Quote from ThePlotMurderer on July 14, 2024, 11:37 am

Interesting man, Edward Teague.

Ditchwater coffee was somehow not much more palatable with thoughts of dying servicemen gavotting through her head, but Theodora didn't believe in waste, certainly not within these four poorly insulated walls.

She'd be quite content if a few kids went on to good colleges. If a handful of seniors decided to stick it out through grad school, even. She didn't go through her day-to-day imagining she was reforming unmade killers everytime she changed the sizes of an Excel column or sent a trio of miscreants to Harold Frey.

Still...whatever keeps one going. Theodora wasn't sure she could go through life appending such high stakes to all her interactions, but then, she'd never done time in active warzones.

***

"Any luck with the Lewises?" Theodora asked, returning to the outer office.

Mrs. Hayward shook her head staunchly, "It is working hours."

"Mrs. Lewis is a lady of leisure," Theodora paused, realized that sounded spiteful, and added, "So I have heard."

"Must be nice!"

"Oh, I expect practical people like you and I would get tired very quickly," she paused, "Have you made that, er..." she folded her arms, "That other call, then? Just in case of..."

"The police?"

"Well, not so loud, but yes."

Mrs. Hayward nodded, "Shame there are no truant officers anymore. It felt very dirty reporting a 14-year-old girl."

"It'll give the Sheriff and his khakied loafers something to occupy themselves with at any rate. One minute, Mrs. Hayward, it's about that time..." she started for the adjoining door behind the receptionist's desk, pausing to remark, "Oh, the notices..."

"Right where you need them!"

"Well done," Theodora said automatically, continuing on into the little room she privately called 'George's Guts', for the big, hulking, blinking heap of machinery that dominated half the cluttered, closet-sized space: the server for the school's computer network, an ungainly collection of black boxes and multicolored cables, pinned in a wired, mesh apparatus to keep away unlearned fingers. The sight of it only made Theodora hyper-aware of the absence of their only salaried technology expert and, depressed, she looked to her quarry.

This was a smaller, but still quite bulky, bit of technology adjacent to the door: a beige cylinder casing, nondescript but for the little microphone mounted on a black plate on top: the PA system, which ensured, every day, that Theodora was heard by as many people as possible, and listened to by perhaps half as many.

True to her word, Mrs. Hayward had left the announcements in a neat stack beside the control panel. Theodora eyed these, and the accompanying apple-shaped sticky note proclaiming "For VPK! 9/2/14". All it was missing was an 'In the Year of Year of Our Lord' and a royal seal.

Picking the stack up in one hand so she wouldn't need to rustle the papers too close to the mic (she was, if nothing else, a professional), Theodora retrieved her reading glasses from her blazer and flipped the switch on the mic.

"Good morning, George Washington High School. It is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014 and, as you've no doubt noticed, the first day of school. To our freshmen..."

***

"Welcome."

Sue sullenly handed her late pass to Ms. Aleheri, proceeding with a sloe-footed resignation to the nearest empty desk. Beside her, Tami waved politely. Sue regarded the gesture sullenly and gave a little nod in response.

"Tough crowd," muttered Bernard at Tami's other side. Sue stared daggers and he mimed an innocent, cartoony whistle. Tami suppressed a laugh.

"To our seniors..."

***

"Congratulations."

"SENIORS!" Beau hollered into both hands, starting a rallying cry from all the good sports in this homeroom and, from the sound of it, the one next door, neatly drowning out Mr. Pikeman's half-hearted response cheer of "Assisted suicide..."

"But hold the celebrating."

Dick looked reproachfully at his brother, who had been one of the cheerers, shaking his head solemnly. Nick rolled his eyes, never more thankfully that he was stupider than his brother and therefore not in any of his classes.

"You've still got a year ahead of you."

***

"There are some announcements before we can begin our day, but first, if you will please stand and face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance..."

Francisco rose from his seat with a flourish, vigorously jacking off the air adjacent to his head as he faced the star-spangled banner. Gwen tittered very loudly in disapproval.

"Fist, Ortiz," said Mrs. Vespucci, "Fist, not fellate. It's called civil disobedience for a reason."

"I pledge allegiance..." Kellerman was evidently in a hurry this morning, presumably aware of how short on time she'd begun.

***

"...with liberty and justice for all. Sit down, but don't get comfortable."

Charlie, deliberately flaunting this command, sinking into his seat with a tremendous, exaggerated sigh.

"Announcements. The, er..." inexplicable pause, "The volleyball season opener will be tomorrow, at 4:30 PM, at St. Mary's Academy."

Dom wolf-whistled in Lily's direction. Lily cocked her head to the side skeptically.

"Oh, don't worry," said DJ, "He's single now."

"Sta'zit!"

Lily rolled her eyes, turning back to Fatma, who had gone quite pale at the reminder of tomorrow's game. She smiled reassuringly, but the gesture seemed to go ignored.

"Best of luck to our ladies," in a tone that seemed to suggest they were going to need it.

***

"Football and cheer practices will be held this afternoon on the field."

Zach pumped his fist with a halfhearted, "Whoo!"

Ryan, who still wasn't sure whether or not this was some kind of bit, winced and turned away.

"A general reminder, and it always bears repeating...participation in school athletics is a privilege..."

***

"Not the way y'all do it," Sasha snickered, to general approval of most of the girls.

"Wow," said Mr. Schwartz, "Hey, guys, she's speaking still, it's still going on..."

"Keep your grades up and your detentions low, for your team's sake, as much as yours."

***

"A reminder from yours truly: Student Council meets every two Tuesdays. That is not this Tuesday, but next week, the 9th. Be sure to pass any concerns or questions to your class representatives ahead of time."

"And be respectful!" Rosalie ordered.

"Ro!" Hope laughed, blushing.

"What? You know what these people are like."

"Club sign-ups will be ongoing throughout the month. Remember, if you are interested in creating a new club, you must have a teacher's endorsement."

***

"That 's, 'have', not 'claim'. Note the difference..."

"Clubs?" Duke cocked an eyebrow, "That's positively, bleed-out-the-eyes precious. What, do you have stamp collecting and that?"

"They don't have clubs in Australia?" asked Iona, still too charmed to be thoroughly exasperated.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what we have in Australia, luv."

"That, believe it or not, is that. Welcome again, or welcome back. The year is yours..."

***

"...treat it well."

Theodora clicked the mic off and, with a tiny, approving smile, reached up to the panel on the wall above the PA system to let the bell toll, jolting the world into furious activity.

Never got old.

-Theodora, Mrs. Hayward, Sue, Tami, Bernard, Beau, Mr. Pikeman, Dick, Nick, Francisco, Gwen, Mrs. Vespucci, Charlie, Dom, Lily, DJ, Fatma, Zach, Ryan, Sasha, Mr. Schwartz, Rosalie, Hope, Duke, and Iona

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on July 14, 2024, 11:38 am

PERIOD 1

US HISTORY TAUGHT BY THE ESTEEMED MR. GENE SALMON

In his four decades of teaching, if there was one consistent complaint about Mr. Gene Salmon's teaching style, it was his habit to go on...and on...and on...and on. Salmon had never taken too kindly to these accusations, for of course those who did not have the eyes to see and the ambition to learn would be unable to discern meandering droning from an incisive lecture that challenged the developing minds that shuffled into his classroom every year to--for once in their lives--think!

Suffice to say, Salmon always taught with intentionality. Even if his methods required, to say the least, a good deal of patience.

"...and so in conclusion, the United States of America is a land of contrasts with a long and complicated history," he spoke in a dreadfully boring monotone. "But in the end, this country will always be remembered as an undying symbol of peace, freedom, and the American way." Quite displeased, Salmon lowered the paper, looking upon his latest class (Yet another crazy quilt of delinquents, jocks and burnouts. Typical of his luck. Ha!) beyond his reading glasses. "This essay is by far one of the worst I've ever read in my time as an educator."

Slyly, Darius muttered to Dom, "Yeah, back when he was teachin' US History to cavemen."

The witty remark went unnoticed by Salmon (His goddamn hearing was failing him more and more every day. Salmon shuddered at the thought of how many illicit activities during class-time escaped his watch.), as he folded his glasses and continued his scathing indictment of the schoolwork in question. "Not only is it poorly written...but it is a flagrant lie."

Travis found himself cracking up, thinking out loud, "Yeah, that was pretty bad."

Salmon's face twisted into one of shock, promptly followed by disgust. "This is your paper, you ignoramus!"

Genuinely surprised, Travis raised his eyebrows. "It is?" He paused to think about it. "Oh. Yeah. It is."

He slapped the paper on Travis's desk, face-down, obscuring the embarrassing grade, with another one of his signature snarky remarks. "Very creative way to spell 'complicated', by the way." Calling out to the class as a whole, Salmon warned, "And before any of you start laughing, none of your summer assignments fared any better." He began making his rounds throughout the classroom, slapping disappointing paper after disappointing paper on the students' desks. "Naturally, I anticipate an utter slew of slipshod, rushed, slapdash slop to flood my inbox the night of the deadline, which I generously moved back to only a mere few days ago." He grimaced, dryly adding, "Not that it helped you much at all."

Severino's essay was delivered unto him, an underwhelming D staring back up at him. He couldn't say he was surprised. Along with the various (albeit self-inflicted) cuts and scrapes along his aching body, it was totally in character for him to fail at school before it ever really begam.

Or, in the case of a D, be minimally exceptional. Boy, that'd be something to his mom.

"But this crop of papers was especially egregious!" Salmon gave out the last essay as he further exclaimed his disdain of his students' academic shortcomings. "Can anyone in this room provide an educated guess as to why this is the case?"

No one.

Surprisingly, Severino raised his hand.

"Yes!" Salmon pointed at Severino with a fervor that made the student jump in his seat. "You! Explain!"

Severino, quite earnestly, suggested, "Is it because we're stupid?"

"What?!" Salmon snapped, his surprising quickly transforming into ire. "No! What kind of foolish question is that?" Exasperated, the weathered veteran, as usual, explained the answer to the class. "It isn't that your papers were 'stupid;' they were simple." To make his case, he restated the main question of the assignment, slowly, as if he were speaking to children--no--toddlers. "'What does American history mean to me?' A simple question, yes, but one that should yield a complex answer! But what did I read in the hallowed tomes you provided me?" He scoffed, gesticulating dramatically as he listed, "Empty platitudes! Saccharine stories! Buzz words you think have meaning but are really nothing more than sweet lullabies to tide you over!" Shaking his head, Salmon continued to scold his students in what would be the first of many scoldings. "If you want American Mythology, class, stick to Paul Bunyan and Johnny Appleseed!"

Your heart, Gene, you old fool, remember your heart...

Indeed, his face was growing as red as a tomato! So, briefly, he turned his back to the class as he tried to catch his breath. "History..." Salmon spoke slowly and deliberately, trying carefully not to further strain himself. "...is not a fairytale." Resting against his desk, the teacher turned on his heel to face his students. "There are no heroes, no villains. And don't try looking for them, I implore you, lest you fall into jingoistic delusions or anarchist mania. For every chapter of our country's relatively short but nevertheless colorful history, there are dozens and dozens of characters that fall victim to the false perceptions rooted in generalizations and revisionism. In your studies, you'll read about settlers who can just as easily be deemed oppressors. Freedom fighters is another term I'm sure you've heard; in different circles, TERRORIST would be more appropriate! Dare I even say, for some, the Civil War isn't the Civil War at all but the War of Northern Aggression! HA!"

Figuring he provided enough examples, Salmon got to his point. "Studying history isn't just reciting a timeline of events, students! It's understanding different points of view and drawing your own unique conclusions!" Pointing generally to the summer assignments now dispersed to each of the students, he concluded, "And there was nothing unique about what I read in those papers! Nothing!" Salmon shook his head mournfully, lamenting, "It's an easy assignment, class! Do you know what your peers in Advanced Placement US History had to contend with? A Document-Based-Question in the vein of the AP US History exam! I didn't feel the need throw them a softball project because I know that they know that history isn't something that you merely find in a dusty old book but from WITHIN YOURSELVES!"

YOUR HEART, GENE! DAMN IT ALL, YOU'LL KILL YOURSELF!

Catching himself before he exploded further, Salmon eventually relaxed, simmering his tone down by just a bit. "Now...I know that in many of your classes today...you'll be playing some fun ice-breakers. Well, class...I have just the game for you." Clapping his hands together, he finally announced, "We go around the room, you state your name and, in a succinct sentence or two, tell me what you think US History is to you." Crossing his arms, Salmon smirked humorlessly. "That should be much easier for you to manage than a 500 word essay, hm? Now...do we have any volunteers?" He threw his hands in the air, asking (Never begging; Salmon was a man of pride like that.), "Anyone at all."

-Salmon, Darius, Travis and Severino

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on July 14, 2024, 11:46 am

ENGLISH 9 WITH MS. IMANI ALEHERI

***

"Come on, y'all, in, in, in..." Imani waved her hand, "I know it's the first day, but it's not hard to find me, I'm literally right next door."

The last stragglers from 202 crossed the threshold. One of them, a bleary faced redheaded girl, passed a bloodshot eye over her. Imani thought weed and then course-corrected with the more logical sleeper.

No smell, babe. You're really getting domesticated now.

Suppressing a smile at this observation, she waved, "Okay, gang, sit anyplace. If you were just here," she eyed the half-dozen or so kids for whom this was also their homeroom, "You can switch, but I don't know why you'd waste your time. You're here for a while, you're gonna get to know each other against your will anyway."

"That's what's up," observed Baptiste, indicating the vacated seat next to him for the redheaded girl, who must've given him a prize-stink eye as she moved two seats over, presumably out of spite.

Imani tried not to form parasocial relationships with the kids, but she gave the redhead a point, even expecting to dock it once she invariably dozed back off in the next 15 minutes.

***

Poppy sank into her desk, looking dispassionately across at the gawky white (she was white too, obviously, but there's white and there's 'catch the glare', and it was way too early) guy who'd been playing the gallant.

"Good idea."

She turned to the other side, where the guy who'd helped her with her bike chain had just sat...Julio, "For me or for you?"

"You're not getting any sleep with him breathing down your neck," he smirked, like they were sharing a joke. Poppy rolled her eyes, fairly flagrantly.

***

"This seat taken?"

Dylan eyed the desk that had been Colin's and looked up at the square-jawed, sandy-haired dude standing over him, "...no?"

"Sweet," he sat, "You're on the team, right? Don't tell me..." he quirked his face into an expression of intense concentration. Dylan, watching with mingled confusion and bemusement, prepared to take pity on him and just provide an answer, but he was beaten to the punch.

"Wide receiver!"

"Yeah," Dylan smiled despite himself, "Well, I'm pretty sure I'll be a backup, but..."

"Hey, you're still on the team. It's Zach," he added.

"Halfback," Dylan tried spontaneously, pointing unnecessarily.

"On the money," Zach offered a fist, which Dylan bumped dubiously, "Cool to meet you."

Dylan nodded to affirm it was, in fact cool, and decided maybe he'd been overreacting before. The agents of his humiliation were still in the room, after all, and neither of them had so much as given him a glance.

Time was fickle. And people would forget.

***

Ryan gave the Hendrickson kid a wide berth. Not that he wasn't a nice guy and all...he was a little too damn nice, and that kind of thing got all the way on his nerves. People who attached themselves to you, single-mindedly set on being buddies. It was cloyingly second grade and he didn't need that. He often felt he was out of step with other people...and in a way, he was. His 'peers', or whatever the social workers would call them, all averaged a year younger than him since he'd repeated fifth grade, which had come with a helping heap of entirely separate baggage too. Squeaky, smiley wannabe campus aces like Halfback Zach just got under his skin, like they just walked out of a cartoon or some shit.

He sank into a vacant desk at the very back of the room. Next to him, a shaggy-haired, scrawny-looking kid he thought might've come from his homeroom lifted an eye in brief appraisal, his attention seeming to linger on the bit of ink visible above the sleeve of Ryan's hoodie: the tip of a spade, looking little more than a tiny black triangle in its obscured state.

Ryan pulled his sleeve up over his knuckles and the kid looked away.

Smart guy.

***

"There she is!" Jake greeted Brooke as she took a seat, frowning daintily.

"Aw, crud."

"What's up?" asked Will, looking across Jake at her.

"I was hoping I'd got into the smart class," she shrugged, "Daddy will be so disappointed."

Will rolled his eyes, "Every time I start missing you..."

"I turn up, ready and willing to prove how irreplaceable I am," she took a notebook out of her bag: a hot pink number she'd had embossed with a gold glitter-glue monograph that, in retrospect, was stupid tacky, "But don't worry...I'm not replacing you boys yet."

"'Cause we're the best boys," Jake hammered his finger on the desk for emphasis.

"Don't say say that," said Will.

"If you're lucky, I may even take you with me when my star starts rising. You never know. The sky's the limit."

"And it's full of dead bugs," Jake was looking up at the little black dots trapped behind the glass of the room's fluorescent lights.

Brooke grimaced, "Neat simile. Maybe this is the smart class."

"Sorry, Brooke," said Will, "That was a metaphor."

"Oh well."

***

"Okay..." Imani held up a hand as the bell rang for the start of the period, "Y'all are officially mine for the next 45 minutes. I promise, I'll go easy."

