Broken Hill Hearts (Broken Hill High 4)

“Did you hear there’s only three of us eating?” I grunt.

“Shit,” he laughs. “There’s three of us? I should have gotten more.”

Chapter 18

I sit in the grandstand overlooking the pristine football field first thing on Monday morning. Though, by ‘pristine,’ I mean, mostly clean of debris with the grass torn up from the surrounding fallen trees and a huge hole right in the center where Jesse’s Range Rover got stuck in the mud.

We usually don’t do this but after the crazy week we had with the storm last week and the huge effort every student put in to putting this place back together, I should have been expecting it.

Principal Watkins is nothing if not proud of his students, and it shows in way he stands before us, telling us all to shut the hell up. This is his big ‘thank you’ to the students.

“Alright, guys,” Principal Watkins says into a microphone moments before the feedback starts screeching through all our ears, making each and every one of us squirm in our seats. The way Watkins then taps on the top of the microphone really doesn’t help either.

He gets it under control and soon starts the assembly. “What a huge week we’ve just endured,” he states. “The storm of Monday night tore our school apart and you’ve all come together as a community and helped to get it back on its feet. I have never been so honored and proud to tell the world what an amazing bunch of kids that we have at Broken Hill High. You should all be so damn proud of yourselves. I speak for all the educators here when I say that we are so proud of your efforts and achievements.”

“What do we get?” I hear Jesse’s voice ring out on the other side of the grandstand, causing a chuckle to echo throughout the whole school.

“Jesse Ryder,” Principal Watkins scolds. “If you didn’t have such a central role to the clean-up efforts, I’d be giving you a detention, but because you asked so nicely, I’ll skip right ahead to the point of this assembly.”

“Atta boy,” Jesse shoots back, playing with fire. Though, Watkins seems to be in too much of a good mood to scold him on it.

“Alright,” Watkins says as a smile spreads over his face. “Your teachers and I have discussed in great length what your reward should be and we have all agreed that each and every one of you will receive the morning off classes.”

“Hell yeah,” Brooke grins beside me, clenching down on my hand in excitement as I grin right back at her. Cheers are heard throughout the students as hollers and whoops are shouted. It doesn’t take long for the students to quickly get out of control.

Principal Watkins calls out to tell them all to shut up again as he’s not quite done and knowing from the past, he’s not shy to take something away, so the students quickly get their shit together. “There are a few announcements and a performance, however after that, you’re all free to roam the school until first break. Following that, classes will resume as usual.”

“A few ground rules,” he says, getting down to business. “Your parents have entrusted your safety to us and due to that reason, not one of you will be permitted to leave school grounds. Any conflicts or fights will result in this reward being terminated. Don’t be fooled,” he warns, “you have the morning off, but your teachers do not. There will be plenty of supervision. Standard school rules apply.”

“Now,” he says. “With that sorted, our wonderful cheer team have organized a short performance. Everyone put your hands together for our fabulous Broken Hill Cheetahs.”

The most pathetic round of applause I’ve ever heard rumbles through the stands with an amused laughter following. Clearly, the rest of the student body are finally seeing the cheer team for what they are. Pathetic, stuck up, snobby bitches. Well, the majority of them anyway. No scrap that. All of them. Each and every one of them accepted Phoenix for what she did when she should have been cast aside, the same way they did to Elle.

The thought of Elle has my eyes drifting across to her as she watches the cheerleaders prance onto the field, waving their ridiculous pom poms around in the air in an awful show of school spirit. I mean, the only school spirit these girls have is the ability to cheer the football team up after a loss and that’s generally by dropping their pants.

Elle absolutely loved being a cheerleader and she’ll never admit it, but she misses it. I mean, if it was a different bunch of girls who actually had morals, she’d probably fight her way back to the top, but not with these girls. The drama simply isn’t worth it.