mala fide (lams)

mare nostrum, optimum et pessimus

our sea, the best and the worst

THOUGH HE'D COVERED FOR HIM and said John went home feeling sick, a couple days later, the boy still hadn't shown up to rehearsal. Alexander told himself that it wasn't his business, but curiosity ate at him.  In Wednesday's AP Statistics, Alexander decided that he'd sit next to John. It was strange, he thought, that he never noticed he had this class with John. It was something he felt he definitely should have noticed. John was a person he clearly wanted to notice.

"Hey," Alexander said with a smile. John looked at him with accusatory eyes, but his words would not give this away.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Not much.  Figured I'd sit next to you, you don't mind, do you?  You're good conversation."

"Am I really?"

"Yeah," he said, "people listen to me very little."

"Maybe I just have nothing interesting to add to the conversation."

"No."  Alexander shook his head.

"No?  What's it mean, then?"

"It means you're a good listener.  We can have conversations.  What's your favorite color?"

"Hm... I don't think I have one.  There are too many..."

"Right, who wants to be monochromatic and simple?  Favorite colors are for chumps."

"Simple's nice." He put his face in his hands, elbow on his desk.

"Scratch that, my favorite color's ganja green."

John laughed a little. "Yeah. I'll bet. You look like a stoner."

"Do I? What gave it away?"

"The hair, mostly. The chattiness. The... reddish eyes... are you... high right now?"

"Not very."

Then, the teacher entered the room with a clap of his hands, announcing a "hello" to get the class to quiet down and listen.

Alexander flashed another smile to John. John couldn't help but smile back at the simple foolishness.  It must be nice to worry so little about getting caught that Alexander could be high in class.

A little into the class, at some transitional period, Alexander leaned towards John and whispered, "You should come to rehearsal."

"I knew you had ulterior motives."

"For sitting next to you?  Nah.  For getting Joe Pitt back in the theater?  Yeah, I kind of need somebody to play off of on stage."

"I'm not coming back."

"Mrs. W is gonna flip.  I told her you got food poisoning."

"What? Why would you do that?"

The teacher interrupted his lecture loudly, glaring at the boys when he said, "I'm sorry, it seems that some people are having side conversations while I'm trying to lecture."

Alexander apologized and crossed his arms on his desk.  Irate, John turned away, stared straight ahead.  Not a moment later, he glanced down at a note being slid to his desk.

Come back to theater. I covered for you.
A smiley face was drawn on the next line, then:
It's boring without you. + You play an important character.

John smiled at it, glanced over, and when Alexander looked back at their teacher, he put it in his jacket pocket.

"LAURENS," von Steuben said in a tone that had anger all over it, a tone few students could recognize wasn't real anger, simply the way von Steuben lectured.