She scanned the room for the usual polite chuckles and found them more distressingly anemic than she'd anticipated. Young teachers, she'd learned, suffered regular onslaughts of world-weary skepticism from their older colleagues, who delighted in constantly informing them that the honeymoon was ever almost over, that the time would soon come when the kids stopped being entertaining, the work stopped being rewarding, and you fell into a vicious cycle of despair and anger as the futility of your efforts was brought home to you, five days a week, 10 months a year.

She'd scraped through her first year on the job pretty chirpy, challenges be damned, but for all she knew, she'd just run out the policy and this was the beginning of the rest of her life.

"Lemme just do a quick attendance..."

This, she affected breezily, running through the names she already knew from homeroom and making quick work of the remaining kids, which turned out to be the majority. The names by and large meant nothing to her, with the broad exception of 'Maddox, Brooke' (the petite blonde lifted a dainty hand in greeting before resuming tracing the air with a beglittered pink pen with a pompom crown), who must be the mayor's daughter. There'd been talk that she would be starting this year...and considerable dread.

"What I don't get," Imani had made the dire mistake of raising the question during the week-long 'Summer Institute' Kellerman had mandated to meet the district's professional development requirements, "Is why her Dad isn't sending her to St. Mary's?"

"Why does a politician do anything?" the garrulous bag of bones that was Mrs. Vespucci intoned, "Messaging! What does it look like if the mayor doesn't send his own daughter to his town's public school?"

"That," mused Zeb Pikeman, strolling past with a cup of lukewarm coffee, "And maybe she's stupid."

She wasn't in the Honors class, at any rate, but there were plenty of markers of intelligence, and they didn't all show up on GPAs.

Attendance was followed by introductions. Imani had prepared a slightly updated PowerPoint presentation to this effect, building on last year's and toning down the animated transitions, which she thought were tacky and didn't do much to impress the kids anyway.

"I'm Ms. Aleheri..."

"A PLUS PLUS!!!!" GCotz provided. Haley Myers winced, "Oh my God."

"...'Ms. A' is fine."

Jake Fitzgerald's broad leer suggested he roundly agreed with this statement.

"This is my second year at GWH, so y'all have the unique distinction of being the first people in here fresher than me. If you're paying any attention to the four walls you're in or to the summer homework I gave you...and, no offense, but I'm not sure all of you did..."

Slightly more robust chuckles.

"...I'm your English teacher. Now, I don't know where you came from...maybe where you went to eighth grade, they called it 'English' too. Some of you, might've been they called it 'Language Arts', right? That's what they did when I was in middle school. Anybody want to take a crack at what 'Language Arts' even means?"

There was a protracted, awkward silence before the pudgy Korean girl who'd come into homeroom late...Sue...raised her hand, "Like grammar and stuff?"

"Probably," Imani granted, "But language isn't an art. It's a medium. Like a movie or a show or a play...I don't know if any of you still go to plays, but I've got a bias..." she indicated the slide on the board behind her, which rattled off certain key points of her career, up to and including her dramatic bona fides, "We do a play here. It's usually pretty cool and I do recruit relentlessly from my class. But you'll hear more about that..."

"Language is a medium. But you're alive. You talk every day. Some of y'all talk too much..." she looked lingeringly at Gigi, who held up deuces in a manner Imani could only assume was affirmation of fact, "...not everything you say is art. And that's fine. Human beings make art, but we're multipurpose machines. Picasso had to shower; Bach had to go in the chamber pot every now and then..."

Jake raised his hand spontaneously, "That other guy killed himself!"

"A lot of them did, Jake, so yes. The point is...art needs intention. It needs purpose. 'English' is a medium. 'Literature' is the art we make in that medium. And my job for the next 10 months is to make you art critics, art appreciators...and maybe give you the kick you need to become artists yourselves."

She locked eyes with Poppy's, "Long as y'all stay awake for me."

***

GEOMETRY WITH MR. PERCY SCHWARTZ

***

"So...shapes," intoned Mr. Schwartz, after perhaps five seconds of preliminaries, his will to personality having been sufficiently shattered by the ordeal of homeroom, "Angles. We live in them. We move in them. We are them. But do we understand them?" he shook his head ponderously, "I move to suggest we do not."

"I mean, I could probably go to Hilton Head too..." Giselle complained in an authoritative, 'don't tell me, I'll tell you' force of will, "Bat my eyes on my Dad hard enough and he'd take out another mortgage to get us on some swanky golf course somewhere. But why would I?"

"You wouldn't. Golf sucks," said Nina, "Also, most of the clubs are still pretty good at keeping Blacks out."

"Black people, Nina."

"Don't let Steph wind you up. It's a whole song and dance routine with her. They go somewhere stupid every summer, and she comes back with a tan and French tips..."

"And a little charm for her ankle bracelet..."

"It's a power move. Like rich guys who mod their sports cars. The teen girl equivalent of a mid-life crisis. She's compensating."

"For what?"

Nina laughed, "Whichever one of us finds out first should tell her. Maybe she'll even say 'thanks'."

***

"For thousands of years, shapes have dominated the minds of thinking men. Thinking people, I should say. Many women have also thought about shapes, it's only nobody listened to them due to social mores..."

"Look..." Michael said laboriously, "I'm sorry. About before."

Christine was staring at her notebook, in which she was very industriously engaged in writing something he was pretty sure had nothing to do with Geometry.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you. It's not your fault you had to get ready."

A muscle tightened in the corner of her mouth, but she otherwise gave no notice she was paying attention.

"Look, Chris..."

"Later, Michael," she snapped, only slightly moving the curtain of her hair aside to look at him, "Please?"

He sighed, shrugging, "Right. Later," he leaned back, turning as he did to face Adam in the seat next to him. Adam, about as engaged in the lesson as anybody else in the room, gave him a nod, "'Sup, Mike?"

"Not much," Michael returned his teammate's fist bump casually, "What about you? How's your brother?"

This may not have been the best thing to say, now that Michael reflected on the flurry of rumors spreading around, most recent of which included eyewitness accounts of a skin-to-skin, man-on-man makeout session not half an hour ago in the hallway right outside this room.

"He's great," said Adam, "On that 'leader of the free world' grind."

Michael wondered if it would be appropriate for him to make some sort of positive, affirming statement about Aiden, just to let Adam know he was on his side, or whatever, but he really had no idea what you were supposed to say.

Anyway, Adam's attention had already been arrested by somebody else. Michael followed his gaze a few rows over, to where Emmanuel Hamilton was manfully repressing the urge to laugh at whatever Rita was saying next to him.

"Yeah," Adam repeated in a faraway voice, "He's doing awesome."

***

"And we have yet to crack the mysteries of the figures that comprise our world. The angles and edges that delineate all the moving...and even the stationary...parts of our lives..."

"Okay, you don't have to look at me like that," Teresa chided.

"I'm not looking at nothing," said Sasha, "But, if I were looking at you..."

"It'd be like that, like you're calling me a ho, but you don't wanna say I'm a ho, because you know you'll catch hands..."

"Girl, I'll catch and punt. Respectfully..."

"She wasn't calling you a ho, 'Resa," said Jay, who was making a token effort to listen to Schwartz, but personally felt he was doing himself no favors and he'd already lost the hearts and minds of his students of color, presumably entirely by accident, "But..."

"All I'm saying, is I turn 16 next month, and I don't want to be a virgin when that happens..."

Sasha drummed her bedazzled nails against the desk, "...girl."

"Girl," Teresa repeated in exaggerated fashion, "There's plenty of girls who got the wheels off earlier..."

"You have seen the dudes around here, right?"

"Maybe I won't grab someone from school."

"Right, yeah, just get your claws into some old dude somewhere, that'll really break you in, babe..."

"You just want to make everything nasty..."

"It's none of my business," Sasha held up a hand, "Just get on the pill, remember to floss, and go with God because I am booked for the foreseeable."

***

"And the controversies that have arisen from this line of study...people died for daring to suggest we lived on a sphere! Persecuted as heretics for truths we now take for granted. What new heresies will we breed in the years to come?"

Mr. Schwartz beamed out at his chattering, dozing, and entirely detached class, "Perhaps I am looking at these new breeders right now. Any questions?"

***

AP CHEMISTRY WITH MR. SAMMY KEATS

***

"AP Chemistry..." Mr. Keats beamed, looked out across his sleek, shiny lab desk (the school had been fitted with new lab equipment as part of a government grant three years ago; cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the humanities departments while Sammy rolled in the clover), "The best of the best. Believe it," he pointed out into the room, "Some of you opted in for this last year. You knew you had the stuff and you were ready to show it. That's right, look proud...Edgar..." the neatly-coiffed lad in the black serge blazer preened quite impressively for a kid his age, "Gwen..."

"I would, Mr. Keats, but I believe the true mark of excellence is humility in one's accomplishments."

"Oh, you're in for a rude awakening, sister, but there's time. Now, some others...I had to scout you like Phil Jackson. I see you snickering, Ash..." he pointed.

"Yeah, you got me."

"I did, because you had the grades for it, and like hell I was gonna let you forget it. Why else are you doing all that homework, getting eyestrain, missing out on friends, dates, and whatever's even in the movies anymore..."

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2."

"Exactly, Derek."

"It's not as bad as people say."

"You make sacrifices to get good grades...this is your reward."

There was a short silence before Tyler O'Neil cracked a smile, "Well, shit," to general amusement and a five star "Ugh!" from Gwen that may have been a pre-stroke symptom.

"That's exactly right," Keats nodded, "It hurts to be the best...but there's a reward in it if you can keep it up. What we're gonna be doing in this lab isn't easy, but if I didn't think you had the stuff to get by, you wouldn't be here. And believe me, you're gonna learn in this world, if you haven't learned already...it pays to have somebody around who knows what you're capable of. Little practical example, my new friend here, in the Kelly Green..."

"Wrong Euro-trash, man," Clarice beamed, flicking a green lock, "I'm Polski.'

"My deepest condolences. But our Clarice here, is a transfer, and she...you will all learn...is brilliant. I know. I saw her transcript when the front office put my classes together...and she wasn't in AP."

"So this is your fault."

"Because I raised living hell to get you where you needed to be. Mrs. Hayward will forgive me, I'm sure, and you, my friend, will shine bright lime, as you were meant to. Now..." he moved around the desk and began strolling up the aisle through the lab, "Chemistry. Big subject, lots to cover, and the AP exam is merciless as a Turkish prosecutor..." he paused, hesitating, "Sorry, Sami."

"It's fine," Sami Khalil smiled uncertainly, "I'm Lebanese. And I'm pretty sure Erdogan is a war criminal."

"In all probability," said Keats, who didn't watch the news, "There was a song, a ways back, before all your time, though I'm not yet at the red line where some of you would've been conceived to it."

Aiden raised his hand, "They Might be Giants?"

"What? No. Semisonic," he paused, "I remember when I found out about chemistry/It was a long, long way from here..." he boogied a bit, gyrating in a classroom-appropriate manner, singing in the voice that had won him the Regional Best New Personality (Radio/Podcast) Award- 2009, "I was old enough to want it, but younger than I wanted to be/Suddenly, my mission was clear...you can hold your phone up higher, Stephanie, I wouldn't do this if I didn't want it documented..."

Stephanie reddened slightly, but she did hold her phone up higher.

"So for a while, I conducted experiments/And I was amazed by the things I learned...you will be too...From the fine, fine girl with nothing, but good intentions..." he tipped a two-finger salute to the nearest girl, the bright Erin, "And a bad tendency to get burned..."

***

U.S. HISTORY WITH MR. SALMON

***

Salmon's prompt produced a characteristically hollow silence.

Finally, Dom Greco raised his hand, "Justice."

Geraldina lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh.

***

AMERICAN LITERATURE WITH MR. ERIC TRAINOR

***

"So you're Juniors, you've been at this a while," Mr. Trainor leaned on the front of his desk, flipping through a battered paperback edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, "I know there's good money I can count those of you who did your summer reading on one hand..." he set the book down, "And have fingers left over."

Harvey raised his hand, "I read the book," he paused, "Sir."

"Oh my God, Harv, nobody was looking at you," said Charlie, "You'd confess to a murder you didn't commit just to improve the vibe."

"Did you read the book?" asked Iona.

"No, but I didn't front it in the paper, did I, Trainor?"

"He was, in fact, very honest," Trainor granted, "You'll see a fine red badge of C, for courage."

"Good man."

"Can I submit an object lesson from this?" prompted Iona, "On the subject of 'white mediocrity'?"

"If it makes you feel better, Iona, I didn't read it either and I didn't get a C," said Rafe.

"You're not white!"

"Oh, right."

"Questions of my internalized biases aside, the cogent lesson that I think applies here...and there may always be more, so feel free...is that you've reached the point in your lives where you can tell your own stories, and they may even be good enough to make up for you not reading other people's."

He looked around the room, propping himself up on the desk, "The fact is, this is American literature. You are all American citizens. You have all evolved the capacity to tell stories. On the barest face of it, you are on the same level as the people whose books we'll be reading in this room."

"Ooh, them's fighting words, I think," said Viv.

"What, because of Hemingway?"

"I was thinking the chick who wrote Gone with the Wind. Why is that on the reading list again?"

"Like it or not, it's a valuable cultural artifact."

"...about a time the author wasn't alive for?"

"About a time when people like the author were nostalgic for a time you and I would say there wasn't much to be nostalgic about," Trainor shrugged, "Not every story has equal value, but every story does have something to say about the person who told it, and the time it was told in. The stories we tell reflect the world we live in just as much as a war or a recession or the NFL playoffs. When I ask you what you thought of these books, I'm really asking you what you would do if you were the one telling the story..."

He shrugged, "And maybe you'll start telling."

***

CALCULUS WITH MS. HILDA TURNER

***

"Welcome to Calculus, my pretties!" Ms. Turner greeted her full-to-bursting class, "I'm happy you're here, and maybe if you put your hearts in it, you'll end up coming around too."

She was used to her gen ed. class dwarfing her AP, but this year the disparity was pretty heavy. Pity too...there were a few students in this class she knew would've shined in AP. Deliberately avoiding Maricel's eyes...no need to make her feel self-conscious, though she doubted she had that power anyway...she turned to the Smart Board, "If you've been at GW High for any amount of time, you probably already know me...I'm a bit of a pest like that..."

"It's stupid, but I'm worried about him," Dotty muttered distractedly, at the same time indulging in her ancient and well-worn habit of writing down everything on the Smart Board, even the useless stuff...it just felt good to write things down, "Caleb. He was shaking like jello when I left him. He's always been so shy. But I'm probably overreacting," she nodded, "Definitely. I hope."

She bit her lip, "I just feel responsible for him, you know? Is that clingy? It's probably clingy. But I don't know how to stop," she sighed, turning to Brent, "Do you think he's gonna get beat up?"

***

"I have the worst headache," said Kim, rubbing her temple, "I hate math."

"We haven't even started," said Rosalie, "And, no offense, but if you actually do any math this year besides counting tips..."

"Oh, wow, so original, you're so funny..." Kim rolled her eyes, "You know I closed last night?"

"Shit. 11:00?"

"11:30. I pulled tonight too."

"See, you're doing that to yourself. Because you know your knees will be fucked after practice..."

"Well, what am I supposed to do, Rosa? Really? I need the money..."

"Make your brother get a job."

"Dylan?" Rosalie blinked, then laughed humorlessly, "Yeah, sure, how could I have missed it? Dylan will save us all."

***

"Calculus is the study of continuous change. Which explains everything and nothing at the same time," Ms. Turner beamed, "Everything changes, right? You all know that. Most of you will be turning 18 this year. You've been changing every second since you came into this world, and that's not letting up anytime soon."

Van smiled bitterly, chuckling under their breath.

"You say something?" Gabe looked at him.

"Eh? Oh, um...no. No, babe. Sorry."

"That was a lie, but I'll respect your privacy for an hour."

***

"Trying to quantify that change...measure it and predict it...that's where the science comes in. In this class, you'll be seeing lots of empty white boxes with tangential lines and reams of functions that'll make your head spin. But those are just diagrams...charts mapping the flow of the blood in our veins, the distance between us and the stars...the growing curves of the shells we see on the beach."

With an indulgent smile, she picked up the pearl-white nautilus on her desk, "The segments on this shell grow and change incrementally the tighter the spiral becomes...our universe works the exact same way. When we understand calculus, we get a little bit closer to understanding where we're going."

She set the shell down, "Leaving aside some room for human error, of course."

***

AP BIOLOGY WITH MR. ZEBULON PIKEMAN

***

The little kid was going to be a problem.

Everyone kept staring at him, even the ones who ought to have gotten their jollies off in homeroom. For his part, little Dick Cole sat prim and proper, hands folded on his desk, his toes barely brushing the floor.

It was sick. Perverted. He felt like he was midway through Flowers for Algernon, or Frankenstein. The responsible parties should be disgraced.

"Three years ago, most of you were in my first ever freshman Biology class," Pikeman intoned, "I am as shocked as anyone else we're all still here."

Rochelle Robinson let out a little cheer. Pikeman fixed her with a withering glare and she desisted with an "Ahem". Pikeman sighed, "Now, given you've all managed to keep your grades up this long, I won't waste your time with some pointless, rambling preamble about Bio...I haven't asked a question yet."

Dick Cole had jackknifed his arm into the air, "No, but I would like to provide a clarification."

"...a clarification."

"I was not in your first freshman class. I was in the third grade."

Sean Coleman whispered something in his ear and Dick nodded, "Oh! Oh yes. But I only thought, in the interest of full disclosure..."

"Mr. Cole..."

"Yes, sir?"

