A week since the basketball game rolled by, starting a new week with new beginnings. I survived two weeks of my plan of not pretending to be friends with Roselynn anymore. It was rough, but at the same time, it was a piece of cake.

I left all the signs I could to give her a hint, but she never caught on. Maybe I need to shake things up. I should do something challenging, yet fun to have gain my justice. Right now, that's my only option. 

Out of all the things I can do to get even with her, I will do something simple, yet effective. Because Roselynn has English class with Ms. Davis one period after me, at the end of that class, I will spread ketchup on the chair she sits on. The reason why I know where she sits is because I saw a seating chart of all the classes Ms. Davis teaches on her desk unattended. I did not think it would come in handy until today.

When Roselynn sits on it and later realizes what she has on the back of her pants, she will be the laughing stock of the rest of the week. It might be humiliating to her, but it will be hilarious to me, especially since it is what I want.

Mercedes and I will take my plan into action soon. Well, that is if we could find the ketchup. It has only been one minute after the five-minute warning bell rang and we are still searching for a packet of ketchup. We spent several minutes searching for one, but we had nothing but rotten luck. 

"Did you find anything yet?" Mercedes queried, rummaging her hands through a nearby dispenser of flavorings. 

It appeared that there was no ketchup in there, unfortunately. It might be because the cafeteria mainly served hot dogs for lunch today, and a hot dog does not taste the same without ketchup. But still, there has to be at least one packet of ketchup around here. 

"No luck at all." I groaned, planting one hand on my forehead while the other was positioned on my hip. "We do not have much time, so we need to look fast, or not get anything at all."

"You're right." She nodded her head in agreement, her eyes gleaming at something on the floor, "Is that... a packet of ketchup on the floor?"

In front of her feet, a small packet of ketchup laid on the floor. Without hesitancy, I snatched the packet off the floor. At a closer inspection, it turned out to be empty instead of full. I rapidly threw the packet back on the floor where it belonged.

"Well, so much for getting our hopes up," I muttered, gagging at the possibly infected ketchup packet I recently touched.

"Yeah, there is no ketchup here. We should just go and save your plan for tomorrow if you are not desperate to do it today." She suggested, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly.

"But I want to do it today." I pouted, clenching my hands together harder than stone, "The sooner we get justice, the sooner we could move on to something else."

Mercedes narrowed her amber eyes at me, her faultless eyebrows raising. An index finger of one hand tapped on the tip of her chin. "Since there is no ketchup, how about we use mustard instead? It will still show through her pants a bit."

"Mustard is fine, I guess," I mumbled, my lips puckering into a smug grin. "Let's take a few packets. This will still be fun."

Both of us grabbed two packets of honey mustard and stuffed them into the front pockets of our backpacks. We hurriedly made a beeline out of the cafeteria doors to Ms. Davis' classroom moments before the late bell rang. Mercedes and I were lucky that the teacher had not arrived in class yet. If she was at the front desk, we would be guaranteed to get punished.

I slumped into my chair before Ms. Davis came inside the classroom, lugging a large stack of papers in her arms. She cautiously set them down on her desk before turning to the class.

"Good afternoon, class. Thank you for arriving on time." She proclaimed as she clasped her hands together. "Today, your research papers are due. Make sure you hand them in by the end of class so they could be graded as soon as possible. If anyone would like to, you can turn them in right now before today's lesson will begin."

My research paper did not take long to make. It only took four days to draft, revise, and edit my topic, all thanks to the help of the internet—which gave me all the information I needed. Before anyone could think that I plagiarized anything, I did not. I simply quoted whatever I saw on a credible source, not word-for-word, however, I changed up some of the words.

I pulled a printed copy of my paper out of a folder that resided in my backpack and casually rose from my chair. I trudged from my seat to Ms. Davis' desk, setting down my paper on her over-crowded desk. As I walked back to my seat, a lot of eyes laid on me either amazed or annoyed. I nonchalantly ignored all the looks and sashayed back to my seat. I grasped my hands together as I patiently waited for the teacher to start today's lesson.

"Alright everyone, let us start today's lesson." Ms. Davis stated in a perky voice, grabbing her teacher's handbook from her desk. "Turn to page one-hundred thirty-two of your textbooks, please."

A chorus of muffled groans escaped nearly everyone's mouth, including mine. Reading an endless amount of pages for nothing is probably one of the worst things that we could do in English or fact, any class. I lazily opened the textbook and turned to the assigned page, letting an exhausted yawn escape from my mouth.

English class would not fly by quicker than a cheetah could run today. 

***

"I don't have all day, Mercedes. Hand over your mustard packets, already." I sucked my teeth, throwing my empty mustard packets into a nearby wastebasket.

