FicWad

I was in trouble. Yet again. Big trouble, humungous trouble. The kind of t big rouble that required hushed, urgent phone calls to my mother from the headmistress`s office while I sat waiting on an uncomfortable plastic chair outside. As I wait I pick up my black and grey schoolbag and rummaged through until I resurfaced with a relatively new bottle of plum coloured nail polish. I loved my schoolbag, it was so cool and different to everyone else`s at Greenwood Academy, which mainly featured images of shitty, talentless boy bands and multicoloured hearts drawn round them. Not mine, it was in the shape of a coffin, and it had even been customised with my name, Bandit Lee on the back in curly blood red lettering.
I smile cheerily up at the school secretary, the cold hearted, smug Ms. Abigail Brown, who was glaring over at me from behind her jewel encrusted glasses, typing away hurriedly at her computer keyboard. I hated the woman; she had a long tangle of grey and brown hair piled up neatly on top of her head, beady grey eyes and a glare that could turn sour milk radioactive. She was almost as bad as the dismal, rule loving Headmistress, Mrs. Helen Turner, the old battleaxe of the hundred year old school. She really was wasted as a head teacher here; the once youthful, blonde haired woman would have made a great prison warden. Neither woman had ever really taken to me, shame really we could have been such great friends. Ya know if I was like a million years old and had a love of torturing myself into insanity.

The thing was that this school and I were never going to work out. What with its Victorian attitude towards children and the evil teachers with their love of rules and smart, impeccable uniforms and punctuality. I was what my late grandmother referred to as a “free spirit” a hard to control, headstrong young girl with a taste for adventure, rule breaking and speaking her mind, no matter who it may offend. I felt that this was a rather polite way of describing me, as opposed to some of the more colourful versions many, if not all of my ex school teachers had told my mother.

I waft my now plum coloured, short nails around, trying to dry them faster, not wanting the colour to smudge. Ms. Brown narrows her beady eyes at me, glowering from behind her oak, paper strewn desk. She couldn`t wait to get rid of me, I had known it from the second I first stepped through the grand front doors on my first day here, neatly two whole months ago now.
The dark brown door on the far right opens, revealing the short, yet intimidating and rather ugly, weather Mrs. Turner. Her wrinkled face was screwed up tightly, almost as though she had been sucking on a really bitter lemon.
“Bandit.” She sighs, saying my name in the usual hate filled, tired tone she always used when addressing me. “I still cannot seem to contact your mother. Her secretary says she is with a client at the moment negotiating a very important deal and cannot be disturbed.” My mother was a designer, a fairly good one at that. And ever since the bastard left her, she had practically thrown herself into her work.
“Shame.” I sympathise, and place my feet on the worn, coffee ringed table in front of me, knocking off a few sheets of important looking papers. Oh well. I half expect one of them to say something, but they don`t. It might had been the ankle length, shiny black leather boots with the sharp looking spikes on them that frightened them, or maybe the knee high pink and black skull print socks under them. She huffs and stalks away, back into her silent office, no doubt cursing my name as she went.
As you can probably tell, I have been in trouble, many, many times before and if there was one thing I had learnt from my past experiences it was that hanging your head in shame and sobbing that you were sorry didn`t change a thing. Nobody would believe you and they would still rat you out anyway.
With a name like Bandit it was fairly difficult to shy away and hide or keep your head down and blend into the background-people noticed you, whether you liked it or not. And it was just my rotten luck that people often noticed me for the completely wrong reasons. Of course, I was being noticed a hell of a lot more now, ever since I had dyed my naturally ebony hair a bright, shocking shade of electric blue. Mom hadn`t been best chuffed and the evil sadistic duo or Turner and Brown hadn`t been impressed by my new hair either. But hey, what you gonna do?
It is gone half past three by the time my Mom finally appears, looking more than a little pissed off and weary. Must have had a hard day at work. She stalks into the room in her fancy, designer, skin tight jeans and her red high heeled boots, raven hair coaxed back into an untidy ponytail.
“Miss B-“
“Cut the sweet talking crap. What`s she done this time?” Mom sighs and sits down on the edge of a plastic seat, opposite me. Mrs. Turner seems quite taken aback by her bluntness, but soon recovers, frowning disapprovingly at her choice in footwear.
“Bandit refused to participate in a biology lesson.”
The calm way she says this makes my blood boil. “They wanted me to dissect some poor defenceless frog!”I scream angrily in protest, trying to defend myself.
She sighs and shakes her head. “Bandit the animal was already dead, besides it was only a frog.” she says; clearly not understand the importance of this to me. I was a strict vegetarian and had been since I was five years old. I loved animals with all of my heart and I couldn`t stand to see them harmed, no matter what they were.
“I am afraid that this is the last straw Miss. Ballato. We have a very strict policy here at Greenwood and are highly rated in the community. I am a tolerant woman, Miss Ballato,” Ha. That`s a laugh. “But I am afraid that I have no choice but to exclude your daughter form our school. A third exclusion as I’m sure you are well aware of is a final one.”
“Yes!” I mutter under my breath, earning myself a death glare from mom.
“There is nothing I can say to get you to reconsider?” She asks in a dull voice, already knowing the firm answer.
“I am afraid not.”
I grin to myself, joy erupting inside me for the first time in weeks.
“Bandit is a smart girl, very talented too. She could have done very well here, but it is just her temper and attitude towards rules and authority. A broken home can affect young people in very dreadful ways, have you possibly considered counselling?” Mrs. Turner suggests, and mom gets to her feet in one swift movement, that cold remark easily hitting a tender spot.
“Thank you for all your help, Mrs. Turner. Goodbye.” She spits and storms out of the badly decorated office, calling me to follow.
“Goodbye!” I smile cheerily, waving animatedly at the two evil women.
I pause at the doorway, and open my mouth slowly and stick out my pink tongue, revealing my best, most difficultly kept secrets of the last seven weeks. They gasp, horrified as they see the glinting silver stud that pierced the middle of it. I close my mouth and smile innocently up at them, my hazel eyes gleaming with happiness and slam the door behind me.
So long bitches. It’s been…interesting…