Girl

Art Class

I don't know if having my favorite class in the middle of the day is a good thing or bad. It's good 'cause...well I mean, it's my favorite class. But it's bad 'cause when it's over, it's over, and I have nothing to look forward to in school for the rest of the day.

I walk through the doorway and I already know it's going to be a slow class. Which is good in a way, but terrible in another because both of my favorite people, Kristina and Eric, are absent. Two of the people I only ever really talk to.
"What the hell," I think.

I sit myself down at a table with one other person sitting at it. He's a gangly guy, he has to stretch his legs out far under the table. His dirty, dirty blonde hair hides his face, which is leaning on his hand. I sit across from him on the chair next to his legs.

The door closes and class starts, everyone moves to get their supplies from their bags, then to the shelves in the back of the class to get our sketchbooks. Today we're drawing the basics of a hand.

I sit back down at my chair and I notice the guy across from me hasn't moved. From the way he sits, with his head leaning on his hand, neck bent, I think he's on his phone, so I don't say anything.

Ten minutes later, Mrs. Hamlin is starting to walk across the room, handing out advice and cooing over the best drawings. Although she is a collected and calm art teacher, she is also annoyed easily. Across the room I heard her complaining to another student, how they bent a ruler the way it was never meant to be.

"I've had it today, someone in my earlier class was cutting up erasers and flicking the bits everywhere, someone else discovered that if you spill red paint on a teachers stark white shirt they'll explode, oh and one kid--!"

This causes me to take another glance at the dude across from me. How is he not taking a hint? Im about to open my mouth to tell him something when the door opens and one of the absent two, Kristina, appears. I grin and she walks over to the seat next to mine.

As she sits, Mrs. Hamlin walks over to Kristina to take her tardy slip and takes a peek at my drawing.

"Wonderful, wonderful, but of you don't mind me saying, I think you should move this up here..." and as she's showing me the lines I should move, a head full of dirty blonde hair falls onto the table and quickly picks itself back up.

"Gary! Are you alright?"
The guy, Gary I guess his name is, tried responding, stuttered, but Mrs. Hamlin started to screeching about things along the lines of what are you doing, why aren't you drawing, this isn't kindergarten, I'm not babysitting, ain't no time for nap time, yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth.

Flustered, she struts back to her desk and starts mumbling.

Poker faced, Gary reaches down and pulls out his sketchbook and a mechanical pencil.
What was he tryna do, get himself killed? We don't use those kind of pencils here!
He doesn't open his book, but instead looks at me and Kristina. I'm half expecting him to ask for a pencil but instead says:

"Why didn't you wake me up?" in annoyance.

"I wasn't here," says Kristina, flipping her auburn hair and opening her book to a new page.
Gary looks at me and raises his eyebrows a little and widens his eyes in a "hellooo? wasn't it obvious I was sleeping?" kind of way.

"Wh--how was I supposed to know you were sleeping?!"
"Well, I obviously wasn't awake."
"It was not obvious," I retort.

He glares at me and I mockingly glare back. His eyes are blue and facial features sharp.

I'm the first to look away and start on my hand again. There's knocking at the door, a disgruntled Hamlin says to come in, and Eric pokes his head around the door, pushing his glasses up his nose.

Kristina waves him over to our table, making all the bangles on her wrist jingle.
Today she's dressed like a hippie, she calls it boho chic. Yesterday she was what I call a tumblr wannabe, but she called it grunge. Tomorrow she'll probably wear something preppy.

Eric sits down next to Gary, and they shake hands. Which surprises me greatly because I've never seen them talk before.

Maybe it's just the way Eric is too, he's a shy, hipster lookin' guy. He wears bow ties and button ups all the time.
Gary seems like a smart ass.

Then again I don't know him, so it's not like I can say anything about his personality anyway. Just from what I'd seen so far wasn't impressive.

"Where were you guys?" I question Kristina and Eric.
"Dentist," says Eric.
"I woke up late." Kristina replies.
"Or you mean you didn't feel like going to history and journalism?" Eric raises his eyebrows at her.
"Mmm, no I was...I was late," Kristina shifted her eyes around the room. Eric rolled his eyes.

"You finally gonna be a brace face?" Gary asks.
Eric sighs and nods solemnly.
"That sucks man,"
"I know. 'M kinda glad to get it over with honestly. I've needed them for a while..."
"Good luck with all the hurt you'll be having in your mouth," Said Kristina.
Eric moaned while slamming his sketchbook on the table.

"Eric!" The art teacher screeched. He jumped and frantically opened to a new page as quietly as he could as everyone at the table sniggered at him.

The class drew in silence for a while. Then we were told to get our latest project down from the shelves along with a few water color palettes.

As I was sitting back down, Eric decides to introduce me to this Gary guy.

"Tamara, this is Gary. Gary, that's Tamara."
I raise my eyebrow and Gary nodded. I quickly got back to my work, but Eric decided to talk some more.

"He's also a sophomore."
"He's pretty giant for a sophomore," I say bluntly.
"Oh, and you don't look like an middle schooler?" Gary replies in a snarky tone.
"At least I don't look like a drop out--"
"Better a drop out than an annoying pre-teen"
"And uh, he plays a few instruments and draws and I thought..." Eric trails off.

Gary glares at me again and I narrow my eyes. I make sure he's the first to look away this time.

I pull out my phone from my bag and plug in my headphones.
Kristina notices my careless brush strokes, opens her mouth and then closes it again.
It's quiet again, except for the occasional scraping of cups being pulled closer against the table.

I'm lost in my painting and suddenly the bell rings. People jump up and hurriedly stuff their paintings on to their shelves and run out the door.

I make sure mine is neatly placed on top of the drying rack.