100 Words to Live

100 Words Left to Live

At the start of Period 4, English Grammar class, I told Fake Martin that he had 100 words left to live.

Fake Martin wears his brother's reading glasses to school and uses a black sharpie to colours his boyish mustache - and that's how Fake Martin grew an extra first name. Ms. Norton would probably tell me to call it his 'prefix', but Ms. Norton looks kind of like my Dad, and my Dad has been dead for six years now, so I refuse to listen to her because having a dead doppelganger as a teacher is just too weird.

Go to hell McKenzie Bannon, he said.

95, I retorted. And I would stick to first names if I were you.

Fake Martin laughed. Ms. Norton turned from the chalkboard and said there is nothing funny about prepositions, which is true, because prepositions are far too busy being boring to be funny as well.

McKenzie started it, he whined.

92, I whispered.

Ms. Norton asked if I had something that I would like to share with the class. I stood up, crossed my arms like a gruff tomboy and told her that at the current rate of speaking, Fake Martin would be dead before the bell rang.

Gasp, went the students.

Yay, cried Emily Putland, who had told her diary earlier in the week that Fake Martin was pretty cute, only for her diary to go and rat to Brock Brooks, who just happened to find it lying around in his locker. You should never trust a boy with two similar names.

That is a horrible thing to say, said Ms. Norton. Come to the board and write a legible sentence using a preposition. I obliged her. I did so because chalk is my favourite tool for writing behind blood, but blood is only good on white, flat paper. On a chalk board it turns every word into Halloween text.

Now look who's gonna die... from embarrassment! Fake Martin threw red at my cheeks and the class snickered behind their textbooks.

There, I said, slipping the piece of chalk into my pocket. My chalk now.

Is McKenzie a propotation? Brock Brooks asked stupidly.

No Brock Brooks, I said. I'm a proper noun.

Very good McKenzie! Ms. Norton's face swapped her regular disappointment for some rare pride. Pride suited her. Too bad there was very little chance for her to try it on, not in this class.

She's not proper! Yelled Fake Martin. Her mum bags my mum's groceries at the store - she's poor! Poor noun! Pour noun!

My anger fought away the tears and I snatched the duster from the desk. I turned to my completed propositional sentence and made one amendment:

Fake Martin has 66 words left BEFORE he dies.

Before isn't a prepolution! Yelled Brock Brooks.

You can go and sit down now McKenzie, said Ms. Norton, with an ugly mix of disapproval and surprise jostling for her face.

Fake Martin greeted me with a tight pressed line for a mouth and with eyes that were cold and then calculating – but he was silent. This was the first clever thing he had done since finding out about his sentence; he could be a facial spendthrift and death wouldn't come knocking, but words could age him like rapidly dispensed wrinkles on his pre-pubescent face.

You know, I started. If you limit yourself to one word a day, starting tomorrow, you will speak your last word on Christmas Day. That'll be sort of nice.

What? Said Fake Martin.

Goodbye Santa.

Who told you that I'm gonna die? Fake Martin asked, and with that, seven days were gone. Just like that. A whole week's worth of potential life just tossed away with one pointless question. I imagined his hands growing arthritic and sore because of that one, poorly executed sentence. Ouch.