The Handcuff Effect

2

'Uh, how long did you say were would be stuck together?' Stace asked after being cuffed to Jared. She did not look happy. If strikes of lightening could be generated by a stare like hers, The Crow would be long gone. Jared and Stace went way back and not in the friendly way. He looked about as pleased at the pairing as she did.

The Crow grinned as she distributed out small notebooks to everyone in the class. 'I didn't.' She acknowleged and a small groan escaped my mouth. I was too embarrassed to even look at Nathan, though I suspect he had more important things to think about rather than being attached to me for an undetermined amount of time, like how he was supposed to play footy with a clumsy bookworm extension.

I looked at the bland-looking notebook in front of me. 'What's with the books?' I asked finally. It was the question everyone wanted an answer to, now that we all knew who our partners were.

The Crow beamed at us. 'Its a diary. I want you to record the way you behave with each other around everyone else. How you act, what you think, that kind of thing, and then we'll see the progression that occurs.'

This has got to be the worst day ever generated in history.

A thought flitted through my head which made my spirits lift a little. 'We get uncuffed at the end of the day, right?' I asked, fiddling with my fingers, but holding The Crow's probing gaze.

'I've sent out a permission note. The principle accpeted the assignment, all your parents have signed and returned the note stating that until I say so, you two are stuck together, day and night, weekends, weekdays and holidays inclusive.'

This time everyone groaned.

I felt my gut clench. How were we supposed to shower? To change clothes? Oh, crap, clothes! How was I supposed to get out of this stupid dress if I couldn't change clothees? He would see my underwear draw at some point in the near future, and the only people who have seen it is Stace and my mother! My mother agreed to this?

Oh, the betrayal.

I suppose she thought Stace and I would get paired together, in which case, I would have been fine with it too. But now Nathan was going to see my underwear draw, I'd probably be stuck in the same bra for a century and if I go that long without a shower, I might be provoked into killing something.

I felt even more sympathy towards Stace; everyone else was with either someone they liked or didn't know well enough to be swayed either way. We were two of six girls that were stuck with guys, all the others were paired with each other.

Sighing, I stuffed the notebook under my stack of books, ignoring her droning on about the way she expected us to do the stupid assignment. We have different classes! I realised with dismay. How were we supposed to divy those up? He did advanced maths, and I did PDHPE. He did DT and I did drama. How the bloody hell were we supposed to do all our subjects?!

The bell rang, finally, and I looked over at Nathan. 'Hey,' I said, grabbing his attention. His blue eyes grabbed and held mine, pulling me in, though I doubt he even realised it.

'Yeah?' He asked, and I blinked a few times to clear my mind.

'What do you have now?' I asked, looking away from his penetrating gaze to see if his books would tell me. But they looked the way I'd thought they might; disorderly and beyond presentable.

'Physics.' He said after a moment and I really wanted to beat him over the head. Why did he have to be so intelligent? Especially right now?

'Ah,' I murmured, tapping the table softly with my finger tips. He had physics, I had hospitality. Of course this was never going to work. 'Is it hard?'