On the Run

Prologue

"Il cane insegue la vettura," our teacher, Mr. Fang, slowly translated for the class. He used a meter stick to point at each word on the board and expected the entire class to say it with him. He was a very boring man, probably in his mid-thirties, still single. Wouldn't surprise me if he still lived with his mother. Mr. Fang was about five-eight, had black hair with random gray strands peeking out here and there. He always styled his hair in a way that hid most of the gray hair as though he didn't want to admit he was aging. Personally, I thought he needed a new wardrobe since every time I saw him he was wearing slacks and a dress shirt. Would it really kill him to wear a pair of jeans every now and then? "The dog chases the car."

I rolled my eyes as the intently listening class repeated and grasped his every word. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the company of most of the people in my class. However, the majority of the class was filled with teachers pets, another part with people who really wanted to learn Italian, a group of students who fell somewhere in between those groups--and then there was me. To prove my dedication to the class, I always brought something else to do so my attention would be focused elsewhere and not on the lesson.

"Why are you giving yourself a pedicure in class?" my best friend, Kymber, asked, watching as I carefully added a coat of clear nail polish on my biggest toenail. How Mr. Fang didn't notice that I had a bare foot on my desk and was going for a full-out pedicure was beyond me.

"Because if I'd started with a manicure I would've had to wait for it to dry before moving on to my pedicure," I answered, wiggling my toes in the light so the light would dance on the glossy ones.

"You should pay attention or you're going to fail, and I need my best friend here," Kymber replied as I moved on to the next toenail. "Mr. Fang is going to see you and then you'll be in trouble because you don't know any of the answers."

"What kind of name is Mr. Fang anyways? There are so many other names out in the world and he has that one? Was one of his ancestors a snake or a lion or something? I mean, was he related to a dentist?" I propped my other foot up as I moved to finish my pedicure. Now both my feet were up on the desk, on top of all my notes, and the teacher still hadn't noticed. "Besides that, when he starts teaching me how to say something useful, then I'll pay more attention. Not to mention, which one of us has a ninety-seven in this class?"

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Kymber muttered, smacking my arm.

"Hey, watch it. Doing my nails here," I hissed, nearly messing up my paint job. With my free hand, I slapped Kymber's arm.

I guess I should explain our friendship here. Actually, I can't explain it. We're complete opposites. She works hard to earn her grade in school. I work very little and always do better than her. She tends to lean toward optimism, I lean towards pessimism. And we argue over anything and everything.

"I'm not helping you when he calls on you for an answer," Kymber warned, turning back to her notes. She brushed her slightly-longer-than-shoulder length brown hair out of her face, her modestly purple highlights glinting in the light. Her brown eyes glanced back at me, hoping to find me working hard, but being disappointed.

I shrugged uncaringly. "I'll burn that bridge when it gets here."

Unfortunately, I jinxed it. Right at that moment, Mr. Tooth-man-teacher-guy called on me for an answer to a question that I hadn't been paying attention to. I considered asking him to repeat the question, but then that would kind of hint to paying attention in class when I obviously wasn't. And then, I'd have to do more thinking to pull the answer out of my brain and then get my brain to tell my mouth to move and get my vocal chords to vibrate so I could deliver the answer.

All in all, way too much effort.

I cleared my throat dramatically and answered him. "Le mie scuse, cari insegnanti. Sono spiacente di informarvi che questo stile di insegnamento è annoiato questo giovane studente nel trovare qualcos'altro da fare. Se si desidera recuperare la mia attenzione, trovare un modo diverso di insegnamento. In caso contrario, sentitevi liberi di ignorare me per il resto della classe." With that, I turned back to my pedicure.