"You'll have to prove a lot to a lot of people in the next few months. Try your level best to keep me off the list."

Dick nodded rigidly...was his lip trembling? Oh Jesus.

-Imani, Poppy, Baptiste, Julio, Zach, Dylan, Ryan, Carl, Jake, Brooke, Will, Gigi, Haley, Sue, Schwartz, Giselle, Nina, Michael, Christine, Adam, Emmanuel, Rita, Teresa, Sasha, Jay, Mr. Keats, Edgar, Gwen, Ash, Derek, Tyler, Clarice, Sami, Aiden, Stephanie, Dom, Geraldina, Mr. Trainor, Harvey, Charlie, Iona, Rafe, Viv, Ms. Turner, Dotty, Kim, Rosalie, Van, Gabe, Mr. Pikeman, Dick, Rochelle, and Sean

Quote from Snafu Guru on August 26, 2024, 4:36 pm

Ms. Imani Aleheri's suspicions were ill-founded as it wasn't Poppy who was falling asleep but Aaron, who was already dozing off in this first minute of class, save for the brief moment Jake screamed out something about killing himself. Then he went back to sleep.

***

---

Salmon repressed the urge to scream. "'Justice'...OK, Mr. Greco. Let's run with that little notion, eh? 'American history is justice.' Yes, yes, fair enough..." He slammed his hand on his desk, immediately shifting his tone. "...UNLESS YOU'RE OF ITALIAN DESCENT, ISN'T THAT RIGHT, MR. GRECO?!" Leaning on the imbecile's desk, he continued to press good ol' Dominic Greco. "Is it not true that your ancestors were treated unjustly when they first stepped afoot Ellis Island, with nothing but a steamer trunk in tow and a pocketful of spare change and fleeting dreams? Is it not true that even though your forefathers helped build cities that kissed the heavens themselves, they were discriminated against, beaten, deemed illiterate hoodlums and layabouts? Is that la giustizia, Mr. Greco?! Is it?!"

***

---

Erin averted her gaze from Mr. Keats's...performance, trying her best to hide her secondhand embarrassment as she pretended to fix something with her hair.

***

---

Dead silence followed Mr. Schwartz's passionate soliloquy on the meaning of shapes and their troubled history.

Finally, Clyde of all people spoke up, but to no one's surprise, it was for a bit. "Breeders? Man, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I think he means..." Ben curtly spoke up, his contempt for Clyde's antics thinly disguised. "...we're capable of great things." Muttering to himself, he added, "Most of us, anyway."

His side-comment went unnoticed as Clyde held up his hands defensively. "Great things? Because we took high school geometry?" Clyde chuckled as he leaned in and asked Mr. Schwartz honestly, "So are the only two career paths for geometry 'breeder' and 'high school teacher'? I gotta know now, so I can have options in case this basketball thing doesn't work out."

***

---

Brent, to his own admission, wasn't really present, his mind wandering to...other issues that had come across his mind during the summer. Plans he had considered making but wasn't sure if he could or even should follow through. Back then, he convinced himself he had time to make some kind of decision but now suddenly school was beginning and he was stuck in Calculus contemplating if he was making the right decisions.

Eventually, he snapped out of it, realizing that Dotty was directly asking him a question, probably followed by a lot of anxious worrying he should have been listening to. "What? I mean, yeah, no, Caleb will be fine. I mean, why would anyone want to beat him up?"

Lawrence, who was just a seat ahead of Brent, mumbled, "Pro'lly his homo haircut." Brent promptly whacked him on the back of the head, causing the surly punter to let out a muffled yelp of pain.

Brent returned to consoling Dotty. "He's gonna be fine, Dotty. And if he's not...I can sort it out."

"Oh, right," Lawrence commented against his better judgement. "I forgot yoah suddenly the Judge Roy Bean o'er heaOW!" Another whack to head put an end to that.

***

---

Warren eyed the kid skeptically. Welcome to the meritocracy, bucko. He was half-convinced this kid was some kind of make-a-wish project and not the kid genius he appeared to be. Then again, what dying child would wish to be in school?

"He reminds me of Chiaotzu!"

"Gah!" Warren repressed his surprise at the sudden whisper of none other than Gary, leaning way too close for comfort from the seat next to him. "What the hell are you talking about?!"

"From Dragonball, of course!" Gary clarified matter-of-factly. "A diminutive fellow who was wiser and more powerful beyond his years, capable of great telekinetic feats!"

Warren had no time for this. "Go bother somebody else with that garbage!"

A bit dejected, Gary leaned back, before leaning towards the desk to his left, whispering to Sage, "He reminds me of Chiaotzu!"

Warren exhaled mightily.

-Aaron, Salmon, Erin, Clyde, Ben, Brent, Lawrence, Warren, and Gary

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on August 26, 2024, 7:51 pm

U.S. HISTORY

***

"Hey, take it easy, man!" Dom snapped, leaning back in his seat, "What, you callin' me a guinea or something?"

"No, dumbass," drawled Geri, affecting that unusual quirk of her lips that gave her the impression of chewing gum when, in fact, she was chewing nothing but her own words, "He's sayin' people called your ancestors guineas."

"What, guinea, like the hamster?" asked Izzy.

"It's a cuss for Italians," said Rahim.

"Yeah, it's like our n-word," said DJ.

"No, it's not."

"What do you mean? It is."

"The n-word is worse."

"Well,  I mean..."

"Well, obviously, if I called you a guinea, it wouldn't be the same as if you'd called me a..."

"Wait, I'm still stuck," said Izzy, "What do Italians have to do with hamsters?"

***

AP CHEM

***

Mr. Keats, seeing Erin wasn't into it, experienced a nano-second mental alarm (to the tune of lawsuit, ol' man) and straightened up, clearing his throat, "You get it. You're all brilliant and talented, and I am going to put you little geniuses to work until you start believing it."

He smiled chummily, "Now, it's a matter of fact that we are communal creatures. Most creatures are. Even the little microorganisms in the tap water...they're clingy sons of guns."

Pause for laughter. He locked eyes with Luke McCarthy, who winced like he had gas.

"Riffing off that point, in order to reach their fullest potential, people need good people. They need..." he put his hands together, locking his fingers with each other, "Chemistry. And, for those of you who know me from the airwaves...which none of you should, unless your parents don't use headphones..." he took his glasses off, "I am the High Commissar of Chemistry."

There was a short pause as he sized up his audience's reaction: ranging from dawning understanding to stubborn confusion to, Sammy's favorite, bleak dread.

"Which brings us to your lab partners," he beamed, retrieving his tablet from the desk, "I made a spreadsheet."

"Wait," Stephanie interrupted, "You picked for us?"

"Your distress is human, Stephanie, but that is, in fact, my job and I'm very good at it. I have paired you into groups of two..."

"For the day?" asked Sophie dubiously.

"For the year," Sammy affirmed, basking in the mingled groans and protests and lifting his arms on high, "Deep breaths! You're all in this together for the long haul and you aren't even halfway through...you can't possibly hate each other as much as you think you do," he winked, casting his eyes out at the room, "...yes, Gwen?"

"This isn't a complaint," Gwen impressed, "Just a question about the methodology."

"Fair enough. Hit me."

For her protests to the contrary, Gwen was leaning so far forward in her seat it was a wonder she hadn't yet bisected herself, "You don't know us very well yet, sir. How can you pair us according to..." she paused deliberately, "chemistry?"

"Aw, kid..." he shook his head, chortling in the world weary way which had so captured the hearts of the county's divorcees, "I'm a professional. Now..." he returned his attention to the tablet, valiantly pretending not to notice Gwen turning the color of retro Cream of Wheat as she looked upon her so-called peers with ill-disguised dread.

"Ashwin," he pointed, "You and Sophie."

Ash and Sophie looked across the aisle at each other, one part perplexity and one part disdain. Finally, Ash got to his feet and hotfooted it over to Sophie's table, dislodging Sami, who seemed only too glad to sit anywhere else.

"...hey," Ash smirked, "Feel the chem yet?"

"Don't even start, midget."

"Wow."

Sammy smiled at this...he was an old pro, he knew how these things worked.

***

"Our wunderkind Clarice, you're with Shane."

"As my commissar demands," Clarice marched toward Shane, plopping into the seat beside him. Shane smiled politely. Clarice smirked, "Can I ask you something?"

"Huh?" Shane blinked, making a big deal out of not staring at her hair, "Yeah. Uh. Sure."

Clarice narrowed her eyes at him, "You new around here?"

Shane smiled bemusedly, "Yeah."

"So am I," Clarice nodded, satisfied, "We already have something in common. So much for 'chemistry'."

***

"Derek," Sammy snapped his fingers, "With the lovely Erin."

Perhaps not the best descriptor to use for the girl who'd been visibly put off by his dancing.

Oh well. If he went down, he would go down swinging. In a manner of speaking.

Derek spent a few moments gawking, wide-eyed, at Erin before he rose and, fire engine red, shuffled over to set his book down on her lab table to take the seat reluctantly vacated by Stephanie, who looked at Erin with a 'Better you than me' sort of expression.

"Hi," Derek greeted, "Erin. Hello."

He remembered to sat down, and sat, "Hi," and lifted his hand in a wave.

***

"Sami, you're with Luke."

Sami let out an audible sigh of relief, moving her seat. Luke smiled awkwardly, "...should I be flattered?"

Sami smirked, "Check your competition."

Tyler must've heard this, lifting a middle finger behind his back.

"Oh, he's a real charmer," Sami muttered, "Starting to root for Nina's scabies," she paused, adding, somewhat self-consciously, "That she doesn't have."

Luke cocked an eyebrow in faux-consideration, "That we know of."

Sami nodded to affirm this, but was perhaps too upright to say it herself.

***

"Tyler," Sammy looked upon young O'Neil, sitting all prim and studly...Christ, Sammy would've skinned a guy for that face back in the day. And that hair...Jesus, he might just bring a tomahawk next week and start taking measurements.

Good idea for a pod, actually...how much of our self-worth is measured in keratin? Might explain a lot about his generation.

Alas.

"With the lovely Stephanie."

Stephanie let out a short, dry laugh, either at being called 'lovely' or being paired with Tyler. Possibly both, considering how she flounced over to take the seat beside him.

"What's up, sharp shooter?"

Tyler laughed despite himself, "Straight shooter," and, after a pause, "Basketball. I'm a...a straight shooter."

"Let it go to your head, why don't you?" she tossed her head again, quite pleased with herself. Tyler suppressed a smile.

***

"Now, Gwen, you'll be pleased to know my methodology, in its infinite wisdom, has placed you with our venerable Edgar."

Gwen rounded on the blazer-clad young master so rapidly she nearly fell from her seat, had Abi not been there to place a staying hand on the small of her back with an invocation that sounded like "Peace."

Edgar, for his part, wrinkled up his nose as if someone had just cut wind, but didn't fidget as Gwen walked over to him, head held high.

"Would you like a fainting couch?" he asked acidly.

"Methodology, my eye!" Gwen muttered, not even looking at him as she sat down, "The only chemistry he knows about is the kind on MTV!"

"I'll be sure to throw a drink in your face at the soonest opportunity," said Edgar flatly, "For the viewers at home, of course."

***

"Which leaves Aiden..." Sammy turned, beaming, to the only other unpaired student, "With Abigail."

Abi sat very rigidly in place, her jaw set into a thin line. Getting the idea that she wasn't going to move for love or money, Aiden heaved a sigh and moved his seat.

"Hi, Abi."

She made a noise like a suffocating snake and Aiden decided that was as much chem as he could take before he needed to break out the PPE.

"And there you have it!" Sammy looked about at his design and saw that it was good, "By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you partnered up. Trust me...you may hate this now, but you'll grow on each other, learn from each other, and help each other...

"And that, ladies and germs...is chemistry."

***

GEOMETRY

***

"You better start measuring your triangles then," Sasha remarked, unable to resist her hourly jibe at Clyde.

"Yo!" exclaimed Keith, "She's cooking your ass, Carter."

"She's lying on his ass," said Francisco, "You seen him on the court? Runs like there's warrants out," he paused, "He's still mad corny, though."

"There are so many!" Schwartz croaked, "Geometric paths. Really, all paths are geometric."

Heidi raised her hand, "Because they're lines?"

"And angles! Angled lines! But even stepping away from the poetics," Schwartz twisted his hands together, "I meant to include this in my prefatory remarks..."

"You what?" Adam asked.

"I think it means he's on a list somewhere," said Nina with a soft smile, bandying one leg over her knee. Schwartz gave a double take and, clearing his throat at her pleasant and yet somehow not condescending expression (a first for today), nodded, "I am, as it happens. The Dean's List. At Lakewood Community College. As a, er, scholar. Of distinction. For my, er...proofs. My Euclidean proofs," he nodded again as if to affirm this to himself, "Yes."

***

CALCULUS

***

"Oh, that's nice, Lawrence," Dotty snapped at Brent's teammate, "Real classy. You know, why don't you pay attention to your own brother? I heard he was tripping kids like a...like a fifth grader. And a jerk."

She turned forward, saying apologetically, "It's true. Some of the other freshies were talking to Caleb about it."

She smiled at Brent, "You're really sweet. But you don't have to beat anybody up for Caleb. He'd probably get embarrassed and have an asthma attack, and then he'd be the kid whose needs his sister who needs her boyfriend to keep him from getting pushed around."

Anyway, as much as she appreciated the gesture, the thought of Brent swinging on anybody was frankly preposterous. He could, obviously...he did it all the time on the football field, and he was darned good at it. Dotty's Dad had only come around on approving of him when he saw Brent barrel through a pack of defensive lineman without losing his balance.

But off the field, Brent was a huge teddy bear. She wasn't sure she'd ever even heard him raise his voice.

Speaking of Brent's voice...

"Hey, you alright?"  she cocked an eyebrow, "You seem distracted."

***

AP BIO

***

Sage curled her lips at Gary, "You remind me of the mole I burned off my clavicle last week."

"Okay, now that the pleasantries are concluded and we've all finished congratulating ourselves..." Pikeman returned to his desk and sat, "Lab partners."

Rochelle cheered again. Pikeman held up a finger, "Look, you're all..." he had been about to say 'adults', but that was already half true and even less for this particular period, so dammit, "You're all reasonable people and I'm already exhausted, so what's gonna happen is you're gonna pick your partners. There will be no switcheroos, none of this cutesy nonsense. I will have no hissy fits if you don't 'get' the partner you want. Frankly, if I hear any such, I will throw you out of AP myself, and you can kiss the college credits hi-ho," he held up a stopwatch, "Two minute timer. Don't test me."

"That a watch, Pikeman?" asked Christian.

"If mine eyes don't deceive me."

"No, I mean...why don't you just use Siri?"

"A minute-fifty, Tatum, and so help you God..."

-Dom, Geri, Izzy, Rahim, DJ, Sammy, Ashwin, Ashwin, Sophie, Shane, Derek, Sami, Clarice, Luke, Tyler, Edgar, Stephanie, Aiden, Abigail, Gwen, Schwartz, Sasha, Keith, Francisco, Heidi, Adam, Nina, Dotty, Sage, Pikeman, Rochelle, and Christian

Quote from Snafu Guru on August 27, 2024, 3:11 pm

"Nothing! That has nothing to do with anything!" Salmon bellowed, fed up with the constant derailing of his class. "But you understand that America has been quite frugal in regard to justice to your people, isn't that right, my pai-zan?!" He pivoted towards Isaiah, as he was the last to flap his lips so flagrantly. "I need not explain anything to you, of course! The Voting Rights Act was passed not even a half-century ago! Indeed, I was but a youth when the first steps towards desegregation were made in this great nation of 'justice!'"

On a roll now (while of course watching his heart carefully), Salmon pointed towards Severino. "You! Severino! I take it you're Japanese? Chinese?"

Severino, surprised and kind of scared he was called on, stuttered, "I-I'm actually Filipino..."

"THE US-FILIPINO WAR!" Salmon threw his fist in the air, causing Severino to jump in his seat. "Thousands upon thousands of dead young men, fighting for the same principles our forefathers fought for in 1776! Revolutionaries who sought to escape the iron fist of colonialism, first from the Spanish and then from us! And still, the Philippines are a 'territory' of the just United States of America! Though we may as well call it a colony! CAN YOU IMAGINE THE HYPOCRISY?!"

"Hey, hey, take it easy, man..." Severino urged, now greatly fearing for this man's health.

"And you, Tallulah," Salmon paced away from Severino and towards the lone student of indigenous descent in this school. "Your lineage is Native American, is it not? Dare I reminisce about this country's first Thanksgiving? I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, they weren't sitting at home with the pilgrims, watching the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys! Indeed, the conditions were far less civil than that!"

***

Erin looked up helplessly at Stephanie as her friend left and was promptly replaced by this gawking goof-ball, who seemed to have lost all sense of subtlety as his eyes did not move from her for a second.

It was one thing to get ogled at from up close and far away--Erin was used to it--but even worse, this guy would ogle her while she did all the work. The worst of two worlds, a lazy asshole who'd get in her way whilst salivating as he watched her turn on a Bunsen burner. Great. Just frickin' great.

"Don't blow anything up, OK?" She greeted him bluntly, valuing the A she desperately needed to acquire over any semblance of etiquette.

 

***

Clyde applauded tremendously at Schwartz's crowning achievement, though his face was wanting for enthusiasm.

