Quote from SigmaMale2099 on November 21, 2024, 9:43 pm

 

Elsewhere

It was the jangling of keys that sparked Solly out from the comfort of his bed. First his arms rise, then himself. Slowly revived, like a mummy from it's tomb.

Only a slither of light slips through the cracks of their blinds. His eyes are fogged, but still Sol forces himself onto his feet. Never mind his little mechanical robot friend, repeatedly slamming itself into the wooden leg of his bed.

It was the clanking of those keys that really irked him and he just knew who was behind it. Having hoped she'd take the change of locks as a hint. Clearly she didn't.

He steps over bottles of mountain due and cardboard pizza boxes. It was practically pitch black with little let in from the sun. So, when he had opened the door ( after unwinding a series of unnecessary locks, ) the hallway was practically blinding.

Sol shudders, bringing an arm over his head for cover. Gradually, his eyes begin to adjust around the feminine figure that stands before him.

Running his hands through his nappy head, Solly sighs. Tired, but in the same way you get tired after a couple of beers and a need a lie down. I mean tired in the same way you feel after trying to get your cat clean. After a while just giving up cause they wont just get in that damn tub.

 

"Hey, mom."

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 22, 2024, 3:03 pm

Lois withdrew her hand from the key at the tell-tale clacking of the tumblers, feeling too much like a chastened kid.

"Hey, yourself," she greeted her son, wrestling to control the instinctive tightening in the back of her throat that accompanied the sight of him...grown up and disheveled and looking pretty damn tired of her already.

"I'd have rung the bell, but last time I tried, something crawled out," she smiled weakly, "And I, uh...didn't want to disturb you."

She waved her free hand around, "So much for that."

She hovered there awkwardly for a while longer, feeling like an idiot, as if she were waiting to be invited into her own home. To the extent it was her home, which was probably the whole ballgame, wasn't it?

Really, even if he was up to no good in there, what could she really say? He could be cooking meth in the bathtub and she'd be obligated to congratulate him for learning new skills in spite of her.

"You look good," she said finally, "You sleep alright?"

She could tell looking at him that he'd probably just rolled out of bed. One thing her son wasn't was a burnout, which meant he wasn't so much sleeping in as catching up on sleep.

Which meant he'd had a late night.

-Lois

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 24, 2024, 8:45 am

Senior Lockers

***

"Oh don't worry," Nell reassured Amanda chirpily, "We won't!"

Jamie, at Amanda's other side, narrowed her eyes curiously, "If it's not a date, it's got to be something illegal."

"Great detective work, Teague."

"No, she has a point," Gabe chimed in, "I've never known your squeaky clean self to lie once in your life. It's the church girl in you."

"What?" Jamie smirked, "You don't think we can keep a secret?"

"Not that it matters..." Amanda opened her locker and began dropping books pellmell into her bag, "But I don't. You gossip worse than church ladies."

"But we dress better," offered Nell, eyeing Jamie out of the corner of their eye, "Most of us dress better."

"You all have fun," Amanda zipped her bag up, "Maybe find something better to talk about."

They watched her stride off, Gabe frowning flagrantly, "But you're such a hot topic!"

Amanda leered at them over her shoulder and was out of sight. They stood in mutual silence for a short time before Gabe declared, "Sex," as Nell declared, "Drugs", and Jamie declared, "Crime."

"All of the above," Van offered with a dramatic gesture, "It'll be good for her. Broaden her horizons," but, not keen to linger, they nodded toward the stairs, "Now, get you gone. I want a seat at the bar before they all fill up."

"You sit at the bar, you're going to get carded," Jamie pointed out, "They basically have to notice, or else they look bad."

"Don't underestimate my powers of persuasion," Van assured her, "I've got ways of getting folks to resize their priorities."

***

Lejeune Park

***

Terrance listened to Tracy's account in as close to respectful silence as he was capable, only opening his mouth for rote interjections of "That's crazy" and "Wow" and "Right", none of which Tracy slowed for even half a second to appreciate.

By the time his ruby-lipped rebel paused for air, Terrance could think of nothing constructive to say but, "...so you called me because you thought I wouldn't call you a bimbo slut."

Tracy pursed her lips, "I mean, I figured you'd be funny about it."

"Oh, yeah, I'm totally in favor of you showing your ass for the whole school. It'd be a real statement."

"A statement..."

"Yeah, like inarticulate screaming in the middle of the movie theater. Nobody knows what the hell you're saying, but they're sure going to listen."

"They knew what I was saying."

"That you're the best slice of jailbait this side of Alabama."

She stuck her tongue out in a gesture of faux-disgust, "It was Cici's idea."

"Ackerby? Isn't she imbred?"

"She's poor," Tracy clarified, without declining.

"She's got a bright career ahead of her modeling for trucker's mudflaps."

She laughed, but didn't deny this, "Cici and this other girl...Haley."

"Bullshit that's a real name."

"Is Terrance a real name?"

"No! But my Dad's got mercury poisoning, so I never had a chance. What's Haley's excuse?"

"Fetal alcohol syndrome, probably."

"You're really a girl's girl, Trace."

She sniffed dismissively, "I'll be in more trouble since I ran away. They'll owe me."

"Ah, so it was all a masterful plot."

She kicked him in the shin. Terrance grimaced, raising a middle finger in salute. Shaking her head, Tracy looked out at the weedy expanse off to the side of the playground: fronds of yellowing grass waving back and forth in the late summer breeze.

"I wanted people to look at me," she said finally.

Terrance, rubbing his sore spot, tacticly pulled back on his swing as he asked, "Which is a nice way of saying you did it for attention?"

"Well, duh," she scoffed, "Like that's a bad thing. Everyone does things for attention."

"So your gambit succeeded?"

She wrapped her arms around her midsection, "Nobody takes me seriously," she sighed, "Treating me like an airhead brat..."

"That's at least half-credit, though," he smiled faintly, "Well, I take you seriously."

She eyed him, "Yeah?"

"Oh sure. I think it'd be suicide not to and, despite everything, I'm sort of into being alive. As a concept."

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth to stifle a laugh, "I'm into you being alive too," she fussed with her bracelet: a chunky faux-rose gold loop that clinked like a handcuff against the chain link of the swing, "They're going to eat me alive."

"What, your folks?" he scoffed, "Please. They're no match for you."

"It's not like with your parents. They've given up."

"Damn straight."

"They still think..." she paused, "Mom still thinks she can 'fix' me."

"What a dumbass," they laughed together briefly, "So what...more therapy?"

"For a start."

"Twerking isn't a mental illness," said Terrance dismissively, "Jury's still out on the Harlem Shake. Pretty sure that was once of those mass dancing sicknesses, like medieval guys used to get..."

"They're never going to change me," said Tracy, "And they'll say it's because I'm stubborn or acting out or just being a bitch..."

"Yes, well."

"...but it's not like I don't want to change," she said, "Just not into what they want me to be."

Terrance's smile faded and he pressed his hands together, "So...what do you want to change into?"

Tracy made a soft, breathy noise like a laugh and a sigh, watching Terrance pensively, "...I don't know yet. Is that bad?"

"Nah," he shook his head, "Sanest thing you've said today."

She rolled her eyes, leaning her head on his shoulder, "Asshole."

"I know," he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, "You too."

-Terrance, Tracy

Quote from Snafu Guru on November 26, 2024, 1:53 pm

Emma perked up as the boy who'd fiercely stolen her attention mere moments ago sidled up beside her, somewhat embarrassed to feel her heart flutter at the idea.

Oh my God, Emma. This is kids' stuff. Will you grow up?

Suffice to say that, despite the protestations of most of these students, they were in fact still kids, many of whom experiencing certain emotions for the first time.

It was just rare that in Emma's case, her experience had musical accompaniment.

"Oh, um..." Emma smiled sheepishly at the boy's sudden confession, still caught off-guard by the feeling that was pestering her from within; well, that and what might have been a backhanded compliment. "I can sing. It's just, uh, wasn't ready, y'know. Stage fright and all that..." She averted her gaze, feeling her face grow a bit warmer than she'd have liked.

***

"Oh, lovely," Erin rolled her eyes as spoke sardonically to her friends, "I got that mouthbreather lurking behind every corner, you've got Tyler O'Neill vying to be your bed buddy..." She sighed and began to make her way to a seat in the back row, muttering, "We only attract the best."

***

"Ayyyyyy!" Travis greeted his girlfriend the way that guy did on TV (The one who was Italian or like specially disabled or something. Whatever, it always made Sabrina laugh.), took her up in his arms and kissed her in a way that was probably too personal for 8th period Physics.

***

"Even better," Severino pointed to his heels, on which there were wheels, ergo making them... "Heelies. Homemade. I'm bringin' 'em back!" On this note, he wheeled backwards with a flourish...

...right into the mean-looking form of Darius Bonner. "Ay-oh!" The linebacker threw his arms up in the air confrontationally, barely controlling his temper. "Watch where the fuck you're going!"

"Rightrightrightsorryman..." Severino backpedaled away from that, only to be met with a new obstacle. Indeed, Travis had picked up Sabrina and twirled her (like they were the romantic leads in Titanic or some shit like that), with her legs heading straight for Severino's stomach.

He slid back on his Heelies, holding in his gut as the girl's gams spun past him in a blur. Although the way Severino experienced it, it was like it was in slow-motion, like The Matrix or something.

The danger had passed, and Severino found himself in awe of his own ability, almost too stunned to speak. Almost frightened of his own skill, he looked down to his own creations, before blurting out, "Yo, did anybody see that or, like, catch that on film? Anybody?"

Travis, oblivious to what just happened, replied, "Huh? Oh, uh, nah, bro. Sorry about it." He went to look for a seat, his arm wrapped around Sabrina as he asked, "The hell was he talkin' about...?"

"Aw, man..." Severino mumbled in defeated, his head hanging low as yet again, his supreme talents went unnoticed. Typical.

***

Darius finally got to his seat, just as the guys were talking about a really riveting topic: women. "Yeah. A few. Never worked out, though."

***

Nadine's heart skipped a beat as she heard someone--no, some people--enter the bathroom, gossiping about something that didn't really concern her.

What her real concern was if these people would find her cooped up in a filthy bathroom stall with a box of pregnancy tests. Her reputation had been absolutely decimated before; this place was supposed to be a clean slate. She couldn't afford to go through the humiliation rituals again.

Thinking quickly, Nadine made sure the box was resting safely on the toilet paper dispenser before lifting her feet off the floor and onto the toilet, balancing precariously on the seat. Managing this, she had to hunch over carefully so as not to be seen peering over the door. Slowly, Nadine extended both arms to the walls surrounding her in an uneasy struggle to keep her steady.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping she wouldn't have to hold this position for much longer.

-Emma, Erin, Travis, Severino, Darius, and Nadine

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on November 26, 2024, 9:04 pm

Solly couldn't help but to scoff. Shaking his head as his shoulder leaned up against the doorway. "Did I sleep well?" he re-uttered before a sudden and vicious "Fuck you," parts from his lips.

No, he didn't sleep well. He hasn't slept well since he was twelve. Not that she'd pay any mine, that's what he believed anyway. No, he hasn't slept well in a really long time.

The door was left open as a non verbal invitation. Let her take a peak into the wasteland. Between the stink in here and the stink out there, his was preferable. All the same, stench is stench and it wreaked bad.

It's hard taking care of a place when you are juggling a couple jobs, most of which not of the legal variety. Hey, at least he kept up with his studying. A couple chemistry books left open on the coffee table and couch.

Shit... maybe he was cooking meth.

Didn't matter. What he was in the night was an open secret. They don't talk about. It just is. It's this 'necessary evil.' What his brother always told him anyway. God knows Lois wasn't bringing in the cash keeping them afloat.

"So," Sol started as he marches into the kitchen. Opening the fridge he's quick to whip his head back. Something must've died in there, but he holds his breathe and looks to the side as he reaches for a cylinder of cola which he retrieves from the back. "What do you want? Money? Left some pills on the couch" Solly taunts.

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 26, 2024, 9:16 pm

Lois winced at the harsh retort.

Didn't learn that word from his Dad, she had to admit. Another gold star for her.

"I deserve that," she conceded, hauling her suitcase over the threshold and wrinkling her nose up at the acrid stench which was, to be far, no less vile than the atmosphere of the rest of this building. She wondered if Sol's little robot arm thing was still working, and had a mildly transfixing fantasy of it cleaning the floor with a toothbrush.

"But I came here to see you," she set the suitcase down by the sofa, "And, not to lay it on too thick, sweetheart, but it's my name on the lease."

She knew better than to say it was her 'home'...it was, of course, when she was in town, for what that was worth, but that was a whole other can of worms.

"I was up in Baton Rouge," she paused, "Working..." she rooted around in the liner pocket of the suitcase, retrieving a lumpy manila envelope, unlabeled, "While it lasted."

She threw the envelope down onto the table.

"And I'm sober, thank you and goodnight," she folded her arms, begging the silent question: Are you? and not sure she wanted to know the answer.

-Lois

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on November 26, 2024, 10:04 pm

His eyes widen for a solid moment, looking between the envelope and her. He hurries around the counter, bits of soda propelling upwards and onto the ground. A small trail following him.

"So what? You've just been off and about, doing some self healing while I was left making ends met?" asked Sol, rhetorically.

Sober for now, but how long? He'd be lying if he said he wasn't on anything, but that wasn't any of her business. Not hers or anyone else.

"You don't get to come back with that judging ass look on your face, like this isn't all because of you."

Solly widens his arms, again more drops of cola splashing out onto the rug and table. He widens them almost like he's about to grab her, try and bring Lois back down to earth because clearly she's left this plane.

"We can't keep doing this, where you come back swearing up and down you've changed then keeping making the same old goddamn mistakes. We're on the eviction list m- Lois!"

Chugging back that thing of corn syrup and high cholesterol because right now he didn't have a beer in his hand, Sol's positioned himself between her and the hall leading to her room. Almost like a stance of you're going to have to get through me. Maybe she has changed. Honestly, he didn't give a shit.

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 26, 2024, 10:28 pm

God help her. She was a patient woman, but she had her limits.

"I caused this?" she pointed, voice trembling on the word, "That's real good spin, Ben," she used his given name without thinking about it, erratically moving around the kitchen island, "Sure. It's all down to me. Makes perfect sense. Why shouldn't it be?"

She sifted through the layer of detritus on the island...dirty dishes and Cap'n Crunch and a cylindrical tube of Ajax that probably shouldn't be so close to food, "Your father gets put away for shaking hands with those lowlife scum-suckers, leaving me with a mortgage, car payments, and the IRS crawling up my sorry ass...never mind two boys to look after," she nodded, "I caused it."

She picked up a coffee can, lifted the lid, grimaced and lowered it, "Where's the garbage? Tell me there's a garbage can in here..." she found an overflowing ben beside the counter and chucked it in. The act, somehow, got her all choked up.

"Look, I'm not saying I did right by you every step of the way. I'm proud, but I'm not stupid. But I'm trying, Ben," she clasped her hands together, "You're the one thing I ever got half-right in this world, and..."

She averted her eyes, "I wasn't all bad, was I? There were...there were good times, the three of us. You, Brian and me."

-Lois

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 27, 2024, 9:54 am

French 1

***

"Oh," Will lowered his eyes, facing heating up, "Right."

Nice move, Belmont.

"Do you sing a lot?" he asked, at the same time wondering if that was the right tack to go down, if she was already uncomfortable about it. But she'd brought it up! She could've lied and just stuck with him thinking she couldn't sing. Maybe she was just honest.

He paused, "Sorry, wait..." he furrowed his brow at the paper,  "Do you Chant-eez..." pronounced like a processed snack food, "A lot?"

***

"J'aime..."

"French toast!" Faith answered promptly.

"Because it's from France?" Patience asked.

"No," she paused, "Maybe. Like those word association things," she giggled, "I dunno."

"Well, it's a broad category," Patience conceded.

"What about you?" Faith practiced, "What do you..." but she stopped, trying again, "Qu'aimez-vous?"

Patience's smile widened, "That's really good."

"I can speak a bit," Faith shrugged, "I grew up around it."

"Your parents?"

"My..." she hesitated, "My grandmother," her tone must've given Patience pause; she frowned sympathetically.

"Did she pass?" which was such an odd grown-up way of saying it that suddenly Faith didn't feel quite so bad.

She nodded, "Last week."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. She lived a long time."

"And you were close?"

"She raised me," she answered the unasked question, "My aunt's moved in. It's still kind of up in the air what we're gonna next...we're waiting for the funeral."

Her Aunt Lynn, with her tight lips and serious gray eyes, her face so much more lined since Faith had seen her last, standing in the front room of the house she'd grown up in and...from all Faith had ever understood...left at the soonest opportunity.

"She was never going to take out this wallpaper."

"I'm sorry. That's very depressing."

But Patience shook her head, "No, it's okay. We're supposed to break the ice, aren't we?"

"Break it, not pulverize it," she paused, "What about you?"

"Hm? Oh, my parents are alive."

"What do you like?"

"Oh. Oh!" she laughed, embarrassed, "Sorry. Sorry, um...music. That's lame, everyone likes music. I mean, I play..." she shrugged, "Trumpet."

"Are you trying out for band?"

Patience nodded, "You?"

"Maybe. I used to play French horn."

"That's interesting."

It wasn't really. Actually, the French horn was super lame, but Patience seemed like a very mature, pleasant person and she'd probably be polite and self-effacing even if she was dying inside.

"I grew up with a bunch of old instruments...my Mom was a musician, and my Mamie..."

"Your grandma," Patience supplanted, "It's...almost the same word in Haitian."

"...she never threw anything out. I only ever learned the horn, though."

"Well, then you should definitely try out for band. It looks really good on college applications," she paused, adding, a little self-consciously, "And it's fun."

"Maybe," Faith conceded, "So..." she started writing on her sheet, "Tu aimes la musique... I know he said we didn't have to write in French, but...it probably looks good on college applications."

Patience laughed with her, which took a good deal of the tension off.  She hadn't exactly planned to talk about her Mamie Dubois if she could help it. The old lady was such a huge personality, larger than life...even when she'd been confined to her chair for most of the last year, she'd had a vitality to her that she couldn't quite explain.

It really was hard to believe she was gone, and the vast uncertainty of what life would look like now...well, she didn't like to think about it.

