Admiring the Light

Ep 11

"The scene of the crime." She took a moment to outline the skeleton in blue tape, the toilet paper roll hanging from between his legs by a pathetic piece of duct tape. And that got the class to erupt in laughter.

"He's more anatomically correct that way." Natalie heard a girl speak up from the back of the room. "Jackie...!" Beavoux took a minute to compose herself. "Anatomy doesn't matter if the principal sees it, dammit!"

"We'll just say we were experimenting with our sexualities!" She chirped, getting another roar from everyone else. No secret that it was an all female class, Natalie could tell that just by looking around. "I can tell it was one of the juniors, my seniors are too lesbian to do this to me. Where are my bio one girls-"

Most of the seniors rocketed their hands up, Natalie included. "Yeahhh, my bio honors would never put a dick on the skeleton. But you juniors? I don't know about you."

"Miss Beavoux, would I really tape such an appendage to the poor anatomy model? Don't rope me into this." Guinevere dug her face in her computer, she didn't seem to want any part of this. "Guin, you're too good for these neanderthals. Just do your work."

Natalie watched her sister drop her head on the desk with a quick "uwu" noise. "SPORT DID IT, EVERYONE! THE EDGY UWU ANIME GIRL DID IT!" She took the chance to playfully shout across the room.

"I think, Natalie was too quick to deflect onto her sister, and, uhm uhm-" Lola switched into a stereotypical brainy nerd voice. "I believe the evidence has led us to the conclusion of Natalie perpetrating this heinous crime."

"Woah, woah there! This doesn't need to come full circle to me-" Natalie laughed. "What about these other bystanders? Which of them might have?" She pointed to the rest of the girls in the room.

"And this is how I get out of teaching today." The teacher snickered to herself and pushed her red hair from her face, going to sit back at her computer and grade.

...

"Adri, with a 97. I'm not surprised." The teacher handed back the quiz to the lanky person that walked in. But he had one more quiz in his hands, and glanced over at Natalie. "And Natalie, with a perfect score of 100. Nice work, though I can't say I'm surprised either." They handed it over to her.

"The smiley face worked! Hehehe." She pounded on the desk with her fingers, but nobody else seemed too amused, with the dirty looks they were giving her. All except the other high scorer, Adri seemed curious, though to her he was just another pair of eyes watching. "What? Y'all a little salty cause I got the best score for once?" She asked.

"No way you didn't cheat, Natafreak. Because that's what you are, irresponsible, succeeding when you never put in any work." One girl scowled over at her.

"Oh, that much is true. It was multiple choice, and using my genius brain, I analyzed the mysteries of the universe to get the answers." Natalie laughed. "Right? No way I just made a guess, and my guess happened to be right. Like, how could that ever happen?" She mused for a moment. "It's like we could make a game out of this... guessing numbers, and if the numbers are right, you win money! And we can call it gambling."

"Stop being a wise ass, you must've had your phone out." She snapped. "Believe whatever you want, I don't exactly need to defend myself against you, uh... I believe your name is Lori. I've learned from the greatest Jedi masters." She tapped out more on the desk, lyrics to a song running through her head, no earbuds needed.

"Why is this irritating you so much anyway?" Natalie carefully rose from her seat, gradually moving around so she could be closer. "Is it because you put actual effort into studying, and I still did better than you with guessing? Because I mean, that's completely fair, but if there's like, something else going on here—"