***

"Wha? Nah, I'm fine, I'm fine," Brent tried to wave Dotty off, though he should have known better than that; she was persistent and there was no use keeping her out of the loop. "It's just...y'know...first day of practice and..." He eyed Lawrence carefully before leaning in to Dotty to whisper well out of his hearing, "...the thing we talked about. The very stupid thing."

***

Gary scoffed at Sage's crass remark, muttering something that sounded like, "Femoid!" The moment was brief, though, as the time had commenced for lab partners!

This was Gary's favorite time of the year. As pathetic as it may sound, it wasn't really--Gary swore on this--as it was particularly rewarding to sit and wait. While he may have been consistently picked last in physical education activities, no plebian could deny Gary's intellectual value! Yes, they'd come crawling to him, begging for his services, hands open in appeal.

And of course, he would entertain and savor all offers that came his way. Gary sat patiently, with his hands folded, anticipating a great many of his peers to stroll by his desk to request his talents.

***

Warren rolled his eyes at the sight of that fat troll sitting in his seat like a toddler. He wasn't entering that bozo's orbit anytime soon. Just an abhorrent person. Absolutely repulsive.

So who'd would he go for? Definitely not Beatrice; Warren hated fat chicks. Not the yearbook girl, either; she talked too much. Hope was hot as hell but she was sadly taken. Penelope was smoking, too; leave her on the board.

Yes, Penelope it was.

"Hey," Warren greeted Penelope in his signature suave style. "How you doin'?"

***

THE LAKEWOOD SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

Sheriff Clark Hudson sat lethargically in his chair, thumbing through another edition of Sports Illustrated, while his deputy was stretching his legs on the couch against the wall. Typically, that was reserved for people anxiously waiting for their loved ones to get released from jail but today, the department was a veritable ghost town, save for the one troublemaker they had in holding. Well, him and a couple of the town drunks but they were more like department fixtures than nuisances at this rate. Clark figured they preferred to get thrown here, considering jail was cheaper than a hotel room. Poor bastards.

The deputy, a new kid by the name of Kringle, yawned loudly, catching Clark's eye. "What's the matter?" The sheriff inquired, not lifting his eyes from this year's NFL season preview. "Didn't get enough sleep?"

Kringle shook his head, slightly readjusting himself on the couch. "Nah. Just bored."

"Good," Clark replied with subdued approval. "That means we're doing a good job."

"Yeah, I guess..." Kringle's doubt was obvious, something that wouldn't do if he wanted to be Clark's second full-time.

Putting down the magazine, Clark cautioned the rookie, "I could recommend you to where I used to work, back in Atlanta. You'd never run out of action there. You'd never get any sleep. But you'd always see something you didn't wanna see, every single day."

"Right, Clark, I'm..." Kringle sheepishly apologized for talking out of line. "I'm sorry."

"Get some rest," Clark urged him, reopening his Sports Illustrated, "I'll wake you when some trouble walks in through that door, alright?"

Suddenly, the door to the department was kicked open, and in walked a middle-aged man with too much pomade in his hair, too much cologne on his person, and way too much jewelry on his fingers. The sight of this guy with his tightly tailored suit, his Ferragamo shoes, his designer shades, his overly white and wide smile that was just too good to be true--that was enough to wake Kringle up.

"If it ain't Andy Griffith himself!" The shady figure greeted jubilantly, his leather loafers clacking against the department's cold and sterile tiles.

And unfortunately for Clark, he was a familiar face. "Morning, Michael. To what do I owe the honor?"

Kringle noticed late that the guy was chewing on a toothpick, like he was from a cartoon or something; he spoke like one, too. "C'mon, Clark. Ya know me better than that. Call me, Mickey, Mickey Diamond, Mr. Diamond--but not Michael. Michael was my father's name."

"Your father was Ruggiero DiMucci, a two-bit gangster with a history of racketeering, illegal dog-racing, drunk driving, and loitering," Clark replied dryly, tucking his Sport Illustrated away and tiredly sitting back in his chair. "You can leave the sweet talk outside and just tell me what you want."

"Ah. My family name precedes me," Mickey chuckled, leaning forward on the desk and looking over the exasperated cop. "Why ya gotta always assume I want somethin'? We go back a little ways, you an' me. And we both know that our friendship is--occasionally--mutual."

Kringle looked between Mickey and Clark. "What's he talking about?"

Clark spoke cautiously, understanding that Mickey had made his point. "Nothing. Mickey's quite the poet. Sometimes, I wonder if even he understands what the hell he's saying." He let out a sigh, wanting this visit to blow over without the kid raising any more questions. "You are here for something, though. I can't imagine you're one for small talk."

"Ya know me so well, Clark," Mickey's Chesire grin remained spread across his face as he casually slapped the desk. "Ya got a kid down in holding that I wanna bail out."

Kringle blinked incredulously. "Kid?" He did a double-take between Clark and Mickey. "You mean the dope peddler? What do you want with him?"

"Friend of the family, Jeeves," Mickey brushed the rookie off, returning his attention to the man who actually called the shots here. "Don't tell me he's been shanked already."

"We run a civil joint here, Mickey, you know that," Clark crossed his arms skeptically. "Of course, you do know you're gonna have to pay the bail."

"Of course, Clark," Mickey leered towards the sheriff, the charming facade fading for just a brief moment as he reminded Clark, "I always pay up. You ought to know that by now."

Silence as the two locked eyes with each other and Kringle watched from afar, now wishing that things had stayed dull.

Finally, Clark ordered his deputy, "Get the paperwork ready. We'll have him out in no time."

***

The department's holding cells were dreary, dark, and abandoned, having held home to all sorts of rabble-rousers, gangsters, and criminals over the decades. But today, the cells were only occupied by a few of the town drunks--Bixby and Ricky--and one young man really down on his luck.

Kringle sighed, in disbelief that they were even letting this scum out but then again, he had a lot to learn about this job and about how this town worked and about whoever the hell Mickey Diamond was.

He knocked on the cell door to wake the perp up as he shuffled for the key. "Rise and shine, pal." The rusty hinges squeaked as Kringle threw the door open. "You've got a new lease on life."

-Salmon, Severino, Erin, Clyde, Brent, Gary, Warren, Clark, Kringle, and Mickey Diamond

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on August 27, 2024, 5:08 pm

U.S. HISTORY

"Easy, mate," Duke cautioned with a lazy smile, "Before America takes another bold truth teller before his time."

Lucy, who  was feeling more and more vindicated by the minute in her instant dislike of the smarmy Australian, tittered audibly.

"Got something stuck in your throat, Sheila?" Duke winked, "I'm flexible, if it comes to that."

"Not gonna lie, I'm sick of this shit," said Matt.

""His accent's not that bad," Xavier jibed with the cheeky little grin that marked him as much more of a stinker 80 pounds ago.

But Matt didn't pause to acknowledge this, "This whiney PC BS about how America's racist or whatever."

"Oh, here we go," said Sabrina.

"No, I'm not 'going' anywhere, I'm just sayin'..."

"You're white."

"Wrong," said DJ, "Italian."

"We ended slavery, didn't we? Like, that happened. And..." he paused, "We won the war."

"Which war?"

"Most of them," Matt shrugged, "Like, okay, whatever, we did bad shit to people. What am I supposed to do about it?"

Lucy rolled her eyes again, evidently not impressed by Sonya's new boyfriend's rhetorical skills.

***

AP CHEMISTRY

***

"I would never," said Derek, "I mean, that'd be pretty unlikely anyway. You know, it's actually really hard to have a real serious explosion in a high school chem lab. You'd have to be trying, like...a terrorist."

He smiled, "...which I am not."

He cocked his head to the side, "You remember me, right? We're in...band. Together."

They were also in almost all the same classes last year and probably would be again, since there was no way an ace Amazon like Erin Littleton wasn't all Honors this year too. He'd spent most of that time awkwardly watching from a distance, which was probably not very cool, but...well,  what do you say to someone like Erin? Tall, beautiful, no-nonsense,  and crazy smart.

She was intimidating. Intimidatingly brilliant.

"You're an awesome bassoonist."

***

"Alright, now that you're all paired up..." Sammy continued, taking note of the ice-thawing already in progress with some small satisfaction, "Your first assignments...your first chem test, if you will."

Ash groaned, though whether this was over the pun or the mere word 'test', who could say?

"Learn something about your partner," he held up a finger, "Something you have in common," a second finger, "...and something you don't."

Aiden frowned skeptically at Abi, who continued to resolutely avoid eye contact, "...do we have to write this stuff down?"

"Oh, absolutely not. This is all for your benefit."

Gwen raised her hand, "This hardly seems conducive for preparing for the AP exam..."

"The AP Exam isn't going anywhere, Gwen. The best years of your life, on the other hand..." he lifted his hands, "Now, c'mon, my nobel curies..." he clapped once, "Start testing."

***

"Preposterous!" Gwen fumed.

"A true miscarriage of justice," said Edgar, "You should write a strongly worded email to the AP. I'd be happy to notarize it, but I charge by the word."

"You would be proud of that: a shyster and a con-artist...that's the kind of lawyer you'll end up being."

"Catchy. I'll put that on my letterhead when I get to Heritage."

Gwen shook her head vehemently, scribbling something down in her pristine five subject notebook.

"Research notes?" Edgar intoned.

"No...moral...center."

"Well, admitting it is the first step."

Gwen rounded on him, "I meant for the thing we don't have in common."

"Oh good, I was afraid you'd stolen mine."

"You haven't written anything down!"

"Well, obviously not, Gwen, then it becomes slander."

***

Geometry

***

Mr. Schwartz looked, downcast, at Clyde's applause.

"...the Euclidean proofs," he began to explain, since nobody had asked, "Are a method I devised...for living life. As a geometric proof. It's a way of living inspired by the fundamental, bare truths in which we exist."

"Oh, like the keto diet?" Rita asked.

"Certainly not. The keto diet is a lie."

"Finally, someone said it,"  said Giselle, "God, if I see another white girl with concentration camp hips on Instagram telling me to eat porridge every day..."

"...whereas, the Euclid method is true."

Manny propped his head up on one hand, "No offense, Mr. Schwartz, but that's what a scammer would say."

"I understand your skepticism, and...I assure you...have many rebuttals. For one thing, the Euclid method does not ask you to purchase new foods or take medications..."

"Or buy a book?" Anna-Maria asked wryly.

"Well, there will be a book, once it can find a publisher, but that's not a prerequisite to living the method..." this devolved into a short spate of babbling before he pivoted to the SMART board, "I will begin at the beginning. This is good, actually, this will take us directly into the lesson..."

There was a halfhearted scramble for notebooks and pens. Rita was particularly theatrical, miming a whole rifle through her bag before producing her notebook and, with her other hand, slipping her phone between two pages. Next to her, Manny clocked the sleight and flicked his wrist dismissively, earning a duckface for his trouble.

"A proof is..." he tapped the screen a few times and then turned on his heel, remembering he was supposed to teach, not explain, "Does anyone know what a proof is?" he half-screeched.

***

CALCULUS

***

"Oh,"  Dotty said at once and then,  realizing what exactly Brent was talking about, "Ooooooh..."

Unable to suppress her excitement, she leaned forward, "So are you gonna do it? For real?"

***

"She's texting me," said Bruce.

"I'll kick her ass," said Connie automatically, "And then yours."

"My sister," he clarified.

"I know,"  she smirked.

"She's supposed to be learning or some shit. Why is she on her phone?"

Josh, on his opposite side, looked pointedly at Bruce's phone and then back at him. Bruce shrugged, "That's different."

"What does she want?" asked Josh.

"She's just complaining," Bruce grumbled, surly, "I'll tell you what I want is a fuckin' apology. Making me look like a dumbass in front of everyone..."

"Oh, nobody makes you do anything," said Connie.

"That's right," he paused, realizing what she meant, and glared at her. Connie shrugged, smirking playfully, "Look, I still think she needs a kick in the mhm-hm-mhm. Just my two cents."

"Yeah, be my guest," Bruce grumbled.

Connie wagged her finger, "Never underestimate a woman's touch, darlin'."

Bruce scoffed, taking particular note of Josh appearing to melt into his shirt, "You can open your eyes, Wallinsky."

"Aw, shut up."

***

AP BIOLOGY

***

Penny was half out of her seat by the time Warren descended on her.

"Oh..." she smiled awkwardly, "Hi, Warren."

She'd been eyeing Rochelle. Not in a serious way...she hadn't really thought about lab partners. It didn't seem like the kind of thing to think about.

Warren seemed to have been thinking about it a fair bit.

"I've been okay. Pretty busy summer," she readjusted her posture, to a sort of obtuse angle, as if to thrust herself away from the desk and in another direction at the soonest opportunity.

She caught Christian out of the corner of her eye and distinctly thought she saw him mouth "Sucks". What a sport.

"...how about you?"

***

"45 seconds! It's not the prom, people. And between you and me, that's not much to write home about either..."

"Think that one depends how you do it."

Amanda turned to Sean, "...you don't strike me as the 'prom' type."

"Eh," he shrugged, "I'm not, but you only get one...feels like the kinda thing you miss out on and then you're old dude's age," he nodded toward Pikeman, "Wondering what might've been, right?"

Amanda pursed her lips in an expression of exaggerated thought, "...I think I'd live."

"Stronger than me."

Amanda lifted her hands in faux surrender, "So, I take it, since you're parked right here..."

"See, it looks like that, but I've left the engine running...in case I  need a quick escape, like that."

"Savvy."

"And silent too, wouldn't even know..."

Amanda interrupted him, "Do you want to be lab partners?"

Sean grinned, "Since you asked."

-Duke, Lucy, Matt, Xavier, Sabrina, DJ, Derek, Sammy, Ash, Aiden, Gwen, Edgar, Schwartz, Rita, Giselle, Manny, Anna-Maria, Dotty, Bruce, Connie, Josh, Penny, Christian, Pikeman, Sean, and Amanda

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 1, 2024, 1:05 am

"Oh, but you can do something about it, Mr. Aiello!" Salmon was quick to attack's Matt's ignorance--no--his celebration of ignorance, which was a more offensive display than any show of stupidity the most empty-minded of dunces could muster. "It is why you and everybody in this classroom--this school--are here!" Slapping on his desk emphatically with each syllable, he exclaimed, "Ed-u-cate your-selves! Learn something! And I don't mean reciting facts from a textbook! If I wanted those, I'd stay at home and read it!" He pointed broadly at the students that sat before him. "Education is not about retaining information--it's about understanding it. Questioning it. Coming to your own conclusions about it. And that is never more the case in any other subject than it is in U.S. History! Because if you walk out of this first class with any knowledge, it's this: you are all a part of this country. You are a product of her past, a contributor to her present, and a decider of her future. And if you want to make this country a better place for yourselves, for your peers, for your children, should you have them, you need to critically think about what came before! You must contemplate America's history with curiosity and empathy, the same as you ought to approach your fellow citizens! Because let me tell you this: although we have our differences in creed and culture...we're all in this same ship together."

With a weary solemnity, Salmon finally concluded, "And by God...we need all hands to the rudder."

***

Erin looked over this dork skeptically, the frightening thought creeping into her mind that this stalker was lurking over shoulder longer than she remembered, leering at her from the shadows while she played the bridge to "We'll Fly Away", blissfully unaware of his voyeurism until now.

Play it polite for now. Just keep him entertained for the next 30 minutes. Then you can stay clear of him. Until tomorrow's class. And band practice.

Fuck.

"Ha ha," she chuckled awkwardly, struggling to keep eye contact with him. "Thanks. I think I'm OK at it." Erin tried to leave it at that but the deafening silence was more agitating than the constant questions, so she tried to keep the conversation afloat until it careened to a natural end. "And you play...?"

 

***

Brent frantically signaled her to lower her voice, lest Lawrence overhear any of this (he'd have months worth of ammunition, something he didn't need when he'd be seeing him at practice every day). "I don't know! I don't know, alright! I...I gotta talk it out with my family, you know that?" Knowing that Dotty knew his family and already anticipating her response, he tacked on, "Plus...football. I've gotta worry about football."

OK, that felt a lot weaker than he would have liked. If Brent had any worries about his...plans, it was his family. Something he didn't like talking about for many reasons he did not want relitigate now in hushed tones during Period 1 Calculus.

***

"Oh, wonderful," Warren seated himself comfortably beside her. "I went to my step-mother's summer home in Virgin Islands. Absolutely amazing vacation. The family and I travel there every other summer. Swam with dolphins, danced with the natives. Great stuff."

(Fact check: Warren Willoughby rarely left his hotel room that summer, often occupying himself with a chapter of the latest Ayn Rand book her was reading, posting inflammatory Tweets, or pleasuring himself under his bedsheets. Four Pinocchios.)

"Guessing by your tan, you went somewhere exotic as well," Warren effortlessly continued the conversation, always the charmer as his mother insisted (Before she divorced his father in 2009 based on accusations of adultery thrown his father's way; Warren cut the woman off completely, believing his father to be an upstanding man and that his mother was a money-hungry bitch. Regardless, Warren remained charming.). "I'm looking for puff pieces for the next issue of Lancette to fill out the offbeat page; summer vacation stories always work for early September. You tell me yours and you might just see your name in print."

-Salmon, Erin, Brent and Warren

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 1, 2024, 3:20 am

His curly locks of hair envelope his face as he slowly rose from the wooden bench that made a well substitute for a bed. Breaching the dark ambience was the sunlight through a couple bars overhead. The smallest of glimpses to the outside world he got from there through steel metal beams.

