Bookshelf Boy

three.

"NORA, YOU'RE NOT gonna believe this."

I'm in the Commons biting the edge of my pencil as I review my notes from Calculus when Lucas barges into the room and crosses it in less than five seconds, panting and looking as if the Queen of England has just been resurrected.

For once, I'm grateful for the interruption. I've barely been able to focus, even though exams are just around the corner. My sleep has been crap for weeks. It's always been sort of crap, but it's been getting worse and it's starting to catch up to me. I know if I don't pull myself together soon, I'm going to legitimately have a mental breakdown.

Maybe during lunch break I'll be able to squeeze in a nap, even though that's highly unlikely, given that for some reason no matter how tired I am, when I lie down and try to close my eyes, I still can't manage to fall asleep. Or I do, which is somehow a thousand times worse.

Lucas dumps his backpack on the ground the second he reaches me like it's a hundred pounds, which, with how much work we get it, it probably is. What really catches my attention though isn't this or the wild look in his eyes, but the way his blond hair, usually massively unkempt, is now in a neat tuft with a stylish undercut.

"Well, look at you chap!" I tease, jumping up from the sofa. "You got a haircut."

I reach out and ruffle his hair like he's a golden retriever and not an actual human being. He makes a displeased sound and swats his hand from me, but not before I get his hair to look like a tornado's been run through it.

"I'm being serious," he says.

"O-o-h, I'm quivering in my converses."

"Student council is in the middle of an all-out war." He waves his arms in the air. "As in, the whole regime is falling apart."

"Who's winning, David or Goliath?"

We have this running joke that Erin Yip, who's surprisingly quiet and spineless for being the president of arguably one of the most important clubs in our school is biblically David, and his running mate Tamara Bronelli—who very unsurprisingly loathes him— is Goliath, considering she could probably eat him alive. And she metaphorically does, hence the frequent drama.

I'm always hearing about all the internal battles that go on behind closed doors because Lucas is a part of the student council unofficially. Basically, our student council is in charge of planning all the special functions for the school, and whenever the events team monumentally fails at this, Lucas is the one they go to, which happens more often than it probably should.

Lucas, who usually entertains the joke, ignores it this time. "You know Peter White?"

"Is he the one that's short and always carrying around a handkerchief?"

"No, that's Jensen. White's the one who's the financial officer for the council. Dark hair? Glasses? Bit of a Harry Potter rip-off?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, I know him."

"Yes. Well. He's just been expelled."

"What?"

I move to sit back down on the couch, and he follows suit anxiously, raising one leg onto the couch and tapping his other foot incessantly against the floor.

"So, it turns out that for the last three terms he's been stealing a good amount of the money and keeping it for himself. He bragged that it was "one of the perks of being finance chair" to a Year 10, which was a stupid thing to do, obviously."

"Bruv."

"Right? Anyway, they ended up reporting it, but it turns out he already spent all the money on a cruise trip with his family, which is just amazing, because now we literally have no money left," he runs his hands through his already messy hair and laughs painfully. "It's an utter catastrophe. Like, Tamara threw her binder at Mason for even suggesting that we cancel the winter charity formal."