As soon as the last bell rang, announcing the end of class for the day, a flood of high schoolers poured through the doors to head home. That is, except for the girls and I. We, along with Brett and his pack of friends, had all been assigned detention for the events that took place in the cafeteria this afternoon.

It hadn't seemed like a bad idea at the time, retaliating against Brett's prank with a bit of flung potatoes, which started a huge food fight that involved the whole school, and for once in my school life seemed to really anger and disappoint the principal as well as my mom, who didn't take the news well. There were many others who were just as guilty; however, because the first shot was fired at our table, everyone present was held accountable.

The thought alone scared me, considering that I had never been assigned to detention before. Unlike Brett and the rest of the troublemakers who were always in detention, I never played pranks on the teacher or called without raising my hand, and I always did my homework.

So, while everyone else was left off the hook, we were stuck sitting in an empty classroom.

"I can't believe after their stunt with the exploding soda bomb, we all got in trouble like this," Chels groused as she stared out of the window at crowds of other kids forming in the school yard below, "Them and their stupid pranks."

Bri, who was skimming through a textbook, glanced up with a slight look of disdain on her face. "We broke the school's rules," she rebutted, "food fights are none acceptable."

"Yeah," agreed Alicia half heartedly from behind a Gameboy that she had been hiding under her desk, "What a bummer."

"Maybe you're right," admitted Charlotte, turning around to face us, "It just makes me mad that we have to be here at all."

"Agreed."

"Well nobody likes being in detention," Emma giggled, "if they did, it wouldn't be much of a punishment."

"Very precise," came a voice from behind. Half stunned, the girls and I twisted around to see who it was that had been speaking. It was Ms. Cabrera, the lunch lady. She was standing menacingly in the doorway, holding in one hand her trusty clipboard and in the other, a newly sharpened pencil.

"Jose!" she bellowed at the top of her lungs, "take a seat."

"Yes mam," replied the girl, throwing herself into the desk next to Alicia.

Now having control, the older lady began to stride slowly up the aisle of desks, calling out the name of each girl and boy, and checking it off on her clipboard when they answered 'here'. At the same time, the woman took the opportunity to confiscate personal items, such as Alicia's game and admonish her for even having such a device at school. And then she came to Reuben, another troublemaker.

"I'm sure he'll be along in a minute," Veronica explained after the second call, "he's always late to everything."

Ms. Cabrera stared down at her wrist, adjusting her watch, "If he's not here in thirty seconds he'll have double detention."

At that very moment, there was a faint squeak from far off down the hall. Another soon followed, and then another. It was the sound of quick footsteps against the tiled floor. They grew louder and louder as they got closer until they were right outside the room. Next thing you know, Reuben bolted through the doorframe and headed first into a desk, sending him flying over the top and then to the ground.

"Did I make it?" he wheezed from his position, "am I late?"

"No and yes in that order," the lady responded as she checked his name off of her list. "This," she explained, leaning mockingly over into the boy's face, "is why we don't run in the halls."

"Oh, hi Ms. Cabrera," he answered, with a sneering look on his face as fits of laughter from throughout the classroom was heard.

The teacher rolled her eyes in annoyance. In spite of that, she assisted the guy back to his feet and ordered him to his seat alongside the others. She then took her place in front of the class to explain to us how things were going to work under her command.

"So you all like to play with food?" she began, consumed by unamusement, "Well, I hope so because you're going to be handling a lot of it. I want everyone in the cafeteria in five minutes and suited up."

Hesitantly, we all got to our feet and walked out of the room toward the cafeteria as instructed. Approaching the entrance, it was a nightmare come true. The lunchroom was filthy from top to bottom and wall to wall.

So there we stood dressed in matching jumpsuits and in a straight line, standing with a mop, bucket of cleaning products, and rags. As soon as we were suited and loaded, Ms. Cabrera paced back and forth in front of us like some drill sergeant.

"Jose," she barked after a moment, "you used to play volleyball. Do you remember what a suicide drill is?"

The young girl sighed, then nodded her head. Slowly, she explained how the drill worked to the rest of us who never heard of such a thing before.

"Well, this is a suicide cleanup," said Ms. Cabrera, cutting the girl off. "I want my cafeteria back in shipshape."

Simultaneously, she turned her head sideways just in time to see that one of her students wasn't fully paying attention.

"Are you listening?" she barked, bringing the boy back to reality.

"Yes mam," Marty answered, still half in a trance.

Ms. Cabrera, who didn't look convinced, looked at the boy and then back at the rest of us who stood on the other side of her.

"Alright, get to work," she commanded, walking away toward the back entrance of the kitchen.

"It'll take a lifetime to clean this mess up by ourselves!" Alicia exclaimed once Ms. Cabrera had closed the door behind her.

"Yeah," Chels groaned as she plopped herself onto the ground next to Charlotte who was still half in shock, "Any last words?"

"Let's just get started," Emma jumped in. "With any luck, we'll be finished by closing time."

"And if not, I have a feeling Ms. Cabrera might just lock us in here until the job's done," Bri responded.

"Then we better get to work."

"I really think this is unfair," Kieron muttered under his breath a few minutes later.

"No kidding," Brett snorted and started making a nice mixture of cleaning solutions.

"Of course! You're the one who started the stupid thing," Veronica huffed and glared at Brett.

"Madame Ronie, with all due respect, put a sock in it!" Cole snapped as he soaked his mop in the solution he mixed and started to try to get rid of the chocolate pudding mixture that was plastered onto the floor.

