Juliet and Romanus

Juliet

It was the first day at my new school. Let's just say es o se que es. Which, roughly, translates to "it is what it is". I had been wildly popular at my old school, not to toot my own horn. In fact, I don't even own a horn. Anyways, I was so not ready to move. But, I was willing to take the high road and keep my head up, even though it was the middle of my Junior year. For you non Americans, that's 10th grade. I'm 16. Oh, and my name is Juliette but people call me Juliet (from romeo and juliet ahaha, yeah they think it's pretty funny too) but my best friends call me Jules. I moved, ready, across the country! Yay..... I wonder what New Yorks like compared to Montana?
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Jules checked over her schedule once more, fifth period was in fact Computer Coding . "Yes!" She exclaimed, quickly covering her mouth when she remembered that she was still in the middle of the hallway. She was really hoping to get into the class, they are normally booked back home.... plus this is one of the best high-schools for coding in the country. She was ecstatic. The beginning of her day was not the best, but people were nice. Sort of. This, she thought, would definitely cheer her up. A whole hour and fourty-five minutes of HTML! And possibly even Javascript!! The only thing more exciting would be two hour long Spanish classes, with extra food. Not that they weren't already 1 hour and 45 minutes and served great salsa. Okay, so maybe a part of her morning was enjoyable. A lot. She practically skipped down the hall, but tried her best to keep her calm. Her 'blonder than the freaking sun' hair- as her brother likes to refer to it (he who some how has dark brown hair)- bounced as she walked, like a curly poof ball of shine. She did get her freckles and green eyes from her Celtic heritage but sadly didn't adopt the feiry red hair. Petite and girly she normally has had a hard time convincing people she's got a 'brain in that pretty little head of hers' but BOYY can she throw a punch. Don't let the puckered red lipstick or the pink crop top fool you, she doesn't even like pink.
"188..."
"190..."
"192." She smiled brightly, "Here we are.." She might've been a few minutes late due to getting lost in the hall five times, because when she walked in everyone turned to stare at her.
"You're in the wrong class. Home economics is in the other hall." An obnoxious lanky boy with brown hair pipped up at the front of the class room. The rest of the class joined in on the laughter and sexist comments. From what she could tell, there were only one or two girls in there and they were giving her dirty looks as well. It felt like she'd just entered the wrong part of the jungle. "Ya! Go back to Forever 21 ! Don't trouble that pretty little head of yours with all this knowledge. Oh, I'm sorry. K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E. " someone in the back added, causing another out roar of laughs. Jules sighed, she did not think she would have to deal with this here. She had emailed the teacher the day before to see if she could speak with him when she got to the class. He was trying to calm the class down, his name was Mr. Monroe and he was the most well dressed teacher she had ever seen. Normally they wore sweats and didn't even brush their teeth but he not only combed his hair but he was also wearing a tux. And he was in his 60s! Who could tell with that rad anker tattoo on his forearm? Jules tapped his shoulder and walked over to his large desk at the front of the room. "Do you speak spanish?" She asked in Spanish.

*the rest of the conversation will be in Spanish, but I am typing it in English so you know what they are saying. The class does not speak spanish. If it's really easy like 'si' I will just type it in spanish. Otherwise, just use your imagination.*

