Trouble The Hallways

Jean slowly finished her food and did some light exercising again before taking a shower. She then quietly headed to her room and dried her hair with her towel. It took a while to dry since she couldn't use the blowdryer. The walls in her apartment were thin and it was around the time her dad would go to sleep and she didn't want to accidentally wake him. Jean laid down in her bed and after adjusting her body around a bit to get in a more comfortable position, she quickly fell asleep.

Jean woke up to the alarm clock the next morning and groggily got up from her bed. She hit the button on the alarm clock to turn it off and then checked its time. It read 6:45. She then picked up her phone and looked at it to make sure that it was indeed correct. Thursday, 7:45 a.m. Yep, everything looked good.

Jean yawned and made her way to the bathroom to take a shower. She really only needed one every day but she preferred to take one in the morning as well. It was to wake her up, since if she didn't take one then she would be walking around like a zombie the entire morning.

After her shower, Jean made breakfast for herself and her dad. She decided to go with toast and fried eggs since she wasn't in the mood to make anything that would require more energy than that. She quickly ate her breakfast while it was still hot. She saw that her dad was sleeping in late again and put a cover over his portion so that it wouldn't go cold and left for school.

***

On the way to school, Jean bumped into Zack. She said hello to him and Zack lazily waved his hand in turn.

"I hate mornings," Zack muttered sleepily. He put his hand over his mouth as he yawned and then stretched his back. Jean reflexively bent her stomach back as Zack suddenly jutted his elbow out while stretching to avoid getting hit in the gut.

"Did you stay up all night playing games again?" Jean asked.

"You bet I did." Zack yawned again and almost tripped over a small bump. "Woah!" Zack danced around a little to stop himself from falling over and then looked at what caused him to stumble. "Man, I wish they would make the sidewalks completely flat," he complained. The tile that he almost tripped over was slightly higher than the other tiles.

"At least you look awake now," Jean pointed out and then joked that maybe the sidewalks were specifically designed this way to wake him up. "Who knows, maybe whoever built the sidewalk knew there were going to be half asleep people walking on it and they wanted to wake them up by giving them a pump of adrenaline."

"Maybe they did, but unfortunately for them, it still isn't enough." Zack yawned a third time and his sudden burst of adrenaline was gone.

"What time did you go to sleep? You're yawning every other second."

"Trust me, it's better for both of us if I don't tell you."

"What does that even mean?"

"I really don't know. I'm not awake so I'm just saying random things." The two walked silently for the rest of the way since Zack didn't look like he had the energy to hold a conversation. To help with her boredom, Jean thought that it would be fun to count the number of times that Zack yawend before they made it to school.

***

'That's 16.' Jean counted in her head as Zack yawned yet again. They had already made it to their classroom but Jean decided to keep counting until the teacher arrived.

"Oh, you're here before me today." Samantha walked into the classroom just a few minutes after them.

"Other than yesterday and the day before, aren't I always here before you? Why do you sound so surprised?" Jean asked.

Samantha dumped her bag onto her chair and then sat down, smushing it with her bottom. "Ah, whatever. Anyway, aren't you excited for lunch today?" She asked with a huge grin spreading across her face.

"Excited about what?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten."

Jean recalled the things that happened yesterday to try to figure out what Samantha was talking about. She went through the things that happened yesterday in order and then remembered. "Oh..."

"Did you really forget?"

"Well, I did have a busy day yesterday," Jean sighed.

"Hm, speak of busy..." Samantha leaned close to Jean said in a whisper, "The fuzzies are in our school today. They seem to be searching for something, or maybe someone."

"Fuzzies?" Jean asked.

"She means law enforcement," Zack explained. He had his head down on the table and was resting.

"Oh."

"So, do you know what or who they are searching for?" Zack asked.

"No clue." Samantha leaned back on her chair and crossed her hands behind her head. "In fact, I don't even know if they're even searching for anything. They might just be walking around the school for some other reason."

"Huh, that's pretty boring then," Zack said.

"Hey!"

They heard shouting from outside of their classroom followed by the sounds of multiple footsteps running.

"Stop! Stop!"

The entire class walked over the door and crowded at the entrance to see the commotion. Jean and Samantha got up as well and joined the crowd. Zack was too tired to care and just sat at his desk with his head laid down. Practically the entire class was trying to see what was going on and Jean had to get on her tippy-toes to see over them. She glanced over at Samantha who only needed to stand to see what was happening. It was times like these that Jean was envious of her and really wished that she was a bit taller.

The bottom half of Jean's vision was blocked by the heads of the students and she could only see the top of someone's head as they ran by the classroom followed by two more people chasing after them yelling for the person to stop.

The students in the front leaned out of the classroom door to continue watching and they were slowly being pushed out into the hallways by the students in the back who also wanted to see or get a clearer look at what is happening.

"Back into your classroom." The principal ran by and ushered the students back in. He was out of breath, likely from chasing after the people that ran by. "Hey, that applies for you as well." The principal said to the classroom diagonal from them.

"What's going on?" one of the students asked. The other students also started to bombard the principal with questions and the principal kept trying to wave his hand for them to stop.

"Alright, alright, enough." Their homeroom teacher walked appeared behind the principal and motioned for the students to get back in. "Please go to your seats first and then I'll answer your questions." The students quickly went to their seats and sat down, eager to ask about the commotion.

"Give me a second." The teacher told the students to quiet down as he made his way to the front desk and put down his things. "Okay, raise your hand if you have something to ask and I will try to answer it to the best of my abilities since I don't know much either." Instantly almost the entire class's hands shot up.

The teacher pointed to a random student in the front of the classroom and she asked the obvious question of "What's going on?"

The teacher scratched his head and thought for a moment before answering. "I don't really know but the law enforcement officers are looking for someone. Apparently, one of the students in this school matched their description and they wanted to bring him over for questioning. Of course, the student declined and ran away and now they're playing a game of cat and mouse around the school." The teacher scratched his chin and then pointed at another student. "Okay, you there."

"What did the student do?" the student asked.

"I don't know," the teacher responded. "They didn't tell us. They came into the school saying that they needed our cooperation to find an individual. They showed us the papers and we agreed. We don't know anything else." The teacher ruffled his hair and then said," Well, that should sum up everything but it seems that there are still some of you who have something to ask."

The majority of the class had put their hands down since they were going to ask the same questions but there were still a few students with their hands up

"You, what do you want to ask?" The teacher pointed at Jean.

"Who was the student?" Jean asked out of curiosity. The rest of the class put down their hands as well. It seems that she had asked the only question that was left.

"Sorry, but I can't disclose that. Well, even if I wanted to, I didn't exactly get a clear look at them either. Alright, seeing that there aren't any more questions, let's begin class."

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