The Masters

Chapter 3- Catherine

Chapter 3- Catherine

            "I hate this," I said angrily, throwing my books onto the table in the lunch pavilion at school on Monday. 

            "What happened?" Jennifer asked gravely from her salad.  Jennifer was my closest female friend and, like Jeff, I had known her for a long time.  We met in kindergarten when she tried to steal my graham crackers during lunch time; she reached over from beside me and I pushed her off the bench.  I was a pretty vicious little kid, but when Jen got back onto the bench, she apologized and we quickly became friends.  Beside her, our other friend, Brennan, was hunched over a book with his headphone plugged in, bobbing to whatever indie song he was listening to.  We became friends with Brennan in the seventh grade when he Jeff, Jen, and I got grouped with him for a science project and the friendship with him grew naturally. 

            "Stupid ass Fredrick took seven points off my test because I skipped a few steps when solving the problems," I informed her.  It was so frustrating to be smart enough to do simple mental math in my head and get penalized for it. 

            "I'm sure if you just sleep with him, he'll give you an A," Jennifer shrugged nonchalantly.  "That's what I did."

            "You what?" I screeched.  How could Jennifer sleep with him?  He was thirty years old and a complete hard-ass.  I would have never thought he would sleep with a student.  "That's horrible!  Is that how everyone gets A’s in that class?"

            "Naww," she laughed, throwing a piece of lettuce off her fork at me.  "Calm down would you?  As far as I know, only I've done it."

            "How could you be sure?" I asked as a disgusted shiver ran down my spine.  "I'm sure no one just comes out and says they've hooked up with Mr. Fredrick."

            "Well obviously not, but look at all the people who have an A in his class, besides me, everyone is smart."  She continued to pick through her salad as we sat in a comfortable silence and Brennan continued listening to his music at what I assumed was at the highest volume since he was undisturbed by my sudden outburst seconds earlier. 

            Taking a bite from my tomato mozzarella Panini, I looked around and saw the lunch pavilion fuller than it usually was.  Most students at school usually took advantage of the rolling green lawn in front of the school and ate lunch outside or most guys on sports teams were out on the state of the art fields the founding families built a few years ago.  But today, there were people everywhere in the pavilion.

            "Where's Jeff?" I asked Jennifer curiously.  Usually Jeff was the first one at the table yapping away with Brennan about the newest band they found, but today he was missing. 

            "Over there," Jennifer said, motioning towards the table in the back corner of the pavilion.

            I looked over to see the usually empty table filled with The Masters and cheerleaders, who I like to call, the groupies.  I scanned over the table and my eyes fell on a guy with two or three girls draped over him and his back facing me.  I watched as one of the cheerleaders leaned over and whispered something in his ear and as he laughed in reaction to her comment, causing the other girls to become jealous.  Or to be exact, causing Jeff to laugh. 

            "Yeah, I know right?" Jennifer scoffed, looking at the anger that was clearly painted over my face.  "Why didn't you guys tell me he got picked?"

            "I don't know," I said, sighing loudly and audibly.  "I didn't want to believe it."  I still couldn't believe it, even as Jeff sat at the table with The Masters.  I didn't want to believe my best friend was going to be some womanizing jerk.  I didn't want to be replaced by The Masters.  I slumped over onto the table beside my Panini and looked up at Jennifer.  "Does Brennan know?"