Solomon was never much of a morning person. Often he felt as hungover as the two tools roomed together across from him. With a disorienting dizziness and migraine that spiked his brain.

“Pssssst,” beckoned from across the room, capturing the perps attention.

Sol slowly sits himself up right, pushing the thick brown tresses out of his face before throwing his hoodie up and over his head. With his jaw clamped in irritation.

Through the jail bars, a frail and wrinkly old arm extended from an equally as frail and wrinkly old man. He who wore a wife beater and brown cargo pants, having a long crusty beard as adage to the whole homeless aesthetic. “You’re that uh— that- that- that worthless hooligan who sold me fake coke!” exclaims the old head.

Almost paying him no mind at all, Solomon hunches over and drops his head in his hands. “Well Bixby, it was yellow so maybe that’s more on you than me,” Solly replies with some snark.

Rattling the cage he was in, both hands squeezing the metal bars that confine him — Bixby smushed his face up against the cell. His crazed eyes staring down Solomon.

“I could’ve died you fuckwit—”

No one was sure, Solomon wasn’t even quite sure, but a sudden screw came loose and as that bolt fell from his head he charged forth. The base of his skull rammed between the bars creating an echoing ( pang ) noise.

With equally as deluded eyes, Solomon threw his arms between the gaps and shout at the top of his lungs; “And if you had died then this ‘hooligans’ life wouldn’t be as worthless, cause filth like you would be six feet under! So, if your junkie ass values your life at all, please, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!”

Taken aback, Bixby wasn’t quite sure of how to reply or if he even should. Those dark umber irises ran fear deep into who looked into them. Like they were a penance stare. Though they weren’t as frightening because of who those eyes belonged to, but who Solomon inherited them from.

Behind Bixby, another man, around the same age only more fit. Sporting a black Hawaiian shirt tight on his frame with raggedy blue jeans. On top of which, they were a canvas for tattoos and had a buzzed head. “Maybe uh— we leave the boy alone,” the other man suggested.

Bixby shrugs off the hand on his shoulder. Quickly turning to face his cellmate. “You kidding me, Ricky? Back down to that twerp?!” asked Bix.

“You and I both know who that twerps father is,” Ricky retorts. Bixby looked between Rick and back over at Solomon, in the end relenting.

Solomon slowly begins to step away before plopping back down onto the bench, resting his back against the red brick wall behind him. Shutting his eyes as that sore in his head begins to pass.

Solomon was a lot of things. A delinquent, criminal, wasted potential and a few other choice adjectives Bixby would personally choose. Though all the description of someone who’s lost a lot, hasn’t amounted to much — and maybe has more to prove.

There are characters just like Sol who stroll in and out of these cells daily. What makes a no good dope slinger like him so special. Why is his story worth telling? Well, let’s start from the beginning.

 

24 hours prior

“You got the shit?” asked some red polo shirt wearing muscle head jock with a sloping hair style that went out of date after the 2000’s. Right now, this rich schmuck named Tyler has his chest puffed out with two of his buddies in back of him, sizing up Sol who’s calmly leaning against the hood of his car with his hand tucked in his pocket.

Now these high schoolers, just a couple years younger than Sol, were used to having their way. A facade of toughness Solomon read through, maybe because he was one of those kids. Minus the money and steroids.

Solomon looked to his left and then to his right. They were parked in a pretty empty parking lot on the edge of town. Behind them some neon signs advertising a seven eleven around the plaza.

Retrieving his hand from his right coat pocket and with it clear baggy of mints which beforehand were proposed as a thing of Xanax. Not that these guys could tell the difference.

The gang of teens look amongst the themselves and at the placebos. “Is that uh— that really the acid?” Ty asked.

Tyler put up a tough front. Maybe because his friends were all watching him, maybe Sol was. “Yeah, I mean I thought you’d be able to tell since you’ve had this stuff before.”

The group goes silent. The dealer smirks, scanning the trio of no good angst lords before him, watching as their sweat hits the cement.

“Totally, of— of course we have.” They hadn’t.

A chuckle escaped Sol’s lips. Ty goes for his wallet, rolling out a couple hundred dollars. Ty takes the would-be-drugs, Sol takes the cash.

Solomon’s best trait was how he could read people. Knowing what they like, what they yearn for and what they are willing to do to get it. Tyler doesn’t care about doing drugs as much as the social connotation it comes with.

Sol couldn’t say he was too different. As a collective, we love labels. Everything we do from how we dress to how to our posture is to create an image. Sol, decidedly, was no good dope dealing bad guy of Lakewood. All he was and all he’d ever be. All he needed to be.

Each of the three friends took a mint and sat it on their tongues, almost picturesque like in the movies. You know they’ve been practicing.

“Has it set in for the rest of you guys yet?” asked Tyler squinting his eyes and clinching his fist.

“I- I think so… woah, yeah I feel it bro!” his pal to the right responded.

Sol could only roll his eyes. Maybe after a couple hours they’d realize they’ve been duped. Solomon is low, but not low to sell to a bunch of trust fund kids.

He’d been getting ready, walking around his car to the drivers side door when Ty called out to him. “Yo! Benj— we uh, we’re going to grab a couple of beers if you wanna like . . . tag along dude.”

Shaking his head, Solomon scoffs off his offer. “Grab a few lukewarm beers with a couple of high schoolers? I’ll pass — and don’t call me that.” Grabbing his car door handle, he opens it. Just before he could hop inside, Sol froze as a cop car entered his line of sight. Pulling out of some corner.

Knowing he hadn’t done anything wrong other than rip off a couple of rich pampered boys, maybe that would ease his nerves. However, with his name already in the system — he could do without the hassle.

Eyes darting from the police vehicles windshield, which was jet black and hard to see through at this time creating a sense of anonymity that chilled their spines, he looks over to the other three. Before he could tell them to cool their nerves, already they were dashing off like they just partook in a hit and run.

Red and blue flash across Solly’s eyes, urging him to hop inside that black Chevy impala. The one thing his crooked pops left him behind. Now another accessory in one of Solomon’s many misadventures.

He stomps on the gas and is soon out of there. Though the popo aren’t far behind on his rear. He strides straight ahead down an empty street. Most of what surrounds him were abandoned apartment buildings and various gas stations.

In the mix of blue and red were yellow and green. He could add speeding to his list of offenses among other street crimes Sol may have enacted through this chase.

Now, Solly is running this cop for a loop around town and he’s flipping through stations before landing on Black Sabbath, which was befitting enough for the scene as he takes a sharp right turn into a slightly more populated part of lakewood.

On the sidewalk, eyes follow the pursuit as they fastens towards Lejeune’s Park. The car in back of  him falls behind and Sol looks in his rearview mirror, thinking finally he’s lost this guy.

That was until some ways in front of him another copper pulls out of the shadows like a bat exiting hell. In an absent minded attempt to maneuver, he swerves left sending him and his car flying forth into a playground. In the heart, a fountain depicting Samael, one which he’d partially shattered as he smashes into the damn thing. Head smacking the wheel, drawing some blood across his right temple in the process.

In the midst of the wreckage, there is some no good kid partly incapacitated at the wheel, blinking between awake and unconscious. Though in his head he heard rattling. Like a cage being shook. It grows more pronounced. Louder. Louder.

Now

Sol finds himself nodding off to sleep, but his slumber is abruptly cut short by Kringle tapping the bars with his rough and hard knuckles. A grin on his face.

As aforementioned, Sol wasn’t much of a morning person. So, everything the newbie said to him went through one ear and out the other. Though the general message was loud and clear. Someone was bailing him out.

Who would waste their wad on him? Not exactly sure. But, if it meant getting away from Bixby’s funk . . . he doesn’t exactly care.

— Bixby, Ricky, Benjamin Solomon, Tyler and Kringle

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 1, 2024, 1:46 pm

Once the young man was released from his cell and into the free world, a voice echoed from the end of the narrow corridor. "Well, I'll be..." It turned out that Mickey Diamond was not too far behind Kringle, much to the deputy's chagrin, as the older man opened his arms wide and beheld the sight before him. "Benjamin Solomon. How many years has it been? 10? 15? I lose track." He stopped and looked the kid over, just taking it all in. "God, ya got tall. Ya look like shit but you're tall. Ain't that something." Clapping the kid on the back, Mickey leaned in cautiously, asking, "Ya do remember me, dontchya? 'Uncle Mickey?' When you were a kid?"

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on September 1, 2024, 5:15 pm

U.S. History

***

Matt grimaced, "Yes, sir."

Lucy Newman made one of those airless clucking noises in the back of her throat, which was just what you'd expect. Frigid cunt like that came with a 'Look, but Don't Touch' sign grafted to her forehead and was proud of it.

People could laugh all they wanted...he didn't give half a shit. He got enough of the tired shit about truth, justice, and the American way back home, with Dad conked out on the La-Z Boy, drinking warm Pabst and yelling at the news.

Matt was a part of fuckin' American history, alright. His Dad had lost his hip to it, and his last few functioning freakin' brain cells to boot. And as for the future...well, as far as Jake Aiello, Grunt Shitscrubber No. 879, was concerned, Matt's big ol' American future would be much the same.

But whatever...Matt wasn't about to be made a joke of. That was his token attempt at getting involved...from now on, it was lights off upstairs for the rest of the class, for the rest of the year, and that pencil-necked screecher could suck it.

***

Calculus

***

"Alright!" Dotty said tersely, "But you don't have to be snippy."

She sighed, "Look, I don't want to tell you how to handle your family...I'm not one of those kinds of girlfriends, or I don't want to be. But I also think...and this is just my opinion...you're putting a lot on what your folks are gonna say."

She shrugged, "I don't think it'll be a big deal. When you get right down to it."

***

Hilda did one last check of her attendance and sighed in satisfaction.

She wasn't going to bombard these kids with fundamentals on the first day, certainly not first thing in the morning...it wouldn't do any good and it would also make her the bad guy. Calculus was hard enough to get your head around.

Her philosophy was to be a gentle guide...the kids don't want to be in class, but they're going to be anyway, and a good teacher is going to make it comfortable for them. In time, they'll respond, a little more warmly every day, and by the end, they may surprise themselves.

Anyway, senioritis was contagious. Watching these kids, most of whom had known each other for four years, chattering familiarly with each other, swapping stories and inside jokes...

Well, it was nice. How many times after this year would they be in rooms with this many people...not all friends, but all known to them? How many times would they be so comfortable in their own skin?

On that note...

There was one new girl in class. A transfer, Hilda believed. Mrs. Hayward, God bless her, had given her notes, but Hilda had been more absorbed in the 12-year-old super genius she'd be teaching in AP to take more than passing notice.

The girl was sitting alone, not exactly chatting it up with her neighbors.

Poor thing. It was always hard starting at a new school, but in your senior year...having to start over again, where nobody knew you...it was tough.

Logically, Hilda knew she shouldn't meddle, but sue her. Clearing her throat, she moved around her desk to approach her newbie.

"Wishing you'd slept in?" she asked brightly, but not over-loudly...not that she had much chance of being overheard in this din.

***

AP Bio

***

Penny chuckled softly, "Oh. Well...I stayed around mostly. Did lots of volunteer work. With my church, you know."

Probably, Warren didn't. Church stuff was pretty corny, and year after year, fewer people were interested in it. Obviously, the church had some part in this...but Pastor Jensen was trying, and if he wasn't, well, Penny wouldn't have been able to get away with as much.

"I'm the leader of the Girl Guides chapter," said Penny, "We do mission trips, volunteer work...service stuff, you know? Actually...this is something cool we did...and I think it would be fun to have in the paper...the youth group...that's the Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts...we raised $5,000 for the pediatrics wing at Lakewood General."

She grinned, "Cool, right?"

***

"This seat taken?"

Regina looked up to regard Hope, "Girl, I wasn't even bothering."

"Good," she sat, "Neither was I."

Regina narrowed her eyes, "You're not gonna scream when we have to dissect cow eyes, right?"

"Is it cow eyes?" Hope pouted showily, but shook her head, "I'm actually super hardcore. I'm just waiting for everyone else to get the memo."

Regina laughed appreciatively, "Good, because I need the credits."

"Nursing school, right?"

"That's the dream."

"That's really great, Rege."

"Being a nurse?"

"Well, yes..."

"I've never met a nurse who thinks so, but you got the spirit."

"Well, also...having a goal."

"Having a goal is easy," said Regina, "It's dealing with all the bullshit in between that's hard."

***

AP Chemistry

***

Derek's smiled slipped a notch. He tried to pull it up, but gravity had decided to be capricious. His first thought was that Erin was being funny, but she didn't sound very funny and, anyway, it didn't seem like a joke not to know he was in the band with her. It wasn't a big band!

"Well..." he cleared his throat, "I'm in the brass section."

He cupped one hand around his mouth and pulled it out and then in again, hoping she would get the hint.

***

"Nice tan," Tyler commented, "Get it anywhere?"

"Well, it's real, Tyler, if that's what you're getting at," but Stephanie preened at being asked, as Tyler suspected she would, pushing her hair to her back the better to show off her bronzed shoulders, "Hilton Head."

Tyler blinked, "Who's head?"

"Pervert."

"No, seriously. Is that a place? You mean the Hilton? Like Paris?"

"Not the hotels. Hilton Head. It's an island."

"With a Hilton on it," Tyler deduced.

"That we don't stay in."

"Oh good, for a second I was afraid we were gonna have nothing in common."

"Don't get too confident, O'Neil," Stephanie wagged her finger, "I'm sure we have some things in common...friends, for instance."

Tyler grinned, "Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah."

Tyler looked askance at Ashwin, "Look, anything he ever said about you, I went selectively deaf."

"What did he say?"

Tyler mimed zipping his lips and Stephanie rolled her eyes, "Wow, mind-blown, the jocks think I'm a nice piece of ass..."

He lifted his hands in faux surrender, "Now, I never said..."

"Anyway, I was thinking about the, uh, fairer sex."

Tyler watched Stephanie's expectant face, his smile fading slightly, "...well?"

"Don't make me say it?"

"Looks like you want to..."

"Nina," Stephanie cocked an eyebrow, "Well?"

Tyler chuckled, looking down at his notebook and drumming his fingers against his chin, "...well what?"

"Don't be cute, Tyler. I saw you hounding her this morning."

He hesitated...hounding. That wasn't what he was going for, but shit, it's probably how it ended up looking. And Nina had spent the whole period locking heads with Steph and Erin. Were they talking about him?

"See, Hilton Head was fun and all," Stephanie continued, "But you miss a lot being gone...including Nina's famous parties. Where everyone always has a really good time," she cocked her head to the side, "Don't they? Didn't you?"

***

Nina's End-0f-Summer Bash

2 DAYS AGO

***

Party rock is in the house tonight

Everybody just have a good time...

"I am telling you, this is gonna be the year!" Ashwin had to yell to be heard over the subwoofers blasting with tectonic force off the Patterson house's floor-to-ceiling windows.

"You're drunk," said Tyler.

"Look, we clinched the playoffs last season! It's gonna happen, I'm telling you..."

Tyler held Ash's arm up, announcing, boldly, "Public servant announcement, one and all, this little boy is under the influence! Do not serve him, I repeat..."

Ash yanked his arm away, "You wanna put money on it?"

"On the Pelicans making the playoffs?"

"On the Pelicans winning the conference."

"See, Ash, I would absolutely do that, but I don't believe in stealing. Word of advice," he clapped his hand on his shoulder, "Don't take tips from Clyde."

Ash opened his mouth as if to refute that it was Carter's idea, but rolled his eyes, "Whatever, man. Your loss."

The door out to the pool deck opened, admitting a flustered Giselle, her face shining...a combination of her multi-tier skincare routine and about two hours of skin-to-skin dancing, primarily unisex.

"Ugh..." she shook her head, "That weed stink. Nastiest thing."

"Who's got weed?" Ash asked. Giselle rolled her eyes, giving them a second look, "Y'all seen Nina?"

"Nina?" Tyler repeated.

"Yes, Nina, the girl whose house you're rippin' up..."

"Hey," Tyler lifted a hand, "I've been supremely respectful..."

Giselle snorted and continued on her way.

Ash folded his arms, "She's rude."

"Okay."

"Seriously. I don't know why Carter's so obsessed..."

Tyler patted Ash on the shoulder, "See? He's a horrible influence on you."

Ash shrugged, looking Tyler over, "Goin' someplace?"

"Don't worry about it. Stay sober."

"Ha-ha, you're so funny."

Tyler was already crossing the room. Nina had an open bar...like, an actual bar, stocked with piles of rich person booze, though she had announced, in a speech they had all been forced to listen to at the beginning of the night, that all the really good stuff had been hidden for the duration of the evening, and if she caught anybody snooping, she would personally mail their thieving hand to their parents and/or legal guardians.

Sonya was currently perched on a bar stool, bobbing her ankle up and down, her chin propped up on her knuckles as she looked across at Matt, who was combing the shelves, saying something to the effect of, "Go easy on me, yeah?"

"...whiskey sour?" Sonya prompted.

"That's the thing with the cherries?"

"You can hold the cherry if it's too much trouble..."

"Now, who do you think I am?" he leaned over the bar, smiling broadly. Sonya rolled her eyes, "Well, then two cherries. And one for yourself, before you pass out."

"Hey, Son. Matty."

Matt let out a grunt of recognition, fussing manfully with the cocktail shaker. Sonya twiddled her fingers, "Hey, Tyler. Want a drink?"

"He's mixing his own," said Matt casually.

