It was the Monday of a brand new week... of school.
Sandy stepped into the warmth of the school building, to the brand new start of a sleepily boring day, filled with classes and lectures and homework and... ugh, she wished she did not have all those responsibilities. When she received her inheritance, she would laze around all day, all year long.
There was not any special task she had to accomplish that day. She had already distributed all but her personal copy of Annie's humiliating picture. She had already spread the gossip among the 9-A girls, telling them where they could find more of the little girl's pictures. Thus, she had completed the task that Connie had set her to do.
All she had left to do was to collect her pay... her pay? Oh, no! She had not asked Connie for pay! Argh, how could she have been so careless!? She had been doing voluntary work for the glamor queen!
Argh, argh, argh! Frustration, annoyance, regret! Oh, her lost money, beautiful money that would never know her, that would never feel her soft touch!
As Sandy was hopping about, mad at her carelessness, danger stalked up to her.
"Young lady, I'm here to conduct a spot check," a short teacher with combed black hair announced. It was Mr Fowler.
"Oh, okay." Sandy handed over her schoolbag for inspection. She then went back to the process of eating her heart out. Maybe it would taste good fried with salt.
Sandy was interrupted again when Mr Fowler called her rather angrily, "What's this!?" He was holding up Sandy's personal picture of Annie.
"What? Er, that's..." Sandy stumbled.
"Obscene material are prohibited within school grounds, you hear?" Mr Fowler told her, loud enough for the other students in the corridor, "Now what's your name and class?"
Having the unwanted attention of all the other students, Sandy wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But she had no such luck escaping the vigilant teacher. Besides, if she did that, she would never get her money. Her inheritance, that is - she had already lost her chance to ask Connie for pay.
It was fortunate that Annie was nowhere in sight to add to her misery.
Ariel saw her though. The blond gave her a dark glare that seemed to emanate a shrinking ray that reduced Sandy into a tiny speck. Sandy felt that deprecating glare all through the morning classes and into the morning break.
Esper and Selina returned to the class with the week's issue of the Fernham Post. Hoping for a distraction to take her mind off her humiliation, Sandy followed them to Ariel's desk, where Esper spread out the paper.
The story on page two, one about Annie Billings, caught their attention. It appeared that the little girl in 9-C had consumed alcohol. According to the report, she went out for a night of drinking in the city during the spring break. She had passed out in the streets, where she had been found by the police.
"Wow, I can't believe Annie did that," Ariel commented.
"She's our age, right? That's so young to be a drunkard," Esper said.
"The story just doesn't seem right, though," Selina mused, "It shouldn't be that easy for a fourteen-year-old to get her hands on alcohol."
"But it's in the paper," Sandy argued, "So it must be true, right?"
Selina glanced at Sandy. "Don't believe everything you read in the papers," she advised.
The girls studied the article again. "I wonder if alcohol's good?" Sandy pondered.
"What do you mean?" Ariel asked, "Of course there's nothing good about it. They keep it from underage children for a reason."
"But there has to be something good about it," Sandy argued, "or Annie would've stopped long before she ended up like that." She gestured at the article on the desk.
Ariel raised a finger and opened her mouth but paused before she said anything. Then she slumped in her chair. "I can't believe I lost an argument to Sandy."
Esper chuckled while Selina hid her smile with her left hand.
***
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