The Billionaire High School Bully

4 - I wish for more time to paint

"Well, miss... Reed. I believe you are a newcomer to this class. I haven't really tested your French well, as this is an advanced class compared to the language level you had in your entrance tests. Sadly, we do not have enough time for that in this class, but I would like you to visit me in my office later after your classes end." The French witch was at her usual again. She always made sure to torture new people or those, who couldn't speak the language to her level of perfection.

"But miss..." The scholarship creature spoke up.

"Yes?"

"I have a painting I need to work on this afternoon and then I need to make sure to catch the last bus..." She sounded quite desperate. Bus? She commutes here by bus? Don't be ridiculous! I smirked. So not only she didn't have the same social class as us, she was even commuting by bus? What a joke!

"She gets here by bus? Really?"

"Whoa, what a feisty girl! Coming here by that old thing! You have to keep standing in a bus, don't you?" Rex was heating up the discussion raging on a few rows behind me.

"Yes, I believe it gets crowded as well!"

"Silence dans la classe!" The witch was getting her own way around here and kept explaining things again. I turned to my phone, it looked like the chatroom for the business class was getting full of the bus thing.

"I don't care about your means de la transportation, miss Reed! You are obliged to listen to the professeurs of this school!" Whenever this witch got angry, French words would start appearing in her sentences.

"C'est claire?" Her eyebrows were hitting the skies of her high forehead, asking if it was clear for her.

"Oui, oui, madame professeur!" It looks like the scholarship girl won't go home today, saying she understands it. Or maybe she'll have to use a taxi... If she can afford it, what a dreadfully poor thing! What a poor soul, not having even money for a taxi!

"Bien!" The teacher decided to turn back to the board, writing things on it with her "elegant" handwriting. I couldn't stare out of the window, as the creature was blocking it, so I decided to at least stare at a piece of my desk, thinking about what I could do to get the girl out. I gave myself a deadline by the end of this week. And I always made sure that I kept my words and didn't miss my deadlines!

Sophia

"Pfff." I was heading to the art classroom to work on the assignment we were given today. The school was getting empty, the only after-school activities going on were taking place in another building. I didn't have the intention nor the money to join. Come join the tea club! Monthly fee of drinking expensive teas and eating Michelin star desserts and sandwiches for 1000 dollars! Imitating the annoying voice of the girl made me giggle. I had no idea that rich kids, who had had everything ever since they were born, could be this snobby. Thinking that I would be interested in their weird chatting about who-knows-what over a cup of awfully expensive tea and an astronomically expensive dessert and a piece of sandwich. As if I would want to waste money on that! Dream on!

I slammed the door of the classroom shut and finally felt like I could breathe. The sun was slowly preparing to set and the light was changing into warm tones of yellow. The shadows in the class were creating a beautiful play of light and dark. Tiny dust particles were creating a dance show in the last rays of light. It felt so peaceful. It was peaceful! After a whole day of chaos and a stuffy atmosphere, this was great. It finally felt like a world of my own. A world, in which I could create. Where I could be myself.

I took out the easel from the pile in one of the darker corners of the classroom and prepared my empty canvas on it. We were supposed to draw a landscape, which felt close to us as we were kids. I squeezed out the colors on the palette, took a brush in my hand. I looked at the white canvas in front of me. I've seen this so many times, yet it managed to intimidate me every single time. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. I can do this! I closed my eyes and imagined the first time I saw a waterfall with my parents. We were hiking in nature and it was just a tiny fall of water in a stream. Yet, for me as a kid, it looked like the biggest waterfall in my life.

Whenever I was painting, I tried to convey the feelings and the overall atmosphere into the brush strokes and composition. It might not have shown but in fact, I was a very emotional person inside. On the outside, I didn't want others to know how I felt. I wore a poker face and tried to be seen as a tough girl, even if others hated me. Because I had a lot to protect inside. I was protecting my emotions and my feeble heart, which would break at the sight of seeing a stray cat on the street. I was sometimes referred to as the stoic brown-haired girl. The tiny waves at the ends of my hair were supposed to make me look better. Yet here, where all the girls had the best makeup and stylists, I looked like a country bumpkin.

"Sophia Reed!" I jumped up at hearing the rolled French R in my surname. Good thing I didn't put the brush to the canvas when she called me. It would ruin the painting! I turned around on my stool, hands dirty from paint, to see the French teacher at the door panting hard.

"Yes?" I asked her, not knowing what she wanted. Whenever I was painting, my mind would go completely silent and empty for the emotions and the feeling of the atmosphere, which I wanted to portray, to show their full strength.

"You were supposed to come to my office for a French test! What do you think you are doing! I had to look for you through the whole school!" She was still having a hard time catching her breath. Guess she was in such a rage she ran up the stairs to cool her head off. Ah, how much I want to laugh right now! This is just too funny! I was trying to stifle my giggling and laughs, to not make her angrier than she already was. Given the way her body was shaped, she looked like a very dangerous angry bull. Or cow.

"You are coming with me to the headmaster's office!" She yelled at me.

"Can it wait until I am done with my assignment? I heard the headmaster stays here until very late in the evening anyway. Also, if it's about the test, I believe that you can test me as well here, it doesn't need to be in your office, right?" If she was trying to get me to do whatever she said, that was not going to pass. I needed to finish at least part of the assignment as the art teacher would be checking it tomorrow. Being an art major, the art classes were the most important for my grades and graduation. French was just a subject to take on the side.

"I believe that I am the one setting the rules here!" She straightened her back, looking at me through the narrow glasses on her pointy nose. Her purple old-style dress with ruffles on her sleeves was enough to make one go blind.

"But I believe that going to your office from here is just a waste of time for both of us since it will take over a long twenty minutes just to get there. Therefore, I would like to ask you to test me here. Essentially, the exam you want me to do in your office is not a part of the overall grade." I answered and kept sitting down on the stool.

"Bien, if you refuse to go with me, I will make sure you learn very well how to behave in this school!" And with that, her purple bottom disappeared from the doorframe, leaving the door open. I stood up to close it. It was already slowly getting dark. I had just about an hour until the last bus would leave for me to go home. I had to hurry up. I turned the lights on and kept painting. The lively waterfall was getting a proper shape and depth. The more brush strokes I kept putting on the canvas, the more I felt encompassed with the landscape. There were green trees around me and I could nearly smell the fresh wetness of the air.

My phone rang. I jumped up, checking it. It was time for my bus! I put all utensils to the big washbasin filled with water, pulled the apron from my neck, and threw it on my desk. I quickly pushed the easel out of the way to the wall and covered it with a linen sheet to keep the dust off of it. I didn't have time to wash my hands. I grabbed the bag and ran out of the class.

My bus! Please wait! I sped up down the stairs. Soon enough, the sandy road was crunching under my feet. I ran through the open main gate and down the road to the bus stop. I checked my watch. My hands were green, blue, and yellow from colors.

"I hope the bus is late! I came just one minute late!" I said my wishes out loud.