Falling Down

M

Melia

Guest
Original poster
September sixth. Move in day at Bloxham co-educational boarding and day school. Bloxham was a small sixth form school, located just outside of Banbury. It was a relatively isolated place about three hours north of Teignmouth, where Matt grew up, and had an emphasis on academics, sports and music. And attitude apparently, as the place boasted signs that read "A conspicuously happy school "on every corner.

"What kind of fucking slogan is that?" Matt muttered to himself. "Let's puke unicorns and rainbows! Yay! I swear, they've chosen this place specifically as a torture device."
Matt had been sent to Bloxham for "delinquent behaviour." Well it wasn't his fault Teignmouth was a hellhole drug trap. Nor was it his fault that the mayor of the city didn't seem to give a rat's arse for the youth of the city. Maybe if he'd been older and able to be politically active in choosing who ran the city, he wouldn't have had to resort to pranks and rebellion.

His friend Dom had warned him to just let it go, that he'd get himself in trouble and screw things up for the band. That the best he could do for himself was keep himself away from the drugs and not get involved in the mayor's business. But Matt was hard-headed and didn't listen and his last act of rebellion had landed him in jail for a night and the next day arrangements to be shipped off to boarding school had been made. Off to the conspicuously happy school where his anger problems would be properly dealt with. All he really needed was to be surrounded by good attitudes, people had insisted.

They've downright murdered me, Matt thought dramatically as he flopped face down on the bare mattress of his new bed. He didn't want to think about Chris and Dom's reaction to the news of him being shipped off. It hadn't been pleasant. There was disappointment but also sadness. "Don't replace me," Matt had said. "I'll be back before you know it. I'll get kicked out and then they'll have to send me back to this hellhole."

He had to admit, he'd rather be in Teignmouth than here. They hadn't even had the decency to send him to London. This place was bigger than Teignmouth, and there wasn't as much of a drug problem here. But it gave the aura of suburbia and he was not a fan.

He made no moves to unpack his things, however. He didn't plan on staying long enough for that to be necessary, no matter what other people thought. But for now, he wanted to do nothing more than mope in his room with the door closed, and stay away from all those Brummies who wanted to be here.
 
It wasn't in her room.

It wasn't in her last class.

It wasn't out on the hill.

It wasn't in her art cubby.

So that left one place she could think of, and she really hope she hadn't left it in there, because it could be long gone by now!


Bailey entered the room in a bustle of energy. Paying no attention to the guy sprawled out on the bare mattress. "Don't mind me! Looking for something!" she chirped out in a rush. Her dark brown hair looked windblown, worse she was shaking a few leaves out of her hair as she stalked over to a dresser to begin pulling open drawers and digging around inside. Nothing in there.

Next was the closet. Swinging open the door, checking the shelf and all the corners. Not there either. Then, without even asking about permission, where the stuff came from, or any other question a reasonable person would ask, Bailey was then digging around in HIS stuff. The boxes, the bag, HIM and his pockets once she got to the bed and was shoving him around to see if maybe he might even be laying on.

"How long have you been in here, a few minutes? Have you seen it? It's brown and has sparkling maple leaf stickers all over it. Move, maybe it's under the mattress." Done pawing at him, Bailey dropped to her knees next to the bed and was trying to stick her arms under the mattress.

Whatever she was looking for, she needed it bad!
 
"Excuse you," Matt cried, scrambling up off the bed as she began to paw at him and dig in his pockets. He was already dancing away from her to the opposite side of the room, digging in his pockets to make sure she hadn't taken anything. Glancing around he could see that she had dug around in his bags and left the room a general mess. Ah well, not that that really mattered to him. But still, she was digging through his things and more than invaded his private space.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped. "I just got here. I haven't seen anything like that. What is it? A diary?"
 
"It's a journal and it's not like that." there was a brief pained expression, the one a person got when they had lost something unbelievably important. But that was gone in a heart beat as she lift up the mattress to peek under neath. Nothing. Well, not nothing. Someone had hidden twenty bucks under there! Bailey left the money and dropped the mattress with a huff. She leaned on the floor and crawled up under the bed.

"Someone had this room before you and they had a really bad habit of stealing my stuff and doing things with it. So the least you could do is help me find it!" Of course it wasn't his fault that it was lost. But he was there, and any extra hand would be useful.

...and now she was stuck.

Only her arms were visible now as she was trying to get -out- from under the bed, and there was a soft squeak of surprise! Bailey's shirt was stuck on something and she couldn't seem to reach it to get it loose.

"Um... I think I need a hand..."
 
"Doing things with it, eh?" Matt asked, wiggling his eyebrows. "Alright, alright, I'll help you look," he said, though the room was small and sparse enough he couldn't imagine that he'd be looking anywhere that she hadn't already looked. He busied himself looking in the closet, letting out a little groan when he opened the doors to find uniforms hanging in there.

