Billy Carter

Chapter 2: Daughter

The next day was Friday, my last chance to hand my homework in to Harry.
Of course I left it at home by accident again. It really sucked, because I'd even finished it this time - well, on Tuesday night after Harry had given me extra time again. I had a study lesson first thing this morning after the school assembly, so there was no avoiding him. Still, I dragged my feet to class, trying desperately to put off the inevitable.
"You're late, but I'll pardon you if you've got your assignment for me today," Harry told me as soon as I walked into the classroom. I grimaced, looking down at my feet, and he sighed disappointedly which made me feel even worse about letting him down. "Come on Junior, this is ridiculous!" he exclaimed. "Have you even done it, or have you been lying to me all week?"
"No, I've done it!" I snapped defensively, glancing up at him. "It's finished and everything, I just keep forgetting to bring it in," I explained. "Please give me one more chance? I'll even bring it over to your house after school if you want."
"No, that won't be necessary. Just find a seat and work on whatever else you've got to do," he said, combing his hand through his hair frustratedly. "It just... Sucks. It sucks, because you're such a smart, talented kid, you could be top of the class if you tried - or even just handed your damn assignments in."
That made me angry, because I really was trying.
"I am trying!" I argued loudly. "Mr. Roberts-"
"Enough," he cut me off and dismissed me with a wave of his hand. "Sit down."
Dejected, I walked over to a row of desks and took a seat next to Oliver Connors, the son of Principal Connors but better known as Ollie. He was outed last July just before the end of the school year by local cockhead Kenny Leary. Kenny says they were doing some school project together and he was using Ollie's laptop for research when he happened to "accidentally" open up Ollie's browser history and found Ollie'd been looking up lots of LGBTQ stuff. Not gay porn or anything, just information and blogs and asking for advice and all that. Kenny made a huge deal over it and Ollie had it pretty rough for a couple of weeks, what with it all being out in the open before he was ready - before he was even sure that he was gay, actually, not just confused or something. His parents found out because
Kenny saved Ollie's browser history and emailed it to them. Well, he emailed it to everyone, that's how everyone found out.
To top it off, Ollie had a girlfriend at the time - they'd been dating for just under a year. Talk about an awkward breakup.
Anyroad, even though it's all blown over and nobody really cares (it was more of a surprise than anything else), Kenny Leary's been giving Ollie a hard time about it ever since, so I've been giving Kenny a hard time in return.
I like Ollie, we've been best friends since we were put on the same football team when we were ten and I've always got his back. We're a strange sort of contrast though, because he plays football and he's the kind of kid who's best friends with all his family and gets good grades and is all moral and wholesome and stuff, and I, well... Y'know.
So it was a bit of a surprise when he came out - I mean he's not camp at all, he's just like every straight guy I know. And there's nothing wrong with being camp, but basically what I'm saying is I had this stereotype of what a gay man looks/acts/sounds like in my head and Ollie doesn't fit it very much at all. It threw me a bit, not that it's changed my opinion of him in the slightest. I mean I've had some sexy dreams about guys, but I know it's just hormones - and besides, I dream about girls just as much - and you don't have to be gay to look at a good looking guy and see that he's good looking. Ollie really isn't all that different than me, and he's not predatory or anything. I don't get why Kenny Leary hates him so much just because he's into guys, but I know Dad's a homophobe too, so I've just avoided the subject completely and Dad doesn't have any reason to think that Ollie's anything other than straight (Ollie comes over now and then to hang out). I'm pretty protective of Ollie.
Anyroad, Ollie's pretty attractive, so I'm kinda confused that he hasn't got a boyfriend yet.
He's got neat, straight brown hair he styles into a quiff, and warm brown eyes. He doesn't use a shit load of product in his hair either, not like those guys who look like their head could squeeze through a pin hole because they've got so much goddamn product in their hair. I'm not sure what cologne he uses (I think it's some Calvin Klein product) but he always smells so good in the mornings. It's this woodsy, smoky, warm, musky, kind of smell. It's heady, but in an overall pleasant kind of way. I really like it. I've borrowed it a couple of times, but it just doesn't smell the same. Maybe it just... I don't know, reacts better to him? Like chemistry or something, where it mixes with his natural smell? I don't know how colognes work, I just know that this particular one smells so much better on Oliver.
He's got this great jaw too, and a smile that lights up his face. Those are the best kinds of smiles. His teeth are nice and straight because he had braces in year eight and nine, and they're really white too because he looks after them really well. He brushes twice a day and uses mouthwash and flosses. He's pretty good with all that health related stuff, actually.