"Oh...je mange is its own thing," she realized, looking down the worksheet, "I should've saved French toast for that one."

"Well, what else do you like?"

Faith considered briefly, "French braids."

***

Spanish 1

***

"So what'd you do to them?"

Sue looked sharply at the weedy sorta-Asian looking kid, who cleared his throat, "Or what did they do to you?" he hesitated, "Rather."

"It was a fight," said Sue curtly, "You know what a 'fight' is?"

"I have the theory pretty down."

"You don't have to say," said Tami, the girl with the purple braids, "It's fine."

It wasn't fine, obviously. It was the first day, and Sue was already sick of being stared at everywhere she went. She was lucky she hadn't been suspended outright.

"I punched her in the face."

"Yo!" Joely exclaimed and was hastily suppressed, "Blondie or anorexic?"

Sue looked Cici and Haley over before indicating the latter with a nod of her chin, "She called me a Chinese cow."

"That's fucked up," said Bernard, "Speaking as a Chinese dude."

"Why would she do that?"

"Because she's a bitch, I don't know."

Joely snickered into her hand while Tami blushed, "I don't get why people go out of their way to be mean. You'd think they'd have other things to worry about."

"Yeah, well, lots of people have things to worry about and that makes them mean," but Sue felt stupid saying 'mean' and supplanted, "Bitches."

She didn't really want to talk more about this. If the center had taught her anything, it's that you had to keep this stuff out of sight, out of mind if you wanted people to stop talking about it. People's memories were short, but only if you didn't go out of your way to jog them.

But these people were the first ones to take anything resembling friendly interest in her all day and, honestly, she was sick of feeling like a criminal just because she gave some bimbo white girl what she had coming.

"I have to go to detention," she grumbled, "With them."

"What about your human rights?" Bernard demanded, perhaps half sincerely, "You were retaliating to a hate crime!"

"That old Black lady should be ashamed of herself," said Joely, "You know she's been getting all kinds of racist shit around here. She must be used to it."

"It's fine," said Sue, "I'll deal."

She didn't add that she had no other choice: she was on thin ice already, and she was lucky she was only getting detention, what with her record.

"Maybe," said Joely, "But you shouldn't have to."

***

Somebody was kicking the back of Audrey's seat. Not hard, but enough to rock it, sending the hard metal sheet into the small of her back.

Not sure whether this was a provocation or just casual disregard for human life, Audrey looked over her shoulder and deduced a clean 50/50.

Jake Fitzgerald was lazing in his seat, slumped backward and wadding up a sheet of notebook paper in his hand. The assault on Audrey's seat was a kind of rhythmic, cycling motion of one leg that he seemed to be doing for no other reason than that it was something to do.

She locked eyes with him meaningfully. Jake paused, eyes widened...and then proceeded to switch his attention to Noah's desk, beside her.

***

English 10

***

"So, you're not new to this," Imani reminded her stalwart pupils, "You know when I say have the book in your hand I mean have the book in your hand. Not on your phone, not printed out in the library and covered with Cheeto dust...the book. In your hand. By Friday."

Keith raised his hand, "But if it's free..."

"I don't care if it's free on the Internet. If you need a copy of the book for free, the library has plenty. You can blind yourself reading off a screen in your free time. I promise you, you'll thank me later."

***

"This bitch," Sasha muttered.

"Ru-ude," Jay responded.

"Huh? Oh, not her..." she indicated Ms. A, "This one..." she held her phone out to Jay, so she could see the latest text from the Tinpot Tyrant of the volleyball court.

"Taking the 'team captain' thing too seriously, huh?"

"That's it. She's not captain. Coach picked Fatma before she peaced out on us."

"The Arab girl?"

"Gave Rege some kind of complex. Mind you, I haven't heard Refugee Fabulous say 12 words since she's been on the team, but she could be doing the Gettysburg Address every serve and Regina'd still feel shafted."

"Because Fatma's a junior and she's a senior?"

"Or something. Shit. I dunno. I'm just gonna do my own thing."

"So...you're gonna ignore your summons?"

"No," said Sasha, "I'm a team player. And she needs somebody to talk her big head down without getting smacked for it."

"She'd definitely smack Stephanie," Jay nodded.

"She'd have help," Sasha tittered, "I'm equal opportunity about nonsense."

***

Physics

***

"Oh wow, okay, um..." Liv frowned, "Congratu...ooh," she winced at Severino's near miss.

Poor kid. Also, weren't those things illegal? She vaguely remembered them being a big deal about a decade or so ago, before she'd begun teaching fulltime.

Strange kid. Still, sticking wheels into your shoes almost counted as an experiment, and certainly required some understanding of the Laws of Motion. Maybe she'd convert the enterprise into extra credit for him...

...he seemed like the sort of kid who'd need it.

***

Sabrina squealed appreciatively at Travis's overt display of affection, "Ooh, Trav...te amo, mucho," she planted a wet kiss on his cheek, her frustrations temporarily forgotten.

Next to her, Geri frowned at the PDA. Sometimes, she wondered about giving up on guys. More and more people seemed to be doing it every day. Anecdotally, it looked much easier to just become a lesbian than the other way around, but maybe that was more to do with guys being notoriously lacking in imagination.

Speaking of which, a quick glance to the back of the room where Dom was swapping chiacchiera with the guys like a bunch of old women...

"I don't have to do these monkey tricks for you, Geri! You know all the girls who'd crawl on broken glass for a piece of me?"

"I'll send 'em some band-aids. Cazzo."

Yeah, men were overrated. Most of them. The ones here.

***

"Bro said 'a few'," Izzy laughed, "Okay."

"Not everybody's a monk, Iz," said DJ dryly.

"Hey, I'm not a monk. I'm just saying...and this is a proven fact...girls are a distraction."

"If you do 'em right," said Dom, who was very aware of Geraldina staring at him and responded by spreading his legs in the manner of Sharon Stone.

"Swappin' Sheila stories?" the Australian dude, Duke, angled in from his seat, grinning cheekily, "Cheers."

"What?" DJ prompted, "Got a lot of girls Down Under?"

"It's where most of 'em like to be, save for the adventurous ones."

"What're Australian girls like?" asked Dom.

"Well, y'see, mate, my country is a very unique spot: summat like 80% of our animals ain't found nowhere else in the world, and about half of those are named 'Isla' and can drink ya out of house and home..."

***

Algebra 2/Trig

***

"So..." Patty thumbed the slide currently up on the SMARTBoard, "That's the syllabus, this is me, this is Algebra 2 and Trigonometry...it's really mostly Algebra 2. Take it up with the Department of Education."

One of her girls raised their hands: pretty, pixie-faced thing with a smart blonde haircut, "Yes, is it..." she squinted at her attendance sheet, "Vivian?"

"Viv, but yeah. This isn't 100% related..."

Oh shit, Patty thought grimly, Here it is.

She'd thought last year would be the end of it. Class of 2014 were the last ones who'd been at school when it all began. Obviously, rumors trickled down, took root, but the departure of the last eyewitnesses (such as they were) should've drawn a line.

Squaring her shoulders, Patty lifted her hand, "Well, have out with it anyway..."

"What's with the telescope?"

Patty paused, her hand hovering about her midsection, "...oh."

So, not exactly related. Sort of. Mostly.

"Well, it's not for spying," she said tersely, "Can't see anything at street level anyway: the candy plant kicks up too much smog. No, it's for, um..." she cleared her throat, "Sky level."

She headed up the aisle to the chrome-tinted telescope angled at the (closed, for now) window, "Fun fact: trigonometry isn't as useless as most of you are going to go into...and come out of...this thinking. I will be completely honest: most of you aren't going to use everything you learn here."

Rahim let out a brief half-laugh.

"But you'll all use some of it, most of the time without noticing. In my, er..." she drummed her nails against the side of the telescope, "...salad days, I was an astronomer. Astronomers use trig to make, er, calculations about distances..." she looked out the window at the hazy horizon, "Between stars, planets..." the telescope twitched under her touch, "...and us."

***

Meet Me in The Ladies' Room (I'll See You Real Soon)

***

"Well, think on the bright side..." Rosalie attempted, "Maybe they'll promote you!"

"To what?" Kim laughed humorlessly, "Chief dishwasher?"

"Waitress ranks higher than dishwasher, right?"

"It does, but we're not supposed to say it."

Hope frowned, "It'll work out, Kim."

"Sure."

"But if you do need help..."

"Hope," Kim interrupted, "I appreciate your Virgin Mary gig as much as anyone..."

"Well, if that's what you want to call it..."

"I can take care of myself," she winked, "I've been practicing real hard."

Hope smiled patiently but didn't contest this. She sometimes worried her friends thought she was too nosy, too much of a mother-type. Really, she was grateful they put up with it, and maybe she was prone to worry too much.

But that's just how she was raised, she supposed. You had to look out for people...it was just the human thing to do. And if they decided they were okay without you...

Well, at least you tried.

"Right," Rosa smiled thankfully at Hope, "Warpaint's on. Let's suit up."

"If Rufus is coaching cheer, I'm doing the whole routine in sweatpants," said Kim, leading them out of the bathroom, "I swear..."

-Will, Patience, Faith, Sue, Tami, Joely, Bernard, Audrey, Jake, Imani, Keith, Sasha, Jay, Ms. Lucas, Sabrina, Geri, Izzy, DJ, Dom, Duke, Ms. Kirby, Viv, Rahim, Hope, Rosalie, and Kim

Quote from Snafu Guru on November 29, 2024, 2:12 pm

"Chant...oh!" It took Emma a bit to understand what Will was saying, considering it looked like pronouncing every syllable slowly killed him from the inside; but she was quick to catch on. "Um...un peu. A bit. Haven't done much outside choir but I like music. Listening to music, I mean. I don't think I'm all that good at it myself."

Was she compliment fishing there? It sounded like she was compliment fishing there. Oh God, Emma was probably making herself look like a major ass right now.

***

"Yeah, that tracks," Darius sat back in his desk, resting his feet on the chair in front of him. "Doesn't matter where you go; one thing is always the same: the girls are fuckin' crazy."

Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Travis smooching the hell out of Sabrina. "But if a guy figures one out...Jesus, he'll never let you hear the end of it."

***

At the sound of the bathroom door closing, Nadine finally relaxed, stepping off the toilet and letting her muscles untense as she let out a sigh of relief. Today was already an elongated humiliation ritual without an audience; Nadine needed to keep some semblance of dignity.

Speaking of...the latest pregnancy test seemed to be ready. Praying that this was one of the good ones and it'd have the result she wanted, Nadine took a deep breath, braced herself for the truth and looked upon the result.

Her heart skipped a beat, her face taking on a sullen overtone as her eyes widened upon reading the test. Even though Nadine had considered the possibility (out of necessity more than anything else), the thought still shook her to her core and made her sick.

Dreadfully sick.

Really, really sick.

Nadine keeled over and vomited into the toilet, unable to keep it down any longer.

-Emma, Darius and Nadine

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on December 5, 2024, 10:16 am

French 1

***

Will had to choke back an instinctive laugh at the word peu. What was he gonna do? It sounded like "poo". He was worse than Jake.

"You're probably better than me," he managed finally, "Will. I'm..." he cleared his throat, looking at the paper and trying again, "Jayme Will," and pointed at himself to further illustrate the point.

***

"Not much of a talker, huh?" Micah asked, forcing a laugh.

The kid across from him: a lanky, sandy-haired guy in an oversized flannel, blinked at him impassively. He had a long, angular kind of face: thin and sallow-looking, which wasn't helped by his determined silence.

"That's fine. I can talk enough for both of us," said Micah lightly, "That's one of my problems. People say I don't know how to shut up."

People didn't say that, but Micah often thought they wanted to.

"So, j'aime means 'I like'. I think. That should be easy. I like my cat..." he eyed the pen lying just outside the kid's grasp, "You're not gonna write that down?"

He did, ultimately, write down "cat" in a spidery hand, big enough on the line beside j'aime that nothing else could conceivably fit on it, were Micah to offer anything else, which clearly he wasn't supposed to.

"Well, what about you?" Micah asked, attempting not to look as exhausted by this as he felt.

"What about me?" he had a twangy accent...real backwoods. Micah wasn't sure if he was surprised or not by it. He looked the type, he guessed, but it was bad to judge books by their covers. Not that that stopped anybody.

"Well... what do you like?"

He shrugged. Micah wondered if he was shy or just an asshole. Then again, after a day with the improvisational freestyling of Nikki Trujillo, this was some kind of break.

"Okay, so I'll just write dogs," Micah decided, and suited the action to the task, "Everyone likes dogs."

He lifted an eye to see if the other kid (his name was Carl, unless he was lying on the worksheet) had any reaction at all to this bold assumption, but he was looking out the window.

Micah decided he wasn't even going to try with the 'I don't like' stuff.

***

Spanish 1

***

Noah didn't react to Jake's bit of funny business with his desk. He'd been on the receiving end of enough adolescent abuse to know when it was targeted. If this was meant to irritate him, Jake would've been more purposeful about it. Thrown a paper or made an obnoxious noise or something.

This was just entry-level shitgibbonry. And, not to sound like the next caller on the battered woman's hotline, if you acknowledge these things, that only made them...

"Could you back off?"

Audrey adhered to a different philosophy.

Her outburst had an immediate hushing effect on the room. Jake leaned back in his seat, lifting his hands with a clueless shrug as if to demand why he was being so unjustly persecuted. Audrey wasn't easily cowed, however. She'd rounded on him in her seat, gripping the back of her chair with one hand. Noah could almost feel the righteous fury coming off her like radiation.

"Aud, it's fine..."

"No, it's not fine. It's obnoxious."

"I really don't..."

Oh. There it was. The second-hand embarrassment. And he was doing so well.

-Will, Micah, Carl, Noah, Audrey, and Jake

Quote from Snafu Guru on December 18, 2024, 4:29 pm

Emma couldn't help but giggle at the sight of Will pointing to himself as he made his introduction; it was kind of like watching Tarzan getting his first grasp on English.

She didn't want to give him the idea she was laughing at him, though, and returned the gesture, pointing to herself as she spoke, "Jayme Emma. Charmed."

Who the hell did she think she was with that? "Charmed." Like she was freaking James Bond...

***

"Heyheyheyheyhey!" Lamari interrupted the squabble at the back of his classroom, his towering frame stepping the middle of the dispute. "Are we havin' a CNN roundtable over here or something?" He took a beat, proud of his own joke and expecting laughter before remembering he was playing performer for a bunch of preteens and moved on. "You are here to learn Espanol. You got any personal disagreements you want to settle, do it outside of my classroom. Capisce?"

A meek and understated voice rose from behind him. "Isn't that Italian?" It was Leslie, who couldn't help but make the correction; immediately, she felt foolish for doing so and wished she kept her mouth shut. Last thing she wanted was to get into an argument.

"A buncha comedians, same as every year..." Lamari muttered, before shooting a glance to the jokers he was talking to before. "Are we good here?"

-Emma, Lamari and Leslie

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on December 19, 2024, 10:09 am

French 1

***

"Emma," Will repeated, "That's a nice name."

You're fumbling so bad. You should be taken out and shot. This is an embarrassment. You suck. Why isn't she breaking character to say you suck?

"I saw you in homeroom," he said because clearly he was suicidal and not worth the precious air he breathed, "This morning," as if they had been in homeroom any other mornings, "Looking at me."

With a labored spasm, his mouth twitched into a smile, "I should've introduced myself then. Would've made this worksheet easier."

***

"How come I don't see you around the club no more?"

"Why are you talking like Malibu's Most Wanted?"

Baptiste had no direct answer for this, "You weren't at the barbecue."

"Yeah, I wasn't at the barbecue," Brooke rolled her eyes, "If I wanted to listen to a bunch of balding guys in canvas shorts talking about their yachts, I have every other day of my life."

"But you don't have me every other day of your life."

Brooke blinked, "That's what you're going with?"

"Hey, no worries, B. I know it's not gonna happen."

"Congratulations."

"You're too ice cold for my baptismal waters, ya know what I'm saying?"

"Nope, and it isn't French either, so I guess you're beyond help..."

"I need a girl with fire in her veins, ya get me?"

"To put the baptismal waters out?"

"Opposites attract, Maddox! You and me, we're too much alike."

Brooke grimaced, "Imagine that," and found her attention drifting to Will and his pretty little partner. They looked like gender-swapped vestigial twins...they were sitting opposite each other and that's as far as it went.

Somehow, this didn't fortify her belief in Baptiste's theory.

***

Spanish 1

***

"No problems, officer," Jake said smoothly, "I just take up a lot of space."

"Being a dick," Audrey retorted.

"You wanna prove it, ask me nicely, sometime."

"It's fine," Noah interrupted, "You'll have to forgive me, Mr. Calamari. I'm catnip for controversy. Can't walk into a room without driving everybody crazy."

He gave Audrey a hard look, plastering a smile onto his face, "It won't happen again and, if it does, I will happily commit seppuku. En español."

***

Global 10

***

"Just 'vying'?" Stephanie simpered, but Nina quieted her with a look.

"I'll drop it!" she lifted her hands in surrender, "But I'm just saying, you could do way worse."

"In your professional opinion?"

"He's cute," Stephanie shrugged, "That's not news. He's smart, if you're into that, and he's a jock, if you're into that. Also...he's pretty obviously into you."

"And that's supposed to be a selling point? That he's 'into' me?"

Stephanie rolled her eyes, "Look, I get it's girls' prerogative to play hard to get..."

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" she cocked an eyebrow, "Playing hard to get?"

***

"I figured it out."

Tyler eyed Ash warily, "The meaning of life?"

"You went upstairs," he pointed, "At the party. After Giselle came in looking for her, you went upstairs..."

"Ash, buddy, has it ever occurred to you that you're burning valuable brain cells on stuff that really isn't any of your business?"

"You went up, and Nina was there."

Tyler drummed his fingers against the desk, "It was her house."

"Jeez, man, did you blueball her this bad?"

Tyler's fingers caught in the loops of his notebook, "Not even close."

***

Nina's End of Summer Bash

2 DAYS AGO

***

They were close, hip to hip on Nina's bed. He wasn't sure how he expected to feel at a time like this, in a place like this, with a girl like this...good, probably, but you don't really think more deeply than that.

