Lessons In Butterflies

Chapter 7: Biggest Klutz

Shella's POV (1st Person):

The next class was economics, and we were all struggling under the weight of our ring binders. 

The year had barely started, but our binders was already a quarter full with the endless notes Mr. Caldwell gave us. It felt like I was lugging around a brick. 

My hand was still cramped from trying to erase that stupid squiggle in art, and now I had to somehow take more notes. 

Great.

I adjusted my glasses, trying to focus as we walked to class, but my mind kept drifting. Mostly back to art, and... him. Mr. Caldwell.

 Why did he have to be so... observant? I thought of his smirk, and that awful moment when he caught me erasing the mess on my paper. 

It was like he was teasing me, without really meaning to.

"Are you okay?" Dani asked, nudging me with her elbow. She had her own stack of papers in hand but looked far less stressed about it than I did.

"Yeah," I muttered, still mentally distracted.

We turned the corner to head to class, and I noticed the staff room door swinging open just as I neared it. 

My mind was a million miles away—still thinking about Mr. Caldwell, my art, that new guy, the step-monster embarrassing me, and how my hand was cramped into a claw from carrying all these binders.

Then I felt it.

The collision was so sudden, I didn't even process it until I heard a crash. Papers flew everywhere, and my binder slipped out of my hands, falling onto the floor with a loud thud.

"Oh my god," I gasped, stumbling back as the mess of my binder and someone else's papers scattered across the hallway.

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Mr. Caldwell's POV (1st Person):

I was just stepping out of the staff room, balancing a stack of freshly printed sheets. 

It had been a long day, and I was gearing up for my next class—another session of economics, with even more handouts. These students were drowning in paper, but it was part of the process.

And then, out of nowhere—bam.

Someone barreled into me. The papers slipped from my hands in a fluttering cascade, hitting the floor like snowflakes. 

I barely had time to react before I saw her binder land with a dramatic clunk next to them, splitting open at the seams.

I glanced up, startled, to see Shella standing there, wide-eyed and completely frozen. Her glasses were askew, and her face was flushed in a way that suggested she hadn't meant to run into me, but... here we were.

"Shella," I said, my tone flat as I looked down at the chaos. "What happened?"

She stared down at the mess, clearly horrified. Her binder had somehow burst open, scattering its contents everywhere. 

Worse, there was a giant, dark smudge on her hand—was that... lead?

"Sorry!" she blurted, scrambling to pick up the papers. "I—I wasn't paying attention. I didn't mean to—"

She'd then somehow managed to transfer the smudge from her hand onto several- no most - of my freshly printed sheets. 

My eyes flicked back to her hand, where the smudge of lead had come from. Art class. 

Fantastic.

I sighed, kneeling down to help gather the papers.

"It's fine," I said, though my voice might have sounded a little terse. "Just... next time, watch where you're going."