I scooped my notebook up as I stood, slinging my messenger bag onto my chair, and calmly squeezed the binder between two others. I left my pen behind my ear. I didn't have that far to go.
"Hey, Carnelia."
I glanced up to see none other than Zachary Hicks standing across the aisle from my desk, thumb hooked beneath one strap of his book-bag.
Hm. Imagine that.
I pulled my bag across my body and straightened.
"How fare thee, Zachary," I said as I began to make my way toward the door. "Were you amputated over the summer?"
"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice coming from just behind my right shoulder.
I sighed and paused as I cleared the classroom door, waiting for him to catch up. I may as well get it over with.
I'd expected him to take far longer than this to approach me: a week, at least.
It took him all of six seconds to draw even with me.
Zachary Hicks stood slightly taller than I did in modest heels, putting him at about 5'10". He kept his brown hair cropped close to his scalp, and was only nominally clean-shaven. He suffered the predominately male affliction of CFTLF (Clothes Far Too Large for the Frame syndrome), making him look smaller than he physically was.
"Your other body," I clarified, gesturing to his hip. "Are you experiencing phantom limb syndrome?"
"Uh...."
I rolled my eyes. Must I say everything?
"Rena. Do you mean to tell me you weren't actually physically attached to her?"
He blushed, shifting from foot to foot. He knocked into a passing sophomore, who gave him a reproachful look as she continued on her way.
He got over both quickly.
"Nah," he drawled, assuming an odd smirk-grimace that I suppose was meant to be a confident smile. "I was never that in to her. She just couldn't keep her hands off of me."
Said the guy who'd all but begged Rena Dalton to go out with him at the end of freshman year and hadn't been seen without her since that minute. It had been scandalous to suggest they actually slept in separate beds, even separate houses.
He read my disbelief in the arch of my left eyebrow.
Well, possibly in the accompanying laughter as well.
He sagged.
"Okay, yeah. We broke up back in June," was the concession. "But," came the recovery, "I'm totally over her now, and I want to take out the most beautiful girl in the school."
I looked left. I looked right.
The halls were almost empty.
Well, there went that hope.
"Awww.... Flattery will get you everywhere you don't want to go," I purred, sweet as poisoned Swedish Fish. "Try a girl who doesn't know all the sordid details of your... performance."
Poor Zachary went pale.
I turned and started down the hall to Ms. Cane's classroom.
"I'll tell Rena you said 'hi,'" I called back. "I'm sure she'll laugh herself silly."
~*~
Ms. Cane's classroom was unchanged from the previous year. There was the same fluorescent lighting smothered into dimness by the dragon posters that papered the walls, the same area rug reading "Here There Be Dragons" at the center of the room that one should never step on under any circumstances, and the same angular horseshoe of desks surrounding it. Say what you will about Ms. Cane, but you could count on her classroom to be consistent.
Matthew had saved me the seat at the corner of the bottom of the horseshoe, as far away from the Cane's desk as possible while maintaining a view of the board. I deposited my bag and slid into the chair just as the late bell rang.
Matthew pulled off his glasses to polish them and shot me a disapproving look.
Dead-pan, I leaned in conspiratorially.
"'Did anyone ever tell you you're kind of a fuddy duddy?'" I intoned.
My friend paused, but I saw the smile, quickly concealed, begin to grow on his lips.
"'Nobody ever seems to tell me anything else,'" he replied, slipping his glasses back into place.
"'Did anyone ever tell you you're kind of a sexy fuddy duddy?'" I continued.
He couldn't help himself. His smile burst free across his face, making his burnished skin assume a friendly glow.
"'That part usually gets left out,'" he finished the lines from "The Dark Age." "'I can't imagine why.'"
I grinned back at him, and reached out to hug him before he could remember that he didn't approve of smiling, fun, or humanity in a school environment.
"Y'all are so cute," Rena Dalton's sweet Southern voice drawled, causing me to jerk and poor Matthew to sputter when I accidentally choked him. "I'll never understand why y'all don't date."
I settled back into my chair, realizing that, in my haste, I'd overlooked the ash-blonde in the desk kitty-corner to mine.
"Rena," I chided lightly, "for shame. Now you've embarrassed Matthew. He'll never forgive you."
"Doesn't take much to make that one blush," someone muttered darkly.
My eyes darted to Elec in the seat behind Rena.
Great. Stuck near him for another class. Time to ignore him. I didn't hear him; I didn't see him. Right.
"Sorry, Matthew," Rena was saying. Matthew nodded, eyes pretending to be magnets attracted to the North Pole of his desk. "I really just don't understand it, though. Y'all even like the same sort of things." She brushed one silky tendril back behind her ear as she rested her forearms on her desk. "I don't understand half the things y'all say."
Elec leaned forward so the heat of his breath would hit the shell of her ear as he stage-whispered honey to her.
"That's because you're far too genuine to want to spend hours exploring obscure sub-cultures. You're more concerned with understanding regular people."
He kept his position and made eye contact with her when she rotated to look at him, giggling and blushing. I nearly gagged as he held her gaze and smiled slowly, turning Rena's cheeks a deeper shade of pink.
He was so transparent.
Although admittedly good at reading people.
"'Nelia and I aren't suited," Matthew said calmly, opening his notebook as though most of that entire interchange had not taken place. "She would chew me up and spit me out faster than a cannibal would spinach."
Rena's attention snapped back to us, her nose wrinkling.
"Ewww! Thanks so much for that image!" She shuddered.
"SNACKRIFICES!"
The class jumped as one, refocusing on the seemingly innocuous older woman standing, hands folded, in front of the whiteboard.
She smiled ever-so-sweetly once she was sure she had us.
"I hope that none of you have virgin minds or that's what you'll be," she continued at a normal volume. "To get through this course intact, you're going to have to be an enthusiastic and expert learner. Enthusiasm will not make up for a lack of expertise, nor will expertise compensate for a dearth of enthusiasm."
Her smile became sinister.
"I'm Ms. Cane," she turned to the board, her disguise of Sweet Old Lady, so glaringly incongruous with her personality, back in place. "Let's get started."
I grinned as I pulled out my binder.
There was a reason the Cane was my favorite teacher.
I couldn't help but notice that Elec was grinning, too.
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