You feel more deeply, when you're lying in bed late at night cycling through faces, magnifying known details (hair, eyes, hips, lips...) and creating whole canvasses for the unknown ones (legs, chest, back, you-know-the-rest...). And maybe there were words for those feelings, but Tyler hadn't encountered them yet.

Maybe tonight would bring him that much closer to finding them.

Sage the Pomeranian curled up into a caramel-colored ball on a chintzy pink bed bearing her name in loopy white calligraphy. Her eyes were closed, as if she were consciously giving her mistress privacy.

Nina was looking at him like nobody ever had in his life: drinking him in with those cool eyes of hers, her lips parted in something not quite like a smile. Her movements, when she finally made them, were lithe and fluid. The cliche was 'smooth as silk', and he guessed she was, though silk had never been so warm, so sure...so alive.

Her hand passed over his chest: the inverted triangle of exposed skin at the collar of his henley. She teased the spot, gently rubbing it under the ball of her thumb. It was a pushing motion, and yet Tyler found himself angling forward, leaning into her, as if she'd pulled some switch.

Magnetic attraction. Sure. Why not? If anybody could do it, it would have to be her.

Their lips met with an inevitable fluidity. Two parties, set as they were, positioned as they had been, could hardly have done anything else.

For all the bullshit sessions with his friends, in locker rooms and over junk food and in between killing aliens, Tyler found himself abruptly at a loss for what to do next, as if he'd been mindwiped the second he crossed Nina's threshold.

Her tongue found its way between his lips, meeting his. He caught his breath and, with a thought like You've got this: meet her where she is, let his tongue meet hers. She arched her back, making a sound too polished to be pornographic.

His hands found her back, fumbling with the clasp on her dress and, after a flicker of panic, finding it. He leaned in, pulling her in between his legs, telling himself this was it, this was happening, and faster than he'd ever thought.

This was real. This was possible. This could be him. It was him.

She pushed him away before he could finish unzipping the dress, "No."

Tyler blinked, realizing how flushed his face had gotten, "Wh-what?"

"No," she shook her head, "No. That's enough."

"Did..." he brushed a lock of hair out of his face, "Is everything okay? Like, did I hurt you or..."

Nina laughed humorlessly, "Don't flatter yourself."

"Wait a second..." Tyler turned as she stood up, roughly yanking her zipper back up, "I thought you were..."

"That's your first mistake," she grabbed her shoes out from her the bed, forcing her way back into her heels, "You don't know what I'm thinking."

"I didn't say..." he got up, "Nina..."

"Don't," she stepped back, lifting a hand, "Don't."

She was gone before he could say another word, the door swinging shut behind her.

Sage opened one eye, growling softly as if warning him against hanging around her mommy's private sanctum. Tyler scowled at the dog, "You don't have to tell me."

***

"O'Neil!" Vespucci snapped, "Do I have to sit you on the windowsill?"

Tyler looked away from Ash (smirking his little 'I'm a victim of circumstance' smirk, gleeful at escaping Brutus's scrutiny this time), "No worries. Learned my lesson."

"Somehow, I doubt it," she huffed, "But time will tell."

-Will, Baptiste, Brooke, Jake, Audrey, Noah, Stephanie, Nina, Tyler, Ash, and Mrs. Vespucci

Quote from Snafu Guru on December 19, 2024, 2:52 pm

"You gave me your name. That's half the battle," Emma smiled, hiding her embarrassment that Will saw her seeing him. "I didn't mean to stare. My eyes were probably just wandering, y'know? First day nerves, I guess. Such a big school with so many people and, well..." She shrugged nonchalantly, explaining, "...you're one of the only people who bothered to smile at me." Glancing back around her shoulder to see if Allard was nearby, Emma threw in some French to make it look like they were still on the assignment. "Tu as un joli sourire."

***

"That's Mr. Lamari, thank you!" Lamari scolded Noah, before scolding Audrey, "And language! If you're going to deal in profanity in my classroom, you will do it..." He looked at Jake, turning his words against him, "...en Espanol. Every word that comes outta your mouths, good or bad, is an opportunity to learn! And learn you will! Am I clear?" He gestured to the three of them, silently directing, "This is when you answer in Spanish so I can move on with my lesson plan as planned please for the love of God I've already burnt five minutes out of this period to deal with this nonsense give a guy a break."

***

Erin cocked her eyebrow as she turned to Nina, honestly asking, "Well, do you ever make it easy?"

-Emma, Lamari and Erin

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on December 21, 2024, 8:56 am

French 1

***

Will smiled blankly at Emma's emergency French, "Pass," laughing, he shrugged, "That's hard to believe. That I'm the only one who's smiled at you. Maybe I'm just the only guy you noticed..." on impulse, he added, "Lucky for me."

***

Spanish 1

***

Audrey stared heatedly at Lamari. Different animals, same bullshit. Another four years dealing with the mouthbreather mob and their numerous enablers.

"Comprende," she told Lamari coldly.

There was a short silence before Noah chimed in, "Comprendida."

At her look, he clarified, "It's gendered feminine."

"Ha," Jake said softly behind her, "Owned."

***

Global 10

***

"I don't make it easy," Nina said shortly, "Because I'm not."

She looked off toward the chastened Tyler looking out the window Brutus had suggested he be strung out from, like a deposed dictator at the end of a civil war. Slouching at his desk, fidgeting the heel of a two-clean Sperry against the leg of his desk, worrying a louche wristband in ceaseless circles, he looked like an electrocuted gerbil in a laboratory. Helpless, exposed, and vaguely desperate.

In her mind, she heard the slamming of her bedroom door in his face and looked away.

-Will, Audrey, Noah, Jake, Nina, and Tyler

Quote from Snafu Guru on December 26, 2024, 1:47 pm

The feeling is mutual. But Emma didn't say as much, fearing she'd be laying it on thick. She probably was already, swept up in her emotions as she was now. It was a hard impulse to fight off, the way her heart was fluttering and the way his smile made her smile. She couldn't get carried away talking to the first boy who looked at her nice. That would be embarrassing.

Or...maybe it was just good luck.

Emma erred on the side of embarrassment and returned to the worksheet. "Um...aimes-tu le sport?"

***

"Alright then," Lamari clapped his hands and returned to the front of the classroom, writing on the chalkboard. "Now Spanish is one of the most commonly spoken of the romance languages. No, that does not mean it will land you a date at the prom..."

Or a long-lasting marriage.

But nevertheless, Lamari continued with his lesson, wanting for alacrity as he droned on and on and on...

-Emma and Lamari

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on January 4, 2025, 5:11 pm

French 1

***

"Sport!" Will snapped his fingers, brightening in recognition, "I know that one. Basketball. Or le ball ze basket. If that's closer."

***

Every Time a Bell Rings...

***

"One down..." Theodora intoned as the chimes rang through the halls, "179 to go."

"It'll go by in a blink!" Mrs. Hayward said as if this were a good thing, "It always does."

"Maybe," Theodora allowed, pausing in the doorway of the outer office and watching as the hall filled up with a tide of students going to their lockers, "But today took its sweet time, didn't it?"

Mrs. Hayward had no comment for this, which was probably for the best. Theodora didn't know what she was saying, really, and she didn't want to sound like a Moping Mary on the first day.

Still, between the budgetary fracas and pithier than usual tweenage sniping, it was hard to feel optimistic about the next 179 days, plus weekends, plus holidays.

***

"You are coming to cheer practice, right?"

Brooke smiled placidly at Bridget, idling in the hallway, "I can't imagine being anywhere else."

Bridget's lips thinned, "Don't let me twist your arm..."

"I'm so delicate, it'll pop right off."

"...Brooke, I really think if you're serious about being a big deal..."

"I never said anything about being a 'big deal'."

Bridget cocked an eyebrow and Brooke sighed, "Is it a crime to want to make an impression? This is a much bigger pond than middle school and it's easy to get lost."

"Well, it won't be that easy if you're on a team," said Bridget.

"I thought it was a squad?" Brooke shrugged, "I can't be thrown around in the air, Bridget. I get queasy."

"They don't throw everyone in the air. You have to be a flyer."

"That's ominous."

"But you are light enough," Bridget looked her over, "Probably."

"Thanks," Brooke folded her arms, "I think."

"You really should consider it, though," Bridget maintained, "You'll feel better."

"I feel fine now!"

"You've been fuming since I saw you."

Brooke, at a loss, waved her hand around like she was doing shadow puppetry, attempting to come up with an excuse Bridge wouldn't see through.

"And there's still plenty of time to try out," Bridget continued, "Pretty sure there's gonna be a couple of spots available," at Brooke's unasked question, she explained, "Cici and Haley got detention this morning."

"What, for twerking with Tracy?" Brooke cocked an eyebrow, "Come to think of it, I haven't seen Tracy all day. She wasn't in French. Ooh, and neither was Terrance..."

"They're friends?"

"Something like that. Don't even worry about it: it's bad for your health."

"Well, Cici and Haley are on the squad, and I overheard them..."

"Good for you," said Brooke, always happy to encourage moral lapses in her friends so as to create company for her own.

"...they were planning to skip and, if they did, well..."

"Um..." Brooke interrupted, flicking a finger, "If?"

Bridget followed her gaze to a long-haired brunette striding out the front doors and frowned, "Unbelievable."

"Is it, though?" Brooke prompted archly, not that Bridget stuck around to appreciate it, striding off after Haley.

Brooke wasn't about to stop her. She could play cute all she wanted, but there was no way in God's blue hell she was gonna be bringing it on in a rara skirt.

Anyway, it was fun to watch Bridget get outraged, so long as she wasn't the target. Brooke observed as Bridget pushed the front door open...

***

"So I'll see you tonight?" Dom asked, propping the front door open with his heel before it could swing back shut.

"In a hurry to eat dirt, huh?" Sean smirked.

"In a hurry to feed ya," Dom countered, "Greco family recipe."

"I don't know, man..." Sean shrugged, "Busy night."

"Oh, yeah?" Dom cocked an eyebrow, "What's her name?"

He rolled his eyes, "Ms. Turner."

"Older woman. Nice."

"Calculus homework, Don Juan."

"You're such a good boy," Dom paused in the doorway, "But you're coming out for the weekend, right?"

"What, for your birthday?"

"Eh, that's a bonus," he shrugged.

"I didn't get you a gift."

"You wanna get me something? Show up, eat dirt..." he spread his arms, "Happy birthday to me," he gave Sean a rough clap on the shoulder and went on his way.

Sean briefly considered playing hooky Friday night too...it didn't seem fair to humiliate Dom on his birthday. But if he asked for it...

He found his sister at her locker, in her usual gaggle.

"Sean!" Stephanie deigned to notice him first, "Question."

"Pass," he said automatically.

"Nope," she held up her phone, "Have you ever considered putting the moves on Regina?"

"Regina Richards?" he probably leered in a way that wasn't quite respectful, "She's dating Taj."

"Well, clearly he isn't having any luck dislodging the stick in her ass, so maybe you..."

"Ew," Giselle interrupted, "Can we maybe not cast my brother in your porny revenge fantasies?"

"Talk about bad taste, Steph," said Nina coolly.

Sean cleared his throat awkwardly, "What have you got against Regina? She's nice," Stephanie gave him a look and he conceded, "She's your teammate, isn't she?"

"Yeah," Steph granted, "And she's on a power kick," she shoved her phone into Sean's face, giving him a full view of an increasingly unhinged text thread being updated in real time.

'Whole team- gym- after school - no excuses - be there or...'

***

'...BE GONE!'

Taj looked up from Regina's phone, "She sent you a salute emoji."

"Bitch," Regina replied promptly, straightening the mesh of the volleyball net before heading courtside to meet him, her cleats (she'd changed into full uniform) squeaking against the gym floor as she went.

"So what happens if she stands you up?" he asked as Regina accepted her phone back.

"Stephanie?" Regina cocked an eyebrow, "No. She's serious; she just doesn't like acting like it. Bad for her brand. But she's gonna need a scholarship if she wants to get into any of those bigshot law schools she won't shut up about, so..."

"What about the others?" he tried not to sound like a smartass, but had the idea Rege was sort of waiting to be asked, even if for no other reason than to talk through her own rationalizations.

"The season opener is tomorrow," said Regina, "We're coachless."

"I thought Rufus..."

"We are coachless," she maintained, "I didn't carry this team to playoffs last season so we could crash and burn right out the gate in my senior year. Stephanie Prince isn't the only girl eyeing scholarships, but I'm not playing dumb about it. I can't afford to...why are you smiling?"

"I'm not," he realized he was and wiped it, "Don't take this the wrong way, but this whole righteous fury thing you got going on..." he wrapped an arm around her middle, "Well, you know."

"It's not a game, Taj," she said, leaning into him regardless.

"Except it is, though."

"You know what I mean," she let him kiss her neck, "If they want to lose, that's their problem...but as long as we're on the same team, their problem is my problem, and I'm gonna lead them like the captain I am supposed to..."

"I got your text."

They pulled apart, looking toward the gym entrance, where Fatma Batuk was standing, her bag hanging off one shoulder. She cocked a full black eyebrow, "Am I interrupting something?"

It was unclear how much she'd heard, but given how quickly Regina had straightened up, Taj decided his presence was no longer needed.

"We're doing drills," Regina explained as Taj picked up his bag, considered kissing her goodbye, thought better of it, and started for the exit.

"I don't remember coach saying..."

"Coach didn't say. It's my idea. The team needs it."

Taj passed Fatma, mumbling a "Good luck," she didn't appear to hear, and headed out the door, nearly getting a cymbal to the pelvis for his trouble...

***

"Yo, watch the merchandise!"

"Sorry," Taj propped the door open. Viv, who had scolded him, gave the harried looking Vashti a nod as she and Logan lugged the latter's drumset into the gym.

"Yanno there's practice in there," Taj pointed out.

"Bullshit," said Viv, "I checked."

"It wasn't on the schedule."

Viv rolled her eyes, "Whatever. We're not using the gym. You got it from here, Vash?"

"I have a choice?" Vashti glowered from over the drums.

"That's the spirit," Viv turned back to Taj, "You seen Harlan?"

"Aim higher."

"Lolcow, jazzman. Much heppy joke cheezeburger for you. You think I'd be asking you if I wasn't desperate?"

Taj rolled his eyes, "He in your rock band too?"

"We use his folks' garage most days."

"But not today?"

"We're diversifying."

"Nah, I ain't seen him."

"Worth a shot," she sighed, going back out into the hall, "If he flaked, I swear to God..."

Taj called after her, "Yo, what's he play?"

"My nerves!" Viv informed him, pressing her way through a clutch of passing freshmen...

***

"Um, excuse me?" Joely tried, shaking her head before turning back to her friend, "What was that?"

"It's fine," said Patience, "So, that's 504..."

"Oh, just put it in my phone," Joely said, not meanly, thrusting her phone into Patience's hands, "We'll do assembly line," and accepted Tami's phone with her other hand so could do her the same favor.

"This is gonna sound so corny," said Tami.

"Go ahead anyway."

"I didn't think I'd make friends so fast. Which sounds really lame, but because I'm new and everything..."

"You're right," said Joely, "It is corny. But that's cool," she handed her phone back, "Brainy Black Girls have to stick together."

"It was nice meeting you guys!" Patience twiddled her fingers as she returned Joely's phone to her, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Bet," Joely waved her off, nodding her head in a similar way and readjusting her bag as she headed off.

"Do you want my number?"

Tami turned to Caleb, stifling a gasp, "Oh! I didn't see you there."

"Sorry," he lowered his head, "I meant to ask..." he lifted a hand limply in Joely's wake, "Sometimes, I think too much about talking that I lose time."

"I know what that's like," said Tami for lack of anything else to say, "Um...do you want my number?"

"No, it's alright," Caleb answered quickly, "Um. Sorry."

"It's okay. I'll see you tomorrow?"

He nodded, "Or maybe I'll see you later," at her questioning expression, he added, "Your brother's on the football team, right? You, um, said."

"I did."

"My sister," he cleared his throat, "She's not on the team, I mean, but she's dating one of the players."

"That's cool."

"He's not as bad as most of the other ones. Not your brother. I bet he's cool."

"Most of the time," Tami looked up and down the hall, "So maybe I'll see you at practice?"

"Right."

Seized by a sudden pang of pity, she added, "Are you sure you don't want my number..."

"Well, since you ask so nicely..."

"Bernard," she turned to look at him, "I was talking to Caleb."

"Who?"

"You know..." but she followed his gaze and saw the back of him waddling away, "Huh," she shrugged, "Give me your phone."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she entered her number, "I should thank you too."

"That's nice. What for?"

"For making me feel so welcome."

"Well, anything to get in good with the Brainy Black Girl squad," he beamed, "The future being female and all that...and highly melanated."

She rolled her eyes good naturedly, "Seriously. I was ripping my hair out about starting high school...especially in a new town. I couldn't exactly vent to my brother about it."

"Strong silent type?"

"And so cool. Nothing bothers him, which is great..."

"But not if something's bothering you," he shrugged, "I get it. My sister's the same."

"You hold your own, though."

"And so did you," he gave her a two finger salute as he sauntered backward down the hall, "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," Tami agreed, "Good..."

A few lockers down, someone let out an awful despairing bellow. Tami whirled around just in time to see Sue slam her locker shut and, with a miserable glance at her phone, stampede down the hall with no regard to where she was going, shoving past...

***

"Oh, not again!" Anna-Maria moaned as her paltry remaining flyers went flying every which way.

"Here, let me help you..." Sami bent down, but Anna shook her head.

"It's fine."

Sami frowned, "Are you sure?"

"Well, it's not fine. The planet is on fire and making copies isn't energy efficient and you're the village idiot for giving a crap about it..."

"Is this about what Nina said?"

"You know about that?" Anna rolled her eyes, pressing the rumpled remaining flyers to her chest, "Of course you do. Why shouldn't you? Who hasn't heard the Gospel according to Nina Patterson?"

"You can't let her get to you."

"I mean, I can. I shouldn't, but I am. Guess that's my problem, right?"

"Anna..."

"It's fine," she grumbled, "I'll get over it. Let me just throw these out," she looked down at the flyers, amending, "Recycle."

She left Sami behind, struggling to keep her upper lip from shaking.

