Hare Moon

Urinating is Encouraged

Previously in Mathematics for Dummies...Bunny met Milton McKendrick for the very first time because they have never seen each other on any other occasion ever...

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When maths is over I find Sunny waiting for me out in the corridor and we eat lunch down in the little cafeteria in Study Hall. The food selection is impressive. Pasta and jackets, sandwiches and paninis. You can even order a roast dinner or a burger and they'll bring it over from the main dining hall. Back at Buttbridge I was lucky if I got cardboard pizza. 

I opt for a pasta bowl and eat every morsel, starving as I am. Studying always brings out my appetite. I spend half of the lunch break reading through a Mathematics text I find in the library. Not the difficult shit I got stuck with, no, but the stuff I was supposed to have done before that. I really don't want to ask Milton for help every time. He certainly wasn't keen to give it earlier. 

Even now, he's pointedly ignoring me from another table. I'm eighty percent convinced he's actively ignoring me because every once in a while he looks up at our table, eyeing Sunny, my textbook, even the food on my plate and yet never quite connecting our eyes. 

P.E. takes place across the road in a communal fitness centre and every student both secondary and college seems to have it at once. The building is big enough to accommodate us all and then some. Lochden residents take their fitness pretty seriously, with an alarming percentage of the population sporting above average muscle tone. I get the the feeling that in order to fit in here I'm going to have to locate the local steroid dealer as soon as.

 As Erin leads me to the ladies changing area we pass rooms of weight lifting adults, gun toting pensioners and an enormous soft play echoing with the shrieks of children and the barks of dogs. I've never known a gym to admit dogs. 

Wait! Guns? Those people have guns. Pocket-sized death. They literally hold death in the palm of their hands. I can feel  my blood pressure rocketing. 

My mind is still orbiting--what if they have arthritis and accidently shoot someone? what if an irresponsible youth steals it and accidently shoot someone?--when we reach the changing rooms, only half focusing as Erin tells me about Fit as the local youth call their fitness period. Students aren't confined to classes but can choose from a range of sports or martial skills. Except me. I'm stuck with self defence. 

As Erin opens the door to a midsized room I notice a No Dogs sign. Good. Dogs and I have a sort of 'don't come at me and I won't need to kick you away' relationship. A No Firearms sign would have been appreciated but a quick look around assures me that at least the deadly pensioners are not in here, mostly just teenagers. The space is large and airy, the floor lined with firm mats and low bleachers line one side. The students, who vary in age, are split into groups, practising complicated looking manoeuvres under the instruction of a few older students and adults.  

Erin introduces me to one of the coaches but the rushing in my ears is so loud I don't catch the name, then she leaves me alone with Coach Zaga- uh, Zygi...Zako...?

"Milton," Coach Z barks. He rakes his eyes over my body, mouth curling in disapproval. I fold inwards, self conscious in my gym clothes, suddenly aware of how they hang off of my wide shoulders and drape over my flat arse. 

Did he just call me Milton? I'm going to have to correct him, aren't I? Is this subway guy's revenge, telling people I've changed my name?

Milton McKendrick appears beside him. Oh, never mind. This is worse, to be honest.