To Be Like Father

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**•**Nick's POV**•**

"Students, we have a new student this year!" The thirty something year old Geometry teacher announced from the front of the room.

I was in the back. It was first period of the first day of school at Weston High. We sat at rectangular wooden tables, two people per table. I recognized the Josh kid from the park but that was about it. No one sat next to me at my table.

The Geometry teacher, her name was Mrs. Jenkins, smiled at me with a cheesy glint in her eyes. "Why don't you stand up, Nicholas?" I gave her a look that was supposed to shoot out imaginary lasers but she kept looking at me with that ridiculous grin so I stood up, my chair screeching on the tile floor.

Mrs. Jenkins nodded. "So tell us your full name, Nicholas."

"Nicholas Hummel-Anderson." I mumbled. "Please, please just call me Nick though."

Mrs. Jenkins twirled her hand, "Do you have a middle name, Nick?"

"Why do I have to give you my middle name?" I asked.

She shrugged. "It's unique. I like it."

I was a bit confused as to how she already knew my middle name, but remembered that the teachers have an attendance list with the full names of all the students in the class listed alphabetically. Of course she knew my middle name. "Fiyero."

Most of the class looked to one another oddly or didn't react at all, but one girl raised her hand enthusiastically. She was fair skinned with sandy curls pulled back into a thick ponytail. Her only visible make-up was mascara on her eyelashes. She wore a striped cotton tee and faded jean shorts.

Mrs. Jenkins turned to her, "Yes, Renee?"

Renee looked to me, "As in Wicked, Fiyero?"

I nodded. "Yup. My parents are Wicked fanatics, especially Dad."

Renee put her hand down and smiled with satisfaction. "It's a shame that Wicked is no longer performed." she said on a sadder note.

A pudgy boy in an oversized T-shirt advertising some punk rock group raised a hand, but went ahead and spoke uninvited, "Don't you have two dads?" He questioned me.

I wanted to avoid this, but I nodded.

"Aren't they like... together?" An athletically dressed girl added.

Josh spoke up, "Their gay."

Heads turned and I stood alone amongst a bunch of wide eyes. Thankfully Mrs. Jenkins tapped the smart-board at the front of the room. "Okay class that's enough. Nick you can sit down now."

And I did. Hard. My behind made contact with the chair with a wham! A few snickers came from some students, but soon we were all busy labeling our binder and folder for Geometry and receiving our syllabuses that needed to be signed by our parents and returned to class by the next week.

•••

Second period was choir which meant spending forty-seven minutes with my father. I had never experienced him as a teacher so this was going to be interesting.

There were fifty-two of us in the choir, mostly underclassmen girls. Three rows of chairs arched around the back of the room. Dad and I had helped Father assemble the chairs just a week before.

Father was sitting in a chair at the front of the room with his legs crossed and a pencil behind his ear. This was a new look for him. Once everyone sat down conversations sprung and gradually grew louder. Some people had their phones out and I caught kids taking photos of Father, at least it looked like that's what they were doing. I just sat there and pretended I didn't exist.