It was stupid. She was stupid. All this work just to be a local laughingstock. She'd been lugging around these sodden things all day and nobody had expressed a sliver of interest except the photogenic new kid, and that was almost certainly just him trying to get into her pants.

She should've let him take the flyer anyway. Not like she had any business being picky.

There was a light on in the library. Anna was so lost in her thoughts she almost walked past without noticing. But there it was, all the same, and now that she had seen...

Looking furtively back and forth, she tried the door...and found it unlocked.

"No!" squealed the little boy hunched over half a dozen open textbooks on a study desk, "No!"

"Um..." Anna furrowed her brow, "Is the library open?"

"It is not! I mean...it is, in practice but not in writ! An exception was made for me...I have to protect this space! I have been trusted."

He got to his feet and started mincing back and forth in a charade clue approximation of worry.

"Well..." Anna tried, "Can you make an exception for me?"

"But I don't know you!"

"I just need to use the copier," she held her flyers, "It's for the environment!"

The little boy twisted his hands together, "The power is not mine to give."

"I won't tell anyone!"

"The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep!" Dick quoted and, after clearing his throat, attributed, "E.B. Howe."

"Good point," Anna nodded, "So I'll just go out now and make sure you don't have a secret anymore..."

"No!" Dick blurted, dashing forward, "Just close the door," and suited the action to the task, just before a group of shadows could darken the doorstep...

***

"So I'll see you at practice?" Xavier couldn't keep from bouncing on the balls of his feet, not paying any more attention to the abruptly shut library doors than he had the last two years of his high school career.

"Oh, you know it," Rafe patted him on the back, intoning, "Wiiiiild horses/Couldn't drag me away..."

"Watch it, man," Rahim cautioned, "Charlie's on suicide watch."

"You have absolutely heard worse."

"I am not suicidal," said Charlie shortly, "I am contemplating."

"Suicide?" asked Rahim, "Because as a proud representative of the Leroy-Thompson Foundling Home..."

"Represent," Rafe fistbumped him.

"...it is my solemn duty to refer you to life-saving help..."

"I am very supportive of X's terrifying Eldritch transformation into a Sportsman and Gentleman..."

"Thanks, bro."

"...but I have a business to run."

Rafe made a face, "Dude."

"Weak," said Rai.

"You can do your business anywhere."

"I can't, actually. There are laws."

"Dude," Xavier put a staying hand on Charlie's arm, "I don't want to pull this card..."

"Pull it," Rafe and Rai intoned in grisly stage whispers.

"...but when you were just starting out in this dog-eat-dog industry, making your name as an entrepreneur, moving and shaking and all that good shit..."

"Okay, X."

"...and I, moving and shaking a bit more back then, I'll admit it..." he did some sorcery with his pecs as if to evoke the moobs that had once moved freely beneath his omnipresent hoodies,
"Was approached, by you, on a friend's recommendation..."

"Guest starring!" Rafe raised a hand.

"Did I not buy some devil's grass from your shaking, albinoid hands?"

Charlie pouted, "...yes, sir."

"And did I not take your weedman virginity?"

"You did, sir, so fearsomely and so masterfully."

"And so, isn't it only correct that you be there to watch me lose my football virginity?"

Charlie paused, lower lip turned out, "Absolutely, sir."

"Atta boy!" Xavier wrapped his arms around Charlie's middle, hoisting him into the air to Rafe and Rai's hooting approval.

As Xavier twirled Charlie around in a half-circle, he heard a distinct wolf-whistle from overhead and lowered Charlie just in time to see two passing lovelies giving him a side-eye.

"All him, ladies," Charlie pointed at Xavier and, when Xavier looked at him reproachfully, leered, "Your football virginity's not the only one you're losing, X. This...I...swear."

The girls, however, didn't seem particularly impressed, already going on their way...

***

"I can't believe men."

Lily smirked, "I don't know, I always thought Xavier was funny," she paused, "And he has lost weight. If that matters. Which it doesn't, but..."

Colette cocked an eyebrow and Lily sighed, "Okay, not my type. But there's way worse around."

"But that is the problem!" her accent became more pronounced when she was upset, "We are beautiful creatures. Beautiful, intelligent, and audacieuse...we do not settle."

"Why do I feel like this isn't about me?"

Colette rolled her eyes, "What is this Matt?"

"I was surprised too."

"He is an idiot!"

"Maybe he's Sonya's type."

"She should have a better one! It makes me sick."

"No offense, Colette, but everything makes you sick."

Colette didn't deny this assertion, "I repeat: we should not settle. Not with men..." Lily's phone buzzed and she added, "Or women either."

Lily rolled her eyes, checking her phone to see yet another text from Regina, "She's been on one."

"You aren't really going to go?"

"We probably could use the practice."

"She is ordering you around!"

"She's my friend. An acquired taste, but my friend."

"And what has set her off now? Because that Arab girl is captain instead of her?"

"Syrian girl."

"Yes, yes, I know. Syrian. It was French for a long time," which was either utterly out of pocket or perfectly in character for an ambassador's daughter, Lily couldn't tell, "It is crazy. She is crazy."

"Fatma?"

"Régina la reine," Colette said dispassionately, "You shouldn't do it."

"Duly noted," they reached the bottom of the stairs, Lily spotting her quarry and lifting a hand, "Saved me a text!"

Colette demurred, silent as a ghost, leaving Lily to approach her brother, who regarded her with one of his signature shit-eating smirks, "Ditto. I've got places to go and people to see."

"Code for sitting up playing Minecraft until 1 in the morning?"

"I'm jonesing for my ride, is what I'm saying."

"Yeah, well, I'm gonna have to disappoint you."

Bernard's face fell which Lily wasn't too good not to admit tickled her a little, "You're what?"

"Forces outside my control."

"Look, if it's because I'm a jerk, I recant all offending statements..."

"I am not that petty, Bernie, but I am a busy woman. So you can wait courtside in the gym..."

"Courtside?"

"...or find your own way home," she smiled brightly, "Give you plenty of time to adjust that attitude."

Bernard folded his arms, "You're bluffing."

"...no, I do, in fact, have something to do."

"You think I can't get home on my own," he nodded, "Well, I'm resourceful."

"Bern, it's an extra hour, tops, on a school night. I'm not exactly keeping you from the clubs."

"Yo, Mikey!" and he was already off to...

***

"It's Micah."

"I know, I'm just trying it out."

Micah winced, "Hope you kept the receipt."

"Heh, that was funny. Can I get a ride?"

Micah cocked an eyebrow, "Um...why?"

"Well, because your Mom and my Dad are tight and they want us to be buddies."

He smiled despite himself, "Yeah, I got that part," he folded his arms, "It's just I think we've had two conversations today."

"Three now."

"I'm in such high demand."

"Hey, don't knock it. I saw you before with the fuzzy pen chick."

"What? Nikki?"

"You've even got her name. Level up, dude. High five!" he held his hand aloft.

"A bit less 'Hello, Fuhrer', maybe,"

"Good catch. So, whaddaya say?"

Micah couldn't deny a sort of perverse satisfaction at the aloof and unflappable Bernard's bended knee approach. It probably wasn't psychologically healthy, but the psychologically unhealthy had been buttering his bread since before he could chew it, so it was only fair.

"My Mom will appreciate that we're getting to know each other," he shrugged, pulling his phone out, "I'll let her know to expect you."

"You are a life saver," Bernard clapped him on the shoulder as they headed out into the parking lot.

"Okay, let's rein it in, maybe..." but Micah couldn't suppress a grin as they skirted around a pair of girls having a much less cordial encounter...

***

"Where do you think you're going?"

Haley shirked her lips, "Why do you think that's any of your business?"

Bridget held firm, though she could feel her spirit wavering. She wasn't the best at confrontations, but if Brooke was right and high school was about reestablishing your identity (or whatever...to be honest, it was anyone's guess what Brooke was talking about and Bridget wasn't sure Brooke knew herself minute to minute), than she had to be resolute in her purpose.

One way or another, she wasn't going to let some bratty wannabe sexpot intimidate her.

"You're on the cheer squad. That makes it my business."

Haley rolled her eyes, "Maybe I'm going to practice."

"But you're not. You're supposed to be in detention, and you're cutting."

"Who are you? The freaking secret police?"

"You should just take your medicine. It'll be easier that way."

"Is that a threat?"

"A fact. You cut detention, they'll cut you from the squad."

"Well, then that's my problem. You should be skipping and clapping, whatever your name is: more eyes for your little pageboy bob."

Bridget self-consciously patted her hair, "You're on base. So am I. If they cut you, that's more weight for me to carry. So I guess I am being selfish."

Haley laughed humorlessly, "And what are you gonna do, sweetie? Call the cops?"

Bridget took a step back, biting her lip and looking around the courtyard before nodding, "Hey! Dylan!"

The passing shaggy-haired brunette stopped with a start, "Uh...hey?"

"Tell your sister Haley has detention today, so if she shows up at practice...well, you know."

Dylan blinked, looking at Haley, "I do?"

"You do."

"Uh...right," he nodded, "Okay. Yeah, I'll...tell her."

"Thank you!" Bridget smiled, turning back to the scowling Haley, "Better do your time, sweetie," already oblivious to the continued progress of Kim's brother and his friend...

***

"The heck was that?"

"What that was, Dyl," Colin said breezily, "Was a hot cheerleader asking you for a favor."

"She was asking me to talk to my sister. I don't even know her name."

"Baby steps," Colin reminded him, "You've got to shed that pessimistic musk you got going on, man. Certified cooze killer."

Dylan grimaced, "Maybe try not calling it 'cooze'?"

"Well, not when there are ladies present," Colin granted, beaming at Dylan's guilty smile, "There it is! You know what that is?"

"What, Colin?"

"That is a casanova smile, Big D. A couple of fancy stunts on the football field, you'll be drowning in it in no time."

"Appreciate the vote of confidence," Dylan granted, "But I'll try keeping it realistic for now."

"Fair."

"And, uh..." he paused, "Thanks. For coming to practice. I know it's not your thing."

"Hey, anything for my main man," Colin beamed, "And if it means I get to ride your coattails to aforesaid cheerleader cooze, well, all the better..."

"Right."

"But, yeah, totally happy to cheer you on," he continued determinedly, "I'll stay as long as it's physically safe for me..." he produced his 3DS, "And will cower behind my shield as needed."

Dylan rolled his eyes good-naturedly as they reached the field, where a small group had already gathered at the bleachers.

"See that?" Colin prompted, nodding toward a couple leaning over opposite sides of the fence.

Dylan smiled bemusedly, "What about it?"

"That, my friend...is gonna be you."

Dylan shook his head, but couldn't suppress a indulgent laugh as he stole a guilty look at the happy couple...

***

"Good luck out there," Sonya whispered through Matt's lips.

"They're gonna need it," he tangled his fingers in her hair, tracing the corner of her mouth with his lip, "You know how to find me?"

"Number 12," Sonya declared, "Months in the year, signs in the Zodiac, Labors of Hercules..."

"People on a jury," Lucy interjected, sauntering up to the fence, already kitted out in full cheerleader regalia.

Matt's smile faded, "Was I asking you?"

"Don't pout," Sonya told him, "I'll have my eye on you," with a sudden burst of inspiration, she reached into her purse and produced a square of fine navy blue fabric, decorated with a pattern of brass chain links and white lily petals, "Here..." she fastened it around his bicep, cinching the knot.

"You checking my blood pressure?" Matt prompted, "Because I can think of some funner ways..."

"Just wear that on the field," she patted his arm, "A knight with his lady's favor."

"His lady," he grinned, "I like the sound of that."

"Go get 'em," she pecked him on the cheek, watching his broad back as he jogged across the field toward the locker rooms.

Lucy allowed maybe half a second pause for grace before repeating, "Funner?"

"It's an easy mistake," Sonya granted.

"You wanna bet he thinks 'lady's favor' is code for sex?"

"He's not stupid," Sonya reproached, "And it's not like you've ever prized brains on your boys."

"She's got a point," Rosalie spoke up from the top bleacher, where she had been occupied for the last few minutes taking vanity selfies, presumably to show off her own cheer gear.

Lucy groused at the older girl's interjection, "There's a difference between 'not all there' and 'for rent'."

"I'll just say," said Rosalie, "I always thought your type was more..." she gestured wildly with one hand, "What is it, um, like the skeletons?"

"Skeletons?"

"You know, when they start walking and then they have, like, a spear, and then..."

"Evolution?"

"She's calling him a caveman, Son," said Lucy casually.

"He does have a sensitive side," said Sonya, "Trust me: I've seen it."

"Don't let Rosa get under your skin," Kim was the next to join them, "She's got a high bar for emotional intelligence, what with her Prince Charming writing her poetry on a daily basis..."

"Shut up!" Rosalie squealed in light reproach, "He wishes."

"Who?" Sonya prompted, "Galo Santoro?"

"He had her freestyling with him this morning," Kim explained.

"To get rid of him!" Rosalie protested as the girls laughed over her, oblivious to the surly sulker who was next along the path to the lockers...

***

Nick passed only a sparing glance to the girls, very conscious of not looking like a pervert. Not that it really mattered: any chances he had of doing the whole 'football players/cheerleader' thing went up in smoke the second his peers encountered the improvisational stylings of Dick Cole.

Whatever. He had enough agg to deal with without deliberately piling on more, and things weren't going to get better just because he wouldn't stop thinking about them. In fact, this was one of those things that could only get better the less you thought about it.

There, a real fucking brain teaser. Where was his key to the city?

The locker room greeted him with its resting scent of sweet-sour musk that was by all rights more comforting than it ought to be.

"There's my safety!" Izzy greeted boisterously.

Nick grinned, letting the runningback dap him up, "Guess I have to call you 'captain' now. Congrats, man."

"Eh," Izzy lowered his head, "It's nothing, man. To God goes the glory, you know what I'm saying..." he paused, grinning, "I'm just shitting you."

"You better be," Nick laughed with him, "Look, man, you earned it. And," he added after a brief pause, "Look at your competition."

"Hey, don't trash our D-line," Izzy pointed, "That's my job now."

"But I'm right."

"Just don't say nothing," he smiled, shrugging easily, "But nah, I wasn't sweating it. If it happened, it happened. I put the work in, did my job..."

"Rufus was gonna pick you, no contest."

"Probably," Izzy granted, "But he could've picked someone else."

"We're talking about the same D-line, right?"

"He could've picked you," Izzy beamed, "And...that's about it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Nick thought of acting modest. He wasn't the best player on defense...nobody was going to be that as long as Iz was on the team. If Beau Burns had team captain on lock, there couldn't be any doubt about Izzy.

Which was fine. Izzy was cool, athletic, and scarily talented. If anything, he was good to pace yourself against...you couldn't match him, but you could gauge your own best effort against his and judge how much of a shit you were giving.

And maybe Izzy was right...maybe Nick was the only other half-serious contender for Defensive Captain after him. Rufus had never given any indication one way or another, but Coach's motives were about as readable as his EKG screens, so who could know?

Nick had been utterly prepared for Izzy to be named captain over him. Sure. Why not? But now...

Well. Second place again.

He set his gym bag down and got his stuff out, aware of his phone buzzing and deliberately turning it over, not needing to be bothered by whatever new tide of bullshit was coming in over the airwaves this time...

***

"SOS! Assistance! HELP PLEASE..."

These and other urgent missives flashed under Dick's nimble fingers, his phone half hidden between the pages of his AP Bio textbook.

"Please," he besought, "It is not my edict, but direct orders from the Vice Principal herself! This place is off-limits! I was an exception, and my exception was contingent on my preserving the sanctity of this space..."

"An exceptional exception indeed," interrupted the latest intruder: a gawky, beak-nosed boy with shaggy hair and a pasty complexion, "Who excepted her?"

Anna-Maria glowered from over the top of the copier, where she was churning out her second or third dozen flyers, "Back off, Lysander," she notably caught herself halfway through his name, creating a sound like "Lice-sander", which she had the temerity to look ashamed about for half a second before Lysander, whose name this purportedly was, dissipated that with a sneer.

"It is a pity," he continued, turning back to Dick, "Geiri-san spoke highly of you."

"Geiri?" Dick repeated blankly before realizing, "The Japanophile!"

"He has determined you will go far."

"He has?" Dick gasped, unable to keep the trepidatious wonderment from his tone as Lysander advanced deeper into the library, circling around the study tables with a sluggish but purposeful gait.

"Geiri-san does not choose his followers lightly..."

"Followers? Do you mean on social media? I don't use that...it retards the attention span."

"...and he depends strongly upon the counsel and trust of his chosen. A word from one such as I can forge an alliance...or sunder one from sun to sun."

"Ohhhh..." Dick fretted, "I wouldn't want to lose his favor...but the border is not mine to redraw!"

"I am not asking you to redraw it. Just turn a blind eye...you have already," he gave Anna-Maria another look.

She scowled, "They're for a demonstration."

"I only mean to get what was taken from me," he bent down behind the librarian's desk and retrieved a box labeled 'CONFISCATED'.

"Oh, but..." but Dick, caught between the rigidity of rules and the favor of a new friend, could not bring himself to stand before Lysander.

Nick may think him hopelessly lost, but his brain wasn't only good for quotations and queries.
He had gathered enough from his experiences today to know it would not be an easy road for him here. If Gary...er, Geiri...really was fond of him, how could he compromise their friendship before it had even been consummated?

"Well," he bowed his head, "Then in that case..."

But Lysander had already found what he was looking for, producing a paperback from the box, "At last!"

Dick blinked, "A book?"

"A manga," Lysander clarified, "Snatched from my fingers by censorious hawks."

Anna-Maria peered over his shoulder, "Jesus."

"It is not for your eyes!" Lysander began to reprimand her as the door opened and another stranger poked their head in, "Hey, the library's open..."

"Leave!" Dick sprang into action, sprinting across the door and slamming the door...

***

"My nose!" Derek cried on impact, clutching the offending appendage as he staggered backward and was nearly trampled to add insult to injury.

"Watch it, dipshit," said Bruce automatically, pivoting neatly around the flailing trombonist, hauling his sister behind him as easily as if she were a ragdoll.

"You don't have to drag me," Cici insisted petulantly.

"Sure I don't. It's just a coincidence you were hugging the walls like fucking Carmen Sandiego..."

"Like you give a shit what I do!"

