"And remember for the people presenting on Wednesday, if you don't have your project you will fail. No what, ifs, or buts about it," I heard a few snickers from behind me when the professor said "Buts". How immature can they be? Aren't the grade eight kids supposed to be mature and good role-models for the sevens? See, I'm in a small middle school, St.Slinton Middle School, in a small town called Wentirs Bay. As I mentioned, the middle school is small; that doesn't really mean that there are less kids here. This year it just happened that there were more grade sevens than eights and I ended up being in the split class. I don't really mind but none of the other eights seemed too happy about it; even right now some of the other boys were throwing things or teasing the younger grade. I kind of felt like telling them to stop but I didn't want to get made fun of for sticking up to them.
I felt something hit me in the back of the head and turned around in my chair to the row of desks behind me to see what it was. No one looked guilty or suspicious, so I looked down to see what it was that had hit me. All I saw on the floor was a rolled up paper; would someone be passing me a note? I bent down and picked up the crinkled yellow paper of the ground, it was the same colour as the paper we had in front of us at this moment. So someone had ripped a small piece of it off the sheet? I was about to look at all the papers on the desks of my classmates behind me to see who had a chunk of paper missing from their work, but the professor interrupted my plan with a loud shout in my direction, making me whip my head and body back around in my seat, "RUTH! What are you doing? You should be paying attention, as your presentation is one of the ones tomorrow," he then stared at me for a moment and saw me clench my fist, "What do you have in your hand?," he questioned me. What do I say? I'm not even sure what it is, yet. When I didn't say anything he proceeded to put his hand out and use his finger to motion for me to come to the front of the class. I hesitantly put my hands on the wooden desk and pushed my chair out behind me. It made a loud screeching noise when I did so, and a few jerks began to laugh at me. I pushed my chair back in and navigated through the rows of desks and to the front of our square shaped classroom, where the teachers desk and the blackboard he was writing on is. When I finally made my way up to the front of the class I put my head down and tried to hand Mr. Weldon the paper so I could rush back to my seat and continue on with the next few minutes of our language class before the bell rung for lunch, but I did not feel a hand grab the paper.
I peeked out from under the thick hair that covered my eyes currently (because my head was facing down) and saw everyone intently staring at me with mockery in their eyes. Except for one grade seven boy. He looked at me different. I don't know what it is that I see in his eyes, or if it just a glint from the small windows on the left side of the rooms, but he didn't look at me with mockery, or disgust, or really anything bad. When I really think about it, I think that look is curiosity because it has kindness and gentleness and yet a sense of unknowing. Don't ask me how I think I can understand so much just from one boys eyes, because I don't know. Probably just a trick of my mind.
When I look back up to the teacher he's looking at me with that disapproving yet evil look teachers give when they know that you're going to hate whatever comes next, but they think you deserve it because you were acting badly. "Nevik Ruth, read that note, out loud, to our entire class. Everything on it, miss a word and you're reading it again," he laughs a little, "it'll be good practice for your presentation Nevik". Gareth is laughing like a pig in the back of the class, where he sits behind my desk. At that moment, I am 100% sure that he is the one who threw this at me. The piece of paper that I have is the one that he tore off from his worksheet, I can see the rip on the corner of his paper. Not like Mr. Weldon would care anyway. Gareth never gets in trouble with him, it's a topic I'm quite curious about because Gareth is, well, stupid. And a real idiot. And such a bully.
"Uh..." wow, what a logical and totally smart thing to say in front of the class while they all laugh at you, Nevik. Great job. My head is still down, but I can feel everyone staring at me, like cold wind hitting me from every angle. I lift the small paper up so I can read it and when I see the name on the front 'To: Kaito' it hits me. That's the boy with the curious eyes. My body goes cold, if everyone thinks I wrote this note, what am I going to do? I flip it over so that I don't have to read his name; Of course, Mr. Weldon notices. "Didn't I say read the WHOLE paper?" He states. "yeah.." I mumble. Hey, maybe if I mumble and speak softly no one will hear me. "To Kaito-" I start, in a mumbling quiet voice, but I am interrupted by Gareth's "Speak louder nerd, no one can hear you!" the class murmurs an agreement and the teacher looks at me pointedly. Well. I guess this is it. I'll see you all in hell. "To Kaito," I see his face drop and the glint in his eyes is automatically dimmed, but not disappeared, I flip the page over and begin to read faster, hoping no one will make out my words, "I see you look at the other nerd's ass outside," there is an arrow drawn forwards, did he mean me? I mean, I do sit in front of Gareth, "U r so gay. Watch your back, fag," is what the note reads. I want to scream. How could someone say something like that to such an innocent looking kid? I am throughly disgusted. What does it matter anyway?