"Yeah, no pressure, man. You guys seen Nina?"

Matt laughed humorlessly, but Sonya considered, "Uh...I think I saw her head upstairs."

"Upstairs?" Tyler repeated.

"Like, the second floor."

"Thanks, Matty, I was drawing a blank," he pushed back from the bar.

"Is she okay?" asked Sonya. Tyler made some affirmative comment in response.

He hadn't really seen Nina tonight, not counting aforementioned big speech. And maybe there was nothing to it...maybe she was just checking the bedrooms to evict shaggers. But there was always the possibility...

"What if I mixed you a beat?" Galo was on the landing, rubbing solo cups with a disinterested Rosalie.

"Was that a threat?"

"I'm tellin' ya, girl, you, me, beautiful music..."

"Call my agent."

"Hey, you call mine."

"Excuse me," Tyler brushed between them, cresting the stairs. The upstairs passage was pristine and virtually empty like the rest of the house. The far end of the hall was dominated by yet another window looking out at the pool deck.

Tyler sauntered over, looking down at the revelers below. Giselle hadn't been wrong...there was a nice, low-hanging mist from the hedges nearer the pool house. Probably Charlie Hawkins holding court.

His own reflection was crisp and clean in the windowpane. Tyler could indulge in a bit of vanity...the white henley he'd thrown on tonight hugged him neatly around the middle...pretty supermodel, if he said so himself. His mother had got one look at him on his way out of the house and pursed her lips with a disapproving shake of her head. His father...well, he hadn't been home, mercifully.

To hell with it...he looked good. He rolled one sleeve up to his elbow experimentally, cocking his arm nearer the glass...

"If you smudge the glass, you go through it."

Tyler looked up sharply, seeing another figure reflected, behind him.

"...and it's one way."

Nina was leaning in the doorway of what must be her bedroom, watching him imperiously.

Tyler opened his hand at his side, half-turning to face her, "Maybe not. Depending on the angle...I could hit the pool."

Nina had a habit of 'dressing' at her parties, at the same time not enforcing a dress code for her guests. Tonight's ensemble was a light blue sheathe with navy sparkles in a tight spiral from the small of the back down to the hemline. In the lowered lights, she gave off a silvery blue light of her own.

"Want to test that theory?" she half-smiled.

"Nah," he shook his head and Nina either scoffed or rolled her eyes.

"Uh, Giselle was looking for you," Tyler informed her.

"I'll bet she is," said Nina lightly, "She tell you to look for me?"

He shook his head again, "Solo mission."

"...and mission accomplished?"

"Found you, didn't I?"

"I guess you did," her smile widened and she jerked her head to the side, toward the doorway, her auburn hair shifting seamlessly from one shoulder to the next as she did, "Come in."

It wasn't a question, and Tyler didn't treat it like one.

***

"I..." Tyler said at last, taking no small satisfaction in Stephanie's eager expression, "...had fun."

***

Geometry

***

After a torturous pause, Nina took it upon herself to raise her hand. Schwartz looked at her and, with ill-disguised relief, prompted, "...yes? Please."

"A proof is how you know something is true."

"Right!" Schwartz gasped, but before he could elaborate, Nina took over.

"Basically, if you have the facts for something, you can prove it. If it's sunny out, it must be daytime. If you go outside and there's puddles on the ground, it must've just rained..." she considered, "If a guy looks to his right when he's telling you something, he must be lying..."

Giselle laughed as Schwartz lowered his head, "Almost. But not so."

"Oop," said Sasha.

"You are correct in, er, essence."

"...essence?"

"You do need facts to prove something. But the facts must be, er, harder."

"My facts aren't hard enough for you, Mr. Schwartz?" Nina asked coyly.

"A trifle soft, in fact. While it is true that if the sun is out, we can prove it's daytime...it isn't necessarily true that someone is lying by looking to the right. That, er, depends on the particular idiosyncrasies of the person."

"Oh, like everybody's different?"

"They are. We are all...so much more complicated than shapes. Unfortunately. Each person approaches things in an, er, unpredictable way."

"Do they, though?" Nina prompted.

"Watch it, man," said Francisco cheekily, "You don't want to get into it with this one."

"I mean, obviously, everyone's different, but..." Nina shrugged, "You did say we're all made of shapes and angles, so..." she lifted her hand, "That's a start. And, when you get right down to it...most of us do things the same way. Maybe a little different, but not enough to...challenge your proofs or whatever."

Schwartz stared for a long time in bleak silence before asking "...how so?" with an almost guilty fascination.

"Well, think about it. If someone accuses you of something you didn't do, what's the first thing you do?"

"Find an alibi," Emmanuel said smoothly.

"Deny it," said Nina, clarifying, "If it's a bad thing you were accused of. If someone tries to give you credit for something good you didn't do...most people would probably take it anyway."

"That's a beautiful way of looking at the world, Nina," said Anna-Maria dryly.

Nina turned in her seat, "Oh, Anna, thank you for all your hard work cleaning up our beautiful lake."

Anna-Maria scoffed, "You're welcome."

"I rest my case."

"Why don't you do something good for someone for once in your life, Patterson?"

Nina smiled coolly, "...prove I haven't."

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 2, 2024, 12:50 am

He took a quick glance at Mickey and his eccentric exterior. A little too loud for Sol’s taste personally. Hard to trust a showboater. “Yeah I remember you,” replied a muddled Solomon. Hands buried deep in his black coat, arms glued to his sides. Making himself small. “Usually uncles drop by for thanksgiving — you made a few guest appearances after my dad got locked up. Fewer before then.”  When he was younger Mickey seemed like the coolest guy to ever walk Mother Earth. With rhythm in every step he took, smiling like he wasn’t afraid of nothing. Like a power fantasy. That’s what it always was though — fantasy.

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 2, 2024, 3:56 am

Clyde clapped his hands once and announced to Schwartz, "Think you got yourself a 'breeder' there, Prof. That's some pretty good heresy she's sellin'."

***

Brent cocked his eyebrow in disbelief. "I'm sorry. I think you forget just who my dad is. The 6'5'' 350 pound tank I am going to have to live with and tolerate for at least the next year. The one who's been shouting in my ear since freshmen year that it's either college ball or bust for me. Like, for God's sake, Dotty, I joined the Cooking Club for a week last year and he freaked out because he thought I'd be losing snaps to the backup center." He rolled his eyes, bristling, "Didn't stop him from eating the pumpkin bread I brought home, fat bastard..."

***

Oh, my God, she does not shut up. Christ...

Warren longed to meet one girl who knew how to keep it to two sentences or less. Like, for God's sake, she went on and on.

Still...very hot.

"I mean..." He shrugged, feigning a noncommittal attitude. "...the press is supposed to have a separation of church and state, even here. But... since this country was founded on Judeo-Christian values, I think I can make an exception." Time for the killer. "Just schedule an interview with me and you can tell me alllllll about it."

Like a goddamn pro. Hell yeah.

***

EW! JESUS CHRIST! WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING?!

These were but a few thoughts that exploded in Erin's mind as Derek made some vile hand motions that made her sick to her stomach. As quiet as these thoughts were, they were apparent on her face, which contorted into a mix of shock and horror. The disgust was soon replaced by secondhand embarrassment (which she supposed felt like a return to the status quo more than anything else) when she realized that nobody, not even this idiot, would think it was a good idea to come onto her by miming fellatio of all things.

Then again, given the general IQ of this student population, Erin wouldn't be surprised.

Regardless, she put the pieces together. "Trombone? Uh...huh." Erin paused, the discomfort evident on her face. "Well...that's good...for you." Anxiously, she looked ahead to Mr. Keats, hoping he'd finally end this agonizing exercise and talk to them about lab safety or the AP exam or even his own podcast. Anything.

***

His monologue finally over, Salmon exhaled mightily. One class into the school year and he was already doubting the state of the world with this future generation. Sometimes, he wondered if he was doing any good, if anybody was walking out of this classroom convinced of the significance of what he was espousing to them. He supposed the day his teaching was deemed ineffective would be the day he'd retire.

Then again, old Brutus was still going at it. That harpy-witch...his retirement would be sure to put a smile on her face. No, if Salmon was to continue teaching these kids U.S. History, it was to spite that gargoyle, education be damned. At least then, maybe, he would have accomplished something in this thankless profession.

"So...let's start sailing, shall we?" Salmon began to write on the chalkboard as he spoke. "We'll have quizzes once a week, exams every two weeks, an essay every month, and above all, notes every day..."

 

***

"Oh, I was around before," Mickey mused enthusiastically. "Way before you were born. In fact, when you were just a twinkle in your father's eye, I..."

Kringle cleared his throat, obviously growing sick of the older man's presence, if not his rather strong musk.

"...let's chat about it over some coffee, eh? I know just the place. Makes a mean omelet. And the waitresses?" Mickey chuckled, feeling no more needed to be said about the legendary waitresses at Sal's, blessed with pretty eyes, big racks, and fat asses. "They'll put a smile on that mug o' yours. 'Cause boy, do you need it." He snapped his fingers, signaling Solomon to follow as he turned on his heel and began his trek out of this joint, always more eager to step out of a pig pen than step in. "C'mon, I'm drivin'."

-Clyde, Brent, Warren, Erin, Salmon and Mickey

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on September 2, 2024, 3:20 pm

Geometry

***

Nina wrinkled her nose up in Clyde's general direction, but didn't outright rebuke her title.

Mr. Schwartz, mollified or defeated (it was hard to tell which, though he was currently looking at Nina like a crown of stars had just alighted on her head, so make of that what you will) nodded, "Well. I am prepared to concede the point. The thing about proofs...about logic, both as it applies to my Euclid Method and, er, more generally, is that while they are factual, we still must derive our own meaning. Now, if you will please open your syllabi...or, er, consult them, they aren't books, but papers...if you would look down, at the syllabi, that is..."

***

"Bitch," Anna-Maria muttered, clicking her mechanical pencil enough to produce a little lead dagger and imagining if perhaps Nina was anorexic enough to be impaled by it.

It was bad enough that humiliating mishigas with the leaflets this morning, but to have some nose-in-the-air rich girl (whose father, by the by, was a megadonor to the firms polluting their "beautiful lake") make a joke out of her in front of the entire class...

What had Nina Patterson ever contributed to the society? And, sure, at their age, "contributing to society" wasn't exactly a given, but you can at least try. And if you haven't yet, well, don't be a bitch. It's not hard.

Plenty of people thought the idea of trying to make things better was something worth scoffing at. They thought you were wasting your time, or trying to prove how much better you were than them, and condescended accordingly.

"You okay?"

Anna-Maria looked over to see who'd spoken...the pretty blonde new kid who'd picked up her flyer in homeroom...Jude.

And maybe he meant well, but all Anna could see in that tiny, patrician smile was more condescension.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she retorted coolly.

Jude raised his eyebrows, nodded slowly, and turned away.

***

AP Chemistry

"Yes, the trombone!" Derek nodded, beaming chummily, "I enjoy it. People like to group all the brass instruments together, but I think the trombone is a bit more technical. Not as technical as the tuba, I can admit it, but compared to the trumpet..."

He followed her gaze to Mr. Keats, who was sitting on his desk, flipping through a paperback copy of Men Explain Things to Me that must've had at least fifty colorful sticky notes poking out from between its pages.

"I've been wondering about him too. Weird guy, right? You think there's any truth in it? About the, uh...chemistry test?"

He smiled, decided maybe he was smiling too much, and reduced it to a mild leer.

***

"So what about you?"

Clarice cocked an eyebrow (black, Shane noticed...not the worst contrast with the Kids' Choice Awards-palette she'd chosen for her hair), "I'm a Libra."

He laughed, "No, I mean where are you from? Since you, er...transferred."

"Oh, right," Clarice shrugged, "No place special."

"...really?"

"Armpitville, U.S.A. Malaise Capital of the Midwest."

"Oh, wow. You're from the Midwest too?"

"I thought you said you were from Chicago."

"...I am," he narrowed his eyes, "Chicago is, like, the capital of the Midwest."

"But it's not in the 'middle', it's like...at the top. Of the country."

"I guess. I never thought about it."

"To be in the Midwest, you should be in the middle west of the country," Clarice started rattling off on her fingers, the charm bracelet she wore jangling as she did, "Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas..."

"Is that where you're from?" Shane prompted, "Kansas?"

Clarice gave him a second look, "Oh, no," and threw back her head with a short, shrill laugh, "God no. Nice guess, though."

***

Calculus

***

"It was really good pumpkin bread," mused Dotty, sighing before patting Brent's hand lightly, "Well, I think it'll be alright. Once they understand you're serious about it...and you're good at it..." she shrugged, "What are they gonna do? Put you under house arrest?"

She imagined "Big" Mike Bigkowski with a big blunderbuss, like an old timey nightwatchman, and disguised a giggle as a hiccup.

***

Hilda's smile slipped a notch at her unresponsive newbie. She didn't seem hungover, or overdosing, or even particularly sleepy...by far the most typical affliction to behold first period high schoolers.

Not unwell...just unsocial. Which is not the same as 'antisocial'.

"Alright," she nodded, "Well...welcome to George Washington High, hun."

None of her business...but she decided she'd do well to double check Mrs. Hayward's notes at lunch, just to cover her bases.

***

AP Bio

***

"An interview?" Penny chuckled, "Well, that's fun. Yeah, um...I'm free most afternoons this week. Rochelle and I have a yearbook thing Thursday, but it's not official...we can't do any club stuff until sign-ups start. Then Friday, there's the football season opener...we'll be there, for yearbook stuff, but also Lancer Pride and all that," she put up a little cheering motion with one hand, looking at Hope out of the corner of her eye and hoping for her sake Beau didn't have the suicide-run season he seemed to have been gloomily forecasting all summer.

Looking at Hope meant she was also looking at Hope's newly minted lab partner, Regina.

"Oh, and tomorrow is the volleyball opener, so we'll be there for that too," she paused, "Huh. I guess I'm busier than I thought," she looked back at Warren, "Well, there's today. But if you're too busy, which I get, first day and all..."

She ripped a page out of her notebook and, with a flourish, wrote 9/7- 10:00 AM: Youth Group Collection Contest.

"Sunday," she explained, "We have an event. We put together a charity collection...the kids had to give or get school supplies for back to school...the church will donate them to families in need. We made a contest out of it...Josh's boys vs. my girls," she laughed self-deprecatingly, "I know. How feminist of me. But, uh...the winners get a prize. And it's for a good cause, of course. But yeah, if you want to put some journalistic boots on the ground, you'd get your money's worth."

She stage whispered, leaning a little close, "And you'd beat the TV news. Seriously, I wrote so many emails, and I don't know who they have working their comms over there, but they are so mean. It's ridiculous. You'd think they were the New York Times or something."

***

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven."

Christian blinked blankly at Beatrice, who was nodding ponderously to herself, staring across at Penny with a sort of simmering distaste Christian would typically associate with a dowdy plus-size girl when met with a perky, petite blonde...

Well, sans the Jesus stuff. That was a BG original.

"Um...amen," said Christian.

"You don't even know what I'm talking about,"  Beatrice said shortly.

"Fair, Beatrice, but does anybody?" he smiled, "What, you have a problem with Penny all of a sudden?"

"I don't have a problem with anybody."

"Isn't lying against your religion?"

Beatrice gave him another stink eye and Christian decided whatever the fun of goading 'Starched Collars for Jesus' wasn't worth the risk of being crucified on the football goal posts.

Christ, he really should have hustled harder for a better partner, but Pikeman had gotten into his head and, face it, his bros were too mentally incapacitated to find themselves in AP, so things weren't exactly easy pickin's.

"Well, I always thought Penny was really nice."

"And that's just the problem," Beatrice said decisively, "That you would think she's 'nice'."

***

American Lit.

***

"So, first order of business..." Trainor set Uncle Tom's Cabin down on the desk with a sufficiently intimidating...and no doubt practiced...thud, "Intro Lit. Crit."

"Aw, fuck," muttered Beth.

"Yes," Trainor raised his voice over similar mutterings of discontent, "The rumors were true. Trainor do be like that."

"Ooh," Iona winced.

"Yeah, man, one hip white boy to another" said Charlie, "You have to flash gang signs if you want to be with it."

"It's no bueno," concurred Rafe.

"Very bueno-less."

Lily raised her hand, "This is gonna sound a little high maintenance..."

"Be high maintenance, sister," said Viv, "We're hostages to his fickle tapdancing. Run him ragged."

"...do we get to pick our critics?"

"That is a very existential question, Lily, and you will learn in this class, as in life...you can't."

"Worth a shot."

Trainor held up the packet of papers he'd set down beside Uncle Tom, "Okay, so these are your graded Uncle Tom papers. As you can see, they have been lovingly marked up by my red pen..." with his other hand, he held up a second stack, "These are critic copies. As yet unmarked and waiting to be peer reviewed by our in-house consultants...." he fanned the papers out across the room, "Hello, consultants."

Gretchen knit her brow together sourly, "We have to grade each others' papers?"

"Not grade...critique. You can like what your peer wrote, or you can dislike it. You can agree or disagree. What you're evaluating is the quality of the argument, what they took from the same text you read, and how that informs, changes...or doesn't change...your own opinion of the book."

There was a short silence.

"...That sounds fun," said Desiree determinedly.

"It can be! It's not a huge deal, guys. Even if your critic decides to be a paramount a-hole and rip you to shreds, it's not gonna hurt your grade..." he paused, adding, almost as an aside, "It may not even hurt theirs. Now..."