Bruce stopped, nostrils flaring down at his sister, "Hole in fuckin' one, Cici. I don't give a shit. But Mom and Dad do. And if you skip out on your little detention and it gets back to them...because it will...that's my ass."

Cici twisted her mouth into a scowl, "So you don't give a shit about me."

"Don't push it."

"Like you never got detention before. Give me a break..."

"I never shook my ass in front of 100 people."

"There weren't 100..."

"You're gonna go to detention and you're gonna sit your ass down and get what's coming to you."

"That's nice, Bruce. That's really nice..."

"And you know what? I'm not gonna lie...I am enjoying this," he leered, "Maybe now that you've sprouted tits, you'll stop getting away with everything..."

"Classy. Brucey," Viv commented snidely, drawing up at Bruce's other side, "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Up yours, Palmer."

"You seen Harlan?"

Bruce made a face, "I've got enough special ed to deal with, thanks."

"Thought so," Viv gave Cici a sparing, not quite pitying look, before rolling her eyes and continuing to an open classroom...

***

"'Sup, Ms. A?"

"Viv!" Imani smiled at the girl as she passed, "Gonna miss you in my class this year."

"There'll be another girl who ruins Moby Dick for everyone, don't worry."

"But not as thoughtfully."

The exchange concluded, Imani kept up her strident march, reflexively adjusting the lapels on her blazer...a reflexive twitch when it came to calling on Brutus.

When Imani had started here two years ago, she'd thought Mrs. Vespucci was unfairly maligned by her colleagues. She also had no idea why 'Brutus' had stuck as the nickname, given the catalog of historical personalities. Brutus wasn't a historical tyrant, and could even be interpreted as a tragic antiheroic figure, as Imani's kids were bound to learn against their will in several months.

The simple answer was "Brutus" had the word "Brute" in it, which was a disappointing conclusion but hardly surprising, given their sample audience.

"Hello," she paused in the classroom doorway, rapping lightly on the door with her knuckles, "Hope I'm not interrupting."

"Oh, please," Mrs. Vespucci waved a stubbed hand forward, "By all means. You can bear witness. Throw some bread, if you have it. It's happy hour in the coliseum..."

Imani locked eyes with the kid she was cross-examining and winked. Tyler O'Neil cleared his throat noisily, looking away, presumably to spare himself further tongue-lashing, but she couldn't mistake the sly smirk on his lips.

Not a bad kid, and actually quite smart, despite all suggestions imposed by his appearance, profile, and choice of friends. Imani would admit to a soft-spot.

Still, he probably deserved whatever Vespucci was giving him. Either way, that wasn't what brought her here.

"Hi," she greeted the young woman behind the desk, "It's Ms. Chang, right?"

Just out of her hearing, Brutus looked thoroughly unimpressed with this diplomatic errand, returning to her penitent prisoner...

***

"I was saying something," Vespucci turned back to Tyler, toad-like eyes bright with reptilian intensity, which didn't make sense, zoologically speaking, but Tyler had had a bitch of a day.

"Alexander the Great," he offered helpfully.

"You can listen," she nodded with something like approval, as if that had been a test or something, "Alexander the Great was a real looker."

"...okay."

"He was a pretty boy with luscious locks, shining eyes, and a nose that drove 19th century anthropologists into apocalyptic fits. As if this wasn't enough, he was whip smart, athletic, and could quote poetry, history, and current events at the drop of a drachma. And you know what happened to him, or you should, since you passed Global 1 with flying colors."

"He died," Tyler answered, "Ma'am."

"And everything he accomplished amounted to bupkis," she nodded, "Because he didn't plan ahead. He didn't expect to die. You get what I'm saying, O'Neil?"

Tyler rocked on the balls of his feet, "I have a nice nose?"

"And a big head," she countered, "Don't let it break your neck. Go on, you've got homework for me, at least, and maybe some of your other classes too, if they know what they're doing."

Tyler was happy enough to accept the dismissal, departing with a nod and a tiny smile for Ms. A's benefit as he headed back into the hall.

"She keep one ball or both?"

"Wanna check?" Tyler asked Ash flatly, maintaining his stride.

"It's crazy she's still alive," remarked Michael, flanking him on the opposite side as if to prevent an escape, "How'd you think she does it?"

"Spite, mostly."

"Gotta be something to it," Ash nudged him in the side, "So Mike and I were talking..."

"You were talking?" he challenged Michael, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

"Ash thinks you need therapy."

"Yeah, well, so does he."

"But, therapy being expensive..." Ash grinned cheekily, "Figured some group healing would be the next best thing."

Tyler smiled despite himself, "What if there's nothing bothering me?"

"Then I'm wrong," said Ash, "Which has happened..." he poked him in the chest, "But never with you. You're not that hard to read, O'Neil."

"I might surprise you. You know, some women have compared me to Alexander the Great?"

"Didn't he die of a nosebleed?" asked Michael.

"That was Atilla the Hun," said Ash, "Who some women have compared me to."

"So usual time?" Tyler prompted.

"Usual place," Ash grinned knowingly, "Mikey, you good for it?"

"If I can get the Internet to work."

"Living that dial-up life."

"It's not dial-up," Michael protested, "It's just slow, out where we are."

"But you'll be there?"

"Sure," Michael fist bumped Ash and clapped Tyler on the shoulder, "Later, man."

Tyler lifted his hand in halfhearted wave as Michael headed down the hall to join...

***

Christine raised her head at Michael's approach, "Hey."

"Hey, Chris," he looked awkwardly from her to the messy-haired brunette she'd been chatting to, "Uh, don't stop on my account."

"I was just going, actually," Veronica Walker straightened up and, clutching her sturdy canvas bag (covered in faux-Gilded Age prints of flowery goddess of spring types) went on her way.

At Michael's questioning look, Christine explained, "I was asking Ronnie how I'd go about submitting some stuff."

"To what?" Michael frowned, "The police?"

"To The Standard," she frowned at his blank expression, "The literary magazine?"

"What, like the newspaper?"

"No, Michael. The newspaper is different. The Standard is for writing. Students submit short fiction and poetry and..." she shrugged, "They do three every year. You never noticed?"

He shrugged, "And Ronnie is putting stuff in The Standard."

She nodded, "And I thought...I might."

"Stuff you wrote?"

Christine nodded and Michael, before he could think better of it asked, "But what would you write about?"

She gave him a long, searching look and he felt a pang of guilt, "Right. Yeah. Um...sorry. But that's a good idea. Yeah, Chris, that's...a really great...okay," she had picked up her pace to walk ahead of him. Haplessly, Michael followed her, parting around a pair of freshmen girls going the opposite direction...

***

Tami didn't break her stride, despite successive second, third, and fourth thoughts, with various compounding multiples for each.

Maybe she was being nosy and invasive. No, there was no 'maybe' about that. She was. It was just the kind of thing you shouldn't do on your first day in a new place surrounded by strangers.

But people had taken a chance on her today.

The girls' bathroom was about as dismal as you'd expect, with a stale, fetid aroma hanging in the air. Tami wrinkled her nose up at once, but was undeterred.

"Um...hey?" she tried, "Sue?"

Her quarry hadn't hidden herself, slumped over the sink with her shoulders shaking. Tami, expecting to see tears, stole a glimpse at the grimy mirror and found a dry, if flushed face.

"It's fine," Sue grumbled indistinctly.

Tami twisted her mouth to the side, wringing her hands, "If you want me to go..."

"Why are you here?"

"Well..." Tami paused, "You kind of screamed and ran away before, so..."

"Nobody else is here."

Tami shrugged, "I guess I don't know how to mind my own business."

Sue lifted her eyes to regard her reflection. She made an indistinct guttural noise almost like a laugh, and Tami smiled.

"I overreacted. I do that sometimes."

"So do I," Tami granted, "It gets on peoples' nerves."

"You ever get locked up for it?" she asked with a frank shortness that quite took Tami aback.

"Did you?"

Sue shrugged, "I wasn't saying it to be funny," she stared into the sink basin, "I finished middle school in juvie."

"Juvie?" Tami repeated, "What'd you do?"

"Killed a couple people who called me fat," Sue let this hang in the air for half a second before clarifying, "I broke a guy's nose."

"...for calling you fat?"

"And other stuff."

Tami smiled and Sue sighed, "I'm on good behavior. They said I could start high school, yanno, the normal way, but I had to do everything right. I had to...be good," she chuckled humorlessly, turning away from the mirror to face Tami directly, "Best behavior. And what do I do first day back? Get in a fight with some stupid skinny blonde bitches..."

"Well," Tami interrupted, "Haley's a brunette," she smiled sympathetically, "So you're afraid it'll count against you? That you're in detention."

"It's not just the detention," Sue grumbled, "Whatever happened, I wasn't gonna sit down and take it. I don't care...there's nothing wrong with defending yourself, and if they want to make a big deal about it, they can send me back and I won't say shit," she pulled her phone out of her hoodie, "It's this."

Tami read the text thread on the screen, "That's from...your volleyball coach?"

"There is no volleyball coach. I think she quit or something, right after putting me on the team. That's Regina."

"One of your teammates?"

"A senior. And she says if we don't go to her little drills today, we're off the team and..." her glasses fogged up, "I need to be on the team."

"Like, for your parole?" Tami prompted.

"I have to look like I'm trying really hard to readjust," said Sue, "Show I'm 'staying out of trouble'. But if I skip detention, that looks bad and if I'm kicked off the team, that looks worse, and I didn't even start the fight!" she raised her voice, words echoing back to them off the grimy tiles.

Tami folded her arms, "That's not fair."

"Nobody ever told you life isn't fair?"

"They have," Tami granted, "But yanno what someone else told me?"

Sue blinked in wordless, skeptical invitation, and Tami commenced: "We were born on this small planet called Earth. Each of us may be just a small, powerless life force, but we want to enjoy our small lives as much as we can."

"Who said that? Yoda?"

"Sailor Moon," Tami granted, "Look, it's not right for you to be stuck in this situation. This Regina girl doesn't have the right to make threats like that, and you don't have to take it."

"But I'm such a small, powerless life force," Sue reminded her with vague humor.

"And so am I," Tami extended a hand, "But two small, powerless life forces are better than one."

Sue eyed her hand with a cocked eyebrow, "You don't want to beat Regina up, do you? Because, no offense, you don't look like you're good in a fight."

"There's more than one way to win a fight."

Something about this must've had a positive effect. Sue's lips curled and she let herself be led out of the bathroom, the door swinging shut behind them...

***

"What kind of Disney Channel bullshit...?" Beth muttered acidly, seeing it was finally safe to emerge from her stall.

Not like she had anything to hide, but she'd sooner not have gotten roped into whatever D-grade afterschool special BS those two freshmen girls were on.

Beth studied herself in the mirror, lifting her eyelids one by one to determine how exhausted she looked and found, to her great distress, she hadn't yet hit her nadir. She hadn't even done anything today.

But that wasn't gonna be a sufficient excuse. And, anyway, what else was she gonna do?

With a languid sigh and a muttered half-syllabic curse, Beth took out her phone and dashed off a text: 'i surrender'...

***

'see you at the jam sesh'

Viv looked at her phone in a cursory manner, getting off a reply of her own: 'not gonna be a jam sesh if i can't find this man in a minute'.

Which, Viv wasn't kidding herself here, was probably all the better as far as Beth was concerned. But it was the principle of the thing that mattered and, as far as that went, she had to acknowledge the effort.

She was no more vindicated at her next stop as all the others.

"Do you need something, little lady?" Mr. Tattler, British Literature, looked up from the academic journal he was reading to examine her through his absurdly thick bifocal lenses, brow furrowing in uncertainty.

"You're fine, it is 'lady'," Viv assured him flatly, "I was looking for Harlan Mann. I thought he might have detention."

"Just one indigent for the dungeons today, my dear," Tattler gestured a bony hand to the freckled towhead in the back of the room.

"'Sup?" Galo greeted with a casual wave.

"Restrain yourself!" Tattler commanded in reedy, unrestrained tones.

"What's he in for?" Viv asked with a smirk.

"Gang signs!" Tattler exclaimed as, over his shoulder, Galo dabbed. Viv controlled her expression, "Right."

"While, I've no doubt your Harlan might've gotten himself in one detention or other, my dear, it isn't mine."

"Oh, he's not my Harlan," said Viv, "But thanks."

"Go'b'wi'ye!" Tattler exclaimed, which could be some historical expression or evidence of a stroke, neither of which Viv had the time for as she head back out into the hall, poking her head into the next classroom and being disappointed yet again...

***

"I'm really sorry, Ms. Turner," Desiree spoke through the tears she'd told herself she wouldn't cry but had insisted on being cried anyway, "I should've looked where I was going. I'm usually so careful, about everything, and I know that doesn't mean anything now..."

"It's really not her fault," Rochelle said beside her, "Anybody would've dropped the camera if they'd been shoved like that..."

"Oh, I believe it," Ms. Turner smiled at them from across the desk, "Desiree, it's alright."

"But it's not!" Desiree exclaimed despite herself, wiping at her tears, "I know it was really expensive."

"Well..." Ms. Turner nodded, "It was. And, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure how quickly the school can replace it..." she absently traced the grooves of the conch shell on her desk, "But it's nothing for you to beat yourself up about. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised you waited until after school to tell anybody about this."

"I'm sorry," Desiree began immediately, but Ms. Turner shook her head.

"No, honey, not about the camera. About you being pushed. Rochelle's right...this is on them and, whoever it was, they ought to face consequences for it."

Rochelle didn't say 'I told you so', but she did assume a pleasant smile as she turned to Desiree as if she were the mama bird about to nudge her headlong from the nest.

Desiree, however, held firm, squaring her shoulders as she wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, "I don't want to start any trouble."

Ms. Turner frowned, "Desiree, this is a high school, not a mafia outfit."

"It's alright, Ms. Turner. I am sorry about the camera, though, but I'd...just like to forget about it. If that's okay."

Ms. Turner didn't seem particularly satisfied with this pronouncement, but she didn't fight it, nodding her head, "Alright, then. I'll see what we can do about a replacement camera. In the meantime..."

"Keep calm and carry on!" Rochelle giggled spiritedly, bounding to her feet.

"Sure. Why not?"

Rochelle held her tongue until they were back in the hallway, which was more grace than Desiree had expected, "I don't know what you're afraid of."

"I'm not afraid," Desiree insisted.

"Des, that crazy freshman girl shoulder-checked you on the way down the stairs. You're lucky the camera was the only thing that broke."

"Maybe I am," said Desiree, "Look, Rochelle, I appreciate you sticking up for me..."

"You're a good person, Des. I admire that about you, but...as a good person myself..." she smiled ironically, "...I know how easy it is to get taken advantage of."

"Nobody's 'taking advantage' of me..."

"I get not wanting to make waves," Rochelle continued, "But sometimes you have to shake things up a bit to keep from going under."

Desiree frowned, pressing her arms close to her chest, "...I've got to get to cheer practice. Thanks, Rochelle."

With a tiny smile by way of parting, she picked up her pace and continued down the hall, passing the nurse's office, which wasn't as bereft as it should've been...

***

So, she was nosy. Sue her. It wasn't like she had an unnatural compulsion about unlocked doors. But if the lock was un because it was broken, well, it was only natural to want to stick your schnoz in.

And, reader, Clarice did just that, opened the door to the nurse's office...already conspicuously ajar...and slipping inside.

"Stop in the name of the law!"

The other intruder whirled around, a fiercely cut gingery bob framing an angular face like loose theater drapery. An older girl. Clarice, still quite new, had no chance distinguishing her from the crowd.

She grinned at the stranger, "I'm just tooling. I'm no snitch."

The stranger's face was impassive, "Who are you?"

Clarice prepared to offer a snappy table turner to the effect of "I might ask you the same question, Mr. Bond..." but was curtailed as a shadow fell across the frosted glass pane of the door.

Before Clarice could as much as turn around, the older girl let out an urgent hiss and grabbed her by the arm, dragging them both to the floor before they could be spotted by...

***

"A break in!" Gwen declared, shaking her head vehemently, "Someone's starting the school year on a high note."

Abi didn't appear to appreciate this wit, but Gwen didn't keep her around for her sense of humor.

"Maybe the thief is still inside?" she suggested, "We can check..." she reached for the doorknob, but Gwen held up a hand.

"No! The nurse's office is strictly off limits without adult supervision. And, since there is no nurse this year, that means we cannot, under any circumstances, enter!" Gwen briefly considered the implications of this dictum, decided to abandon exercise, and restated, "We must alert the authorities before the thief gets away with whatever they took..." she lowered her voice, communicating in a low whisper, "Drugs, probably, or needles! What is this world coming to?"

"Things fall apart," Abi quoted, "The center cannot hold."

"Not on my watch!" Gwen declared, starting off, "Abi, you stand guard and keep away any interlopers. I'll be back in a snip!"

Strengthened in new resolve, Gwen strode down the hall, nearly colliding with a pair of boys making for the stairs...

***

"Watch where you're going!"

"You too!" Zach called after the weirdly intense girl, "She should try out for the team. Linebacker, right? I mean, respectfully," he turned to the girl at Marcus's other side.

"Because girls should be allowed to play football," Faith laughed good-naturedly, assuming he was still not sure whether he'd offended her at lunch, "I've noticed people don't watch where they're going around here."

"Maybe they're all just really busy."

"You sticking around for practice?" asked Marcus as they turned off the stairs for the doors.

"I wish I could," Faith frowned and seemed to mean it, "My aunt needs help with some of my Grandma's things. I shouldn't leave her to it alone."

"Cool of you."

"I guess...and I don't want her accidentally throwing out something important," she laughed self-deprecatingly, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," they stopped at the doors, and Marcus waited half a second before holding one of them open for Faith, who smiled appreciatively and headed out ahead of them.

Marcus turned to Zach, who was smiling knowingly, "What?"

"Nothing," he shrugged, "She likes you."

"No," Marcus said incredulously, "I just met her."

"I just met you and I like you," he paused, "Not like that," he cleared his throat, "She's nice."

"She is," Marcus agreed. "But I don't..."

"Whoa," Zach's attention had mercifully been diverted.

Marcus followed his gaze across the parking lot to where a group of older kids were gathered around a sleek sea blue sports car.

