Genius

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

A conference (involving parents and teachers and a misplaced student) of epic proportions

    Seventh period punches me in the face with non-literal curriculum. The assignment sits in front of me like a bomb about to explode, a match for for my unrivaled IQ: Create an artwork depicting how you feel. What kind of assignment is this: it has no answers, right nor wrong, and asks for an illustration of an intangible idea; it is completely unreasonable!

    Everyone is hard at work. Across the classroom, Alan scribbles away; I'm tempted to check out his skill in artistry but I must focus on my own piece. I get slightly sidetracked when I notice the bespectacled girl beside me. Red. She has wine-red hair, eyebrows, eyelashes (she must've used colored mascara), and lips. Even her thick, square glasses' frames are red. I catch the hint of freckles buried under foundation and her green eyes are jade. Just a shade off of shamrock (and it's a good thing too, because jade eyes are hard and strong; stubborn, confident, and loyal while shamrock eyes are mean and mischievous in a way that hurts others, they're lucky but they hoard their luck and steal). I look back down at my currently blank sheet of paper, I must focus. I stare at the paper until two black dots appear in my vision, I'm almost convinced I've burned holes in the page with my glare but no such luck. 

Maybe if I turn it in blank the teacher will derive some meaning from that, something along the lines of a lost, lonely soul or something similarly ridiculous. So instead I draw two black dots and a triangle, a polar bear in a snowstorm. Then the teacher can figure out something relating to my "ice cold heart". I erase the polar bear's face. Then redraw it. Then erase it. I repeat the process until the girl next to me opens her mouth.

    "This assignment is a crock of sh-"

    "-enanigans!" I cover quickly, preventing the curse word from leaving her mouth. She'd get two whole months of probation for that at my old school.

    "No, it's a sh-"

    "-aitan!"

    "-assignment. It puts the as-"

    "-teriod!"

    "-in assignment. Stop doing th-"

    "-is?"

    "No, that!"

    "But you're trying to say bad things."

    "I don't give a fu-"

    "-dge popsicle!"

    "-what you think!"

    "Stop saying mean things!" I shove my hands over my ears and drown out the vile string of obscenities she is weaving with her tongue with an off key rendition of that song about decking halls.

    "Oh my god, it's mid-October! Why are you singing christmas carols, what is your problem?"

    "I don't have a problem, why would having the eternal spirit of christmas in your heart ever be a problem?" The girl gives me a look that should be the picture definition of the word "surly" (pictures of expressions by definitions are really helpful), her eyebrows are drawn (in both the literal and figurative sense) and her nose is crinkled while the corners of her mouth point downward as though she has weights hanging from them. I can't resist the temptation to snap a picture and add it to my "expression dictionary", the flash goes off right in her face and she blinks dazedly.

"Huh?"

"Sorry about that, I just saw your expression and thought it would be a perfect representation of surly in my expression dictionary." I hold up my phone, scrolling through the sad and happy faces that are mostly made up of actresses and actors and some random human who I saw getting dumped by his fiance and her hotter, richer, younger boyfriend at the park across from the library when I was walking home. I also managed to obtain a picture of Ms. Stevens and saved her under the "Fly-catching" expression category.