He goes to the gym nearly everyday and eats well and knows about nutrients and stuff and drinks three or four litres of water a day. His idea of soft drink is soda water with a lemon wedge in it. He always sticks to the serving suggestions on snacks and meals too - he'll only have four squares of a block of chocolate. I'd eat the whole thing in one sitting, honestly. He has a really fit body because of all this, too. Not ridiculously fit, like a body builder or anything. He's got a six-pack, good, strong arms, and a firm chest. He's lean. He could easily be a model or something.
He's a football superstar too; he and Tony are on the same team and are co-captains because they're both so good. And he's incredibly smart, he wants to study at Oxford to become a doctor, so he can help people and stuff.
He's actually just a really great guy, and I'm pretty fond of him.
"Hey, what's up?" Ollie asked as I sat down. Trent sat on Ollie's right working on our math homework but Ollie's question seemed to pique his interest.
"I forgot my assignment again and Mr. Roberts's gonna fail me on it," I sighed.
"Bugger. You really need to work on your organisational skills," he told me.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "You sound like your dad," I grumbled. He smiled.
"I could teach you some of the tricks I use if you'd like?"
"Really?" I asked hopefully.
He smiled and nodded. "Sure."
"I dunno, I probably wouldn't stick to it. I don't wanna waste your time."
He shrugged. "Wouldn't be a waste. You're my friend, I don't mind trying to help you out."
"Alright, cool."
I helped Ollie make a timetable of my week, telling him when I worked and when I went to bed at night. After he'd ruled out school hours, my work hours and time I'd be sleeping he started designating hours for me to study and get work done, then he wrote down a list of his favourite study tips for me to try.
I got bored of that very quickly.
"So're you dating anyone?" I asked.
"Huh? Oh," he laughed when he got over his initial surprise. "No. Why?"
"I dunno, I just figured you might've been dating someone. You're pretty popular, you look alright..."
"Are you dating anyone?" he asked pointedly.
"Well no-"
"Why not? You're pretty popular, you look alright," he teased, throwing my words back at me.
"Aw, come on now!"
"Yeah, exactly."
"Fine. Well why not?"
"Why not what?"
"Why aren't you dating anyone?"
"I'm not interested in anyone at the moment," he said simply.
"Are you kidding me? You've got literally 50% of the world's population to choose from and absolutely none of them are of any interest to you?" I asked and he laughed.
"Actually, those aren't the statistics at all. I don't know if you've noticed but the LGBTQ community at our school is pretty much non-existent. Besides, I'd only be interested in the G and B anyway, and only the male B's, even."
"Oh. Yeah, that sucks. Hey, what about that year 13 guy who hangs out with those hot year 13 girls? He's gay, isn't he?"
"Yeah, after Kenny sent that stupid email to everyone he's been messaging me to offer his support, advice, all that. He's nice, I've talked to him at parties and stuff but we're just friends. I'm not interested in him anyway, he's not my type," Ollie explained. I raised my eyebrow.
"You have a type?"
"Well I don't know if I really have a type per se, but I know I'm not interested in him. But what about you, what's your excuse? You've got a much bigger selection," he pointed out.
"None of the girls I'd be interested in are single."
"What about Cynthia?"
"No way, she's like my sister. Besides, I'm sure she's not interested in me like that. We're just friends," I shrugged.
"How about Annabelle?"
"Annabelle? Christ, wouldn't that be the dream? I don't know if she'd be interested in me though, I don't think we actually have all that much in common. She'd probably get sick of me."
"Well, you're an acquired taste," Ollie teased with a smile. I smiled back and elbowed him in the ribs. "I'm sure she'd be interested in you, you're a fairly decent human being," he amended.
"Aw, thanks."
"And you're pretty damn easy on the eyes, too," he said, then paled and stared at me with wide eyes while Trent snickered. "I don't mean- I didn't mean that in a, uh, gay way. I mean, I don't think of you like that, so-"
"Relax," I laughed. "It's fine, I understand what you meant. Thanks for trying to encourage me."
"You're welcome," Ollie smiled back. "Now shush and listen to me."
Ollie finished making me a study plan and started helping me out with my maths homework.
"I really am useless with numbers," I told him after getting another problem wrong. "And words and letters. Basically anything that isn't music-oriented," I added after a moment's thought.
