've seen that I'm taking part in the National Novel Writing Month. I said I would post what I write each day so here is yesterday and today's writing.
Wednesday 7th September7am

Why do alarm clocks have to be so annoying? I flop my hand over to my bedside table, trying to find the snooze button until I remember what day it is. First day of the last year of school; they say it’s meant to be the best. 

Practically jumping out of bed, I stand up and walk over to my wardrobe to find the perfect outfit. In all honesty, I should’ve thought about this before now but I’ve been pre occupied with going to music festivals and inter railing with one of my brothers, Ryan, who went to uni last year. We were always close and it was a great two months away from mom and dad. Now, what outfit to choose? Nothing too dressy or too slouchy either. Black leggings, my dip hemmed stripy shirt, leather jacket and brown riding boots. Perfect. 
After jumping into the shower, putting on my makeup and getting dressed, I walk down stairs to find my mom and dad just about to leave the house. 



“Do you want a lift sweetheart?” dad asks me. My dad is the head teacher of our school and therefore needs to get there early. Mum is in the office staff and she needs to get there early too. I am a student and therefore need to be there just before the bell. Thank god my birthday is in October and I passed my driving test about 6 months ago so I don’t have to be the kid who goes to school with her parents. It’s embarrassing. 

“No, I have to go and pick Lisa and Emma up” I smile, going to put the kettle on to make a coffee. 

“Okay, we’ll see you at school” My mom gives me a worried smile, which slightly confuses me but I shrug it off, waving goodbye to them. 

Turning on the radio, Nick Grimshaw’s voice fills the kitchen, keeping me company as I eat my cereal and drink my coffee. It also gives me a regular time check so when it gets to 8:15, I know it’s time to go and pick up my best friends who both live about 10 minutes’ drive away from me. I pick up my practically empty satchel bag and my iPhone and walk out of the house and to my white Ford Ka which is parallel parked perfectly on the street outside the house. Luckily, my two best friends live three houses down from each other so when I dive onto their street, I park up between them and honk my horn so they both know I’m here; it’s a good system. 

“Oh my god, I can’t believe summer’s over already” Lisa puffs, getting into the back of the car. 

“I don’t know, I’m quite looking forward to going back” Emma says as I pull out and do the next 10 minute drive to school. 

“I just hope that we have some new people in our year, maybe some cute guys” I laugh lightly. That’s the problem, our school isn’t massive and the boys in our year are…meh. We’ve known them for so long that we’re all just too good of friends to be anything more. 

“Or some cute teachers” Lisa giggles. 

“I’ve just got a text from Jen” Emma announces. Jen is the fourth and newest member of our gang but she lives on the other side of town so doesn’t come with us to school. She came to our school last year and fitted in well with our group. “Apparently your wishes have been answered Lisa; there’s a hot new English teacher”

“Finally some eye candy” I laugh as Lisa claps happily. We all take English so it’s relevant to us all and the English teachers are our form tutors this year too so we’ll be seeing a lot of this mysterious man. I pull up into the school parking lot and park up. “Come on ladies, we’ve got a good year ahead of us” We all laugh, getting out and walking to the sixth form block. 

Walking into the common room, it’s already pretty packed because the bell has just rung. We see Jen in our usual spot on the comfy chairs in one of the corners. She runs at us, giving us all a massive hug. She’s a very…friendly girl. Don’t get me wrong, I love her but sometimes she’s a bit too much on an early morning. 
“So how was your traveling Rachel?” She asks me as we all sit down. 

“It was amazin-” I stop mid-sentence when the door opens and the new English teacher. No no, no; no, no, no. No freaking way; anyone but him. Anyone but my brother Jackson; the brother I have literally always fought with since I was born. He spots me straight away and we stare at each other for what feels like an eternity. I ignore my best friend’s gasps of shock and all the other girls swooning as I try and comprehend what’s happening. 

Everyone watches as I walk straight up to him; on the outside I looked calm and cool but on the inside I’m literally about to explode with anger. No wonder mom looked worried this morning. Out of all the people dad could’ve hired he chose this dickhead. 

“What the fuck are you doing here” I say through gritted teeth. 