"S'alright, boys..." the car's owner: a broad-shouldered blond guy with an Australian accent, was saying, "Look all ya like, but don't touch."

He looked up from the little crowd and, that keen smirk still on his face, winked, not at any of his admirers, but at...

"Huh," Zach frowned, turning to Marcus, "You know that guy?"

"What?" Marcus gave a start, as if he'd forgotten Zach was there, "Nah."

"Oh," Zach decided, "Weird," and continued on, leaving the Australian dude to his fan club...

***

"Lamborghini Countach," Ryan diagnosed, "They stopped making these 25 years ago."

"Man knows his cars," Duke granted with an easy grin.

"No fronting, Kangaroo Jack," Francisco chimed in from Ryan's side, "Who'd you kill for her?"

"My savings, mate," said Duke easily, "Fixed her up myself as a coming to America present."

"How much did it set you back?" Ryan asked, knowing this was a fucking rude question and not really giving a shit.

"Anything's possible with a bit of elbow grease," Duke said easily.

"It's a nice ride, man," said Dom Greco, coming dangerously close to laying his hand on the hood which, as far as Ryan was concerned, was grounds for amputation, "But a good ride ain't nothing if you're not putting it somewhere?"

"We have a good time," said Duke easily, so either he was just saying shit or he had a built in leather jacketed guido fuckstick translator.

"You race?" Dom prompted.

"I'll try anything once..."

Ryan sucked his teeth audibly, starting away from the car.

"Still a gearhead, eh?" Cisco asked, sticking to him. Ryan shrugged noncommittally, but added, "Kangaroo Jack?"

"Fuck you, it was funny."

"Until he plants a kangaroo foot Down Under."

"I can take him. Man's all talk."

"So are you," Ryan pointed out with a cool smile. Francisco gave him a look and shrugged, "So I threw my weight around back in the day. Paid off, didn't it?"

"When you weren't getting your ass kicked," Ryan pointed out evenly. Cisco's smile slipped, but only a fraction, "Maybe a little less about that in front of the boat shoe brigade, yeah?"

"The what?" but no sooner had the question left Ryan's lips did the answer materialize.

"What's good, Ortiz?" asked the whitest boy ever conceived, swaggering up to them like his spine had been replaced with crazy string, "Making friends with the kiddies?" he leered at Ryan, who made a point of looking down the necessary three inches to meet his eyes.

"Wanna speak up?"

"Keith's a comedian," Cisco explained easily, "On account of he never got beat as a kid."

Keith snickered as if he was not on the ass-end of his own joke, from which Ryan drew various unfavorable conclusions. The other kid who'd strolled up with him: a slightly taller, sandy-haired dude with bright blue eyes, had a friendlier approach, "Hey, man. I'm Luke."

"Luke's nice," said Cisco as if he were describing an average-looking puppy, "Boys, this is Ryan. We grew up on the same block."

"Oh, cool," said Luke and began to say something about was Ryan on defense when Keith, that charmer, spoke over him, "Oh word? You're from the hood?"

Ryan responded to this with a cold glare that neatly wiped the shiteating grin from Keith's face as he threw open the locker room door and promptly ducked a projectile hurtling through the air at missile-like speed...

***

"Oh, crap, man, sorry!" Xavier apologized, not super sincerely, over a chorus of laughter, "Nothing personal: Deej promised me five bucks to do a striptease."

Keith, red-faced, mumbled something incoherent as Ryan and the others parted around him.

Izzy clapped Xavier on the shoulder, "Hey, don't apologize. You got good taste in targets."

"Your commission, big boy," DJ said casually, pressing two crisp one dollar bills into Xavier's hand.

"Where's the other three dollars?"

"Well, you only did half a routine," DJ shrugged.

"Well where's my two quarters?"

"Okay, listen up!" Izzy, already kitted out in full gear, lifted one leg onto a bench, "D-line, come up here. Come on, let me get my guys here...you too, McCarthy..."

Luke paused, "I'm not changed yet."

"You can get naked later," Izzy said with a dismissive wave of his hand, "I want to introduce y'all to our new blood."

"Wait, what..." Xavier began to protest, but Izzy curtailed this, grabbing him by the arm, "Y'all say 'Hi, X'."

This resulted in an uneven response, with Cisco chasing the salute with a wolf-whistle.

"Is this when I tell them I'm an alcoholic?" Xavier asked gamesomely.

"He wants to be modest about it, but X has been working on himself. And that work's paid off. He's gonna be playing DT for us this year. So I want y'all to love on him when he comes through, hold him up when he needs you, and keep him in line when he comes short."

"What's that mean?" Xavier asked.

"Sleep with one eye open," Cisco quipped with a wink.

"We're a family here," said Izzy, "We look out for each other on Defense."

"What about O-Line?" Zach asked, smiling like he expected a joke and not getting one as Matt bluntly responded, "Every man for himself."

"He said it," said Izzy to another chorus of laughs.

"Yo, why's the weight room locked?" DJ asked, hovering at the connecting door.

"What'd you want to go in there for?" Matt looked at him like he'd gone stupid.

"I want to get some reps in before practice."

"You're such a teachers' pet, DeLaurentis."

"That thing locks from the inside, doesn't it?" asked Nick, "Maybe someone left it."

"Christ, this place is a shithole..."

"Maybe the lock's stuck," said Luke, stepping forward to jimmy the handle, "There's a trick you can try..."

"Oh yeah?" DJ asked sardonically, "You learn that watching your Dad pull out counters?"

Luke's ears went pink, but he didn't look away from the door as he responded, "Pull out doors. Counters don't have locks."

He continued working, nimble figures rooting in the groove around the latch...

***

"Aw, shit," Beau hissed, watching the handle jiggle dangerously.

"I knew this was a bad idea!" Hope fretted, giving up reapplying what lipstick Beau's lips had siphoned off her.

"I said I was sorry!"

"We'll just be lucky I didn't fold when you whipped the Trojan out of your jock strap..."

"It was in my jacket!"

Hope knew there was no point arguing. For one, it was unproductive and for two...she didn't have to take up Beau's invitation for some 'warmups' in the weight room because "they're all gonna be late".

She wasn't going to leave Beau hanging, ostensibly because he sincerely believed he would not come out of practice with his soul intact, but also because...well, she was only human, as evidenced by the early onset panic attack.

"It's okay, babe..." said Beau absurdly, "You can probably hide."

"Hide?" she repeated, "Where, under the barbells?"

Beau seemed to seriously consider this before coming to the obvious conclusion and looking quite embarrassed with himself, "What about out the window?"

She turned to the windows: four slim rectangles closer to the ceiling than the floor, "You're joking."

"You're short!"

"Petite," she corrected, adding, "Thank you," and then, somewhat hysterically, "Fine!"

"Awesome, babe," he got up on his toes and started working the latch, "I'll help you. Don't worry," and gave her one of those easy, warm smiles that made up for all the nonsense, most of the time.

"Try turning it the other way," Hope suggested, noting Beau's evident difficulty with the window latch.

"I'm trying both ways!" Beau grunted, "Janky thing's stuck."

"Let me help..." Hope stepped forward.

"I am helping!"

"Let me help you help me, then..." she insisted, ambling in and grabbing for the latch...

***

"Did you see that?" Poppy craned her neck, shading her eyes from the sun.

Julio followed her gaze to the grimy shape in the locker room window, "Bird shit."

"That's disappointing," Poppy cracked a wry smile as she lowered her hand, "I thought it might be a ghost. Maybe that serial killer you told me about."

"Hey, don't joke," said Julio, "You know they never found his body."

"He must've been really tiny."

Julio snorted as they reached the bike rack, "You get off here?"

Poppy nodded, noting Julio's improvised chain still in place on her tires, "Still in one peace."

"All in a day's work," Julio bowed grandly as Poppy undid the chain. She looked at him slyly, "Thanks. Seriously. I don't know what I would've done if somebody lifted this piece of junk."

"Walk, probably."

Poppy stuck her tongue out in illustration of the notion, "I guess I'll see you around, Martinez."

"Get some sleep, yeah?" he grinned, and more when Poppy gallantly flipped him the bird, mounting her bike and pedaling for the horizon without a look back...

***

"Oh, hey, wait up, Red!" Baptiste jogged, for a certain definition of 'jogging' that encompassed 'performance art' and 'mime', up to the bike rack.

"Aw, sorry, Bapz," Julio turned on him with a shrug, "Just missed her."

"I can see that," Baptiste scowled, looking Julio over, "I ain't blind."

"You sure ain't," Julio folded his arms, "Jury's still out on 'deaf'. I checked your Soundcloud..."

"You did?" Baptiste's eyes widened before he remembered to be insulted, "Haters gonna hate, boatboy."

"Sampling Taylor Swift. Hella hardcore, bro."

"Word of advice," he didn't quite step up to Julio, but kind of shimmied his hips like a snake being charmed, "Don't go bustin' up a man's bubbles."

Julio smiled pleasantly, "Aye-aye, matey," he gave him a mock salute, "I'll keep that in mind next time I see a man."

He left Baptiste to gawp, frog-like, in silence, only vaguely aware of an aberration out of the corner of his eye, over his shoulder, way up high, and certainly not bird droppings...

***

"She's really not budging, is she?" Clarice whispered, indicating the outline of their gargoyle sentinel through the frosted glass of the nurse's office door.

"That's Abigail Voris," said the older girl, "She's a repressed zealot with delusions of grandeur."

"Sweet. I'm Clarice Kowalski: extroverted zealot with delusions of grandeur. Who do you say you are?"

The girl's flinty eyes hardened, but she answered, with no particular inflection, "Sage."

"Sweet, like the incense."

"Yes. Like the incense," she looked around the office, "They can't catch me here..."

"That's funny. I was thinking the same thing," furrowing her brow, Clarice crossed the room and opened the window, "Huh."

"That's a three story drop," Sage joined her, less aghast than interested.

"Well, depending what you lifted from the medicine cabinet, the sting shouldn't be that sharp."

Sage gave her a look and, with a final look over her shoulder at the door, swung her leg out over the ledge.

"That's the spirit," Clarice commended, following her example, at the right side of the window.

GW High, like most official buildings constructed in the last 100 years or so, was a joyless brick monolith designed to siphon thoughts of rebellion from those who entered, so it didn't have much in the way of handholds save for grooves between the bricks.

Still, wasn't the craziest thing Clarice had ever done.

For her part, Sage proved just as intense in action as she did resting. Clarice would've sworn she was some sort of special forces commando or some shit, the way she Spider-Womaned her way from perch to perch.

Given the nature of this exit, Clarice couldn't help but wonder where she was hiding whatever she'd stolen...if she had stolen something, which you'd have to assume she had.

Not that Clarice had, but she was a quirky girl who went wherever the whim took her, and she couldn't expect other people to sit at the same juncture of the alignment chart.

She was wearing an oversized sweater, too bulky for early September, and definitely not practical for spontaneous mountain climbing. Clarice supposed you could easily hide contraband under there, but it would be loose and unsecured, unless you were really creative and used your tits as bookends...

"Watch it!" snapped Sage, and for a moment Clarice wondered if she'd been thinking aloud, but no, Sage just meant they had reached the next floor down, and there were people in the window.

"Don't worry," Clarice assured her, "They're distracted," and continued down...

***

"You taste so good," Manny moaned into Aiden's lips, "Is that gross?"

"Depends what I taste like," Aiden pulled back slightly, licking some of Manny's spit off his bottom lip, the sight of which must've had some effect on his boyfriend, the way he dug his fingers into his backside.

"The poet in me wants to say leather, lace, and lavender," Manny admitted, "But, real talk, babe, you taste like Apple Jacks. And it drives me fucking nuts."

Aiden laughed as Manny pressed against his neck, teasing it with his lips, "I keep them in my locker. Eat 'em like chips."

"You're such a nerd."

"A practical nerd," Aiden acknowledged, worrying Manny's earring with his lips.

The art room...their chosen sanctuary...was cavernous, but intimate in its own way. Surrounded by canvases bearing projects in varying stages of completion...most of them surely left over from last year...Aiden felt oddly protected.

Or maybe that was just on account of the brown-eyed, silk-voiced angel pressing heartbeat-to-heartbeat against him.

"You know I was scared about today?" Aiden prompted, "For all the noise and the posturing, I was terrified. Of being stared at, judged..."

"I'd like to see the mouth breathers try."

"They probably were," said Aiden, "Staring, judging, making up their own minds...but I didn't care. I mean, I do care...on a macro scale."

"Kinky."

"But in the moment, it didn't feel like anything...because I knew in the next room, in the next desk, on the next floor..." he traced Manny's kiss-red lips with his thumb, "You were there."

"I don't think I've ever been anybody's motivation before," said Manny, "That's almost too romantic to be a turn on."

"Thanks, I think?"

Manny eased his grip, letting Aiden assume a more natural sitting position on a table and lifting himself up to sit beside him, the heel of his checkered Converse tennis shoe brushing Aiden's navy and cream Alfani sneakers.

"Not to belabor the point or anything, Aiden, but I'm crazy about you too," he squeezed Aiden's hand, "I mean, I know we've talked about it, but...I didn't really get to 'come out'. It was one bit, two pieces, and then..."

"Rocks fall, everyone dies."

"More or less."

Aiden smiled, "I really want to take you home."

"Tuna casserole at Casa Sacks?"

"We aren't that white," Aiden grumbled with a smile, "And it's hamburger casserole, most of the time."

"That's a scary thought," a shadow flickered across his face, "I get it, Aiden. If you want to...wait."

"That's the thing. We shouldn't have to," he sighed, "It would be easier if they'd just tell me, right? Like, what they thought, whatever it was. Just to let me know they had an opinion about me and my life..."

"...even if it's something you don't want to hear?" but Manny nodded, "I get it," he turned Aiden toward him, nudging his neck around with the heel of his hand, "But I can wait."

"You shouldn't have to."

"But I will. Long as it takes for them to get their heads on straight..." he smiled, "In a manner of speaking."

Aiden rolled his eyes goodnaturedly as his phone vibrated against his thigh.

"I was that good?" Manny prompted and got a light kick in the shin for his trouble as Aiden checked his phone.

"Text from Adam," he sighed, reading: 'heading home. should i wait?'

Aiden looked at Manny out of the corner of his eye, leaned into his arm around him, and responded...

***

'No. I'll catch up.'

"Bad news?"

Adam looked up from his phone to regard Jude, shaking his head as he plastered a smile on,

"Nah. Just, uh, plans changing. Or not really. I mean, you can't really change plans if you haven't made them to begin with?"

Jude blinked bemusedly, "Well, if you had no plans, and then you make a plan, a plan did change."

This didn't seem to cheer Adam up any. He nodded, smiling fixedly, "Makes sense. Uh...have a good practice, right?"

"Thanks," he fist-bumped Adam, "Nice meeting you, man."

Adam nodded halfheartedly and sauntered off. Jude concluded whatever was eating him was probably none of his business and dispelled his natural curiosity, turning and going on into the locker room, discovering most of the team had beaten him.

"What's going on?" he sought out Shane in the crowd.

Shane turned to him and shrugged, "The weight room's locked from the inside..."

DJ charged the door to the aforesaid room, shoulder first.

"There's a contest."

"Five bucks on Greased Lightning!" Nick Cole called out.

"I can match you up to two bucks," said Xavier.

"You're doing it wrong, DeLaurentis," Matt Aiello informed him curtly.

"Oh yeah? You know all about breaking down doors?"

"I'm a tackle..." at which point he tackled the door, except of course he didn't; it was a door and there was nothing appreciably different to his approach from DJ's.

"You should try," Shane suggested.

Jude frowned, "Breaking the door down?"

"New kid's volunteering!" Keith decided, "Step right up..."

"I don't know..." said Jude, but he'd moved around enough in his life to know you had a very limited amount of time to brand yourself Not a Pussy and, while it may be stupid to care about such things, the world at large hadn't gotten the memo.

So he stepped right up.

"This kid's got legs on him, though," said Keith editorially, "Saw him sprinting after Tracy this morning."

"Why'd you run after Tracy?" asked Ryan, cocking an eyebrow.

"He volunteered," said Shane, evidently leaning into gassing his new friend up, which Jude supposed he had to appreciate, "Ready for anything, this guy."

"Heart of a soldier," Izzy grinned, "I like that. What's your name, 16?"

Jude thought it was kind of funny that Izzy remembered his number, but not his name, but supplied it anyway, "Jude," before cocking his shoulders and driving his full weight into the door as Shane put three bucks on his head...

***

"Are they out of their minds?" demanded Hope as the door shook on its hinges.

"Idiots are gonna be exhausted to shit before we even get on the field," said Beau, earning an incredulous look from his girlfriend for his trouble.

"I'll never live it down," Hope said despairingly, "They're all gonna think I was having sex in the weight room."

"That's not the worst thing," said Beau, "Isn't it?"

Hope rolled her eyes, shoving the jammed window again...

***

"Someone's fucking in there," observed Charlie matter-of-factly.

"What?" Rahim lifted his head, "Where?"

Charlie, not feeling sufficiently motivated to move more muscles than it took to breathe, sort of aimed his nose in the general direction of the locker room.

"Bullshit."

"Someone's fucking in the lockers," Rafe stopped tuning his guitar and set to plucking, warbling to the tune of "Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham, "Someone's porking it in the lockers/Someone's getting down in the lockers..." delicate summation strum, "What's that smell?"

Gretchen Sanderson looked disapprovingly at them from along the bleachers, "You playing for tips?"

"No, Gretch, I think they'd arrest me."

"But he'll take Venmo, if you're inspired," Charlie leaned in.

Gretchen was stone-faced, but Kellyann giggled at her other side, "I never see you guys at sports stuff."

"Of course you don't," said Gretchen, "Hawkins would melt."

"I am no moister than usual, Gretchard, but thanks for your concern."

"We're here for X," said Rahim.

"Oh," Kellyann nodded, "That makes sense."

"What about you ladies?" Charlie asked, "Lookin' for some hot jock-to-jock action?"

Kellyann let out a squeal of panic and/or amusement as Gretchen's beady eyes got beadier, "Oh, because we're girls, we can't be interested in sports? It has to be sex thing?"

"I mean, two things can be true."

"You are an anemic, chauvinist pig, Hawkins, and people like you are a cancer sucking the bone marrow out of our society."

