Worm (Parahumans #1)

Chapter 10: Insinuation 2.3

I didn’t have any time to contemplate the message I’d received from Tattletale. The bell rang and I had to hurry to properly log off and shut down before heading to my next class. As I gathered my stuff, I realized I had been so caught up in researching on the villains I’d met last night and in Tattletale’s message that I had forgotten to worry about getting into trouble for skipping class. I felt a kind of resignation as I realized I would have to face the music later in the day, anyways.

Madison was already in her seat as I got to the classroom. She had a pair of girls crouching by either side of her desk, and all three of them broke into giggles as they saw me. Bitches.

My seat of choice was the far right, front row, closest to the door. Lunch hour and immediately after school was when the trio tended to give me the hardest time, so I tried to sit as close as possible to the door, for a quick escape. I spotted a puddle of orange juice on the seat, with the empty plastic bottle lying just underneath the chair. Madison was going for a two for one. It was both a ‘prank’ and a reminder of how they had doused me with juice and soft drinks last Friday. Irritated, I carefully avoided looking at Madison and took an empty seat a few rows back.

Mr Gladly entered the room, he was short and young enough you could almost mistake him for another high school student. It took a few minutes for him to start the class, and he immediately ordered us to break into groups of four to share our homework with one another and to prepare to share it with the rest of the class. The group that had the most to contribute would win the prize he had mentioned on Friday, treats from the vending machine.

It was stuff like this that made Mr. Gladly my least favorite teacher. I got the impression he’d be surprised to hear he was anyone’s least favorite teacher, but that was just one more point against him in my book. I don’t think he comprehended why people might not like him, or how miserable group work was when you didn’t identify with any of the groups or cliques in the school. He just figured people liked doing group work because it let them talk and hang out with their friends in class.

While the class got sorted, I figured I’d avoid standing around like a loser with no group to join and get something else out of the way. I approached the desk at the front of the room.

“Mr. Gladly?”

“Call me Mr. G. Mr. Gladly is my dad,” he informed me with a sort of mock sternness.

“Sorry, uh, Mr. G. I need a new textbook.”

He gave me a curious look, “What happened to your old one?”

Soaked with grape juice by a trio of harpies. “I lost it,” I lied.

“Replacement textbooks are thirty five dollars. I don’t expect it now, but…”

“I’ll have it for you by the end of the week,” I finished for him.

He handed me a textbook, and I looked over the room before joining the only group with room for more: Sparky and Greg. We had been in a group several times before, as the leftovers when all the friends and cliques had banded together.

Sparky had apparently picked up his nickname when a third grade teacher used it in an ironic sense, and it had stuck, to the point where I doubted anyone but his own mother even knew his real name. He was a drummer, long haired, and was so out of touch with reality that you could stop talking in the middle of a sentence and he wouldn’t notice. He just went through life in a daze, presumably until he could do his thing, which was his band.

Greg was just the opposite. He was smarter than average, but he had a way of saying every thought that came into his head – his train of thought didn’t have any brakes. Or tracks. It would have been easier to be in a group with just Sparky and essentially do the work by myself than it would be to work with Greg.