"Well... Sort of. You just have different strengths. You're not good at maths and English, but you kick arse in music. I am good at maths and English, but I'm rubbish at music. I can't play any instruments and although I can sing it doesn't mean that I should," he said diplomatically.
I laughed. "Yeah, but if you took music lessons you'd probably ace them, like you ace every other subject you take," I pointed out.
"And just because algebra doesn't come naturally to you doesn't mean that you'll never figure it out."
"Hey are you going to Jenny's party?"
"Yes, are you?"
"Of course! I never miss a chance to have some fun."
"I think you mean that you never miss a chance to get drunk," he said with a sly smile.
"Or high."
"Of course. Now focus on finding x."
"It's there," I said without missing a beat, pointing to x on the page.
"Ha ha. So original and witty. Let's start from the beginning again, ok? If x equals five, then what is x squared?" Ollie asked. I frowned in confusion - a look I'd been wearing pretty often so far this lesson.
"The fuck is squared? Maths was hard enough with just numbers, then they've thrown letters into it and now there's fucking shapes too?" I complained. Trent cackled meanly.
"No, no. When you square a number you multiply it by itself," Ollie explained. "So, if x equals five, then what is x squared?"
"Well hang on, how're you s'posed to multiply x by x?"
"Well first you need to know the value of x."
"How'd you do that?"
"Well for this question we don't need to, it tells us at the beginning that the value of x is five." He pointed to the statement in my text book to show me he was right.
"Yeah but suppose you get a question that doesn't tell you that x is five?"
"Well the next question is like that, so I'll explain the formula for that when we get there."
"Alright. So what's the question again?"
"If x equals five, what is x squared?"
"So x is five."
"Yeah."
So x squared is the same as five squared?"
"Yes."
"And five squared is five multiplied by five?"
"Yes."
"So the question is basically five plus five plus five plus five plus five?"
"... Yeah."
"And that's..." I frowned as I tried to add it all up in my head, but the numbers got all muddled and I lost count of how many fives I'd added up. I started again, using my fingers to count it all this time, but again I lost count of how many times I'd counted each hand. I sighed frustratedly when I couldn't do it. "All I know is that six sixes is thirty-six," I told Ollie.
"Well here," he unzipped my pencil case and tipped all my stationary out of it. "Count it out with these pencils and pens. You know for someone who does hardly any school work you certainly have a lot of stationary."
"Well none of it's mine- wait, that pen is, yeah. Anyroad I've got sticky fingers, I tend to accidentally liberate various items from my friends."
"Makes sense. Now try- oh, that's where my pencil sharpener went. Now try the problem again, counting with these."
I tried Ollie's idea and it worked, then he showed me how I could use lines to count or tally, like how criminals mark however many days they've been in prison in those crime movies. Ollie made up ten questions for me like that first one for me to do by myself so I could get the hang of it, then he showed me how to find the value of x when the question doesn't tell me, when it says something like 9 - x = 3, find x.
Ollie was a good teacher and Harry even helped out, but even though I was trying my best to understand the formulas I couldn't wrap my head around it. I had a hard enough time with letters and numbers separately, I really didn't need them put together.
Finally it was the end of first lesson and time for recess - then after that me, Ollie and Trent had English together with Mr. Skinerd, which I knew was going to suck before it even started.
We were reading Shakespeare's King Lear which was bad enough. I'm not a reader. But the worst part was that we were taking it in turns to read out loud. I'm a really slow reader, so I'm always at least a couple of pages behind everyone else and it's fucking Shakespeare, so I've got no idea what's going on until the end of class when I get a chance to ask Ollie or Trent what we just read.
"'I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, - I must not say no.'" Ollie read aloud.
"Alright, Bi- you're early, Haris," Mr. Skinerd said, drawing everyone's attention to Harry, who was halfway through the door.
"I thought I was going to be late, actually. Sorry to interrupt," Harry said, taking an empty chair and joining Mr. Skinerd at his desk.
"Don't worry about it, we're just about to finish reading King Lear, then I've got a practice essay for them to work on. Alright, Billy, you can read Edgar's piece," Mr. Skinerd told me. I sighed and focused on the words.
"I know the well-"
"No, we're further along than that," Mr. Skinerd told me. "Act V, Scene III. The very last paragraph."
"Oh, alright," I sighed and flicked through the book, finding the right part and starting to read it in my head before I read it out loud to try and prevent myself from looking as stupid as I felt. Apparently I was taking too long.