"I'm trying to find it, Milli. Give me a moment." She sighed, her tight-lipped smile fading into a nonchalant frown. "They must have got lost in the make-up supplies I have in my backpack."

I rolled my eyes and blinked them in disbelief. I do not have an eternity to wait for her to find a mustard packet. My next class would start soon, and if we were late for class, it would not be my fault.

Not wasting a second, I spread out the mustard blob that laid on the chair attentively with a napkin. It made a larger blob, vast enough for people to notice it on her pants. My unamused frown faded into a smug smile as my eyes glistened throughout the artificial and natural light that shone throughout the room.

Ms. Davis had gone to the teacher's lounge to make copies of a handout she had, so it was almost impossible for us to get caught doing this. There was a high chance of a student from the next class barging in on us spreading mustard on a chair, but who cares?

If that student started a rumor that Mercedes and I were pulling a prank on someone, almost no one would believe it, except for morons. I could make everyone believe that the rumor is not true because I have power. Being an elite has its benefits.

"I found the mustard!" Mercedes chimed in a perky voice, holding two packets in front of my face.

"It was about time you did." I scoffed, relieved yet irritated. "Empty the packets onto the chair and I will spread it with this napkin."

"Got it," She stated without looking up.

After we did what I instructed, we briefly exited the classroom with smug smirks plastered across our faces. I felt hopeful that justice would be mine.

***

"Put your phone away, Millicent. We are about to eat dinner." Mom scolded me in a stern voice, her eyes meeting up to mine from the menu she was viewing.

"Fine, I will," I groaned, dropping my phone into my purse with a piercing glower.

Today, Mom decided to go out of her way and book us dinner at a local restaurant. I was a bit pleased to find this out since there is almost nothing I'm interested in eating at home.

The only downside to eating dinner at a restaurant is how my parents act whenever we eat in public. They insist on us having an open discussion instead of us going on our cell phones. This probably would not have been an enormous deal to me if I didn't need my phone to check on the latest news at school. But on the bright side, it's good to relax and not worry about those issues.

"Now that you are off your phone, and a waiter or waitress did not come to take our orders, how about we have a nice discussion?" Dad proposed, folding his hands together against the table.
"Is there anything specific you want to discuss?"

"I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders neutrally. "Can you tell me an interesting story about when you were in school or something?"

I have no ideas of what we could talk about. With my parents, there is nothing that I would be interested in talking about. However, a story about when they were my age sounds compelling.

"That's a nice idea, Millicent." Mom remarked, her eyes lighting up through the artificial light of the restaurant.

"It is. I have plenty of stories of when I was your age." Dad chuckled. "Some of them were pretty humiliating for me back then, but when I look back at them now, they are funny."

"Really? What are they?" I interrogated him, my fingers brushing against the menu in front of me.

He tapped his chin in thought, and once something came to his mind, he grinned. "Well, there was this one time that I was walking to class, and when I got there, the most unexpected thing happened."

"What was it?" Mom inquired, her eyebrows raising.

As much as I don't want to spend the rest of the evening chatting about stories from a long time ago, I do want to know what it was like for my parents to be my age. If they were like me back then, I could learn a few tips from them.

"When I arrived in class, there was a surprise for me. I didn't realize it until class was over." Dad exclaimed, a roar of faint chuckles escaping his mouth. "Someone decided to pull a prank on me by spreading pink icing on the chair, which transferred to my jeans."

"That is interesting... What happened next?" I questioned with attentiveness.

"When everyone saw this, they laughed and started silly rumors about the incident." He did a facepalm with a snicker.

My mouth dropped open in shock, yet amusement. What happened to him was similar to what I did today. It might have been a coincidence to find out about this. However, anyone can pull a prank like this, so it isn't a huge surprise. 

"Did you ever find out who pulled the prank?" Mom challenged, taking a tiny sip of her crisp water.

"I did. The person that pulled the prank was my ex-best friend." He replied while his eyes rolled playfully. "Let's just say that I was not surprised that he did this."

"I bet you weren't," I muttered, glimpsing at a waiter who was coming our way.

Before we could continue our conversation, he approached our table and took our orders promptly. I hesitated on what I wanted to order for a moment since everything on the menu looked mouthwatering. I finally made up my mind and ordered a romaine salad drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette dressing in seasoned salmon to the side.

That might be one of the most basic meals I could ever get, but I don't mind eating something on the healthier side. After all, it would have a positive effect on me.

Several minutes passed, and the waiter came to our table with our meals one-by-one. My salad looked more mouthwatering than I envisioned it on the menu. It tasted better, too. With my attention not on my phone, I can focus on eating like a normal person. Maybe Mom's rule of not having phones at the dinner table aren't that bad after all. 

But on second thought, it's horrible.