Castling: A Novel (NaNoWriMo21)

10. I Shouldn't Have to Tell You

Peeking through the door window, I see Ms. Tudor at the board, talking about whatever is on the screen. She told me to check back in with her when I finished. I feel weird about interrupting her lesson, but I knock on the door anyway. She pauses her lecture to let me in.

"All done?"

I hand over the tablet and the sheets. "All done."

"Okay. Just have a seat. You can watch or read."

I'll watch.

As I return to my desk, I'm a shiny object, all eyes on me, curious as to where I've been, maybe envious of my first-day privilege in missing out on...this?

Whatever this is, it looks interesting. Ms. Tudor is going through a series of slides. They're recapping some of the stuff that they learned last semester to ease themselves back into a groove.

"So..."

This slide is about graphite in pencils. I like this one. It's poking fun at the common misconception that all pencils contain lead when it's really strips of graphite. The number-two pencils have graphite in them, my refillable pencils use slimmer strips of graphite. I didn't need school to teach me that fun fact. I Wikipedia'd it...

Is that a word? Irregular verb?

...It is now. The next two slides won't tell me about verbs, but it will tell me about convection, rocks, liquids. I...learned this last semester. My parents said the whole school was advanced, not individual classes. Unless it's a mixture, or I'm confusing myself.

Time flies.

Suddenly, there's a riot outside the door.

Ms. Tudor eyes the clock. "Looks like it's eleven."

You know what that means!

Well, I did at my old school. What does that mean here?

"I think you guys have music today," Ms. Tudor says. "So, line up and...you know where to go. I shouldn't have to tell you."

Steven wants to lead the group, which is fine because I hate the front. Too much expectation. I'll stay in the middle of the pack with Kieran (I might as well shadow him all day).

"See you later," Ms. Tudor says. "Off with you!"

When I pop out of the room, there's a line of other kids waiting to take our room over. I don't know who they are. They must have a class with Ms. Tudor. I didn't think they did that. My classes were all in one room at my old school.

But, see? That's my mistake, and I keep making it.

From stares to stairs, we're going to the lower level, to another corner of the advanced cube, a darker room, stuffy. It smells like corkwood, storage bins packed along the walls, a semicircle of...I hate the chairs. They look like they date back to when my grandparents graduated and face a whiteboard that's been markered to death.