3. Welcome... to Bradwield High

Brendan made an innocent sound as if in answer to these words. Howard took him upstairs and using heaps of his jerseys and the basin he had used to wash him, he made a bed for him and no sooner had he laid him down had he fallen asleep. Howard stretched and yawned and before heading downstairs, he looked at baby Brendan one more time. He was quiet, as if dead. Although the mother had not explained the whole story, just by looking at him, Howard felt that there was more to the story than the father trying to burn down the house. 

‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s much more to this story than meets the eye.’ With these words he headed downstairs.        

Many years passed by and Brendan was growing into a bright young boy always eager to help Howard around the house. With the little money he seemed to have, Howard sent him to Bradwield Junior School. Brendan always brought good marks at the end of every term to show his adoptive father, Howard. The relationship between the two grew so strong and Howard saw Brendan as his own son and when they spoke to each other it was as if they were two of the best of friends. 

Brendan finished his education at Bradwield Junior and he went to Bradwield High School which was a walking distance from his home. This was where he met Simon Drewmorphin who became his first and best friend. 

Bradwield High School was a simple structured fortress. There was only one gigantic and long building which was where all students learned. The building was divided by a corridor into fourteen rooms. From the entrance were the boys’ and girls’ toilets. These were the only two rooms to the right of the building after the door. To the left, after the door, were the classrooms from grade eight to grade twelve. Only the grade twelves had two classrooms. 

Facing the last grade twelve classrooms were all the students’ lockers, one for each student. Made of metal and opening like wardrobe doors, these stretched from this point all across the walls of the hall to the entrance. The students kept their stationery and other school belongings in these lockers. Each locker had top and bottom sections and security codes. 

Each classroom could accommodate up to sixty students. After the classrooms were the staffroom then two of the teachers’ toilets. These were the last rooms on the left of the building in the direction of the door. 

Facing the Grade nine classrooms was the Function Hall. This was where all school functions were held. Beside the entrance to the Function Hall was the school library. After the library, a few yards away, was the school cafeteria where the students had their recess. The cafeteria was connected to the kitchen. All the walls in the building were painted red, even the ceiling and roof. The school building was surrounded by at least one-and-a-half kilometers of the school grounds and this was where all sports activities were held. 

Bordering the school grounds was the fence which had barbed wire. The gate entrance to the school was rusty but looked strong, tall, heavy, big and majestic. Just like the school building, it too was painted red which happened to be Brendan’s worst color. Well, actually, Bradwield High’s main color was red and this annoyed Brendan even more. 

The boys wore white shirts and black trousers to match. They also wore red jerseys and blazers and black formal (business) shoes of any choice. Sneakers were not allowed. This also applied to the girls. The girls wore white blouses, red blazers and jerseys, red dresses, “Not an inch above your knees,” Principal Johnston always reminded them. “I don’t want you turning my school into a brothel,” he would say. 

Black blazers, jerseys and ties were only worn by the prefects of the school. Their uniforms were different from the rest of the students by only these three forms of clothing.

Brendan and Simon would hang around together at recess and chat. They had their own special table in the cafeteria which was at the very center. All Grades dined together in the cafeteria and each time at recess there was jostling and bustling to and fro but everyone in the school knew that the table at the very center of the cafeteria had “owners”. 

Simon’s appearance was like the opposite of Brendan’s. Simon had scruffy brown hair and curious-nervous looking eyes with the same color. His jaws were sharp and his voice was like that of a person always in trouble. 

Brendan, on the other hand, had a perfectly carved face, ocean blue eyes and smart, short black hair. His eyes almost never exposed any excitement and he rarely spoke to anyone else besides his best friend, Simon.

‘Well, look at that! If it isn’t “Orphan boy” and “My mama’s on weed”. ’ This was Samantha Patricks being her usual and annoying self. ‘You two make the most perfect and award winning couple.’ Samantha was known by everyone as the richest girl in the school but her self-importance deprived her of any friendship whatsoever. She was tall and had long silky black hair. Her face was always beaming with pride and face makeup. Although he always denied it, Brendan knew that she was beautiful, but her arrogance seemed to somehow tarnish that beauty. 

She was just as tall as Brendan and her green, furious looking eyes were enough to scare a vicious dog. By “Orphan boy” she was obviously referring to Brendan who had no birth parent and by the name “My mama’s on weed” she referred to Simon, whose mother was allegedly on dangerous and addictive drugs.

‘You creeps are the lowest life forms on earth, you know that?’ She spat at them as she walked by, waving her hair for everyone to see as if she was a famous model. Apart from being just arrogant and rich, Samantha was also the Head Prefect of the girls in the school and this meant that both Brendan and Simon had to avoid trouble or suffer the consequences.

 ‘Spoiled brat!’ Simon shouted back at her but Brendan told him not to bother himself with someone like her. 

She would sometimes ask Brendan silly questions like, “Did they feed you on goats’ milk?” or “I heard you were born in a hatchery, is that true?” Brendan never answered any of her questions because he knew if he did, then she would only bother him even more. 

Brendan had been tortured by Samantha since junior school in the first grade which made his problems older than Simon’s who only arrived in Bradwield City in the eighth grade, but still, Simon seemed more annoyed than him. 

But Samantha was not the only pest on Brendan’s back. The Math subject was another demon he had to deal with. Being a sixteen year old teenager, Brendan was facing a lot of problems with his math. Angus Stu, the school bully, was another monster besides Samantha that he had to avoid each and every day.

‘Let’s all take out our Math textbooks and open on page two-hundred-and forty-two.’

Brendan was daydreaming.

‘Brendan! Brendan! Brendan!’ Mrs. Cooke shouted. She was in her forties. She was always dressed in black suits and high heels and she always had a plaited hairstyle. Her nose was long and sharp and she would occasionally look at it as if she inquired something unexpected from it like a pimple. Her body was almost fat which showed that she was probably trying a weight loss diet but getting overwhelmed by the temptation of fatty goodies each time she tried. 

‘Could you at least pretend you’re paying attention?’ She looked at him painfully with her dark-blue eyes.                                 

Brendan was still trying to snatch himself from his dreams as the class roared in laughter.