“Miss Linton, how dare you talk to a member off staff that way” Mrs Jenson, another one of the English teachers, says which just adds fuel to the anger which is bubbling away inside of me. 

“Why did mom and dad not tell me you were coming?” I ask him, ignoring Mrs Jenson. 

“I wanted to surprise you sis” He laughs, just to annoy me. I don’t know why, but we’ve always just rubbed each other the wrong way. Whilst Ryan was always the nice, protective older brother, Jackson was the one who’d pick on me and always try and fight with me and just be a general dickhead.  “But in all seriousness Miss Linton, I think you’d best go sit down because you’re causing a bit of a scene” He smiles sarcastically. 

“Whatever Jackson” I huff. No way can I have him teach me English; I’ll fail the year almost certainly. 

“Erm, I’ll think you’ll find it’s Mr Linton at school” I says, loud enough for the whole room to hear as I walk back to my friends. 

“Whatever Jackass” I say loud enough for a fair few people to hear. Jackass has been my nickname for him since I was about 10…I mean mom and dad must’ve known he was going to be a devil child giving him a name like Jackson; it’s built for insults. 

This year was going to be absolute hell with Jackson being here. Not only do I have mom and dad breathing down my neck at school, now I’ve got him. No wonder I’ve never had a boyfriend; who wants to go out with the head teachers daughter. I really wish I’d gone to another school; the amount of pressure I get from my dad is unbearable and I can’t escape it.  

12:30pm

The joys of double biology; sitting through two hours of Mr Benson drone on about how important our last year is before starting the thrilling topic of Cellular Control and Variation. Note the sarcasm. As soon as the bell rings for lunch, Emma and I dart out and walk to the Sixth Form center. 

“What are you going to do about Jackson?” She asks me as we walk down the corridor. 

“There isn’t anything I can do. I might go see if dad’s busy and have a rant at him but he can hardly sack him just because I don’t want him here” I sigh because this sucks royally. I love English; one day I’d like to be a writer or a journalist but I know I’m going to hate it this year. You’d think that having the same love of English, Jackson and I would’ve bonded over it but if anything, it made us grow further apart because we constantly compete over who’s the better writer, who’s read the most classics, who’s read the most diverse range of books etc. etc. We walk past the office to the common room and it’s as if my mom has some weird sensor because she looks up as soon as we get there and shouts me over. 

“I’ll be in in a minute” I say to Emma as I walk through the door into the main office. 

“So how’s your day going?” She asks worriedly. 

“Why didn’t you or dad tell me Jackson was going to be my form tutor and English teacher?” As I watch her as she thinks about what to tell me, my dad walks into the office with my brother. 

“Can I see you in my office Rachel” He says before walking back out and into his office on the other side of the corridor. 

“Go and see your father and we’ll carry on this discussion at home. He doesn’t look very happy so don’t keep him waiting. And loose the attitude Rach” She shoos me out of the office into the corridor. I don’t know what I’ve done; I’m pretty much a model student, I get good grades and work well in lessons and I manage to balance it with my social life too. I wouldn’t say we were the popular group but we were up there in the social standing and got invited to the majority of the parties. 

“Sit down” My dad points to the empty chair next to Jacksons as soon as I walk in. I shoot a questioning look at Jackson to see why we’re both in here but he just ignores me; typical Jackass. I sit down hesitantly, dropping my bag by my feet.

“Now, I’ve heard about what happened during your form time this morning Rachel and quite frankly, I’m very disappointed”

“What did I do?” I ask him, totally lost by what he was on about. 

“You swore at your teacher and you know that that isn’t acceptable”

“But it’s Jack” I can’t believe him. I really can’t. If they’d given me a heads up about Jackson being my teacher, I wouldn’t have been taken so off guard and I wouldn’t have acted so impulsive but he is my brother. There isn’t really a code as to how you speak to each other. 

“It’s Mr Linton at school. He is your teacher here and your brother at home and you have to act like he’s 
your teacher, like you do with me. The same goes for you Jackson. You have to treat Rachel as your student. No picking on each other, no hitting each other and no annoying each other or else I’m kicking you both out. You both have a three strike rule.
You’re both mature enough to work in a formal environment and I’m trusting you, okay” 

“Yes dad” We both huff before he lets us out. 

