The Consequences of Being Early to School

The city bustled around her, the comforting roar hardly noticeable as Talia hurried to school, about to be early for most likely the first time in her life. This morning, miraculously, the alarm she had set the night before had gone off, and actually woken her up. She’d had plenty of time to get dressed, eat breakfast, and go over her homework from the night before.

When she’d gotten downstairs, neither of her parents had left for work yet. Dad was standing at the counter making breakfast, and mom was working on her laptop. Their cat, Winter, had actually let her pet him before stalking off to the balcony to take a nap. They’d eaten breakfast together, her mom had checked her homework, and then they had all left for their respective work. 

Was it just her, or did the sun seem to be shining brighter today? Were the trees greener, and the sky bluer? It was one of those days where nothing could possibly ruin it! Humming a tune, Talia continued walking, a skip in her step.

“Talia!” Talia’s best friend, Aaron, waved at her cheerfully from the steps at the entrance of their school, hurrying over. “What are you doing here?! How are you here?!” He pressed a hand to her forehead. “Are you feeling sick? Why are you so early?”. Talia swatted his hand away, and stepped on his foot.

“It’s not that big of a deal, I'm not always late.” This was a bald-faced lie. Talia wasn’t always late, but she was never early. She had so many tardies, it was a wonder she hadn’t been suspended yet. “Come on, let's go!” She walked up the steps, her foot caught on the top step, and she gracelessly rolled all the way back down.

“Talia!!” Aaron yelped, racing back down the stairs to where she collapsed on the ground. A few of the students around them winced, and murmured, but thankfully that was it. 

“Are you okay??” Aaron asked, kneeling down beside her, wincing at the scrapes covering her hands and knees. Of course she’d had to decide to wear shorts today.

“I’m fine.” Talia said, gingerly standing back up, trying not to touch anything, or bend her knees too much. They were just scratches. She wasn’t going to let anything ruin this perfect day!! “Come on.”

Aaron gave her a worried look. “You should at least go to the nurse to get some bandaids. It's only 7:15, you have some time. Talia nodded. Trying to ignore the stinging in her palms and knees, she carefully made her way back up the stairs, and walked towards the Nurse’s office. 

Outside the door was a sink and a basket of bandaids. Talia carefully rinsed off her palms, and used a paper towel to wipe her knees, and applied the bandaids. When she finished that, it was 7:20. A skip once again in her step, Talia bounced to her next class, determined to make this day perfect.

“Talia!” Ms.Rian’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw her. “You're early!” She scrutinised Talia, and her eyes went wide again.”What happened to your hands and knees?”

Talia smiled. Ms.Rian, her French teacher, was by far her favorite teacher, and always went easy on her when she was tardy, which was probably the reason she hadn’t been suspended yet. “I just feel, Ms.Rian, it’s nothing to worry about. I already put bandaids on them. They’ll probably be gone by tomorrow.” Ms.Rian sighed in relief.

“Well, that’s good to hear. Now, come in and sit down. You’ve still got some time before class starts. I’ll be passing back your tests from last week.” Talia perked up. The test! She’d forgotten about that! While French wasn’t her favorite subject, she was pretty good at it, and she’d felt the test last week had been pretty easy. Hopefully she’d done well.

Talia sat down at her desk at the edge of the front row, hanging her backpack on the back of the chair. There were only two kids in the classroom, Casey and Fiona. They were both occupied with their phones, and didn’t spare her a glance. She didn’t mind, she didn’t know them that well anyway.

Resting her head on the desk, Talia waited for class to start. Five minutes before the bell rang, kids started trickling in, sitting at their desks and playing games on their phones, or talking to friends. When the bell rang, Ms.Rian went to the front of the class, and clapped to get their attention. 

“Ecoutez, tout le monde! I’m giving back your tests from last week. All-in-all, you guys did pretty good.” With that, she started rotating throughout the classroom, passing back the tests. Talia crossed her fingers, and prayed that she got a good grade.

“Here you are, Talia. Better luck next time.” The paper landed on her desk, and then she was gone. Talia went pale. That wasn’t a good sign. She peeked at the paper. Then flinched, grabbed it, and stuffed it into her bag. Circled in bright red on the paper had been the number 67. A D. Shit.

Talia took a deep breath. No. She was not going to let one little test score ruin her day! Her French grade was pretty good, one D wouldn’t bring it down too much! She’d just quickly bring her grades back up before her parents noticed. No harm, not foul! She’d be fine.

Having brought her heart rate back down, Talia noticed that Ms.Rian had started talking again. Settling into her chair, she did her best to focus on the lesson.

“You got a what???!!!??” Aaron shrieked, slamming his locker door shut, and swiveling to stare at her in horror. Talia rolled her eyes.

“Stop overreacting. It shouldn’t affect my grade too much, I’ll get it back up before my parents notice anything is wrong. Also, this doesn’t affect you, so why are you acting like you got the D?” 

“It does affect me!!” Aaron insisted, shoving a book into his backpack. “If your grades slip, we won’t be able to go to the same college, and we’ll never see each other again! You're my only friend! I can’t lose you!” Talia sighed. Aaron had abandonment issues. She patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry, it’s one small grade. It won’t affect my grades at all, nor will it affect the college I get into. Besides, I’m trying not to let it affect me. Today is supposed to be a perfect day!” Aaron stared at her.

“A perfect day? So far you’ve scraped up your hands, knees, and grades. How is today a perfect day? I think the universe might have something against you” Talia glared at him.

“I’m not going to let any of that affect me! I got to school early for once, and it’s a beautiful day. Today is going to be a perfect day, and the universe can go @!#$ itself.”

Aaron shrugged. “Okay. Please try not to get yourself killed, and if you can’t get you grade back up, I’ll kill you myself.” And then he was gone.

Talia rolled her eyes. The universe, against her? There was no way the universe would care about a small-fry like herself.

The universe was completely against her. During lunch, she’d tripped and spilled her lunch everywhere. They had a surprise pop quiz during history class, and she had been completely unprepared. Walking back home, she was barely halfway there, and she’d already almost tripped into three potholes!

Lost in thought, Talia didn’t notice as she wandered past a construction site. She didn’t hear the shouts. She didn’t look up from the street until she noticed the sudden shade on top of her. She looked up. Her last thoughts as the block of concrete hurtled towards her were, “This is so stupid. Sorry Aaron.”