Not So Straight Forward

Chaos à la Carte

It was a hot summer afternoon in Washington. In room number 30 of Scott High School, Giovanni Bonito sat quietly at the back of the classroom, busy with his laptop. He completely ignored the teacher and students, and simply focused on the video he was watching. His friend Yara sat next to him, intently focused on the teacher talking animatedly in front of the class. Not tearing her eyes away from the woman, she leaned to her right and tapped her hand on Giovanni's shoulder, "Aren't you going to pay attention? This is important,"

"Not really," Giovanni responded, shrugging his shoulders. "I mean, who even needs this in real life?"

"Maybe not in real life, but it still matters. This play is going to be a big thing. Do you know many people will come to watch it?" Yara asked, and smiled excitedly at the prospect of being on stage. "I'll audition for Ophelia. What will you do?"

Giovanni shrugged again, still looking straight at the screen. "I'll do something backstage. Maybe set design? I don't know, but I'm definitely not going on-stage. That's like my worst nightmare,"

Yara frowned and rapped his shoulder again, this time sharply. "Why not? I think you should. Imagine how cool it would be to be performing on stage in front of hundreds of people! I'd personally feel like a queen," She added dramatically. "Besides, Mr. Jason will make you act anyway. He's fed up with you avoiding working during school plays by going backstage. He'll push you underneath the spotlight if he has to,"

Giovanni chuckled. "Don't worry about it. I have ways of getting out of this stuff," Meanwhile, the teacher finished speaking.

"...so please, to audition, come to room number 62 on 29th," the teacher said, finishing up her announcement. She turned behind to look at the clock. "Okay, now, please go upstairs for lunch,"

Giovanni closed his laptop while Yara got up from her chair like an ADHD squirrel, laughing maniacally. "Oh, the auditions are in three weeks! I cannot wait," Giovanni didn't respond, but just nodded along while Yara rambled on. She kept talking and he kept listening while they climbed up the seemingly innumerable flights of stairs and as they got in line for the food in the cafeteria.

"...and that's who I think should play Hamlet. Don't you agree?" Yara finished her speech and asked animatedly, her energy not at all depleted from the climb up the Great Wall of China, or so it felt. Giovanni, not having the energy for another "yea" or "definitely" in him, sighed and nodded once more. They both moved forward in the line and picked up their food trays. Meanwhile, the line behind the two kept growing, and so did the noise. However, there was a certain unmistakable, shrill voice behind the two.

Giovanni rolled his eyes. "Ugh, Pradeep. He's so fucking loud," Yara nodded in agreement, covering her ears with her palms and flinching as Pradeep's volume got louder. Both Yara and Giovanni turned around to look at Pradeep, giving him a judgemental stare as they saw him speaking to no one in particular. Giovanni couldn't help but notice Pradeep's dark hair and bangs, which he kept brushing out of his face every few seconds. He rolled his eyes at the pretentiousness, but turned back around.

"Ignore him, Yara. He'll just get worse if you give him attention," Giovanni said with a wave of his hand. Yara took a page out of his book and turned around, trying to ignore the noise that Pradeep was creating. They both slowly kept moving ahead with the line, but suddenly, they heard a single sentence clearly amongst all the chaos.

"..I'm so hungry that I could eat a pineapple pizza,"

Giovanni froze on the spot, halting the movement of the line. He slowly turned around and put his plate back onto the stand. Yara looked at him with a stare of both bewilderment and embarrassment. His normally icy blue orbs (lol) blazed like fire in fury. He opened his mouth, scoffed, and growled. "What did you just say?"