"Billy," Mr. Skinerd spoke in a warning tone.
"Just-" I sighed irritably and tried to focus harder on the nonsense in front of me. "The w-weight of this sad, uh, time we must o-obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we... out to-"
"Ought," Mr. Skinerd corrected me. I blushed and got irritated from being embarrassed in front of the whole class.
"Ought, ah, to say," I continued. "The oldest, uh, hath...?" I glanced at Ollie, who nodded, and I continued. "Hath, uh, borne most; we that, uh, are young
Shall never see so much, ah, not-"
"Nor," Ollie whispered to me.
"Nor, um, live so long," I sighed and tried to relax when I finally finished, but then Mr. Skinerd had us start working on our practice essays.
"This is bollocks, I haven't even finished the fucking book," I complained.
"Then finish the 'fucking book'," Ollie told me without looking up from his notes. "You should've read it over the summer holidays like you were supposed to."
"I didn't wanna."
"Then fail, whatever. Just stop complaining."
Trent laughed and I shot him a glare. With an exaggerated sigh I opened my book up to the page I'd been reading before Mr. Skinerd made me skip ahead to read aloud.
Mr. Skinerd left before class was finished, handing us over to Harry because he had some appointment or something.
Mr. Skinerd's my French teacher too, but he was still away when third lesson started and Harry was still covering for him. It's lucky that Harry tolerates me, because he's been seeing a lot of me lately.
"Bill, come over here, would you?" Harry asked me a couple minutes into class. I got up and walked over, leaving Trent at the desk.
"Would you mind coming into the office next door to do a quick survey? Everyone in the year level has to do it, but it's one on one," Harry told me.
"Wait, like a test?" I asked warily.
"Sort of, but it's not the sort of thing you fail, or pass. It's just a reference for the school, and it's anonymous."
"Do I have to do it?"
"Yes, Juniour. But you could do it at lunch, if that suits you better?"
"Nah, I'll do it now. How long will it take?"
"That depends on the person." Harry shrugged.
"Alright. Through that door then?"
"Yes," Harry told me, getting to his feet. "One more thing- part of the test is that it's unexpected, a surprise, so keep it to yourself. Ok?"
"No problem."
I followed Harry into the adjoining empty office, leaving Trent all alone. Ollie had Maths now, with Tony and Cyn, so he wasn't around. Trent's pretty popular though, so I knew he wouldn't be too cut up about my leaving.
The test Harry had for me was some kind of English test that had different parts to it. First Harry had me read a paragraph out loud and tell him what it was about without referring to it again. Then he asked me to list ten things that started with "P". There was a pen on the desk so I said "pen", then I looked around the room for nine other things but could only come up with "paper", "printer" and "pencil". Lastly we did a little exercise where we would write a story together - he'd write the first sentence on a piece of paper, then give it to me to write the second sentence, then he'd write the third sentence, etc.
"So how'd I go?" I asked when it was over.
"I'm not sure yet. I can tell you later if you want?" he offered.
"Nah, you said this doesn't affect my grades so I don't care. Can I go now?"
"Sure. Enjoy the last," he paused to check his watch, "thirty minutes of class."
"Yeah."
"Hang on a sec," Harry grabbed my shoulder as I started to turn around.
"Yeah?"
"How's your eyesight? Because I've noticed you squinting a lot," he asked.
"Aw, probably below average, but nothing extraordinarily bad," I lied. My eyesight's pretty shit, but besides the fact that I don't expect I'd look too good in glasses, I know that they're very expensive.
"Maybe you should get your eyes checked. It wouldn't do to have bad eyesight affecting your grades. If you're so adamant about not having glasses you could get contact lenses," he suggested.
"Nah, that creeps me out. Besides, I'm passing, aren't I?" I shrugged.
"Barely."
"That's still passing. Hey, what's the test for again?"
"The school, for a reference."
"A reference for what?"
"For how well we're teaching our students," he explained patiently. I laughed.
"Wow," I snorted. "Should've just skipped me then, I'll just drag the average down."
"You shouldn't say things like that about yourself," Harry told me with a concerned frown.
"It's true," I shrugged. "I don't care."
"It's not true and you do care. Look, society has a messed up definition of intelligence, and that's that people's abilities in things like Maths, Science and English determine how 'smart' they are. It's not fair that no one considers abstract subjects like woodwork, cooking, theatre- or music, which you absolutely excel in," Harry gave me an encouraging smile.