"I am not wearing a uniform," he said stubbornly, pulling one out and holding it up to his small frame. He could tell without even trying it on that the thing would be gigantic on him, just like everything else always was. He shoved the uniform back into the closet with a disgusted grunt just as she asked him if he could give her a hand. He kicked the closet door shut with a bang. "I'm giving you a hand already, aren't I? I said I'd help you look-" he turned, finding her awkwardly half under the bed. "Oh."

He shuffled over to the bed and bent over, peering under it. "Nice one," he said, offering her his hand.
 
"Uniforms aren't that bad. We only have to wear them during classes." Bailey took his hand and with the leverage tried to pull herself out from under the bed. Then there was the long, excruciatingly obvious riiiiiiiiiiiip. Bailey paused, looking up at him with wide eyes. That would be the majority portion of the back of her shirt. A few more scrambling inches and she was free, but whether or not he helped or made it worse was still left to debate. Checking the damages, Bailey was now sporting a very long tear at her back.

She huffed. "And now my day is worse. Awesome." This wasn't his fault. There was no reason for her to be giving HIM the glare. It was just.... icing on the cake was all!

Bailey shuffled to pick herself up off the floor. "Thanks for trying to look, anyway. If you DO see a journal with stickers could you bring it to room 202?"
 
[I definitely love Bailey already.]

"Your shirt is wipped," Matt said, pointing out the obvious and letting go of her hand as she stood up. He shuffled back across the room with his hands shoved in his pockets. "I pwomise, if I find any books with sparkly brown stickers, I will bring it to you. But I won't be here by tomorrow morning, so I doubt I'll find it. And I sure as hell won't be here long enough to wear any gay uniforms."

He bent over and started putting his things back into his bags. "You're pwobably gonna wanna go change your shirt though. I can see your bra."
 
(excellente! >:3)

"Well, stop looking...!" she exclaimed first, making a very awkward motion of trying to fix her shirt so bra and skin weren't showing. Sure, there was that whole argument 'well if you wear a bikini what is wrong with a bra?!', but Bailey didn't wear bikinis, and she sure wasn't keen on flashing a new classmate.

She watched him stuffing all of this things back in to his bags as she fussed with her shirt. Her journal was more important than this, but her curiosity seemed to be even stronger. "Leaving already? You just got here. I hope you're not having a man-tantrum just because of the uniforms. They give a sense of equality amongst the students, you know. None of that 'Oh, you don't wear three hundred dollar shoes?' nonsense people like to do." she muttered it like she had experience with that sort of problem. Bailey was sizing him up now, trying to decide which category he was going to end up in.

...which didn't matter, because she really needed to find that journal!

And change her shirt.

"...I am going to borrow one of yours!" she announced, without explaining what 'one of yours' was. He'd figure it out as she went paying through his stuff again looking for a simple tshirt. "I'll bring it back later. I just really need to find my journal before someone gets their hands on it."
 
"I'm not looking," Matt said, stuffing the last of his belongings back in the bag. "Just, erm, letting you know cos some girls have issues with that sort of thing." The sentence came out hastily. Matt was often difficult to understand. He spoke rapidly and mumbled a lot, paired with the speech impediment that sometimes slipped in, his speech patterns often left people who didn't know him well confused as to what he'd said. Dom had once told him he was easier to understand when he was singing than when he was talking.

He straightened from his stooped position and glared at her stubbornly. "I'm not throwing a man tantrum cos of uniforms! Though if the school wants to teach anything about weality they'd know that people don't wear uniforms in real life. Obviously they don't care much for reality," he muttered, "Or they wouldn't have 'A Conspicuously Happy School' as their fucking slogan." Matt went to the closet and pulled the uniform off the hanger, balled it up and shoved it under the bed. "Besides, if people do wear uniforms in weal life, it separates them as a lower class and does not cweate 'equality'. As for me, if people want to judge me by hand me down clothes, I figure that's their problem, not mine."

Matt finally met her eyes, his intense blue ones gazed at hers from under shaggy black hair, finally answering her question, "I'm leaving cos I don't wanna be here. I don't belong here. It's as simple as that."

The girl announced that she was going to borrow one of his and he immediately made the connection that she meant she'd be borrowing one of his shirts. It almost slipped past him, but he smiled slightly. He did that. Jumped topics and expected people to follow him. Very few people thought as fast as he did. And even less people were able to follow his topic jumping. But she'd just done it and he chuckled a little.

Not at the fact that he would be losing one of his shirts, though. But he'd have to cut his losses there, he figured. Though after seeing the shirt she chose his lips formed a little pout. That was one of his favourite shirts and it was one of the only ones that actually fit him decently. He'd gotten it from the girls section, having discovered that a lot of clothes fit him better there. It was one of the few items of clothing he had that wasn't a hand me down, but one he'd bought with his own hard earned money.

Oh well. That was life. It was just a shirt. "What's in that journal that's so important that people can't see it?" He asked, then added, "If you don't mind me asking."
 
