Double Trouble novel Chapter 3

"You have got to hear this!"

"Well spit it out and I'll read it." I retorted. "Come on, what is it?"

"Mrs Winters has resigned."

"Mrs Winters the art teacher?" I parroted.

"The one and only." Nahla looked up from her phone. "It's legit. It's on Twitter."

"Twitter?" I asked dubiously. "Really?"

"Yeah, don't listen to things of Facebook. They're rumours. Twitter is totally legit. Mrs Winters has been fired."

"Did they say why? And who posted it anyway?"

"Well the schools twitter tweeted that we were expecting a new Art teacher from tomorrow and then more and more people kept tweeting that she'd been fired."

"Any of them say what for?" I asked again.

"Sure, a few have mentioned the juicy details. You wouldn't believe."

"Well it'll be hearsay if the school didn't directly say but go ahead."

"She's been having it on with Doctor Chambers."

"No way!" I replied, reaching over to look at Nahla's brand new iPhone. I pushed aside the envy and concentrated on looking at the screen, at all the tweets that Nahla had retweeted. Loads and loads of messages stated that our art teacher had left, and the rumour that Poppy Greendale had apparently started was that it was because of Doctor Chambers' wife finding out about the affair and forcing the woman to quit. "Do you believe it?"

"What, that we have a new teacher. Good. Let's hope it's a hunky guy I can drool over. Art sucks."

"I liked Mrs Winters." I grumbled. She'd always been patient and understanding with me. I'd never missed a deadline, mind you. I hadn't wanted her pity, but she'd always been able to tell if I was having a bad day and she'd go easy on me. I think she used to be friends with my parents, so there was my explanation for it.

"She moaned at everyone all the time." Nahla complained. "I say out with the old and in with the new. Plus, if she was screwing someone else's husband she's going to get what she had coming to her."

"But I want to." I replied. "It helps me think more than anything."

Nahla looked at me, puzzled, poised to ask me a question. Then she relaxed and nodded her head. "OK." She replied. "Will you come back here before school?"

"I'll drop my stuff home." I replied. I didn't want to come home from school tonight with an overnight bag for Brogan to ask questions about. Better to get it all back home now whilst he was still out. "I'll meet you at school."

"Sure." Nahla said before she turned around to get an extra hour in. I slipped out from under the covers, already dressed and grabbed my bag. I didn't bother saying goodbye as I slipped out of her bedroom and then out of her house before I woke any of her family up. They were known to sleep, the Puth's. I didn't want to disturb that.

Walking quickly, I wrapped my arms around myself to protect myself from the brisk wind that was nipping at my skin, even though I was wrapped in layers. When I rounded the corner, I broke out into a jog and steadily made my way back to my house. Once home, I'd be able to have a quick shower and then walk to school in time. I stopped short outside a stranger's house. A dog barked from a nearby window. I frowned, looking at my surroundings. Shampoo! I needed shampoo to shower. I rifled through my bag to find my purse. Luckily I'd thought to bring some money with me. I knew that if I took a ten-minute detour I could get to Target and pick up the lotion. Providing I didn't dawdle, it wouldn't make me late.

Quickly, I hurried for the store, weaving me around the few people out walking their dogs before their workdays. A guy cycled around each cul-de-sac and block, flinging papers onto front lawns. Every few houses, sprinklers would set off when I ran past their sensors. I hadn't always been a runner. It was more of a form of escapism now, to have some peace from Brogan more than anything. It had its downfalls. The burning sensation in my throat and my lungs did me no good - it brought back painful memories, horrid thought that kept me up at night. But I was healthier, and getting a few minutes to myself made me happier, too. We just had to take the good with the bad. We had to have a balance; otherwise the world would stop spinning on its axis.

At first I'd listened to music whilst I'd ran, but Brogan had sold my iPod one day when I was at school, and I'd never had to guts to ask him to buy me a new one. Plus I already knew the answer: no. There was a million miles separating Brogan and I. We were so different. We may have looked like we'd shared the same womb, the same DNA, but we had few common interests. At first I'd been upset about it, wondering if I'd something wrong. Why wasn't I as brave as Brogan? Why didn't I have the courage to shout at mom and dad if they told me to do something I didn't want to do? But I was young, naïve, I couldn't comprehend that I needed to do my homework, or I shouldn't coop myself up in my room on Christmas day. Brogan wasn't brave. Brogan was angry, like, all the time, but he wasn't brave that I used to believe he was. I'd learnt that I'd been looking at the situation wrong. I hadn't totally realised what my brother had been doing to the family. And as horrible as it sounded, I wondered often what would have become of my brother had my parents not died suddenly? Would my parents have done something about him? Would they have staged an intervention? Would they have swept me up, away from him?

I dreaded to think about how happy my life could have been if my parents hadn't died, if my brother had moved out or been kicked out of the house my parents had owned. Now my brother owned it. Not because my parents had left it to him in their will, of course, but because I was too young to receive it. I wasn't eighteen. My brother was holding it for me. But the mortgage had been paid off already. The probate lawyer was confident that a seventeen year old and a twenty five year old could look after a house together, if they pulled together and got jobs and concentrated on their education and didn't fall in with the wrong crowd.