"Four and a half things can be true."

Gretchen said "Ugh!", which Charlie didn't think was a thing people really did without first lifting their hands to heaven and calling upon the power of the ancestors to charge their next attack.

"Hey, Rafael!" a petite Latina in full cheer regalia sashayed up to the bleachers, "Here for cheer practice?"

"Resa," Rafe smiled awkwardly, "Uh, no. No, Resa...football."

To which disappointment Teresa pouted in overwrought fashion, "You can watch guys beat the shit out of each other any other day. What we do is art."

"I would comment on that," said Charlie, "But that would be chauvinistic and cancerous, so I'll leave it at 'go get 'em, sister'," he chased this with a dolorous fist pump.

Teresa gave a sort of pained smile at this and went on her way.

"Dude," Rahim turned to Rafe, "You have no game."

"I've known her since she was six," Rafe pointed out with a sardonic laugh as he returned to his fretboard, "I'll live."

"Fair point," Charlie allowed, "But, also, you might not," Charlie observed, indicating the particular aggression which marked Resa's stride onto the field...

***

"Who spat in your mouth and told you to swallow?"

Resa gave Sabrina a look, "That's sick."

"Trav thinks it's hilarious," Sabrina insisted, not denying that it was sick.

"Is that what you're doing here?" Resa grinned, "Watching your boyfriend?"

"I don't know what's funny about that."

"No, it's not funny. It's hella normal."

"I am normal!" Sabrina insisted, ruing the whine that crept into her tone at the exclamation, "Look, for your information, I've been thinking about it..."

"Girl, not more of this..."

"I was probably overreacting before."

Teresa raised her eyebrows, surprised, "Probably?"

"Don't push your luck, chica."

Resa snorted flagrantly at this, but Sabrina decided to be merciful and chose not to notice, "Mari can try shutting me out all she wants, but I'm not gonna let her. See, she wants to make me upset."

Teresa opened her mouth to say something to this, but just nodded, "So you're gonna ignore her?"

"I'm gonna make me impossible to ignore."

"You weren't doing that already?"

But Sabrina, having made her point, returned to the bleachers, calling out a casual, "Don't break a leg!" as Resa went.

Sophie gave her a look as she sat down, "It's always something with you, huh?"

Sabrina shrugged, "You're the one always trying on an attitude."

Sophie made one of those delightful pissy faces she affected so well on the softball pitch, which proved yet another test of Sabrina's mercy, though before she could consider compromising herself, there was an aggrieved cry from the bench above as Sasha got to her feet and, pressed her phone to her ear...

***

"You can't be serious."

Regina pressed her lips together, "You're the one who can't be serious. I know you've been getting my texts."

"Yeah, I got your texts," Sasha retorted, so loud even through the phone that Fatma and Stephanie...at this point, the only ones on the team who'd heeded Regina's summons...could hear, "And each one, I thought 'This bitch can't be serious'."

"We have a game tomorrow!"

"And we had practice this weekend."

"We get out and play tomorrow, the way we are now, we're gonna lose."

"Oh, 100%," it seemed like Sasha was going to say more to this, but she must've hung up. Regina muttered a curse, spinning on her heel.

Fatma cleared her throat uncomfortably, looking around the gym, "Maybe someone should text Lily."

"Someone," Stephanie repeated icily, looking her over, "Like the captain, maybe?"

Regina looked over her shoulder at the word and met Fatma's eyes. She winced despite herself, as if physically struck.

Turning away, she got her phone out and, thankful Lily was at least positively predisposed to her, sent a text...

***

'Regina wants us all in the gym. She's very mad.'

Lily frowned at the text but put her phone away to deal with her current predicament which, after all, was related.

"So...slow down," she held up a hand, "It's...Tami, right?"

"Short for Tamara, yeah," the girl with the purple braids nodded, primly as if she were testifying in court.

"And you're a friend of my brother's?" this asked with perhaps inappropriate but certainly warranted skepticism, given, well, Bernard.

"Yeah, we met today," Tami smiled, "I'm new to town."

Lily briefly considered giving the girl a word of warning before deciding she really wasn't that petty and, also, her brother deserved a fighting chance to crash and burn on his own diesel. She looked from Tami to the pudgy Korean girl at her side, who had kept her eyes to the floor throughout Tami's recounting, as if afraid of being called to account.

"It's Sue, right?" Lily asked her newest teammate.

Sue lifted her eyes and nodded.

"Well, Sue..." she continued determinedly, trying not to imagine a pleasant one-handed piano accompaniment murmuring behind her, "You can go to detention."

Sue blinked, "But..."

"I'll talk to Regina," said Lily, "She's probably just being hyperbolic," Sue didn't say anything to this and Lily continued, "It means..."

"No, I know what it means," she cleared her throat, "Thanks."

"Don't worry about it," she looked awkwardly from Sue to Tami, "It's probably all a misunderstanding anyway," her phone buzzed again and she took a step back, "I'll just have a little chat with her now..."

She took off toward the gym, her phone going nuts in her pocket. She thought she could hear Sue tell Tami, "Thank you," and, dammit, there went the one-handed piano as she went after all...

***

"Hi, Lily!" Iona waved as she passed, realized she wasn't paying attention, and returned her attention to the impromptu job interview occurring in the left lane.

"I've been working on my breathing," Heidi was saying and, to her credit, not sounding as rehearsed as her earlier runs, "Like you said...suggested," she amended hastily, though very little got past Ms. Strauss, whose lined mouth parted into a sly smile as she wheeled along the hall between them.

"That is, I think, self-evident, Heidi," the music teacher commented, "I'm not sure I caught a single breath in your whole pitch."

Heidi laughed nervously, looking somewhat desperately over Ms. Strauss's head to Iona, which Iona had expressly advised her not to do, the old maestra having nigh-superhuman peripheral vision.

"I was hoping," Heidi continued, a little pink about the gills now, "You could give me some notes. I have a song prepared...ready, for whenever..."

"That is quite admirable, dear..." Ms. Strauss continued, waving a bony hand in a broad sweep that nearly caught Heidi about the middle as she turned her thin neck to regard her, "I would be glad to hear it."

Heidi smiled, "R-really?"

Mrs. Strauss nodded, "When you try out for chorus," by which she seemed to mean that was that.

Heidi, visibly deflated, nodded her head with a spasmodic verve, "Sure. Sure, yeah...I'm really looking forward..."

"Excuse me!" as a determined figure barreled past, neatly tipping Ms. Strauss's chair over, requiring Iona to steady her.

"So sorry, Ms. Strauss!"

"Vice Principal!" the older woman gasped as Kellerman went hurrying after the yet-to-be-excused girl...

***

"Now, Miss Willoughby," Vice Principal Kellerman addressed Gwen, her espadrilles click-clack-clacking against the tiles as she endeavored to keep up, "You are sure somebody broke into the nurse's office?"

"Sure as sunrise, Vice Principal! The lock was broken," she took the stairs two at a time, determined in her quest.

"That's not much a sign of anything in this place," Kellerman muttered, perhaps thinking Gwen couldn't hear her, "I suppose you didn't check inside?"

"Oh no! I wouldn't want to contaminate the scene."

"Naturally."

"I left Abi on guard."

"Good thinking."

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you the reasons someone could break into the nurse's office!"

"You certainly don't," muttered Kellerman, somewhat sourly, which Gwen chose to interpret as disappointment with the general situation more than the sharp-eyed citizen doing her part.

"Now, the thief's probably long gone..."

"Assuming a thief."

"Correct. They could have been scoping the place out for latohmygoodness!"

"What?" Kellerman asked breathlessly, "What is it now?" and then, realizing what had grabbed Gwen's attention, "Oh no. Wait..."

But Gwen was already off, darting to the library doors and throwing them over, "This room is off limits!"

She was answered by a shrill screech of terror as a small boy threw his arms over his head and, screaming something that sounded like, "Transgressor!" ran out of the room.

"Mr. Cole!" Kellerman called after him, "Mr. Cole, it's all..." she turned around and regarded the other people in the library, "What have you to say for yourselves?"

Anna-Maria, collecting a heap of fresh flyers from the top of the copy machine, shrugged sheepishly. Lysander Brown, flipping through a pile of confiscated manga, sneered, "He let us in."

"For God's sake..." Kellerman shook her head and started off, "Mr. Cole! Mr. Cole, come back..."

"Wait!" Gwen called, "But the nurse's office! Vice Principal..."

But the administrator had already made up her mind, trotting vigorously to catch up to the bowtied boy as he tore off down the stairs, making straight for the exit...

***

"I am disgraced, I am disgraced, I am disgraaaaaced!"

"You never know who you'll run into next," remarked Clarice as the autistic dwarf raced through the parking lot like the devil was on his tail.

Sage, recently alighted from a utilitarian shelf of cement just over what was probably the cafeteria, brushed one of her only slightly ruffled auburn ridges out of her eyes.

"You're a barrel of laughs, huh?"

"If there was something funny," said Sage, quite steely, "I'd laugh."

"You have to admit it was kinda funny," Clarice needled, "Would've been funnier if someone saw us, but you know..."

"Everyone around here is too self-absorbed to notice anything."

"Lucky us," Clarice cocked her head to the side, "Hey, if you're worried I'm gonna blab or anything, it's cool...I can keep a secret."

"I have nothing to hide."

"Except that you broke into the nurse's office."

"I didn't."

"You just found it that way, then?"

Sage didn't say anything to this. Clarice supposed it may even be true, but that only left more questions than it answered, about the original lock breaker...and about Sage.

But she'd nosed around enough for one day.

"Well...see you around," she lifted a hand in casual salute, "Give my best to Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme."

She went on her way, leaving Sage to go on her own, whatever that may be...

***

"Still hanging around, Sage?" Connie asked goodnaturedly and, at Sage's evident desire to imagine she didn't exist, "Well, up yours too, sweetie."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Connie turned from the retreating Sage to the approaching Bruce, "Don't get me started, cowboy. I'm already rarin' to go," she cocked her head to the side, "Private Dancer make her court date?"

"Had to drag her kicking and screaming," Bruce let out an exasperated huff of air, "But she's there."

"Than why do you look like someone poached your eggs without asking?" but Bruce wasn't a particularly complicated young man, and Connie judged the cause of his stormy profile pretty quickly, "I'm out a ride, ain't I?"

"Consider my eggs scrambled. Folks need me to stick around until Cici's done."

"You're shittin' me."

"Sorry, Con."

"It's not you. But she better learn her lesson, because if this keeps happenin', there goes my whole social calendar."

Bruce smiled wryly, putting his arms around her, "Well...you're not dating me for my truck, are you?"

"Not the Number One reason, cowboy," she smirked, "But it's up there."

"What's number one?"

"Keep that belt any tighter, it won't matter if I say it," she winked, kissing him lightly, "I'll manage."

"You sure?"

Connie waved a hand dismissively, taking out her phone, "I'll just bum a ride. I've gotten very good at it. This time around, I won't even need to take my clothes off."

"That's a relief," Bruce sort of nuzzled her ear, which was almost delightfully horsey, as Connie sent a text to her Plan B...

***

'brucey's babysitting. can i get a ride?'

Penny frowned down at her phone, negotiating the camera around her neck as she replied, "pulling yearbook duty. we're a camera short" and, after typing out "soz" and feeling very 12, deleting and supplanting "sorry!"

"Is that Connie?" Dotty asked from her perch on the bleachers.

"Good guess," Penny smiled.

"She tried me too," she shirked her eyes goodnaturedly, "She should come hang out!"

"I'll suggest it," said Penny doubtfully.

Dotty leaned back with a sigh, "Well, I think this is fun," she turned to Caleb, "Are you having fun?"

Caleb looked at her balefully. They'd been waiting about 13 years for him to grow out of that 'weaning calf' thing he had going on, to no avail.

"So," Dotty tried, more diplomatically, "You have a good first day today?"

She'd already asked him this, of course, as one would, and gotten a "Good", which didn't sound particularly good.

He was a sensitive kid, her brother. Dotty figured it came from having so many siblings. You had to make noise to get ahead in this family.

Or in life, she reflected, thinking of poor Brent and his secret dreams.

"You make any friends?" she asked, hoping this more directed question might provoke a more directed answer.

"Oh yeah," Caleb responded, much quicker than his usual quip, though without much enthusiasm, "A few."

"Oh yeeeeeah!" Dotty trilled the "yeah" like a yodeling milkmaid, throwing her arms in the air in an admittedly desperate but sincere attempt to impress upon her brother the significance of his achievement.

It didn't work, but she did get some fun looks from down the bleachers...

***

"Stop staring," Juliet snapped, "It's rude. "

"I wasn't," Christian grumbled, turning to the Google Form the headstrong softballer had distributed to most of the senior class and potentially several others, "Okay, so...Nick."

"Washed."

"Didn't miss a beat," Christian commented, "I thought you two were cool."

"Cool, not blind. If his feelings are hurt, he can try stopping the run once or twice a week."

"Dupont?" Christian tried, with a knowing smirk. Juliet gave him a look, "Underrated."

"He's the punter."

"Which is already evidence someone somewhere isn't thinking straight, because..." she scrolled up to the relevant position on the form, "Beau Burns..."

"Washed," they said in unison. Christian snickered, "I'm telling."

"Shout it from the mountains. 'Bout time someone give his ego an enema."

Christian winced at this, but didn't argue, as he looked down to the next bench, "Yo, you voted, yet, Joshie?"

Josh, sitting alone, looked over his shoulder, "Nah. Not for me. To be honest, it feels too much like gambling."

Christian laughed like this was funny, but Juliet merely rolled her eyes, "You are such a square, Wallinsky. It's almost admirable."

"I don't do it for your approval, Juliet."

"Money isn't changing hands! How is it gambling?"

"I take it in the spirit in which it was made."

Juliet's eyes widened and she leaned forward, probably prepared to all but spit poison into Josh's face.

"Say cheese!" Penny ordered cheerily, stopping before them with her camera aloft.

"Yes, ma'am," Josh smiled warmly as Christian worked his way between him and Jules for the shot, because he was a diplomatic son of a Who-Knows-Exactly.

"Thanks!" Penny thanked, whereupon bright roses bloomed in Josh's cheeks and Jules mimed retching, before heading down the bleachers to her next target...

***

"Oh, no cheese," Brooke told the almost offensively pretty blonde girl (offensive for utterly nonpersonal reasons, ahem) demurely, "Please."

"Aw, where's your school spirit, Maddox?" Colin Gable asked from down the bench, scooting over in record time, "Go, Lasers!"

He flashed a peace sign into Brooke's unimpressed face, which apparently the yearbook lady thought was suitable.

"It's 'Lancers', by the way," she told Colin with weaponized sincerity Brooke had no interest in being envious of, going on her way.

"Plenty of time to get the hang of it," Colin turned to Brooke, "Hi."

"Do I know you?"

"No, but I know you. You're Brooke Maddox."

"My reputation proceeds me."

"It's precedes, but okay," he looked out at the field, "Know anybody?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Don't be."

Brooke rolled her eyes, "I have a friend on the cheerleading team. Thing."

"Squad."

"Whatever."

"My boy Dylan's on the football team."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks. I keep telling him it's only a matter of time before we're made in the shade and people like you don't act like you have cramps to get out of talking to us."

Brooke must have looked quite impressive at this remark, because Colin grinned from ear to ear, producing some sort of video game device from his pocket, "You like Pokémon?"

Brooke responded to this as she would to a leering older man across the street or a strange dog that said something sounding suspiciously like her name, whipping her phone out and texting her alleged company...

***

'this is the last time i do anything nice for anyone ever WHERE R U?2?1'

Jake may have been suitably terrified, if not chastened, by this distress message, if he'd been paying attention to his phone which, for the first time in roughly six hours, he was not.

"Willie-bobilly!" he greeted his friend, cornering him at his locker, "There's my man."

"You have a stroke or something?" Will looked at him bemusedly.

"What? You don't like it? It rhymes."

"Shit, you're learning already."

"Hell yeah. Funniest shit happened in Spanish..."

"What did you do?"

"I was a victim!"

"That is funny," Will granted.

"So you still going to practice?" Jake pivoted deftly, "I want to see some bones get broken."

"You're a treasure, Jake," Will smiled chummily, closing his locker and casting his gaze down the hall, "I'll catch up with you, okay? Save me a femur."

Jake followed his gaze, his leer deepening, "Atta boy."

"Shut up," Will said, preening regardless, as Jake patted him on the shoulder and urged him along, skirting around a pair of girls marching purposefully in the opposite direction...

***

"I'm just saying," Jay cautioned as she went, "Maybe you want to keep your cool."

"I had my cool," Sasha reminded her, "Rege wants to play tough, we're gonna play."

"You can just not go."

"That's what she expects."

"But if you go," Jay attempted, "You're giving her what she wants."

"I'm giving her the fight she wants," Sasha acknowledged, "But if she thinks she's getting the win, she doesn't know me."

Jay couldn't exactly argue this point and, honestly, wasn't sure she even wanted to. Sasha could...and had...direct her energy at worse targets.

"Well..." she rounded off, shrugging, "Good luck, girl."

"Thanks, don't need it," Sasha said snappily, heading on into the gym while Jay lingered at the lockers...

***

"Someone's going to need a lawyer," Edgar observed dryly.

Jay gave him a look, "Don't you have water fountains to segregate?"

"That's a vile slander. If I'd run on that platform, I'd probably have gotten a bigger share of the vote, this place being what it is."

Jay, predictably, didn't think this was funny, scowling as she stalked off. Edgar sighed ponderously, inwardly lamenting the death of satire and the reduction of mankind's collective wordcount.

"You thought it was funny," he asked a random freshman kid: some pasty-faced anorexic with a mop of dirty blond hair.

The kid didn't say anything to this, just closing his locker and averting his watery blue eyes.

"I didn't actually run on a pro-segregation platform," said Edgar, "Obviously. It's a public school, and Brown vs. Board is settled law," he cleared his throat, "And I'm not racist."

The kid had nothing to say to this, from which Edgar judged he was perhaps mentally incapacitated in some way. He'd hardly be alone around here.

"I voted for you," commented Harvey Nelson from Edgar's other side, "And I'm not racist."

Edgar looked him over, "You're not even in my class."

"Well, I would've," said Harvey, in a tone that sincerely suggested he no longer would.