He started up and down the aisles, setting the 'critic copies' down, face down, on desks as he passed, "A few ground rules...do not reveal whose paper you're critiquing. Huge no-no. Your critique must be substantive, no fewer than five paragraphs, and it should adhere to something resembling mature grown-up thoughts."

"I was afraid of that," said Charlie, accepting his paper.

"Feel free to get reading. These papers are homework. I'm gonna want to see your critiques Friday. If you're late, you're screwed. We have lots of books to read and only so much time to read them...also, you're gonna look like kind of a putz when we sit in a circle and talk about these papers, so..." he shrugged, "Peer pressure, kids."

Kellyann, who had been looking around the room with a frown, raised her hand, "Uh...Mr. Trainor?"

"Yes, Ellie-Mae?"

She blushed, "Kellyann."

"Jesus, I am so sorry."

"It's fine. Um...there are 17 of us in this class."

"Good eye."

"That's an...odd number."

"So it is."

"Well, if we have to review each others' papers, that means there's gonna be one person left out."

"Ah," Trainor nodded, "Yeah, don't worry about it."

"Huh?"

"Everyone's got a paper, don't they?"

Kellyann looked around the room and saw that this was so, "...huh. How did you do that?"

"Eh," Trainor shrugged, "Writers can't do math."

-Nina, Mr. Schwartz, Anna-Maria, Jude, Derek, Mr. Keats, Clarice, Shane, Dotty, Ms. Turner, Penny, Beatrice, Christian, Trainor, Beth, Iona, Charlie, Rafe, Lily, Viv, Gretchen, Desiree, and Kellyann

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 2, 2024, 11:02 pm

Mickey’s character was, from a shallow perspective, the most unapologetically gray caricature one could’ve painted with their appearance. Then again, so was Sol’s. So to that effect some camaraderie could be found.

Solomon clicks his tongue. “Not like I can,” he says skulking not too far behind. Referencing the whole chase debacle. His pride only half way stuck down his throat.

It be lie to say he liked Diamond. One could even go as far as to say he felt a strong aversion towards his bailer. After all, it was guys like him who got his father thrown in the slammer.

Not that Solomon hadn’t seen the hypocrisy in that. After all — how many fathers did his own dad get locked up. Some could call it karma collecting his debt. That hasn’t kept Sol’s animosity from swelling.

His mother believed I forgiveness. For as lousy of a Catholic she is maybe she was onto something. Solomon however? Well, he felt different.

A SMALL DRIVE LATER

They sit in this booth by the window. Solomon has his body leaning up against the glass with his left arm resting on top of his knee. Exposed by his baggy ripped jeans.

In Sol’s mouth he’s got this electric-pipe between his lips. This black pen with this silver round cylinder end. He lets go and out is this big huff of smoke which he quickly clears with a wave of his hand as his eyes steer towards the blonde waitress walking towards their table.

She had her hair back into a little bun with this wide eye bright gleam as she tightened her grip on this notepad she’d been holding. Having a neatly buttoned pink uniform with a stainless white apron around her waist. The skirt skating some ways above the ankle. Having white high-heels that made her look like she was perpetually on her tippy-toes. Also on the right side of her chest was name tag. It read ‘Susanne.’

“Can I get you fine handsome gentleman something to start off with?” asked Susanne with her glittery smile in a thick southern accent. Eyes fixed on Sol, though his seem to deliberately ignore hers.

A small whistle as he’d look between her and then Mickey who was across from him. “Yeah, just an omelette with extra hot sauce,” Sol ordered.

Her attention switched to Mickey Diamond, opposite of Solomon. “How about yer’ gramps here?” she asked, not even in a sarcastic tone, but rather generosity. It added to her very angelic presence. Solomon in turned half covered his mouth, holding back a laugh.

- Solomon, Susanne

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 3, 2024, 1:00 am

Sometimes, Erin wondered if she was too mean. If last year taught her anything, it was that high school--or at least this school in particular--was full of bullshit and it was often best to give said bullshit the cold shoulder, especially if she had any hopes of going to a college worth a damn and pursuing a career, god-willing. Even with this in mind, she wondered if she took it too far at times and that she was too cold.

Then she would meet guys with the self-awareness of sea cucumber and she'd be relieved of all doubts.

Erin turned to Derek, smiling softly as she interrupted him. "Hey, Derek?"

***

"He's gonna make a scene," Brent reasoned dismissively, stressing out at even the thought of how that argument would turn out. "And you know how I feel about scenes."

***

The stranger didn't look up to address the Calculus teacher. Something in her gut told her it was rude but she found herself lacking the energy to even engage in a conversation, groggy, half-aware of her surroundings. Only one period into class and she was already on her last legs. That wasn't a good sign of how this day was going to go.

Maybe she ought to have stayed home, saved herself the trouble...

But in a lot of ways, home was worse than this. Especially now, with everything going on.

No, she'd have to suffer through it. Hopefully, she'd feel better as the day went on.

***

Warren's smile faded as she took his pickup line in complete earnest. There went that dream.

Well, if he wasn't going to get a date out of this, maybe he'd get a story.

"Yeah," he replied half-heartedly as he took the paper from her fingers. "The New York Times. Ha. Liberal hacks, the lot of them." Pocketing it, Warren promised, "I'll put someone on it."

And who knew? If whatever lackey he had writing the story did a half-decent job, Penelope would be forever grateful, say a prayer for him, and maybe allow him to take her out on the town. All it took was finding someone who'd be willing to take such a schlubby story.

There were easy marks every year. Schmucks who would do anything to get their name in print, even if it was some story wedged in the bottom corner, only a few spreads removed from the back-pages. Usually freshmen. Yeah, that'd be the way to go.

God, he was so clever.

***

Sal's was its usual dingy self. Creaky floorboards, a motheaten stools, smudged windows, a surly owner who had the misfortune of inheriting this dump from his father (who had the misfortune of inheriting it from his father), and one of the worst-stocked bars Mickey had ever seen in his life.

But it was home for his ilk, all the same. The place had been a nice dive for the Tupelo to discuss business, even before his time. The cops knew better than to hang around this place; the odds weren't in their favor. Besides, what's the point of trying to clean all the scum out of a sewer? Sal's was a joint for "lost causes", alright.

Case in point, the kid sitting across from Mickey; God, it was a trip to see him grown up. Mickey had never felt older than when he really looked Solomon over, taking note of stubble, the sleep-deprived eyes, the hint of smile lines forming around his mouth--Mickey was a real mummy next to this guy...

...but hey, he still had game. "Usual for me, Suze." Mickey looked up at the waitress with one of his signature grins as he handed her the menu. "And easy with the gramps stuff. I'm sensitive. You know that." He shot her a wink and patted her on the thigh.

The waitress shook her head with a tired smile, as if she were used to playing this game with Mickey. She had to hand it to the letch: he was more of a gentleman than the other gorillas in this zoo. Not that that counted for much.

She at least flashed a smile to the young guy, who was kind enough not to make a pass at her. God bless the small gifts in this life.

Once she left to send their order to the kitchen, Mickey finally felt free to converse with the kid. He could have on the ride over, but kid still seemed half-awake, in some other world. He sympathized; waking up in a jail cell had that effect on you. Glancing at the car parked out front through the window (a beautiful thing, an '87 Corvette, masterfully preserved; one of his great prides in this life), he finally spoke, "Y'know, it's funny. Some 20 years ago, I'd drive your dad in that same car to this same joint so we'd sit in this same booth to..." He planted a cigarette in his lips and began flicking on his lighter, struggling to describe what exactly they did before simply leaving it at "...talk." Finally, he found his light and took drag on the Marlboro.

"Funny how things work out. Deja vu and all that crap..." Mickey leaned in, leering at his old friend's son. "What's it they say--the more things change, the more they stay the same?" He chuckled as he shook his head. "Well, shit, kiddo. You sure have changed since last time I saw ya, that's for sure."

-Erin, Brent, ???, Warren, and Mickey

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 3, 2024, 1:40 am

The younger fellow rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. Gnawing on the inside of his cheek as he shook his head. Sol would fix himself in his spot, now leaning against the table with his arms sat flat out—fingers locked together.

The nerve  Solly thought. His jaw rotates and eyes travel across the a scene before narrowing in on Mickey. A disgruntled groan comes from Benjamin.

Something weighed heavy on his mind, Sol very conflicted on if he should even say anything about it. It’s hard keep all this emotion sealed behind the safe in his brain. Overflowing with angst and anger towards Diamonds own impunity.

“Hey,” called out Solomon. That frown now upside down as it turns into this masquerading smirk. A veil and nothing more. He then continued “can I ask you something?”

He’s had years to wait for some kind of retribution. It didn’t exactly look like Mickey Diamond in all his indulgent dreams, but then again there never was a clear picture in the first place. Just a red flag for a bull to direct his fury.

A sigh. “Is that ‘talking’ why my dad is dead?” He fell back into his seat, arms crossed. He stares over at Mickey looking for something. Was it answers? Was it an apology? Salvation? The truth that he was unwavering to ignore is that none of those things would make him make him happy. All he wanted was something Mick could never give.

“I mean the fucking nerve of you.” This is where his hands part and his palm lays flat across the rosemary surface. Holding back his nails from digging across the wood. “When he got arrested we went into debt, had trouble making ends meet—my brother? he’s in prison.”

Those fingers roll into themselves forming fists. To Sol guys like Mickey would never understand. Not in his mind. What it’s like to live each day not knowing if there’s enough money for groceries. Having to drop out of school because for ‘kids like you’ there aren’t alternatives. This is it.

Diamond needed to know that. Him and his smug face. His expensive clothes. Fancy accessories. Mickey had everything Sol never could. “Yet, you didn’t ask about him and why? Because you don’t care.” He raises his arms only to drop them, slamming the table in turn. “Now you want to act all chummy and talk about my dad like you were there for the hard shit? So, instead of lubing me up just ram it in and get to why you’re here.”

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 3, 2024, 2:21 am

"And there it is." Mickey snapped his fingers. "You woke up. Took ya long enough." Resting his cigarette in a nearby ash tray, he spoke calmly, like a professor on the first day of school setting ground rules. "Let's get a few things straight. What happened to your dad--awful. Broke my fuckin' heart. I sent roses to his funeral because I knew if I showed up, your ma would slap me to hell and back. And believe it or not, I chose to be kosher about it. Because I'm a gentleman."

He leaned closer, elbows resting firmly on the table, gesticulating as he spoke. "But your father? God love him...but he was no saint. He had his hands in more than just my pot, my friend. He knew what he was getting into. He knew the risks. He knew who he was dealing with. He just thought he was too smart to get burnt. And whaddya know, he got cooked, and so did you and your ma and your brother. Was I givin' him the matches? Sure. Mia culpa. God forgive me. But so was almost every bookie, dealer, and hitman in this rotten town. Your dad knew the risks, kid; he just liked playing with fire too damn much to know when to stop."

For the first time, Mickey's measured tone began to falter, slipping into something more passionate and energetic, veering on anger. "As for why I'm here? Kid, you better start thankin' your lucky stars I'm here 'cause if I wasn't, you'd still be rotting in that cell with the drunks and the bums, waiting for bail that's never gonna come because your family is in debt--y'know, because of my 'fucking nerve' and my 'fucking nerve' only--all for you to go to court with only some lousy public attorney to defend your honor. And bam, whaddya know? You're in prison, just like your brother, serving a lousy sentence for a lousy crime, all in all makin' for a pretty lousy life."

Mickey pointed at Solomon, signaling him to tread carefully, that he could snatch away this olive branch as quickly as he offered it. "So if you want any answers at all, you treat me with respect or I leave you here to shoot yourself in the foot and go on livin' that lousy life. For all I know, that shit's hereditary and I'm already wastin' my time givin' you the time of day."

"Here's your coffee," Suzanne suddenly reentered the scene with Mickey's hot beverage in hand, fresh from the machine. "No milk, two Splenda."

"Just the way I like it," Mickey took the mug and beamed genially, his manner having completely shifted in a split-second. "Thanks, Suze. You're a pal."

"Don't mention it," she replied half-heartedly, already on her way to wait another table on the far end of the place.

Mickey sipped from his drink, raising his eyebrows at the mildly sweet taste and letting it down on the table. Damn good coffee. He was enjoying it so much, he almost forgot Solomon was there. If nothing else, at least he had a good cup to start the day. It was the little things that counted the most.

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 3, 2024, 3:23 am

Knowing guys like Mickey for a good portion of his life, ninety five percent of what he said was no greater than cow feces to Sol. Nonetheless, that remaining five had some sprinkles of truth in it. His dad did know what he was getting himself into and as much as he could blame Diamond for a lot of things — he couldn’t blame him for that.

So, what he could do was sit back and look down at his lap as he submits argument. They could go back and forth sure,  but by the end Solly would be the same as how he started. Hollow.

He waited some moments for the waitress to trail back behind the counter before picking back up the conversation. “So, you’re here because you just got the nostalgia bug — wanted to sit and reminisce?” Retorts Ben, though he watched the sass a little.

As aforementioned, he read people like books and had no tolerance for foreplay. Not in matters like these anyway. Though Mickey liked to ease his way into it. For him this was just normal. That’s what Sol was guessing.

Taking a napkin from this rectangle dispenser, he’d fold the sides parallel to each other and crease the edges. Just as he did, the blonde returned with an omelette consisting of bacon and cheese with hot sauce in and out. “And ya’ go sweet heart,” Suzanne said before setting her hands at her sides.

By the time Sol was done he’d form this origami swan which he’d set beside the plate of food. “Awesomecoolthanks,” replied Solly in one vomit of a sentence, eyes sliding to her and just as quickly looking away back to his food. The whole aura awkwardness oozing off intensely, however she just laughs at it. “No problem, Suga.” She then struts away.

Taking a fork and knife clothed by a silk cloth, Solomon unwraps the utensils and immediately puts them to work as he starts cutting off a piece of his meal from one of the edges. “How do you—,” Sol bites his tongue, but then follows with “how’d you meet my dad?”

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 3, 2024, 4:07 pm

A wry smirk returned to Mickey's face, proud to see that the kid got the message (or at least enough of it) and started asking the interesting questions. "On the campaign trail. Believe it or not, your pops ran on a tough-on-crime ticket. Wanted to clean this town up."

Taking a sip from his coffee, he continued to explain, "Thing is, we already had a mook in office who was on the take. An idiot but he was loyal. That's why he was leading in the polls and why your dad...was behind. Way behind." He leaned back and crossed his legs, reminiscing on what felt like ancient history now. "But my bosses were open-minded; they wanted to explore their options. So they sent me to your dad's campaign office a couple months before the election to size him up. See if he could be bent, one way or the other."

Mickey chuckled, shaking his head as he found himself caught in the memory. "Won't ever know for sure now but...I think he was expectin' me. Your pops was savvy like that. He'd knew that the Tupelo would come knockin' on his door eventually with an offer or a warning. That was just how this town worked." Sighing, he began stirring his coffee with his spoon, a minute habit that seemed to keep him on track as he spoke. "I gave him an offer. Told him that if he worked with us, the Tupelo would get him elected, so long as he remained loyal. Now, I've made that offer to all sorts of people over the years but they all end in one of two ways: they get all uptight and slam the door in my face...or they grovel at my feet and thank me for coming."

He wagged his finger towards Solomon, that nostalgic grin still spread across his face. "But not your dad. No, he was...he was quiet for a bit. Thinking. He wasn't scared or angry or anything like that. He was calm. The Romans woulda called him a stoic." Mickey wrinkled his nose, speaking now with a certain gravitas he only reserved for stories such as these. "A minute passes before he shakes my hand and tells me this..." He tread carefully here, not wanting to get the exact words wrong. "'Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.'"

Locking eyes with Solomon, Mickey emphasized, "That's the type of man your dad was, kid: a pragmatist. He knew he was making a deal with the devil because he knew this town. He knew it and he loved it and he wanted to help it the only way he could. That and..." He tilted his head and shrugged nonchalantly. "...he had a family to feed. A beautiful wife, a young boy...and another one on the way." He released a lengthy exhale as finally, Mickey reached the end of his story. "I was there from the start kid. And it probably ain't no consolation but...he did it for you. He did all of it for you."

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 3, 2024, 10:04 pm

For him? If he knew what he was costing his family, maybe he would’ve thought twice. Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve. All empty words describing second chances no one will ever see. Because you only get one chance. One life and he fucked it up.

Taking another crack at his pipe, Solly inhales. Eyes flicker onto Mick. He is holding his breath. His dad, by the way Mickey D described him sounded familiar. Sounded like himself.  Probably intentional.

That is the thing about fantasies; you might know they are not real and in spite of it you still bite. So when this thinly veiled attempt of tryna butter Solomon up like corn on a cob goes over Sol runs with it. Not pursued, not manipulated. It’s choice. Because everyone would rather live in a fantasy.

Letting go of another puff Sol rests his chin on his knuckles. Eyes scatter off to the side in direction of the street outside. Now more bustling with traffic over the duration of their conversation.

“You still never answered my question,” once again, Solomon brings up. This time more collected as he plays with his device between his fingers. “Why did find me? Why now?”

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 3, 2024, 11:50 pm

Mickey picked up his cigarette from the ash tray and took a drag, sensing that they were finally getting down to brass tacks. "'Cause one of the last things your dad ever told me in this booth, when he really felt the walls begin to close in..." He puffed out a ring of smoke and tapped some ashes intro the tray. "...was that he had a real smart kid on his hands. And if he was proud of anything he'd put into this world, it was you."