We walk out, completely ignoring each other as we go our separate ways. As I walk over to my friends, I keep replaying what just happened. Surly there’s some law where you can’t be taught by your siblings. If there isn’t, there should be. 
I get my pot noodle off the shelf and pour some of the boiling water out of the kettle into it.

“Your dad was looking for you” Jen says as I sit down. I tell the girls about what had just happened and how my dad’s basically told us that we have to be professional with each other. 

“He is hot though so I can’t say I’m that fussed” Lisa says. I shoot her a look. “What, he is” Typical Lisa; as 
long as someone’s hot, she isn’t bothered about how it effects anyone else. Plus, he’s my brother so ew! 

“He actually might be a good teacher, the governors wouldn’t have let him become a teacher here if he was crap” Emma says, being the rational one. I suppose she has a point. All will be revealed this afternoon in our double English lesson. 

“Enough of Jackson, how have your summer’s been?” I ask, seeing as I hadn’t seen any of them. I’d been inter-railing with Ryan most of the summer, Emma had been at some medical camp thing in Africa, Jen had gotten an internship with a fashion designing company in London and Lisa had…well none of us really knew what Lisa had been up to until now. Apparently she’d gone to parties but she didn’t elaborate which is quite strange. She usually doesn’t shut up.

1:30pm

Time to face double English. I want to run and hide somewhere because I honestly haven’t a clue about how this is going to be. There are ten of us in our English lesson and we all sit around one big table with our teacher to discuss the books which we’re reading. Guess who ended up witting next to the teacher. Me. Nearly all the girls, including Lisa and Jen, sat on the other side so they could bat their eyelashes at him whereas Emma, who has never seen the appeal of Jack thank god, the three boys in our class and I sat in random seats because we didn’t care to gaze lovingly over at him 

“I am Mr Linton, your new English teacher” He announces to the ten of us. “Because I’m new, I don’t know who you all are so if you just introduce yourselves and then will start discussing Wuthering Heights” 

“I’m Brad”
“I’m Richard”
“I’m Luke” The three boys introduce themselves  glumly, not that fussed. 
“I’m Ellie” She flutters her eyelashes as she speaks, twirling her hair. 
“I’m Jen” Jen can’t help but smile flirtatiously at him and then there’s Lisa who’s whole body language is basically saying she wants him. God she can be embarrassing sometimes. 
“I’m Lisa”
“I’m Emma” Emma says in a friendly manner like you would talk to any person. 
“And I’m your sister” I can’t help myself to be so sarcastic. 

“That’s an odd name, your sister” He retaliates. Maybe that’s why we don’t get on, we’re both too sarcastic or our own good. Everyone laughs at his crap joke and I have a sudden urge to hit him. Must remember what dad says; no hitting. We’re a school. He’s my teacher now, not my brother. 
6pm  

Teaching your brother how to cook can be…interesting. Whenever Ryan’s at home, I teach him how to make a meal because he’s so rubbish. He goes back to uni on Sunday so I don’t have long to get him to perfect lasagne. He struggles on the cheese sauce you see, but he’s actually getting it today. I’d been venting off about Jackson and the conversation dad had with us. 

“How was the actual lesson though? Is he a good teacher?” Ryan asks as he sets the table for dinner and I put the garlic bread in the oven. 

“Surprisingly it was a good lesson. I’ll give him some credit, he knows how to engage a class and he knows his stuff” It annoys me slightly at how he was good. I wish he’d been crap for the pure reason that he might not stay long. 

“It was weird though. All the girls have a huge crush on him, especially Lisa” 

“That’s hilarious” He laughs as mom and dad walk into the kitchen to see how our cooking was going. 

“What’s hilarious?” mom asks. 

“All the girls have a crush on Jack” 

“He’s a handsome young man, I’m not surprised” My mom laughs lightly. 

“How did your lessons with him go?” My dad asks me and I can’t help but feel pleased to say it did go well. Even though it annoys me, at least dad has no reason to have a go at me for it.