text: It was just a joke. Everything was a big fucking joke back then. Have messy locker. Heh. Deliberately throw all your trash in the locker. What a hoot. Leave lock off so that your friends can get in on that shit. Fucking hilarious Take all of our school photos, the preview ones that were clouded with a water mark, and hang them up on the door of the locker. God damn comedy gold. You see 11th grade is probably the biggest you'll ever feel in your entire life. You focus way too much on how the world views you and not so much on anything that actually mattered. So no, being a pig on it's own isn't funny, but getting that look. The unsuprised, slightly apathetic, accusitory look that said "You dumb fuck." Priceless. I was sitting in homeroom, which is the second class of the day for some reason. I remember the vice principal walking in. "Ben" He was holding a small caddy that contained gloves, a roll of paper towel, and an unknown chemical in a spray bottle. "Is your locker number 2007?" "Yeah." It wasn't. It was Danny's, but it's a retarded question anyways. There's no way I could confirm that, I mean who actually ever looks at that shit? "You and Daniel need to go clean that up right now, this is ridiculous." I could feel my face getting hot and heard a couple of shushed giggles scattered around me as I got out of my chair and walked to the door. I tried to remember what walking normal actually looked like and tried my best to emulate it. Nice walk dumbass. I hated being put on the spot when I was alone. Vulnerable. I found my way to my locker though silent hallways besides the occasional chatter coming from open classroom doors. Grabbing one of the hallway's trash bins, I pulled off a rotting apple core from the coat hook it was impaled on. I didn't bother with the gloves. It was mostly just stray homework that never got done and wrappers of those breakfast pastries you could buy outside the cafeteria as long as your mom never asked "what the fuck happened to the 40 dollars I paid last week?!" I'm a big boy. I was so focused on ignoring the smell that I didn't even notice Emma and Hailey walk up. Must have been skipping homeroom. Emma looking over the smug smiles of 6 proud owners taped to the door broke the silent awe first. "Why would you guys do this" That's a good question. I shrugged "I don't know, it's funny" "No it's not" blurted out Haley "it's disgusting" I guess I looked helpless enough standing there that Haley started to put a pair of gloves on "you want some help?" "That'd be great" Emma grabbed a pair as well, and the three of us got to work. And by the three of us, I mean I drifted further away from the work at hand whilst Emma and Hailey went into girl gossip flow mode. I stood back and just let them do their thing, picking up little details about who's dating who, etc. Just then Danny, sole proprietor of the locker, walked in from the parking lot with Bacon, bottom left photo in door of said locker right next to "Deaf Boy". Talking loudly and laughing about last night's GTA sesh, Danny sipped off a McDonald's orange juice. Danny wore a huge smile as they approached us. "We got caught huh" He said through a contained, bellowey, kind of laughter as he immediately sucked the last bit of OJ down, then casually tossed his cup into the locker, splatting specks of juice not only on the freshly wiped locker walls but also onto Hailey's face. We all laughed minus Haley, clearly annoyed that she was interrupted in her talk about prom with Emma. "What the fuck?!" She said through a bitter smile Ignoring it, and still laughing I said. "Yeah! Emma and Haley are helping us clean up" "Well it looks like they're doing a pretty good job" Danny said with an impressed look. Bacon put his arm around my shoulder. "Yeah It looks like they have it under control" That bellowey laugh infected Danny's voice once again as he choked out "You know what that means right?" Bacon's face went stone cold. "No consequences for our actions." My eyes widened "You wanna do it again?" I pointed at Danny, "Maybe we should do it again." He retortored before I even finished talking. Bacon chimed in "I'll do it again" "Let's fucking do it again" "We're gonna fucking do it again" A calm authoritarian voice interrupted from behind us. "No. You wont." Danny let out a huge dramatic gasp as he whipped around with bug eyes and a Shakey core to look the vice principal in the face. He always did that immediately following an aural plan of fucking up when vp was nearby. "Drop the theatrics Daniel. Why are Emma and Haley cleaning your locker?" "We tried to stop them but they overpowered us." Haley giggled at this "Girls where are you supposed to be?" Emma started to studder out "Mrs. -" "Get there now. You both have an hour of detention" Emma and Haley pulled their gloves off and grabbed their books from the floor. As they turned around to leave, Haley looked at me like she was waiting for me to say something. I really wanted to, and I would of, had it not been for the knot growing in my stomach. I had to keep my cool and I knew the illusion would be ruined as soon as I opened my mouth. The two girls walked away silently, probably until they were in safe bitching distance. I wondered if my name would be brought up in that conversation. Danny was unfazed by this and I don't think Bacon was even paying attention. "Finish cleaning this up then get back to class. You all get one hour." "C'mon man we just got here" Danny rebuttled "Well then that's 3 hours for you and Bacon" Danny scoughed and spit in the trash can as the vice principal walked away. I know Danny didn't actually care that he got detention. If you missed class, you got detention and Danny was always missing class. Hell, the fucker was in school every Saturday anyways making up all the homework he never did. We all periodically found ourselves making up homework and chipping away at our detention during Saturday school. It wasnt that bad. Sometimes, I'd even tag along when I had nothing better to do. As soon as Danny got his license was when we started to regularly skip class. We'd skip English and go get taco Bell. Next day, get called into the office. "Where were you 3rd block?" Sandy would ask I'd studder out a dumb excuse she was completely apathetic of. "That's one hour of detention" At one point I stopped making excuses and just told Sandy the truth. Didn't change anything. Just streamlined the process. It really was better for both parties. At one point though Bacon told me he "two-streamed" and pissed all over the front of his khaki shorts so he just left. When Sandy asked him why he missed 4 classes, he said the same thing verbatim. He didn't get detention. Anyways it was during one of these skipped periods that the 6 of us would take a joke too far and fuck up beyond redemption.