Teenage Dirtbag

Ch. 2

The next few days I began to settle into a routine at school. Each day Marcel would meet me in front of the principal’s office. He'd stand there quietly fidgeting with the hem of one of his many sweaters, or adjusting his glasses. Marcel was the closest thing I'd had to a friend in quite awhile, and I had to admit it was kinda nice.

            Marcel had just finished cleaning his glasses when he looked up and saw me approaching him. Grinning he waved excitedly, causing me to smile, "morning Marcel," I said taking my spot next to him.

            "Good morning Scarlett," he said happily, "ready for that math test?"

            "Eh, I could take it or leave it. I'm more excited to get to English."

            "What's happening in English," he asked as we began to make our way down the hall. The masses of people parted as we passed by. I guess we were a sight, Marcel being himself, and me still be fresh meat.

            "We're reading Romeo and Juliet. It's my favorite," I answered as we took our seats.

            "Right," he said as he began busying himself with getting out paper and pencils for our upcoming test.

            I was about to say something else when Mr. Timmons came in and told us to clear our desks. Apparently we were starting the test immediately. Once it was handed out I could see why, 75 questions decorated several sheets of paper. The test took nearly the entire class time, some of the less bright students didn't even finish. "That was brutal," I mumbled as I put my things away just before the bell rang.

            "I didn't think it was so bad," Marcel said, waiting for me.

            "Well you were the first one done," I added with a smile as we walked out of the classroom. I could see him glowing with pride that I'd noticed as we walked to our next class.

            I spaced in and out throughout the rest of the day. English was my last class and we'd been getting ready to read Romeo and Juliet all week. I'd already read it last year at my old school, but I was delighted when I found out here they read it in eleventh grade instead of tenth.

            Miss Jorgen choose several students through out the class to read for each character. Some were painful to listen to. We reached my favorite part near the end of the class and she glanced at the clock, "I think we have time to do this last part, who wants to read for Juliet?" My hand quickly shot into the air, "alright Scarlett you get to be the last Juliet of the day, and we need Romeo," she scanned the class before looking back in my direction, "Marcel, you haven't read today, would you like to read with Scarlett?"

            His face turned red immediately, "I uh..I-I guess I can," he stammered out.

            "Excellent, Scarlett, start whenever you're ready."

            I looked over to Marcel who was slowly going from red to a pale shade of white, and gave him a reassuring smile before I began reading,