"Thanks, pal," Edgar said sourly as Harvey turned on his heel and continued toward the exit, brushing past a pair of kids huddled by the front steps...

***

"Fuzzy pen girl," Bernard said wryly, "In the flesh."

"Nikki," Micah clarified tartly, "Also, don't say 'flesh'...please."

Nikki was, indeed, sitting cross-legged on the perimeter wall at the edge of the parking lot, studiously applying her frilly utensil to the pages of a journal.

"You should make a move."

"A move?"

"You've been working her all day already, haven't you?"

"You make it sound like she's a cow."

"Well, if you're into that..." but he cracked a smile, nudging Micah in the side, "Come on. Before your Mom shows up and kills the vibe."

"She does have a habit," remarked Micah, not even thinking about any incident in particular but because it felt like the right rejoinder to the remark. He did that sometimes: going for the poetical response over the practical, which sometimes sounded like lying.

But which he supposed was creative enough to give him something in common with Nikki.

"I don't want to be a pest," he said finally.

"She was glued to you all day," said Bernard, "She's the pest."

"I don't think she sees it that way."

"Oh, she knows," Bernard's lips curled, "Just show her you don't mind it."

"I don't think..."

"Ho-ho, you are so fricking funny!" Bernard laughed so loudly Micah jumped, "You are a cut-up, man. Just...wow..."

Nikki lifted her head from her journal, a momentary frown turning promptly upside down, "Oh, hi!"

"Uh...hey," Micah stepped forward, curtailing the irksome look he had reserved for his self-appointed wingman.

"What was funny?"

"I don't know. He's pretty easy."

Nikki giggled, swiftly closing the journal around her pen, "Waiting for someone?"

"My Mom," Micah explained, feeling a little stupid in the process, "You?"

"My Dad," she giggled again, "I was getting some writing done."

"What about? If that's not too personal."

"Oh, it's not. Or I guess it is, but not so I wouldn't talk about it. I don't even know yet. Sometimes I just write and write and write and it doesn't even stop...I scare myself sometimes," she laughed again, and patted a spot next to her on the wall.

Micah accepted, sitting beside her and trying not to imagine Bernard doing a victory lap on the sidelines, "You must've been inspired."

"Oh, definitely," peachy pink lips parted in an almost embarrassed smile, "Everywhere I look."

She laughed, and Micah didn't have much choice but to laugh with her, utterly oblivious to the interloper hanging on the other sideline, watching them forlornly...

***

"And she couldn't tell me this herself..." Kim cocked an eyebrow, "Why?"

Dylan, looking somewhere between cute and pathetic in his football gear, shrugged, "I'm just delivering the message."

"Probably some freshie bitch gripe," she rolled her eyes, "Your nut cup's crooked."

Dylan winced, looking down at it and lifting a hand.

"Well, don't adjust it now," Kim sighed and, seized by one of her regrettable spasms of pity for her brother, added, "Maybe she was trying to get in your pants."

"That's what Colin thinks," said Dylan flatly, "He's wrong."

"Well, at least you're realistic," Kim granted, "Look, have a good practice, okay?"

Dylan nodded and Kim, yet again feeling she needed to do something appropriately sisterly, came up short, "I'll see you at home. Make sure..."

"Carrie eats," he cleared his throat, "Don't worry."

They hovered opposite each other in silence for a short bit more before Kim decided to save herself and headed back toward the field.

It didn't really matter to her if Haley Myers...whoever that was...had detention for being a slut. Kim had had detention for being a slut loads of times, and sometimes she'd even deserved it. She kind of felt bad that Dylan had been made into a messenger to this end, especially if Haley Myers was street as she was slutty.

He wasn't a bad kid, unless you counted being utterly unremarkable in every way as a negative character trait rather than a yawning black hole of personality.

No, if there was anybody who's whereabouts she was unsure of...

She took out her phone and shot a text off...

***

'Hey, babe. Where the hell did you go?'

"Oh, Jesus," Hope sighed despairingly, "This is it."

"Don't talk like that," said Beau, with a sort of unsurpassing tenderness Hope had difficulty believing in, though here it was, "I've almost got it..."

She shook her head at his continuing, admittedly valiant, attempts to get the window open, stepping down from the bench, "The girls are wondering where I am. Practice starts in a minute. I'll just take my lumps..."

"No, it's okay, really, I've got it."

"I'm a grown-up, Beau, I can handle a bit of public humiliation."

"Maybe you can, but..."

She gave this statement the look it deserved, reaching the door just as one of the guys currently engaged in trying to break it down suggested, "Wait, guys...think smarter, not harder, right?"

"You got a brain blast, McCarthy?" DJ DeLaurentis's voice, sardonic and breathless.

"It didn't take a lot of brains," Luke answered, "Isn't there a back door?"

Hope rounded on Beau with an expression that probably ought to have killed him, so maybe he was MVP after all...

***

Luke's suggestion inspired a chorus of goodwill, backslapping, and general barbs at the arduous exertions of DJ and Matt, the latter of whom looked like he'd just been punched in the solar plexus and had his scream suppressed with a lemon.

"Bet y'all feel stupid now," said Izzy, pocketing the two bucks he had been prepared to put on DJ.

"I mean, it may not work," continued Luke, looking pretty satisfied with himself regardless, "It's probably locked..."

"Won't know until we check," said Xavier, "I'm legit invested now, so..."

They began, as one, to crowd toward the exit, when Dylan dashed in, out of breath, "Sorry! Sorry, I'm late, I was just..."

Before he could finish, he was barreled over by a diminutive, bowtie-bedecked figure, and was saved from a concussion only by the quick intercession of Zach, who caught him about the shoulders as the tiny interloper ran through the locker room, past two dozen men in varying states of undress, seemingly zeroing in on his target, who had enough time for a muted, "Oh fuck," before he was caught.

"Nick!" Dick wept, literally wept, as he wrapped his arms around his brother's middle, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Nick said something like "what" but Dick went on unimpeded, his distress ringing through the room, "I defiled it! The sanctity of the space! I breeched the sacred trust! Defiler! Molester! And on the first day, on the first day...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

At which point, Beau Burns entered, in full quarterback regalia, though none of them had seen him arrive to get dressed, and addressed them, to a man, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?"

"I defiled the space, defiled the space, defiled the space..."

"FIRST PRACTICE OF THE SEASON, AND YOU'RE ALL FUCKING AROUND?"

"I am with them but not among them with them not among them with them not among them..."

"I AM FUCKING DISGUSTED. DISGUSTED!"

"I don't belong don't belong don't belong..."

"SHUT UP!"

The order rang through with the force of a small explosion. Dick seemed to collect himself long enough to realize where he was and what he'd done. He turned teary eyes to Nick, who determinedly, abashedly, looked away.

"Wait outside," he said finally, barely audibly.

Dick looked, wet-eyed, from Nick to Beau, to the shapeless tide of his teammates and, head bowed in disgrace, walked out between them, hearing Beau Burns sigh as he went.

"The hell was that?"

-Theodora, Mrs. Hayward, Brooke, Bridget, Haley, Sean, Dom, Stephanie, Giselle, Nina, Taj, Regina, Fatma, Viv, Vashti, Joely, Patience, Tami, Caleb, Bernard, Sue, Anna-Maria, Sami, Dick, Xavier, Charlie, Rafe, Rahim, Lily, Colette, Micah, Dylan, Colin, Sonya, Matt, Lucy, Rosalie, Kim, Nick, Izzy, Lysander, Derek, Bruce, Cici, Imani, Mrs. Vespucci, Tyler, Ash, Michael, Christine, Ronnie, Beth, Mr. Tattler, Galo, Desiree, Rochelle, Ms. Turner, Clarice, Sage, Gwen, Abi, Zach, Marcus, Faith, Duke, Cisco, Ryan, Keith, Luke, DJ, Beau, Hope, Poppy, Julio, Baptiste, Aiden, Manny, Adam, Jude, Shane, Gretchen, Kellyann, Teresa, Sabrina, Sophie, Sasha, Iona, Heidi, Ms. Strauss, Connie, Penny, Dotty, Juliet, Christian, Josh, Jake, Will, Jay, Edgar, Carl, Harvey, and Nikki

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on February 1, 2025, 6:14 pm

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on November 26, 2024, 10:28 pm

God help her. She was a patient woman, but she had her limits.

"I caused this?" she pointed, voice trembling on the word, "That's real good spin, Ben," she used his given name without thinking about it, erratically moving around the kitchen island, "Sure. It's all down to me. Makes perfect sense. Why shouldn't it be?"

She sifted through the layer of detritus on the island...dirty dishes and Cap'n Crunch and a cylindrical tube of Ajax that probably shouldn't be so close to food, "Your father gets put away for shaking hands with those lowlife scum-suckers, leaving me with a mortgage, car payments, and the IRS crawling up my sorry ass...never mind two boys to look after," she nodded, "I caused it."

She picked up a coffee can, lifted the lid, grimaced and lowered it, "Where's the garbage? Tell me there's a garbage can in here..." she found an overflowing ben beside the counter and chucked it in. The act, somehow, got her all choked up.

"Look, I'm not saying I did right by you every step of the way. I'm proud, but I'm not stupid. But I'm trying, Ben," she clasped her hands together, "You're the one thing I ever got half-right in this world, and..."

She averted her eyes, "I wasn't all bad, was I? There were...there were good times, the three of us. You, Brian and me."

-Lois

Solly scoffs, head shifting to the side as he drops his back against the wall. A foot with its toes planted on the carpeted floor and heel arched up against the lower half of the white baseplate.

“Maybe Brian agrees, let’s head to the juvenile detention center and see if— oh wait no, they moved him over to the big boy prison.”

He pushes himself off and starts pacing back and forth. He hated how calm she was or was trying to be. It made him feel like he was crazy for being mad. How rational she acted.

Her attempts at humor, in Ben’s eyes, were poorly executed. Though it been ironic cause they had that same way of sarcasm about them. Probably why he hated seeing it come out of her mouth so much.

Was it a ploy? That’s what he thought to himself. “You can’t– you can’t just…” how does he articulate it? He’s smart, but this was a field of expertise he’s not so tactical in.

”You can’t just change. People don’t do that… I can’t do that which means you sure as shit can’t do that.”

 

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 1, 2025, 6:37 pm

Lois winced, "You've changed," she said it evenly, "One way or another, baby, you've changed, and don't tell me or yourself any different."

Part of that was her fault. Obviously, none of them were what they were back when everything fell apart.

"Look, I'm not asking for you to take me back with open arms. And you gotta know I didn't come here for a handout. I've lost a lot, but I've still got my self-respect...I'm not about to go panhandling off my own flesh and blood."

She propped her elbows up on the counter, grimacing at the grimy film that covered the surface, "Tell me something. Anything," realizing how abjectly pathetic this sounded, she added, "Are you working? You can tell me whatever. I won't..." she laughed dryly, "I can't judge."

-Lois

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on February 1, 2025, 6:49 pm

He couldn’t keep yelling at her—it was straining his throat. After mild reluctance, he’d perk his head up. “Yeah—same job I’ve been working for a minute, mom.”

Should he tell her about the offer Mickey gave? Nah, he didn’t need her to act all concerned with this little saint arc she’s got going on.

“Things have been good—real good, I was in jail for a night, but Mickey Diamond paid my bail.”

Now, why would he go and say a thing like that? Guess he wasn’t so appalled by the Reba stage play she was putting on after all.

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 1, 2025, 7:08 pm

"Mickey..." Lois lifted her head, her blood running cold, repeating the name like a frickin' cartoon character, "Mickey Diamond?"

She pushed back from the island, "Now, either that's a helluva more common name than I thought, or what the hell were you thinking?" but she stopped herself, knowing that wouldn't engender any sympathy from her son, "What the hell was he thinking, coming around you? I told that leisure-suited lizard to keep his slimy hands out of our business half a lifetime ago..."

But she was jumping the gun. Mickey's motives were plain to see: he'd paid her son's bail. She decided then not to ask what he'd done...dope, probably, or loitering. Clark Hudson was still sheriff, after all, and he had a yardstick all the way up his ass.

"What did he want?" she asked finally, "He wanted something. That type always does. He..." she pointed a shaking finger, "He always does."

-Lois

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on February 1, 2025, 7:18 pm

Sol wasn’t stupid. Not completely. Even he spotted that immediately after meeting Diamond’s acquaintance.

Ben sat down on the head of their brown leather sofa. His head hanging back as he rubs his neck. “Yeah, he wanted some extra money because his heroin guy decided to cut him off—don’t worry, he told me it was the last time though.” An obvious jest and at her expense. Even he felt that was in poor taste after saying it.

“It was just bail . . . and to catch up.” A lie, but he wasn’t trying to be convincing. Still, didn’t need her snooping around whatever business was between him and Mickey may or may not have.

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 1, 2025, 7:45 pm

Lois cocked an eyebrow.

She wasn't stupid. She'd developed a reputation, sure, after her McMansion life came crashing around her ears like some discount Real Housewife. The narrative was if she wasn't in on her man's double-dealing, she had to be a vacuous dimwit piece of ass.

The ass was a point of pride, but the rest Lois could've done without.

Mickey had heard Sol was in trouble and hightailed it to bail him out...he wanted something.

"I don't want you messing around with him," Lois warned, knowing her word didn't count for much but hoping her son would make the exception, "He's a heaping chunk of the reason your Dad's locked up in the first place."

-Lois

Quote from SigmaMale2099 on February 1, 2025, 9:41 pm

Solly clicks his tongues. His eyes roll so far back in his head if he inched his neck any further back they’d completely vanish. “Okay, mom!” said Ben, mockingly. His tone that of unruly kids brought up by suburban house moms—the king you see on TV. Highlighting the mother she was not. A somewhat advanced display of irony.

Shoulder to shoulder, he breezes past her and heads to his room. “If you don’t mind me, I have places to be—although you are more than welcomed to clean up since this place is such a dump.”

He’d throw on a leather jacket over his black hoodie, pair it with some converse and strolled off in red flannel pajamas pants. True white trash he was.

— Sol

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 1, 2025, 9:54 pm

Lois watched her son go, pressing her knuckles to her mouth to suppress the instinctive, "Put some pants on!"

Christ, she was terrible at this. They don't teach mothering: you have to learn it, and she'd skimmed most of the reading.

No, Sol wasn't going to respond to anything she did or said just because she'd done or said it. Hell, the way things stood with them, he was as primed to do the opposite.

Greek chorus: "And you can't blame him, can you?"

"Shove it up your ass," she told them, looking at the medical waste experiment percolating in the sink. Someone probably should clean that shit up, before their charming tenement acquired a couple of new ghosts to add to its roster.

Lois set about rummaging in the cupboards for a pair of rubber gloves, reminding herself of the location of the nearest Dollar General on the off chance she needed to grab some new ones.

She was here for keeps. She was clean now, and ready to be a productive member of society...or, failing that, a productive mother. But she wasn't gonna get that way through words, alone. No, she needed actions. She'd start by cleaning out the trash...in the house and out of it.

-Lois

Quote from valerious on February 9, 2025, 11:41 am

Mei was doing her best to keep her head down as Vespucci spoke with Tyler. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips as she flipped through attendance sheets. Matching names to faces and leaving little notes here and there.

This student was bright, that student had potential, this student shouldn't be sat next to the other. It was a lot to take in, but she was getting the hang of it. This time tomorrow, she'd have them memorized. Save for the few who didn't have anything particularly memorable to say.

As she was doodling a little note down next to the boy genius' picture, a soft voice called to her. The raven-haired woman perked up from her hunched position. A flash of confusion on her soft features before it melted into a smile.

Before her stood another woman, maybe a little older than herself, with a mane of curly black hair, a bright smile, and damn near perfect skin. Not wanting to be rude, Mei shuffled out from behind her papers and stood. A hand outstretched to greet the new-to-her person.

"Yes, a pleasure to meet you..." her words faded. Mei had spent the day studying student portraits not teachers. The woman knew her name, but Mei was drawing a blank. "I'm sorry, I haven't learned everyone's name yet. You are?"

- Mei

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 9, 2025, 11:54 am

"The kids call me Ms. A," she answered breezily, "But I'll settle for Imani. I'm the English teacher: 9 and 10."

"And about three other things," muttered Mrs. Vespucci, waddling back around her desk.

"...and AP," Imani conceded, "I help out with Drama Society, but that's after school...and I took on Intro Comp this year."

Vespucci shook her head pityingly, "That's how they get you."

"I just wanted to introduce myself," she left the unspoken second half of this sentence unsaid: the redoubtable Ms. Chang was the only other woman on the faculty younger than 30.

Younger than 40, even. This place was a sideshow attraction midway between state prison and retirement home. You had to grab your allies where you could get them.

-Imani and Vespucci

Quote from valerious on February 12, 2026, 1:32 pm

Mei shot Mrs. Vespucci a quick side eye. She found it commendable that Imani took on so many classes. A dedication to the education of children was how most of them got into the field. Drama society sounded fun too. Let the kids be creative instead...whatever it was Vespucci expected out of them.

"That's really cool! If you ever need any help with Drama Society,  I'd be willing to give it a go."

It wasn't as though the woman had much else to do. She was a new person in a new town and so far she had only met minors and an individual who found the trick to immortality minus the infinite youth.

"Actually, I am pretty free anytime I'm not working. It's literally my first week here and I have yet to explore," she sort of offered. If Imani picked up what she was laying down, perhaps they could be well on the way to being friends. If not, that was fine. Mei could find other ways to entertain herself.

Quote from ThePlotMurderer on February 19, 2026, 6:07 pm

Imani beamed, "I'll put in a good word for you with Mr. Arsenio."

Her word with the thespian in chief was somewhere up in the nosebleeds, but this girl had probably been disillusioned enough in the last eight hours, so there was no point laying it on thick.

"Well, I don't know if you're down for this or anything," she continued determinedly, "But if you want a tour guide, I'm got time."

"No homework on the first day?" Mrs. Vespucci intoned in the bone-deep baritone that had earned her so many admirers, "That's nice for them."

She had been assigning homework...mostly in the lane of getting the damn book, but Brutus tended to say things for the sake of saying them, as if there was a penitent audience just around the corner with their hearts open to receive the word.

"You like coffee?" Imani asked with determined pleasantness.

-Imani