wherefore art thou » dead poets society

allegro energico e passionato

neil quickly learned that she was a smart girl. quiet, though. but a quick-witted thing, really. it wasn't as if she didn't have anything to say, it was simply that she chose to watch others speak, which to neil was very meaningless. she did well in class and never missed a single assignment. she soon became a teachers favorite in chemistry, latin, you name it. but he also learned that she had two drawbacks — she was pretty damn lousy at trigonometry and mr. keating did not seem to adore her like many other teachers did.

and much to neil's own satisfaction, he was easily one of keating's favorite pupils as well as being quite gifted when it came to mathematics.

after much convincing, the girl finally allowed him to tutor her. it was endearing, almost, how she seemed to lose that cool demeanour when it came to math. her blood was boiling, her eyes aflame with hatred, her body seething with rage. oh the frustration and the grumpiness that came along with it was a sight that neil perry found much amusement in. she didn't smile at him, like she did with todd, but she snapped back at him, made snarky remarks at him, and even cursed at him. neil didn't make her smile but he certainly baited out a new side of the ice princess the boys of welton hadn't been exposed to. at times when arguments grew too heated and it looked as though evaline could very well kebab neil with her violin bow, meeks would take over the study session. so, in conclusion, the boys learned this much:
- todd anderson makes her smile and talk about classical music
- neil perry makes her scowl and bark at everyone within a 5 foot radius
- steven meeks makes her return to her withdrawn, frosty self

though the ice upon her skin began to thaw, she still remained a lengthy distance from cameron and dalton. she never spoke to richard cameron and he never spoke to her. and as for charlie, she had many a reason to stay away from him. for starters, he was a thirsty boy. he was a man deprived of water, quenched from many years of isolation in a desert and a female in welton was like fresh water to him. but she paid him no mind. charlie was the most charming of the bunch — that went without saying. but evaline didn't seem to buy into his many attempts at the suggestion of courtship. actually, she regarded him with such frosty apathy, his pestering drew to a minimum of once per week. she wasn't aggressive by any mean. she was almost entertained by those quirked brows and lopsided crooked smirks. exactly like something out of a bad romance movie — with no love interest for the bad boy character, that is.

she spent much of her time alone. the only one who could coax her out of her room would be todd. todd, who could play piano to some degree, would manage to lure evaline out to welton's only music room with a miserable-looking piano that was missing several keys and was painfully out of tune. he'd play simple arrangements of accompaniments for pieces evaline was practicing and soon became deeply invested in this new culture of music. though he himself never played anything too grand, todd always savored these moments when she truly came alive.

she would begin with tuning. a crucial step that never pleased her. the piano, after many years of neglect, lost its original grandeur to old age. it's sound, too, was devoid of that pristine, clean, clear quality that it was birthed with. so when it came to tuning, she tuned all her strings a semitone lower to match the piano and todd loved the little scrunch of her nose when she drew the bow across said strings. he would learn that it was the double-edged sword of perfect pitch that evoked such a response from her. that that would further draw out rants and frustrated outbursts.

"saint-saëns wrote the bloody piece in a minor and now it's played in a flat minor. would it kill welton, a wealthy school, by all means, to invest in a new piano?" she would huff angrily, adjusting the shoulder rest, eyebrows furrowing and creasing.

"maybe you could talk to the school?" todd suggested, flipping through the score, a soft smile lifting his lips.

evaline shook her head with another exasperated sigh, "unlikely. anyhow, let's work on the opening again. bars 1-36."

and it took an entire afternoon on a sunday for evaline to finally find some sort of satisfaction in the first 36 bars of a piece that would quite a few more pages. todd greatly treasured these hours spent in the golden bask of the amber afternoon sunlight because he was the only one who had heard evaline play. of course, all the other boys were aware that she could but no one had ever heard the notes that left her fingers as they flew across the fingerboard. it was a partnership only between the two. todd was the closest to evaline, with the possible exception of neil, and it was a sort of satisfaction that no one else at welton could enjoy. the art of music-making required perfect cooperation between all performers and there was an intimacy, todd found, in the way she breathed in time with him, in the way her eyes would always look up to meet his. it was all very fluid and when she dragged out those higher notes, he too would pause and linger on that moment with her. it became a liberation for him, a form of escapism, where she didn't care about the wrong notes because it was the perfectly imperfect harmony of two sounds melding into one that she cared about.

yes, she was an interesting one, the boys would discover, when a shakespearean literature unit was introduced in english class.

"now, we've briefly touched on shakespeare in our poetry unit but there is great value in his playwriting," mr. keating would announce quite happily, deaf to the reluctant groans of his students. "'the soul's joy lies in doing' and we, boys, are not doing enough!"

someone in the back of the room laughed. todd craned his neck back to glare at the blonde boy with thin-rimmed glasses who had made that monstrous noise.

"oh pardon me, boys and girl," mr. keating corrected himself, glancing at evaline who's face remained blank as ever. "today we will begin with the most famous tragedy known to mankind. romeo and juliet."

the class burst into complaints and disgruntled chatter as keating began passing out slips of paper.

neil picked his own piece up and held it against the morning rays.

Romeo

he was no romeo, that was for sure. neil didn't lead a life of vengeance and love — no, he thought himself a much simpler man with much simpler aspirations in life. he folded it over once and left it on his desk before he heard charlie hissing his name.

"neil! who'd you get?"

"romeo."

"aren't you blessed. i got the nurse."

neil laughed at that. brilliant. absolutely brilliant.

"the nurse is comic relief. suits you well."

charlie pulls a face at that, sinking back into his seat.

"take a moment to look over your lines because in a moment we're heading outside to act what shall be the greatest instalment of shakespeare's romeo and juliet!"

meanwhile, todd anderson would only squint at his paper.

Paris

the stupid fiancé who doesn't even marry juliet. what fun.

he glanced over at evaline and saw that she already crumpled up the paper. upon asking for the slip, she shook her head and stood up. the class shuffled outside into the courtyard, a chatter humming between each student as they made their way down the creaking wooden stairs. the welton students stood in a tightly-knit clump, like a flock of sheep, waiting for further instructions from mr. keating who was grinning jubilantly.

"romeo, step forth!"

neil perry pushed his way to the front.

"juliet, step forth!"

evaline, with a terrifying dark aura about her, separated from the crowd.

"gentlemen, your leading roles! a round of applause!"

the courtyard promptly erupted into wolf whistled and thunderous clapping. evaline was scowling but mr. keating turned a blind eye to this.

"guess we're in love now," neil laughed in an attempt to lighten the tension that was quickly building up.

evaline shot a piercing glare, "romeo and juliet were never in love."

neil quickly learned that she was a smart girl. but she absolutely hated the love story of romeo and juliet. because it wasn't a love story.

it was a tragedy.