Teenage Crime

Chapter 7

“Aspyn van… van Zandt?” Ms. Kowalsakowski sputtered, calling the attendance.

         “Here.”

         “Are you new here?”

         “Yep,”

         “How cool! Where are you from?”

         “New Orleans.”

         “Wow! Well, welcome to ECHHS! Welcome her, class!”

         Everyone said their hellos with bored looks on their face. No change from any other high school. Some schools like to pride themselves on being “for gifted children” or that “all are socially accepted”. It was all bullshit.

         High school was high school. No establishment of fine arts, or of math and technology was going to change it.

         Ms. Kowalsakowski had a certain way of talking, a way of talking that bothered Aspyn. She spoke with such excitement, like every day was one more reason to celebrate. She asked the students to call her K, saying she wanted us to feel as though she was our friend, not our teacher.

         It was weird. Teachers weren’t supposed to be your friends; in fact for most of Aspyn’s life they were her worst enemy. Teachers had never done anything for her. Mostly they just told her how she should be more like her sister, or how she’s gonna end up in jail or in a grave by 21. She flunked almost all her classes’ junior year, except for the AP class she was taking in Psychology. She got an A in that.

         It was the first A she got since sixth grade.

         Her teacher, Mr. Waltsman said she had a talent in understanding how humans work; how they feel and see things. She had him first period, and most of the time she would go to that class and then ditch the rest of the day to go smoke pot with college guys.

         Mr. Waltsman’s wife died at the end of last year from cancer. Aspyn remembered the day after when he came in with a daisy. His eyes were red as roses, his face turned pale.

         “You see class, the human is like a flower. Delicate, yet strong. It has the sweetest of smells, and is beautiful in the sunlight. It sways in the wind of the valley, listening to the birds in the early morning. It survives many a storm, keeping firm to its roots. But, as you pull away the things the flower was granted for survival,” he spoke softly, beginning to pull of the petals, “It begins to look less beautiful. It starts to look dull, and as all of it’s dependencies are taken away, it grows less and less strong. Eventually, it will resemble nothing but a mere stem. It becomes a shadow of what it was. It shrinks down to a state of unmitigated nothingness. And by the time the next storm comes, it is defenseless. It will perish, leaving no remnants. Eventually all flowers will be but unadorned stems, left out in the face of peril.”

         He dropped the flower on the ground, and turned back to face his desk. Mr. Waltsman retired this year.

         Clearly, he was left out in the face of peril.

         Ms. Kowalsakowski was completely opposite. She left nothing to the imagination, confessing all her secrets with a smile on her face. She spoke too much, and thought too little. She thought she could please everyone, make everyone like her. The statute of her classroom was nonexistent.

         Not to mention her last name was way too fucking long.

         Aspyn walked through the hallway, getting the occasional smile from fresh-faced girls, and smirks from all the guys. She had lunch next.