"I hate to say this but he's right. You need to just pipe down." Brett smirked at the girl who was just holding onto her temper by clenching her fists.

"And you do too. All of you are to blame. I don't know why we have to clean up with any of you!" Chelsea shouted the last bit and earned Brett's best glare.

"Well, I didn't know you felt that way," He mocked in a fake sympathetic tone, before getting back into character. "Blondey there just happened to hit our beloved principal with a sweet chocolaty dessert."

I frowned and arrogantly leaned up against my mop handle. "I didn't start it, you did when you bombed our table!" I fussed, no doubt turning red. "I'm not the one who was sentenced to janitor duty for the rest of the semester. Consider this as extra training," I smirked.

Distantly, laughter echoed in the background.

"I'll make you regret every word out of your mouth," Brett growled out as he dropped his mop into his mix with a splat.

"She does have a point," Jose said with a dark chuckle as she, too, started scrubbing at the floor. Brett was about to yell at her, but Marty's voice came first.

"Ohh she's just upset 'cause she just dropped from 'Favorite Student' status," Marty commented casually.

I turned my attention back to the floor and ignored his tease as if it really didn't matter, but it did.

"And yours just advanced from stupid to stupidest," said Alicia in my defense.

"So all those detentions hadn't been wasted," Bri mumbled while sweeping bypassed the guy who grew a mean look before waving us off.

"Great. Six hours of boredom, and another hour at school with you people," Kieron groaned. "My life's going to be wasted."

Cole snorted in amusement. "Get a hold of yourself, man."

"Argh! This is all your fault Bretty-Boy!" Kieron howled and swung his sopping wet mop at Brett, who raised his mop to counter his strike. Soon they were doing some parody of fencing, aiming to hurt each other.

"It is not, AND DON'T CALL ME THAT NAME!" Brett shouted. He ducked a swipe at his head.

"What name? Bretty-bear?" Veronica inquired in her irritatingly sweet voice.

She dodged the wet sponge aimed at her. The rest of us watched in amusement as Cole had to add to Brett's anger with a smirk.

"I think she might've meant, Bretty-Boy, right Brettski?" Cole added, getting a laugh from Veronica.

"Grrr. . . " Brett ignored the insult, looking as if he was going to pound them both.

Suddenly, the back door swung open as we watched the older lady walk from behind the serving counter and across the polished floors.

"What's going on!?" she yelled frantically.

We then stared back and forth at each other, waiting for someone to speak first.

"I can tell you what's not," Emma said grumpily, tossing the drained rag on the newly cleaned lunch table.

At last, Ms. Cabrera sighed deeply in annoyance for the second time today. "Stop your foolishness and get-back-to-work," she strung together each word to make the message clear, before turning to leave once more.

"Feels like I'm in prison," I said, finally annoyed by all the chaos. I'll be lucky enough to make it through the entire day.

For a moment, everyone seemed to get the memo and went back to work. Well, almost everyone.

"Jose, you missed a spot," Marty was now sulkily sitting cross-legged at the end of a table with a finger pointed out at the juice spilled aside from her.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jose asked, staring him straight in the eyes.

"I'm resting. Like you both told me to," he answered in a tired tone.

Brett ground his teeth in frustration, then looked at the pile of cleaning tools. "Marty if you don't get your sorry behind up, so help me-"

"Here we go again," said Charlotte, unsurprised.

"What are you thinking about?" Cole asked Veronica who was now looking very sheepish.

"That it would be cool if I could make the mop whack you in the head," the girl finally admitted, causing everyone to burst into laughter.

"Well as of right now, I'm thinking about you guys getting us out of here before dinner," said Marty before snatching both the Lysol and rag from Brett's stretched hand.

"Oh great then! Why don't I just call up a few of my other helpful servants and have them work too," Jose nearly shouted and propped up the mop in hand against the wall.

"Hmm, so you could clean the place?" He asked brightly.

"No, stupid. But that's beside the point," Jose took a seat in a chair, now looking worn-out and sick of everything.

"You are such an idiot at times, S-Marty," Kieron said with a grin as he pinched his cheek as Marty pulled his right arm to punch him in the face. Then snarled as he dodged away.

Veronica as well as the rest of us was looking very bored.

"Stop tormenting him. Both of you act like second years," she said with a tired tone as she sat on the bench.

"We're not going to make it out of here alive, aren't we?" said Emma and leaned against my shoulder.

"Okay guys, I'm ready to go home," said Reuben, standing up on the tabletop as he looked down at us. "So cut the crap and let's finish this!"

The room grew silent.

"Where did he come from??" was the question all around.

Reuben's face dropped. "I literally been here this entire time..." everyone shared the exact confused look as he went on to explain, "I just stepped in not ten minutes ago."

"Geez, Reuben," Brett said slightly amazed. "Are you ever on time for anything?!"

After a while, things started picking up again.

The cafeteria was far better than I could ever remember it being. The cinder block walls all shone white, the tables now looked to be made of glass the way they reflected back, as did the benches and chairs. The banners all looked to be brand-new and the colors were sharper than ever.

"I don't ever recall myself cleaning so much in my life."

"That's how I feel," Bri said in a toneless voice, emotionally drained from cleaning. A job bigger than all of us put together, but we somehow managed to pull through.

Marty leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head like a pillow. Reuben still looked mildly hurt by the fact that no one even knew that he was here. Brett's temper cooled. The rest of the girls were seated nearby; heads flat on the polished tabletops and completely out of it.

As for me, only one thought bounced around in my head, "Freedom."