I HATE SHAKESPEARE

Miss Austen-Jones stood in-front of the class and put her hands together, pushed her chest out and breathed deeply, then she stared at us over her fancy glasses and announced:

'Today we are starting a play by William Shakespeare, called Romeo and Juliet.

There was a collective sigh of grief and boredom followed by:

'Awe Miss' ... 'What the hell?' and

'Isn't that dude like seriously dead?'

'Geez Miss can' we do like interesting stuff?'

'Yeah man...Rick and Morty!'

The class erupted in laughter and Miss Austen- Jones looked unimpressed.

'Shakespeare remains relevant today. This play is about the power of young love and family relationships and family feuds.'

Adrian Ayoub, piped up:

'Youz wanna see a family feud, jus come to my house bruh. Last Saturday my brother f.... this guy up real good! ... aha-aha!'

Miss cleared her throat, stared directly at Adrian and declared:

'No expletives in the classroom Adrian!'

As the tattered and stained copies of the play were being handed out, I smiled. I couldn't think of anything more appropriate. In fact, this was a definite sign from the cosmos, that our love was destined to be.

Across the room, so quiet, so bodacious, sat my secret Juliet, Aashna Singh. Her thick glasses magnifying her beautiful hazel eyes, her pink diamante braces illuminating her pearly whites, and her long dark brown hair like strands of liquorice falling onto her shoulders.

She smiled, I thought, that's my girl, showing off her grille, and

my heart went bud-ah-boom, bud-ah-boom, bud-ah-BOOOOOMMMM....

We were most definitely 'star crossed' lovers... our paths always crossed on the playground, playing handball, during Maths class where we sat in the same row and on the bus ride in the afternoon.

In fact, I wished our paths would cross on the weekend, ... in the holidays ... and perhaps even at my house.

I was so totally lost in my daydream that I didn't notice Miss Austen-Jones call on me, so Astrid Chan smacked my hand right out from beneath my chin and yelled

'What's up Ravi! Contacting your alien family on Uranus?'

Raucous laughter followed, but I didn't care. I smiled widely at Astrid and whispered

'Yeah, they're looking for a 14-year-old, called Astrid, to marry my cousin Special ED, he's got tentacles and 5 eyeballs.'

Astrid's beady eyes pierced my soul like super powered laser beams, but I didn't care.

'Ravi please read the part of Romeo, and Rebecca please read the part of Juliet. Let's begin,' Miss nodded.

While I was reading, I pretended I was staring into those hazel eyes and that Aashna was staring right back at me, smiling dreamily.

"...Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!

For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

Sigh...'I never saw true beauty till I saw Aashna Singh'.

English became my favourite class. I could use the words of Shakespeare to speak my feelings out loud and no-one knew that I was speaking to my secret Juliet. Life was awesome and it didn't matter what happened at school, on the bus or at home, I was always happy and thinking up ways to 'accidently' cross paths with Aashna.