"I think you give me way more credit than I deserve," I said with a dismissive laugh, shrugging off his praise.
Harry put both his hands on my shoulders and leaned down to look me evenly in the eye. I couldn't bring myself to meet his gaze (it felt too uncomfortable) so I opted for staring at the bridge of his nose instead. "Billy, if intelligence was based off musical talent you'd be a modern-day Einstein," Harry said seriously. "You aren't dumb. You aren't stupid. Your expertise lies in different areas. Don't place all your self-worth into how good you are at Maths, or English. We have calculators, we have autocorrect. You're a very clever kid, Bill. Now go do some work, and I'll let Mr. Skinerd know you're a little bit behind everyone else - although I'm sure it won't take much for you to catch up considering you're fluent in French already. See? That's another way that you're smart." He gave me another smile and I forced one in return.
"Alright. Thanks for the pep-talk," I told Harry and went back into the classroom. I returned to my seat next to Trent and continued my classwork.
"What was that about? You two were gone for three-quarters of an hour!" Trent asked me.
"Nothing, he was lecturing me 'cause I'm failing school," I told Trent, knowing he'd buy it. "I should probably do something about it, girls aren't interested in dumb losers who can't pass English," I said as Annabelle Morris, who was sitting at the desk directly in front of me, turned around and flashed me a bright, gorgeous grin.
Annabelle Morris is beauty incarnate. She is fucking gorgeous, devastatingly so - her beauty is the kind that starts wars. Literally, she is a model. She's curvaceous with a slim waist - classic hourglass figure. She has long black hair she often wears in curls; bright, emerald green eyes, nicely shaped lips with a soft, natural pout, straight, pearly-white teeth, long, full eyelashes, a cute, button nose and eyebrows "on fleek", as Victoria says. She's very good with makeup too - she always looks great. She usually opts for a more "natural" look (which includes something called a "cat eye" and false eyelashes), but I follow her on Instagram and she's definitely got a penchant for more bold, dramatic styles, often including bright colours and lace, glitter, diamanté's and such.
She's very into fashion, and always dresses well.
Fortunately for her, her parents are absolutely fucking loaded, so she can afford all the Louis, Gucci, Versace, Prada, etc. she wants.
Obviously there's more to Annabelle than the money, body and makeup, but I don't really know her too well. We've exchanged pleasantries and all that, but never really had a proper conversation or spent a lot of time together. As much as we all get along, the girls tend to stick to themselves and so do we boys. Honestly, I'm intimidated by her. She's so pretty, I clam up whenever she focuses her attention on me. I would've loved for her to be interested in me romantically, but I wasn't confident it'd ever happen. 
What I do know about her - personality-wise - is that she's often a tad loud (some might say obnoxious), very confident, and flirtatious. She knows what she looks like, let's put it that way. She's also a heartbreaker - she's had several boyfriends over the last three-or-so years. As far as I know though, she's currently single.
"Hey Billy," she purred, leaning on my desk and absentmindedly tracing patterns on my exercise book with the tip of her manicured, French-tipped fingernail.
"Yeah?" I asked weakly, trapped in her green, green eyes.
"You can play piano, right? Like, really well?" she asked me with those soft pink lips I've imagined so many times.
"Uh-huh," I smiled dazedly. My heart was beating a mile and minute, but the way she looked at me made it difficult to think of anything at all, really. I was a sorry mess of testosterone under her gaze.
"Ollie was telling me how good you are. Anyway, I've been getting piano lessons from this guy, but he's moving to Liverpool next week, so I'm going to need a new tutor, and I was thinking that maybe you could teach me? I mean, if you wanted to," she looked at me through long, thick eyelashes.
"Yeah, of course, no problem!" I grinned like an idiot before I finally got a grip.
"Brilliant! Do you have a piano I could learn on? Mine's getting replaced and the new one hasn't arrived yet."
"Er, I've got a keyboard in my bedroom," I told her.
"Brilliant!" she repeated and took one of my pens to write her phone number in the page margin of my workbook. "Ring me when you figure out a good time for lessons. I'll pay you too, so let me know how much you want."
"Yeah, sure. Y'know I'm free on Sundays," I told her.
"Then Sunday it is," she said with a sweet smile. "Text me your address?"
"Sure."
She gave me one last brilliant smile and turned back to her friends to resume working. I turned to Trent, who was looking at me with wide eyes. A triumphant and excited grin slowly crept onto my face.
"I have Annabelle Morris' phone number!"