I had stopped listening in to Miss Smith about an hour ago, the math that was being pushed out of her brain and into the air for the rest of us to absorb was just not something I was able to do today. I looked at the back of North's head, because so far that was the most interesting thing in this class today. Some parts of me felt guilt about ignoring my teacher, but I knew it wasn't just me who wasn't paying attention.
I looked out the window on the other side of class and lowered my head in my arms until I was resting on the desk. The teacher was a dull roar in the back of my head, and when Nathan started to play with my hair I was blissful enough to just sleep. Before I got the chance to close my eyes Miss Smith's voice started to get a little agitated and I glanced over to listen in to the words she was saying.
"Does no one want to listen to me?" she grumbled pressing her hands to her hips while stopping any pretense of giving a lesson.
Behind me Nathan let go of my hair, but North didn't do anything but let his head tilt to the side a bit before he jerked it upright. Of all the times to fall asleep in a class, this would not be one of them, I thought to myself and then instantly felt a bite of guilt. He had been up late last night because I'd called him with a nightmare, and we talked for a good hour until I fell asleep.
I bit down on my lip and inched my hand forward, keeping my eyes on the teacher as I did so. When she looked over in my direction I snatched my hand away from North's back, just shy of poking him awake. She glared at the guy to my left before looking at the other side of the class and beginning to talk again.
"I don't need to teach you kids, you can just do book work and hope that you pass the test," she had red cheeks now, and I had begun to inch my hand towards North, who was now letting his head hang to the side and not fixing it.
Nathan coughed behind me, whether trying to make noise or trying not to laugh, I wasn't sure. Either way it didn't break past North's half asleep state to wake him up.
Miss Smith walked over to her desk and leaned against it, linking her fingers together and shrugging, "It's my job to get you to pass standardized testing, and if none of you can have the decency to listen I can just start giving you all hand out sheets and you won't make it to the standardize testing because you'll fail out of the class before then," she paused and her eyes snapped to a girl on the other side of the class room who had just popped a chewing gum bubble.
Loudly. The girl had pretty brown hair and her hazel eyes were lit up despite the fact that we were all being yelled at for not listening. I don't think it was her intention, because I'd seen her fall down in the hallway and even when she had gotten hurt, she still looked somehow amused about it, despite the tears that had followed soon after the fall.
"Lia," Miss Moore said and stood up, taking a step towards the girl.
I paused my efforts to wake up North, distracted by the scene. The girl, Lia, looked up at Miss Moore and raised an eyebrow.
"Yes Ma'am?"
"Would you mind telling me the Pythagorean Theorem equation?" she said, eyebrows furrowing together with what looked like glee at being able to embarrass someone.
Lia smiled rather warmly, "Sure, a square plus b square equals c square," the girl chirped, wiping the self satisfied look from Miss Moore's face.
The teacher grumbled something and then gave Lia a detention for chewing gum in class, before turning back to the rest of us and searching out her next victim. I looked back at North, but it was too late because Miss Moore had spotted him asleep.
"What's two plus two, Mr. Taylor," she said, saying North's last name louder than she would have had he been awake.
North's shoulders straightened as he looked over at her, not immediately replying. She smiled slowly, her prey having fallen into the trap. I wasn't sure what made me do it, or maybe I was but I just didn't have a good enough vocabulary to describe why, but I leaned in and whispered the wrong answer to North's back.
North, trusting me blurted it out , "5."
Behind me, and then to my left everyone began to laugh. I think they laughed more at Miss Moore's expression than North, but I couldn't tell for sure. The bell rang and almost all of the students bolted out, having packed up their bags a good ten minutes ago.
"Mr. Taylor can you please stay behind a bit, alone," Miss Moore said, not facing us as she walked back to her desk.
Nathan gave me a raised eyebrow smirk, and I shrugged in reply, feeling a little bad for getting North in trouble. Together Nathan and I waited outside the classroom until North stepped out.
"What'd she say man?" Nathan inquired.
North furrowed his eyebrows, "I don't know why but she thanked me for calming her down, I thought I just answered the fucking question. I don't know why she would have said that," he said, eyebrows furrowed as if asking us for an explanation.
Nathan and I exchanged another look and both started to laugh.
Not anything special, just something I started and never finished :)