A serene quiet fell on the table, Mickey's smoke swirling with Solomon's, their eyes locked, as if finally showing they were able to get through with one another.

But the moment was getting a little too saccharine for Mickey's taste. "Then again, he was really, really, really drunk that night. Not to mention, he was a helluva liar." Stepping out of the reveries of the past once and for all, he spoke bluntly, "My street contacts have been keepin' an eye on you. I just had to know what Benji Solomon was doin' peddlin' angel dust. And I gotta say, I'm impressed. Right up until ya got busted, ya had a pretty okay business goin' on. Even if anybody with any brains in his head could smell your con from a mile away. But hey...nothin' wrong with preyin' on the stupid and ignorant. That's how I make most of my cash."

Mickey chuckled, as he sat back and finally asked, "So I guess I'm gonna have to answer your question with a question: do you think this is really the best you can do? 'Cause lemme tell ya, kid, there ain't nothin' I hate more than seeing potential like yours gettin' pissed away." He paused, tilting his head as he reconsidered. "Well...that and having my time wasted. So you're about to either really make my day or I'm gonna walk away really, really disappointed." Mickey put out the cigarette and raised his mug with a cheeky grin. "But hey...at least the coffee's good." He downed the rest of it, refreshed and eager to see what Solomon would have to say for himself.

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on September 4, 2024, 7:32 am

Wagging his finger, Solomon’s lips stretch across his face. Shaking his head as he repeats “there it is.” Elbows pressed down in front of his meal, rubbing his hands all over each other as he shakes his head from left to right.

There’s always something. A catch behind every offer. After that nightmare of a cautionary tale, would Mickey really expect Sol to shake hands with the devil like his father before him? Then again maybe he would.

Like Mickey said, his dad couldn’t help but to push the envelope. Had that thrill for danger — a fire in his eye he passed down to Solly. Plus it’s like what he said; ‘wasted potential.’ Sol knew he was never making it out of this small town dump, but maybe he can do something with it. For himself.

“And I imagine you have something better for me to do in mind?” asked Solomon in a sardonic tonic as he reaches for the fork, slicing himself another piece of omelette. “Besides just peddling fake Xanax to high schoolers?”

Maybe it was time to level up. His mom was racking in any more money from Denny’s and ‘big bro’ wasn’t contributing much from inside a sell. New means of income didn’t seem like such a bad idea right about now of all times.

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 4, 2024, 1:09 pm

"Small stuff at first," Mickey answered curtly as they began to dig into the meat and potatoes of his offer. "You'd be my driver. My right-hand man. You'd get to do the stuff I didn't want to do to start." He emphasized this, knowing this kind of entry-level gig wasn't the most appeasing thing in the world, at least on the surface level. "But you stick around with me, do as I say, you'll move up fast. Especially with the way things are in the organization now..." Mickey scoffed at the thought, which was something the kid could read into all he wanted--he wasn't bound by that omerta crap with Solomon, at least not yet. "...you'll move up quick. That is...if you got the juice. Because believe me, kid, you still got a lot to prove. In fact, you can start now. Show me that brain o' yours hasn't gone to complete shit."

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on September 4, 2024, 4:08 pm

AP Chemistry

"Yeah?" Derek answered perkily.

***

"So, what were you doing?" Sami prompted.

"When?" Luke asked, confused that he'd missed something. Sami could be pretty softspoken, but he had to assume if she'd been speaking this whole time he would've heard something, or else he'd be a real asshole, wouldn't he?

Sami gave no indication she was offended, however, smiling slyly, "That kept you from joining up with the other pretty people at Nina's big party?" she looked meaningfully over where Stephanie and Tyler were chatting, presumably about anything but the periodic table...which was the gist of the assignment anyway, now that Luke thought about it.

"Nothing special," he shrugged, "My Dad had a job putting in a kitchen. I gave him a hand."

It was the better part of the day, actually. Nine straight hours, not counting the second trip to the hardware store for extra grout sealant. Most of that time, he'd spent holding things and trying not to choke on dust, but he didn't mind it too much. His Dad was good to talk to, and since he'd taken so many freelance jobs lately, about the only time he could talk to him was when he was on a site.

"Not for free?" Sami cocked an eyebrow.

"Whatever Cisco tells you, I'm not that big a sucker," Luke decided not to point out the going rate for helping his Dad was Far Cry money and gratis Denny's after the fact. His Dad needed all the help he could get, and he made a point of letting Luke ramble about all the ways he'd improve the house they were fixing if he was the guy writing the paycheck.

"And you?" Luke wondered, "What were you doing Saturday night?"

Sami let out a little,  self-deprecating laugh, "Helping my dad with work. Same as you."

"...isn't your dad a doctor?"

"Hey, open heart surgery is a team sport,"  she smirked, but shook her head, "I just stayed home, staring at my phone."

"Oh," he paused, "Sorry."

"Eh," she shrugged, "I do it to myself. Anyway..." she gave him an indulgent nudge, "I don't think we missed much."

***

Calculus

***

Dotty frowned, "I'm sorry, Brent. I'm sure..."

But she figured her platitudes were only making it worse. Anyway, she wasn't sure of anything except it was unfair Brent couldn't even be interested in things without worrying about triggering a diplomatic incident. And there was no point reminding him of that.

"I hope it'll work out," she said finally, "I'm on your side."

Was that bitchy? She didn't mean it that way, like, to suggest Brent's family wasn't.

Except they kind of weren't.

Dotty just knew that when she'd been packing Caleb's lunches, helping Orion with his homework, and changing Avery's poo-poo undies while her Dad traveled the county hawking slow cookers out of his pick-up, she would've liked the surety that somebody was on her side, so she wasn't gonna pass up the opportunity to do her part.

***

"What's Sabrina up your ass about?"

Maricel nearly jumped out of her seat as she looked up from her phone, "Eavesdropping? Classy, Keegan."

Juliet shrugged, "I know. I was raised in a barn. In my defense, I have a sensitivity to Sabrina Fuentes's BS, so whenever I detect the essence of shrill, 'Woe is me'ism' in the air..."

Maricel smirked despite herself, "Some team captain, you are."

"Well..." she paused, "I'm not captain yet. Seniority, obviously, but I don't count my chickens before they..." she trailed off, presumably deciding that wasn't the point, "Anyway, part of a captain's job is to not tolerate bullshit."

"What, Sabrina gives you a hard time?"

"Constant bitching," Juliet put on a high, reedy approximation of Sabrina's voice, "'Why is she on first?', 'Did you break your arm or something?', 'God,  it is soooooo hot.' Oh, and my favorite, 'Are you talking...'"

"'...about meeeeee.'" Maricel joined in with her, laughing guiltily, "I guess we are."

"I get it, is what I'm saying," Juliet paused, turning her pen around between her fingers, "What do you have to do with her anyway?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Mari glanced back at her phone, and Sabrina's most recent text:

'I mean it. If your making moves i need to know. this is a DEMORACY '.

Citation fucking needed.

"That's a very good question," she answered shortly.

***

AP Biology

***

"Oh, great!" Penny laughed, applauding a little goofily, "Should be fun. Thanks, Warren."

She couldn't shake the notion that he didn't seem over-thrilled, but she got the impression Warren was one of those guys who had one channel and had trouble adjusting the frequency.

Oh, well. Wasn't hers to judge.

"This must be the longest minute of my life," Pikeman intoned, "How are people still standing...?"

***

"Apologies!" Dick squealed, looking fretfully about the room.

What a fine kettle of fish! Pickled fish!

One of the perils of being new, he supposed. Everybody had partnered up like peanut butter and jelly, and here he was, frittering about the middle of the room...mustard.

He locked eyes pitifully with the nearest table...Rochelle Robinson and Sage Sutherland...he had committed everybody's names to memory in both attendances. It was important to familiarize himself with his peers, after all, starting at a disadvantage, as he was.

Dick hovered awkwardly beside their table, "Oh. Eh. Ah..."

Rochelle smiled at him sadly, shrugging as if to say 'What can you do?' Sage made a low hissing noise in her throat and Dick whirled around, "Sorry! Sorry, sorry...oh!"

He ran headlong into the next nearest lab table, the corner of which caught him right in the solar plexus, winding him.

"Ehhhh..." he wheezed, lifting his eyes to the table's sole occupant...

Of course! There would be an untenanted table!

Foolish of him to forget there was even number of them in this class. Funny how all reasoning went right out the window when you were put on the spot.

"...greetings," he lifted his hand in salutation, "...Gary Snyder."

-Derek, Sami, Dotty, Maricel, Juliet, Penny, Pikeman, Dick, Rochelle, and Sage

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 4, 2024, 7:20 pm

Polite smile still on her face, Erin kept it simple. "Stop." The smile was gone in an instant and she flipped open her notebook, patiently waiting for Keats to get to teaching, the bell to ring, or the end times to commence. Any one of those would do about now.

 

***

Brent nodded as he bit the inside of his lip. "I know. Thanks." He hoped he hadn't been too snippy with her; he was grateful for her support, considering she was the only person he trusted to tell about this. Anybody else, and it would have been all over the locker room, all over the school, and all over his own home.

But Dotty knew this school and she knew his family; she understood why this was difficult for him.

And yet she also had a point: Brent had to face this thing sooner or later, otherwise he'd look back at it like one of those shoulda-woulda-couldas, something didn't need on top of three football seasons that had gone awry, despite him playing his ass off throughout each one. High school was for making memories, not regrets. He couldn't squander his time here. Not anymore than he already had.

***

Ah, finally! Someone has come crawling to the master of this dojo! Yes, excellent! I...

Gary turned to face none other than the little Chiaotzu himself. Curious...he was expecting one of the less intellectually-gifted in their class to come crawling to his table. Then again, his musk was rather strong today, he had to admit, which would have repelled most individuals...

...except the most desperate among them. And Chiaotzu here seemed desperate for a partner. It amused Gary how ignorant his peers were not to pounce at the opportunity to work with this boy. Clearly, he must have been very, very intelligent. The Louisiana school system wasn't so broken that this boy would have slipped through the cracks and ascended as high as the 12th grade.

And yet this boy...Dick, Gary believed his name to be...was already an outcast; it seemed the two had something in common. "Greetings to you as well, ペニス (ochinchin)! I assure you, you have chosen well!"

-Erin, Brent, and Gary

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on September 5, 2024, 9:54 am

AP Chemistry

***

The stubborn smile finally gave up the ghost, withering away on Derek's lips.

"Oh," he bowed his head, feeling his ears heat up like an eight-year-old PC, "Right. S-sorry, Erin, I..."

He must've said something wrong. Maybe he came on too strongly? Funny thing, that. Derek was pretty sure he didn't do anything strongly, short of perspire.

He'd really gone and blown it now! Should've just kept his big mouth shut and then maybe Erin would've had a Planck's chance of tolerating him, to start.

"I guess I talk too much sometimes," he finished, almost in a whisper, not able to bring himself to look Erin in the face. He found himself looking over at Mr. Keats, still perched on his desk with his book.

Some chemistry test.

Keats must've felt Derek's eyes on him, as he peered over the top of the book...and winked.

***

"So...are you not gonna say anything?"

Abigail had remained fixed in place with a gargoyle-like rigidity, her hands folded on her desk before her, and her eyes glazed over like she was in a hypnotic trance or something.

"You know, if we're gonna be paired up for the whole year, we're gonna have to at least be on 'small talk' terms."

Still nothing. He sighed, rubbing his temple, "I don't want to play this card, Abi."

A muscle twitched in her neck, but no more.

"Is it because I'm gay?"

Abi raised her eyebrows a couple of inches.

"See, I feel like a maximum-drive douche for just saying that. But given you're suddenly not able to even look at me..."

Abigail defied this assertion, turning to regard him, "It's no matter of mine what carnal predilections you get up to."

"Oh," Aiden paused, "Great."

"I couldn't care less about fleshly pleasures."

Aiden cocked his head to the side, "...what, like sex?"

Abi reddened, turning away again, "Carnal thoughts are distractions."

Aiden paused, "Sure they are. But a little fun and games never hurt anyone, did it?"

He was trying to manage his expectations...the whole 'being out' thing. You couldn't keep anything a secret in this place and, anyway, Aiden had never wanted to keep things quiet.

As fast as everything had happened, though, it would've been nice having a chance to control his own narrative before the entire school knew he was gay.

Abigail was a weird one...Aiden had figured her objections would rely on some kind of religious thing...whatever weird Quaker Oats, corn-fried Protestantism that had her wearing gingham dresses to school every day and biting into cold baked potatoes at lunch.

But she wasn't calling him a slur, or saying he was damned to hell. Or, if she was, it was wrapped up in semantic poetics about the carnal distractions and, really, that was nothing compared to his mother staring at him in mute appeal and dolorously wondering if this meant she wouldn't have any grandchildren.

"All fun and games ever do is hurt people," said Abi at length, "You'll find out soon enough, if you haven't already."

"Right," Aiden granted, "Well...thanks for the heads up."

***

AP Bio

***

"Oh, er..." Dick nodded, "Arigato."

How fortunate that his parents had enrolled him in Berlitz! He had intermediary proficiency in Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Korean, and Farsi, and was fluent in Spanish, French, Mandarin (The lingua franca of the the 21st century!), and German.

"That is good of you to say, but I must admit, I did not choose you," he looked anxiously around the lab, "It appears circumstances did."

But he must make conversation! No good pointing out he hadn't sought out this table. It was probably rude as well. Dick had tripped over his own feet enough times in elementary school. The number of tables he had been turned away from,  often replete with color commentary ('No chance, Dickhead!', 'Nice bowtie, queer!', 'Wow, it's Dicko Explains it All!') he ought to know better.

So, in an effort at conversation, Dick asked, "Are you a Japanophile?"

-Derek, Mr. Keats, Aiden, Abi, and Dick

Quote from Snafu Guru on September 5, 2024, 2:02 pm

"Oh...yes...circumstances...I'm used to that," Gary remarked half-heartedly, somewhat affected at how cutting that comment was, even if the kid was oblivious to realize it. He could excuse it, even if it stung.

"A what?" The nerd did a double-take at the word before processing the multisyllabic label (possibly an insult, if the boy was in fact capable of them) and coming up with a reply quickly, lest he already appear to be dumbfounded by the whelp's supposed intellectual might. "I suppose I am, though I've heard it said in plainer terms, i.e 'weeb' or 'wee-a-boo.'" Gary annunciated the word like it was a lofty intellectual concept that needed to be grasped slowly if it were to ever be fully comprehended. "From the looks of you, though, you don't seem to be one for plain speak, do you, Cole-san?"

***

Jonah glanced at the paper slapped on his desk, wincing as he read "Vashti Labbay" in the upper left corner. Great. He got one of the weirder kids' papers. Not that he had anything against Vashti but it was hard to vibe with someone who's default settings were apathy, contempt, or contemptuous apathy. He didn't know which she felt for him or if he ought to care. Sue the guy, but he liked being liked. Who didn't? And hell, not to brag, but Jonah had a nice record, being on the football team, getting decent grades, not being a major douchebag (a low bar but this school's output in that regard was pretty remarkable)--then you have someone like Vashti who doesn't care about any of that. Hell, what did she care about?

Well...maybe the answers were in this paper...

Yeah...he wasn't going to get his hopes up for that.

***

Darcy scowled (as she often did) upon receiving the paper, her eyes immediately darting to the name in the heading. Lysander?Her subconscious hissed the name to herself as she stared down the long-haired, lanky, pasty outcast from afar. What did he have to say that was worth reading? What did any of these people have to say? Why was she even here?! What was the point?! WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS?!WHY COULDN'T SHE JUST BE LEFT ALONE?!?!

"fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck..." Unbeknownst to herself, Darcy was psychotically muttering a decent summary of what she was thinking, spewing a cloud of negative thoughts that festered around her and would be sure to (continue to) keep all others away from her.

-Gary, Jonah and Darcy

 

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on September 6, 2024, 9:08 am

AP Bio

"Oh no!" Dick shook his head vehemently, "Shakespeare advises us to 'speak plain and to the purpose'. I try to do the same..." he bowed his head, "Though, I suppose my propensity toward verbosity is hardly du jour."

He began to ask what a 'weeaboo' was...a big vocabulary wasn't worth much when stacked up to the ever-shifting mores of cultural exchange...but was cut short by Mr. Pikeman's stopwatch.

"About time," he intoned wearily, "Alright, that's that. You're partnered up for the duration. There will be no take-backsies, switcheroos, griping, or moaning. You are all adults..."

Dick opened his mouth, but Pikeman must have been anticipating it this time.

"...intellectually. So buck up, plant your feet, and strap in..."

Christian swallowed a guffaw, prompting Beatrice to shake her head decisively as if by this action only she could summon a squadron of angels to drag him to his judgment.

"...every minute brings us closer to the end."

***

American Lit.

***

Gretchen winced at the desk beside Darcy, "You're spraying."

Trainor gave the rambling Darcy an askance look, "Is she okay?"

"I'm sure she's had all her shots," said Beth dryly.

"Heh," Harvey chuckled meekly, "Wow."

"Okay," Trainor declared broadly, "You have your mission, should you choose to accept it...it's a false choice, mind you, since you get a zero otherwise, but I can't force you to do the bare minimum, so..."

-Dick, Mr. Pikeman, Christian, Beatrice, Gretchen, Mr. Trainor, and Harvey