"Business men wear suits. That's uniform too. Everybody wears uniforms when they're working." Despite what he said, his whole argument still just sounded like a man tantrum to her. The shirt she picked out, she hastily pulled on over her ripped one. Bailey was pretty sure it was cut for a girl, and it was a little big on her. But it likely fit him just right. ...of course, she couldn't fathom why he wanted to wear girl clothes. Maybe he wanted to be one and that's why he was fussing so much about the uniforms!

And he talked funny. Not the entire time, but ever so often she caught a slipped letter or word. Bailey didn't point it out. She found it curious, though!

"Poetry. Songs... stupid stuff really. Private stuff." Bailey pulled her hair out from under the shirt and over one shoulder. Eying all the stuff he packed away. Was he going to run away from the school? THAT wasn't going to go over well.

"Listen, I can get your whole anti-authority down with the man thing, but it's not a good idea to run away. They don't like that."
 
"Yes but their uniform still cweates a caste system. 'S not equal, no matter what school twies to teach you. You can have a man in his suit stand next to a janitor in his jumper and that suit still says 'I'm better than you' so it's cwap."


He jumped topics as fast as she did, moving on to her journal. "Ah. I get that. I feel that way about my songs. Well like I said if I see it before I'm gone I'll get it back to you."


She mentioned him running away and he glanced down at his bags. That was exactly what he'd been planning, actually. "If they don't like it that's fine with me. I'm not here twying to please anyone. I have a band to get back to. And that's more important than some stupid happy school." Never mind the small detail that he was over three hours away from Teignmouth by car, and he had no money. But he was determined. If he had to walk the whole way there, he would do just that.
 
"Did you know that social caste systems are a natural part of evolution? Even meerkats have a tier of power." Bailey wasn't making any sort of move to leave. Which was weird even by her own standards. She really needed to find her journal, but this guy... Maybe it was because she knew he was going to try and bolt, and she knew what the consequences of that could be. Bailey didn't want to see him getting in trouble when he just got her.

"And it's not a stupid happy school. Some of us had to work really hard to be able to study here. When you ignore the fact some of the teachers are kind of crazy, and a few students are likely serial killers... it's really not so bad." ...maybe it was kind of bad. Bailey had tried to escape once or twice herself. But that's why she knew letting him try would be a bad idea!

"Anyway, you can't just throw all of your stuff in a bag and walk out. You've got to have a reasonable plan first. Some money, a ride. A way to get off the property without being seen by the campus security. If stay for a while and help me find my journal, I could at least give you some advice if you're determined to be stupid."
 
Diana said:
"When you ignore the fact some of the teachers are kind of crazy, and a few students are likely serial killers... it's really not so bad."
Click to expand...

[Oh my gosh I actually laughed out loud!]

Matt blinked at the girl. "So why is the school trying to create equality among the students if it's a natural part of evolution? Maybe it's just an exercise of power." He bent down to pick up his bags and hoist them over his shoulder.

"Well that's gweat," Matt said, a slight strain in his voice as he lifted the bags, "If you want to be here, more power to you. I hope that works out for you and you get everything you're working towards." He was about to open the door and leave when she said something about crazy teachers and serial killer students. He nearly choked on the laugh that escaped. Well now he was curious…

He sighed and turned around to face her again. Reasonable plan, Smeasonable plan. "I've always done fairly well flying by the seat of my twousers… but fine. Fine. If you've got some advice I'll take it."

He set the bags down in the doorway. "Matt," he said, holding out a long fingered hand. "So where else could this journal thing possibly be?"
 
Thank goodness he stopped at the door, because she was about to leap on his back to stop him. Bailey wasn't sure how he'd react to getting wrestled to the floor, or if she'd even succeed.

"I'm Bailey." she responded with her name first. Eying his hand dubiously. Despite the fact she was willing to tackle him to keep him from leaving, touching was a little different. Almost shyly she finally reached out to grasp his hand. Her grip was loose and far too timid compared to her less-than-subtle entrance to his room.

"Don't really know why you'd be surprised about an authority figure exercising it's power, but we can talk about that while looking. And um..." she paused, glancing around his room again as if it would give the answer. Bailey hadn't let go of his hand yet either and once she realized it, she released it quick and crossed her arms. "It could be just about anywhere, honestly. I spent a lot of time wandering around the campus grounds."

"...on the brightside, I can give your a tour while we look. All the best and worst places for a potentially life threatening escape from our benevolent prison guards?"
 
"It's that bad here, huh?" Matt asked, a hint of amusement in his voice and his eyes had a slight sparkle in them. "Sounds like this is a conspicuously happy place, then." He squinted at her, trying to study her accent and determine where she was from. He opened the door. "That fellow that was in my woom earlier, then, how do you know he didn't take it? He sounds like a bullying pwick. How long has it been missing?"

Matt stepped out into the hallway. It was a typical dorm-like hallway, and they were crowded with families and other students still bustling about with move in. Many did seem excited to be here, and Matt spotted a few already dressed in uniform and with their noses buried in books. He wrinkled his nose. Ew. School.
 
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