CRAZE

2

I walked into the school, dreading the day ahead. The tormenting usually began around my second class. I pushed my glasses up my nose and proceeded to my locker. The main hallway was eerily quiet today, almost empty. Usually the whole place was bustling with people, but not today, there was hardly anyone here. I thought it was strange, the weather wasn't bad especially for the middle of April when it usually rained a lot. Checking my watch, I saw it was exactly 7:15, which was the time the first bell was supposed to ring. No ringing occurred. I couldn't help thinking that it was some sort of prank toward me. But I dismissed it.

As I slowly opened my locker, to my relief nothing jumped out at me or smushed gooey stuff in my hair or face. That was a good sign, at least. I took out the textbook and notebook I needed for my first period, Geometry.

Nothing happened while I went to class. When I stepped into the classroom, the only people there were Adam Parrish, Angela Martin, Danny Curtis, Alicia Danes, Katherine Weaver and Mrs. Tomas.

"Hi, Kaleika," Mrs. Tomas said. "Hi," I said back, sitting in my seat at the back of the classroom. I sat there at the beginning of the year so people couldn't throw things at the back of my head. I set my books on the desk and took a glance at the room around me. It was a weird day so far.

After ten minutes, Mrs. Tomas decided to just go ahead with the lesson.

"All right people, today we're--" Sebastian Snyder came in "--going to work in partners creating a study-aid poster," Mrs. Tomas explained. "You'll work together in putting your knowledge of what you know about tenth-grade Geometry. Trust me, this will help you immensely with the test coming up." She then silently counted all of us and said, "Some people will have to be in a group of three, paper's up here." She gestured to her desk.

Katherine, Angela and Alicia instantly gathered with each other and Danny with Adam. Sebastian, sitting two tables ahead of me, turned around with a slight smile. "You want to be partners?" He asked. I nodded. "I guess, yea," I said, getting up to grab paper from the front. Jesse stood faster. "I'll get it," he said, doing as he promised. I sat back down and he parked beside me.

"So, uh, what do you remember?" He asked me, slipping a piece of large paper onto my desk. "Um, well there's triangles, special quadrilaterals, n-gons," I said. With my green mechanical pencil, I wrote down headings and everything I knew about them. I caught Sebastian looking at my page, and then he caught me noticing. "Don't hang me, I'm just not so good at this stuff," he defended. I shook my head. "It's fine, we're supposed to be helping each other, right?" I asked, finishing my last sentence on n-gons. I then pushed the paper a bit closer for Sebastian to copy off of. "Thanks," he said.

It didn't take him long to copy down the information. When he was done, he put his pencil down and turned around in his chair to face me. "Do you want to go out with me?" He asked. My eyes widened a little, the blood flow to my cheeks rising. What? Sebastian had never hardly talked to me before, where was this coming from? And then I said the utmost embarrassing, stupidest thing ever.

"Is it true, you slept with Natalie O'Connor?" I asked. CURSE WORD! CURSE WORDxONE MILLION NINETY-TWO! Why was I so weird? "Uh, I ask you to go on a date with me, and you ask who I've slept with recently," he stated, biting his lip.

"Ugh, that was--I'm sor--ow." My glasses were pushed up against my face roughly when I slapped a palm to my forehead. Sebastian snickered at me. I frowned. "Uh, yeah, actually I did, but you still have to give an answer," he reminded me. "Oh, yeah, right, sorry," I said. "I think, yeah."

"You...think?" He asked. "No, yes. Yes. I will," I said finally. "Okay. Good, uh, how about Thursday, tomorrow, 6:00?" I nodded. "Yeah, sure, Thursday, 6:00."