Grim Reaper -Chapter 3: A Little Thing Called School

 by Megan W., 11

A June 2024 Monthly Story Challenge Winner

Hey. If you look at me, you probably don’t think “Wow, she looks like she has a really cool boyfriend.” It’s true, I don’t. Mark is humble, nice, a good listener (except when he’s super stressed), and a total drama king (Not always cool, but awesome). But he’s just like me. He overreacts, panics, and is perfect for me. I overreact, panic, and am perfect for him.

Oh. Sorry. Back to the flashback, I guess.

After Dad and Jake stopped Mom from doing what most likely what would have resulted in her banging the door down to find me, I could hear both them and Mark more clearly. Jasper had gotten a call from Brittney and told his mom to leave the room. Quinn scolded him and told [him] to stay with the rest of them.

Jasper responded by saying, “Ma, I’m already 23! Britney is gonna EXPLODE if I don’t answer! No one wants thaaaaat!”

Quinn sighed and let him go.

Jake turned around to see what was going on.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Mark decided to FINALLY cool off. He finally listened to me talking about what happened, commenting here and there. I heard mom press her ear against the door. I laughed at a really bad joke that Mark had made about me dropping my scythe.

Mom sighed and shook her head. “She’s on the phone with that boyfriend of her’s.” Her big hoop earrings jangled.

A few a minutes after I finished explaining what happened, Mark’s mom, who is the deity of [name of death removed], started calling his name. So he said bye and hung up. 

I thought, “What’s the point of staying in the bathroom?” I stood up, opened the door, saw mom, and jumped backward, and tripped into the empty bathtub.

“MOM! You scared me…”

“I did? Oh. Sorry.” She helped me out of the bathtub. We stood there and um… It was VERY awkward.

After I explained to her what had happened, she said “OH MY…” and told me to go up to my room and stay there while she and dad “discussed.” I wanted to eavesdrop on their conversation, but instead I walked silently up to my bedroom. After all, the worst that could happen was nothing. If they just let me keep on working, school was gonna be really challenging.

Once I got to my room, I took out my phone and scrolled through my “friends” message group. I didn’t wanna count the calls and message back the now FIVE THOUSAND UNREAD TEXTS. 

There was no "most recent text," because they just kept coming. I responded with a simple “hi I’m back from work” and the chat box EXPLODED. I sighed and voice recorded me saying exactly what had happened then sent it. It would be way too slow to type. I’m pretty sure everyone clicked on it the moment I sent it. That kept the texts from coming in sooooo fast. I responded to some of the older texts, and sighed when Mia, (whose dad is the deity of missing in action) responded with a rapid text, “Wut on eeeeaaaarth!!!” and a bunch of other people started responding somewhat like that. I quickly messaged that other than that the day had gone pretty well. I closed my phone and put it on charge. After all, it only had 3 precent battery left.

Back to the present here. The chat box was no longer exploding, but I still had to face my now least favorite thing ever. School.

Last night, the worst decision that my parents have ever made happened. One. I still had to do my job, after the incident. Two. I still had to go to school, no matter how busy I was. Three. I could no longer go hang out with my friends OR have dates with Mark. This one crushed me the most, because I had been planning for weeks to go out with Mark for the Valentine’s day and March proms. But life didn’t stop for me. I still had to go to school.

Even though my head was pounding, I stood up and fed my bird, Skittles, my rat, Cheetos, and my cat, Gatorade. I didn’t feed the dogs, or dog, whatever you wanna call it. I mean, it’s one dog, but it has three heads. I didn’t feed him because he’s mainly my dad’s pet.

I confidently walked out of my room, even though I felt anything except confident. After I ate a wholesome breakfast of eggs and bacon, I said hi to my dad, (who Mom brought a Americano coffee for, the same way she brought me a latte) and I was off to school. Soon, I met up with Whitney, Britney, Mia, Brian, and Mark to walk to school (Brian is the son of the deity of brain injury).

“What do you mean you didn’t finish your biology homework!?”

“Ms. Harris is going to KILL you!!!!!”

“Here! Copy mine!”

I was a frantic mess. Eight grade science is … MURDER. Ms Harris is also probably the most murderous teacher in Blossom Field Middle. She is literally the deity of MURDER. If Brian hadn’t asked me if I had finished my homework and Mark hadn’t let me copy his, I would have been dead meat.

Blossom Field is a very cheery name for a school in the underworld, and is maybe named that because it was built very near a large field of Asphodel.

“Oh no! Morning my band practice elective is soon!” Whitney dashed off, her long, dark brown locks which had white, bleached tips flowing in the wind.

Britney huffed, and her own hair shook. Britney’s hair was always in a pixie cut, no matter what Whitney said. Britney never wore the kawaii skirts that Whitney wore, and stuck to a pair on sweats that had a big lesbian pride flag patch ironed on to them. She didn’t care one bit what her sister thought about her.

Brian gasped. “I have homeroom in three minutes! YOU do too, Britney.”

“Bye!” Me and Mark started heading towards our own homeroom, and so did Mia. But before she left, Mia slipped me a note. She whispered in my ear, “Open it during homeroom. For you eyes only.” I caught one last whiff of that flowery perfume in her light pink hair, and she was gone.

Soon, it was time for homeroom. I kept Mia’s note safely tucked in the pocket of my cream-colored sweats. Once our homeroom teacher, Mrs Brown, started giving us a long, boring lecture about some random subject, I slowly pulled out the note. I didn’t hold it above the desk, afraid of getting caught. I started reading the note.

“Dear Nico, I have something very important to tell you. Do not tell anyone else, ESPECIALLY NOT any grownups (like Mrs Brown!). Not even your mom or dad. I need you to help me with something… I think I have a crush. I’ve never told anyone this before, and I have a crush on Oliver, that hot guy from ur homeroom. Pls send help! She might overreact. I really want to ask him to the march prom in a month, but OMG, embarrassing. H E L P - Mia, ur flower bestie”

GULP.

“Hey Nico! Whats that?”

Oliver! Double gulp.

“Nicola, are you passing notes? Hand that over!”

Now thanks to Mrs Brown, thats triple GULP.

Read the chapters in this series:

• Chapter 1: My Life As A Teenage Grim Reaper
• Chapter 2:
• Chapter 3: A Little Thing Called School
  
• Chapter 4: I Think We’ll Be Friends