A Golden Locket

Peter- C (See) Your Way Out

After lunch finally ended, I said a quick goodbye to William and headed off to Calculus.  It was nothing. I might hate math, but I’ve always been good at it. We started out reviewing some things we had learned last year, and we were given a worksheet to be done before class ended. I was done within all of ten minutes and had the rest of the class to continue working on my mural.

Though I didn’t have the paint or the easel, I listed and sketched out a couple of things that will contribute to it. Class ended fairly quickly then, and I made my way to AP British Lit, how great.

I’ve never really been able to understand Shakespeare. It was always like reading a foreign language, a lot like French actually.

When we read Hamlet freshmen year, I had no idea what was going on. “To be, or not to be?” To be what?

The teacher didn’t help at all; I mean she looked like a complete witch. She was an old woman, proven so by the scarce locks of snow white hair. Her eyebrows sagged as if burdened by an invisible weight, which could only be her plentiful of knowledge of fictional stories.

When we began recapping Romeo and Juliette, I was completely lost. The rest of the class was bringing up scenarios that I had no idea had even happened. Mrs. Moore called on me to speak and I had nothing to say. I made up something about how Romeo was actually valiant and a bunch of other bullshit. She looked concerned, but held over, for now. This class was not going to be fun.

I was excited for Government. It’s the last class of the day, and the only other class I have with William. I don’t particularly like government, but it was supposed to be the easiest class this year.

The excitement was pulled from my body when I walked into the classroom.

There, sitting in the far back corner of the room sat Alice and Dorian leaned together, whispering. I directed my eyes toward the other side of the room, and saw William with his head resting on a fist, leaned up against the wall, and fast asleep.

I walked over and gave a tap to William’s temple, he swated my hand away and shot me a death glare.

“Can you not?” he spat.

Giving him a confused look, I decided not to say anything. I sat down in the desk in front of him, and made a pact with myself to not even look in Alice’s direction.

I guess I had missed our teacher’s big entrance, because I looked up at the front of the room to see a man, most likely in his early twenties with dark skin. THIS was our teacher? He could only just be out of college; I mean he looked barely old enough to drink alcohol.

He started the class off with some minor joking about his profession; this gave me high hopes of actually having a cool teacher. Though unsurprisingly my hopes were shattered not ten minutes later when he announced a pretest.

I hate history. Nothing about it is even remotely interesting. Who wants to read about old white men who oppressed all other genders and races, when you can instead read a book with pictures filling every page, and minor dialogue that consist of extreme combat and awesome powerful characters?

When I actually got my pretest, I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what the answers were. I mean, did they really expect me to know anything about the Judicial Branch of government, or the jobs of the congress? I mean, I have an American education.

I felt like banging my head against the desk, anything about social studies made me feel stupid. The only time I could ever recall doing well in social studies was when Alice would help me.

Somehow she had a way of beating the information into my brain that just… worked. That was always our agreement. She would help me with things like literature, and social studies. Then I would help her with the more step based learning, like science and math. It was odd; we just matched in that way.

A rustle of papers and the click, clack of a pair of heels startled me out of my thoughts. Of course, Alice was the first one to finish. As she walked confidently up to the “too young to be a teacher” teacher, there were audible gasps. It seemed like no matter how many times she proved it, people always thought Alice was an idiot.

As she walked back to her desk, I tried to focus back on my test. Finding yet another question I didn’t know the answer to. I looked back at my previous answers for guidance, I had used A twice, B three times, and D an astounding seven times. How did I manage that? I decided it would be best to C (see) my way out.

I merrily laughed aloud at my own punny thought. Mentally punching myself for being such a nerd I went back to my test.

Not surprisingly, I was the last one done out of everyone. By that time class was almost over, and Mr. I didn’t catch his name saw it unfit for anymore learning today. He went over the syllabus; god I was getting tired of those things. When he was done he let us to ask him whatever we wanted. I assumed that meant about this year’s government course, but a certain princess had other ideas.

It was that same girl from first period. It seemed she had a way with stupid questions. “Are you married, Mr. Wilson?”

Mr. Wilson, so that was his name. Give this girl a medal.

I vaguely heard him talk about a wife he impregnated, before I finally met eyes with Alice for the first time this class period. I decided not to look away. Instead I focused on her.

I hadn’t RELLY looked into her eyes since freshmen year, they were still that aqua marine, that was more intimidating than calming, but I liked it. She just had this look, or stare that felt so comforting yet enforcing at the same time.

She didn’t keep my stare for long before she turned to Dorian, with a concerned look. With that I turned around to talk to William, but seeing him still with his head down I decided not to bother.

After that, it wasn’t long before the bell sounded. This was it; I had survived the first day. Now it was time to go home and relax, not to think about Alice Devereaux for at least a straight 12 hours.