Castling: A Novel (NaNoWriMo21)

8. Ooh, Fun Fact Time

"Good morning, everyone..."

Ms. Tudor goes to close the classroom door to make our start official. I may be new to this school, but I'm a veteran when it comes down to how to conduct myself. I adjust my posture, hands cupped in my lap, just as I would if I was...you know where by now.

"Welcome home, me," I mutter.

"From the looks of it, you guys had a lovely break," Ms. Tudor says, surveying the board. "Great. ...Good. ...Awesome. ...Is that a cat?"

"That's mine," Max says, taking ownership.

It looks like a crude anime cat face, arrow eyes up in delight and a tongue out. I never expected that to be his.

"Your cat again?" the teacher asks.

"Yep."

Cats are adorbs.

"Damn. What's with you and cats?" the boy, Josh, asks.

I wish I had one, but the complex discriminates against pets.

"It means I had a good break," Max says.

"Oh. ...Okay. Whatever."

Duh?

That's what Max's eyeroll says. Does he treat everybody like that? Because the attitude is giving off Leo vibes.

"Anybody want to share any interesting stories?"

Anybody want to skip this part?

"I do!"

Too late.

Mentally, I hit the "pretend" key. I pretend like I'm paying attention to this girl's story about candy canes and her hamster.

Actually, that's not so bad.

"He survived it, don't worry."

Ms. Tudor calls upon two others to share their stories. The next one is from Oliver, so I can bend my ignorance just a tad. His story is about how his younger sister cracked the living room window when she threw a ball too hard while playing with the dog.

Something like that.

"It was freezing in the living room until it got fixed."

The third story is...

I don't care because it reminds me of story time at my old school, and she drags it out like that one girl did. I don't miss those stories about after school at the rec center. How can a rec center be that interesting? Unless not every rec center is like ours.