“Mis-ter P-P-P-P-tuiac!”
A few days later, I was late for math. After my little skirmish, I spent a lot of time between classes looking around and stopping to make sure no one was following me as I walked quickly between buildings. I hadn’t seen much of Flab and his friends since Fresh Meet Friday, thank goodness.
I made it to class just in time for a dirty look from Mr. Crowley, an old guy with a graying moustache and a closet full of identical tweed jackets who probably spent fifty years inhaling chalk dust before blackboards were replaced with electronic versions. I looked around and saw one empty seat in the corner of the room. I’d spent most of my classroom time angling for the seat closest to the door, conveniently half-concealed by a column, so I hadn’t paid much attention to the rest of the kids. When I awkwardly zigzagged between desks to take the only vacant chair, the occupant of the desk next to me made me stop in my tracks.
It was a girl. A pretty girl. A pretty girl who smirked at me for being late. Everyone’s a critic.
That girls were worth my attention was a recent revelation. Back in my old school, I was friends with a few girls and knew of one kid who was more “advanced” than the rest of us. He already had a faint moustache and had taken one of my female friends to the movies a few times. He would brag about what they did there, but I didn’t believe him and didn’t have any interest. But lately, the idea didn’t seem so foreign to me. Most of the girls at Strange were good-looking, though they all blended into one type: shiny, just-washed long hair, lip-gloss, diamond stud earrings, and purses worth the price of a Super Bowl ticket. They were stuck with uniforms, too: white collared shirts, blazers, and skirts.
She was different. Out of the corner of my eye, I got a clear look at her: her long, blond hair had streaks of red mixed in, and her big earrings dangled beads and metal pieces. That’s when I noticed she had two different-colored eyes, one blue and the other green. It was … so cool. Her white shirt was undone just one button more than it was supposed to be, which meant if I turned my head just another inch, I could see—
“Mis-ter P-P-P-P-tuiac!”
I looked up. The entire class was staring at me. Mr. Crowley was tapping the board with his digital pen. “I asked you what y equals. The answer, please.”
The feeling of panic was replaced almost immediately by the delicious smell of toasted marshmallows. The sound of a few of the kids giggling at me was overtaken by a screeching, ringing sound.
Squeeeeeeeee
The same thing happened last Friday. Only this time, after my vision cleared, I saw a flash of what was written on the board in front of me, like a photograph: 2(2y + 16) = 48.
“Four.”
Mr. Crowley looked crushed. “That is correct.”
I sat back and let out a sigh. I hadn’t even so much as glanced at the problem. Maybe I just inherited my dad’s math genes.
While contemplating what had just gone down, I heard a scratching noise. A hand was writing something on the edge of the paper in my notebook. The hand wore a silver bracelet with something punched out of leather around it, and it was attached to the green-blue-eyed girl.
So you do talk.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and nodded slightly.
Yeah. What’s your name? I wrote on my page, pretending to take down another equation as Crowley droned on.
Sophi.
Alex, I scrawled. I really wished I had better handwriting. It looked like a four-year-old wrote it.
I saw her eyebrows rise slightly as she wrote.
As in the guy who beat up a bunch of ninth graders on Fresh Meet Friday?
Ninth graders, plural? Great. Now the rumors were getting out of hand.
Self-defense. And it was one ninth grader.
Not bad.
Then I probably shouldn’t be talking to you.
Good response, Sophi With Just an “I.”
I promise, I’m not dangerous, I wrote.
I swear she smiled at me, but I couldn’t tell because we saw Old Man Crowley glare at us.
I spent the rest of the period trying to learn, but I was mostly in a daze. In what felt like seconds later, the bell rang.
We both got up at the same time. She looked at me with her head cocked slightly. “Nice to meet you on paper, Alex.”
“Yeah.” My mouth was completely dry.
I was rooted to the spot as I watched her walk away, her earrings jangling as she ran a hand through her hair. Wow.
Another classroom door opened further down the hall and out lumbered Flab. Instinctually, I flung myself back into Crowley’s classroom and peeked out. He spotted Sophi and, to my dismay, slung his beefy arm around her and laid a sloppy kiss on her cheek.
I turned away. I didn’t have time to think about it as the first bell rang. I had another class to run to or I’d be late again.