Life and Times of a Keyboard Warrior

Heath and Eli

8

9th of February

Heath

I yawn loudly. I mean, professor Repeatro is a good teacher and all, but I can't be bothered to sit here whenever we have him, listening to his rambling. It's not natural for me to sit still for so long.

I look up to my left, and have an idea. Markus is here, he's always up for a good muck about when we're bored.

"Hey Markus," I whisper to him, grinning mischievously. "wanna kick up a storm?"

"Not now Heath, maybe later." He mumbles back at me. Something's up.

"Mate, what's up? You look all bummed out." I ask him quietly.

"Nothing, it's all good. I'm just trying to think, is all." He replies slowly.

I grin wide. "Don't think too hard, you might break something in there." I say, poking Markus' head cheekily. He swats my hand away with a smirk on his face.

"Very funny, Heath." He concedes.

"Would you two shut up?" I hear a voice say, and me and Markus turn towards it as one.

It's Pippi green, staring us down with fire in her eyes. "I'm trying to bloody work here, and you two are distracting me. Just shut the fuck up already." She hisses nastily, and I grin again, seeing my chance.

"Alright love, whatever you say." I state mockingly, trying my best to imitate her new boyfriend. "I'll just do what you say forever because I love you."

She stares back at me, horrified. I see Markus raise his hands in the air, then he brings them down quickly, crossing them at the end, saying, "dayum son. Shots fired." We bump fists. It was a pretty weak joke but we love it anyways.

Pippi slumps back into her seat, defeated. We turn around again, then another voice hits us.

"That was a bit nasty, don't you think?"

Elizabeth Reach-Jackson. Sitting right next to Markus.

"Alright, well, she did deserve it, I reckon." I intone, nastily imitating Pippi's voice. Markus cracks up laughing.

"Seriously, Heath, she used to be your girlfriend. You could at least show her some respect, instead of being a complete douche to her." Elizabeth scolds me.

I suddenly feel guilt cording through me. I've been told off lots of times, but I've never felt guilt like this before. Elizabeth just has that air about her for me...

I turn around sharply, and throw my hand out to Pippi. She jolts up, startled.

"I'm sorry Pippi, that was very rude of me. Can you forgive me?" I ask, my hand floating between our desks.

"Ahh, I guess so..." She says, and before she shakes my hand, she thoroughly inspects it for prank gadgets. Finding none, and seemingly satisfied, she shakes my hand. It feels gratifying.

"There you are, Elizabeth," I say, turning back around again. "I am a good person."

She looks me up and down. "I think it's time he was allowed to call me Eli, don't you think Markus?"

"Yeah, I guess so..." Markus replies wantonly, not really paying attention to us but is instead copying down Professor Repeatro's notes off the whiteboard.

"I think it's time you payed attention to my class, rather than your classmate Elizabeth, young Heath." I'm startled when the Professor seems to pop up right before me and targets me. The class erupts into laughter, but he's right, I was paying more attention to Eli than the class.

As the class laughter dies down, I manage to catch a glimpse of a furious blush as Eli turns back to her work, and I begin madly scribbling down notes, feeling newly energized for some reason.