"Si." He smiled.
"Do you speak it... fluently?"
"Si."
"Okay. So do you mind if I speak with you in Spanish? I'd rather the class not know what I can and cannot do so that this-" She gestured at the class who had quieted down but were still exchanging whispers and making faces, "- goes away. Does anyone here, that you know of, speak spanish?" Jules didn't recognize anyone from her class but that didn't mean they weren't in other class periods of Spanish. Mr. Monroe simply shook his head and asked her to continue. She explained to him how so far she was self taught, she showed him how she could hack into a computer and, as an example, she showed him how she could take the celebrity blue check mark on Twitter and code it into her Twitter page's HTML. Of course, since it wasn't real hacking, it only shows up on the screen she's on and goes away once it's reloaded. She talked about how she dabbled in Javascript and about the hack where you can go to a page and turn every picture on it into photos of Justin Bieber just to mess with people. She asked him what the class would be teaching and so on and so forth. About twenty or so minutes later the class had been getting rowdy again, getting over the initial shock of the sudden language change. In English Mr. Monroe said, "Thank you Miss Sánchez, your seat is over there-" and pointed to an empty seat near the middle of the room. As she took her stuff and went to sit down the obnoxious kid spoke up again, "Mr. Monroe I don't think she should get special treatment just because she's English declined." Another kid from the other side of the room also spoke up, "Yeah! Just because she's too special ed to learn the language of the country she lives in should not mean she gets the advantage." Various 'yeah!'s broke out across the room. Before Mr. Monroe could comment Jules quickly spoke up, she directed her words to Mr. Monroe only and spoke in Spanish, "Could you not correct them just yet? Just... don't tell them I'm English? If they think I can't understand me then they will say honest things in front of me of how they feel so that I could know who they truly are as a person and how they really think of me. Also, I would love to see the looks on their faces when I speak English and let them know I could understand them the whole time." She smirked and Mr. Monroe laughed.
"What? What'd she say?" A kid asked, leaning over his desk to look at her.
The obnoxious boy scoffed, "She was probably just asking him what we were saying."
Jules simply blinked innocently and the boy went back to talking to the teacher.
"Now Mr. Banks if that's how you feel..." Mr. Monroe starting responding when he was interrupted by a dark haired boy in a hoodie who was sitting to the right of Jules, "Sorry to interrupt sir but I think Josh is wrong." Several gasps echoed across the room. Maybe it was because no one has ever told Josh he was wrong before or maybe it was because the boy had never spoken in class for any of the years that he'd been there. "Why do you think that Mr. Scortch?" Mr. Monroe turned to the kid and Jules watched, intrigued.
"Please, call me Romanus. And clearly..." Romanus started then gestured Jules.
"Miss Juliet. " Mr. Monroe commented, since she hadn't been formally introducted.
Romanus smiled which caused more gasps and whispers. Maybe he hadn't smiled either?
"Clearly 'Miss Juliet' wasn't getting any special treatment at all."
Josh scoffed and scrunched his nose but Romanus ignored him and continued, "You, sir, stated at the beginning of the year that if at any point in time we needed to talk to you one on one to just get up and tell you. Even if it was in the middle of class, if we didn't understand or we had a question that we didn't want to discuss with the whole class we could come to you-" he looked at Josh with icy blue eyes, "it was even in the syllabus. "
Josh rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, Jules had to refrain from giggling to keep up the whole 'not undertsanding' aka 'no ingles' act up. Mr. Monroe nodded along to Romanus's comments, "It seems we have all taken advantage of that privilege by not using it. " Romanus dragged his gaze back to the teacher, "So, in fact, I would not call it 'special treatment ' I would call it genious." He glanced at Jules. "That is all." And went back to leaning back in his chair, probably with one hidden ear bud in. Mr. Monroe smiled and spread his arms. "Good. Is everyone good? Got it? Muey bien. Now, let's continue..." the rest of the class they went on with basic HTML coding but Jules was still fascinated. No one questioned her or her spanish the rest of class and Josh kept silent. Jules wasn't even sure if Romanus was paying attention or not, he might have just been a good multitasker. No one even asked how she could be in that class while the teacher spoke English if she couldn't understand it. Maybe they didn't even care to consider that a problem, since they all still clearly spoke right in front of her as if they didn't think she could understand. When class was dismissed Jules made it a point to get out of there quickly, but still ended up one of the last people making it out of the door due to pushing and shoving. Romanus caught up to her and walked by her down the hall, leaning over to whisper something in her ear. "I know what you were saying." He whispered, in fluent Spanish before swiftly trotting off down the hall.