Never Met a Girl Like Her | ✔️

(23)

L E O N I E

I wouldn't say that I was a girly girl. I loved girly stuff. Like, shopping, makeup, clothes and big di— woah what. Anyway. My point. I wasn't a princes. I didn't mind getting my hands dirty. But with that in mind, the deceased rat opened up in front of me, waiting for its little organs to be harvested, made my stomach a bit weak.

"Lick."

Beside me, Bray had a pink organ on the end of a scalpel. He was pointing it straight at my face. I picked up my own scalpel and gave him a threatening glare.

"Braydon, I swear. Get that out of my face or I'm slicing your jugular."

He scoffed. "What a girl."

"You lick it then."

"No one lick the organs," Mrs Yule sighed with exasperation as she handed out the worksheets. "It's a dead rat for goodness sake!"

Wincing, I began to gently stab at all the pink bits and pieces. Gross. What was the point in this? I had zero intention of becoming a doctor, scientist or vet in the future. Couldn't I take a class on common disease symptoms or I dunno, health and nutrition.

They offered a brief class on that in food technology. But we should leave school with a way more thorough knowledge on good foods, cooking on a budget and hidden health hazards in certain foods.

"Miss," I said as the teacher stopped beside our desk. "How does Amy handle doing this shit?"

"Language," she rubbed her temples beneath her black bangs. "She handles it with a lot of whinging. More than you if that's possible. But she needs this class for college. So she does the work! Now get on with it."

She started inspecting Alex's work. He was done. All of the organs had been removed, organised on the tray beside his rat. Notes taken down. I stared at his work and frowned. "Alex, can you do mine?"

"No he can't," Mrs Yule glared at me before she turned around and started back towards the front of the class. "You have to have that paper filled out and turned in by Friday, class."

"That's two days!" I protested.

"That's more than enough time to turn in a basic dissection paper Leonie. You could have it in by the end of the class if you put your mind to it. But at this rate, you won't even finish harvesting that rats organs."

"Because it's sick. I mean, did anyone think about this rat and what his life was like before we decided to turn him into a science experiment? He was probably just going about his afternoon. Out collecting some cheese for his wife and kids. He might have stopped to chat with his neighbor, Joe, who's now spread out in front of Alex. He probably cleaned his whiskers before bed. With his little pink paws. Probably thought, tomorrow, I'm gonna take the kids for a slice of cheese. And now he's dead. And his kids want their dad. But he's not coming back."

Bray leaned over. "You sound like Amy."

"Don't insult me. That is offensive."

"Get used to it," Mrs Yule sighed. "It's frogs next semester."

"That is where I draw the line," I shouted as she settled behind her desk. "That really is just going too far. What's next, puppies?"