East West Sunset - A Darry Curtis Fanfiction

Chapter Nine

I let the kids streaming through the hallway bounce off of my shoulders as they blazed past. I felt lost and alone in the sea of people without Ponyboy to lead me through, but I resigned myself to the fact that I had to get to class, with or without him. I scooped up my pile of schoolbooks, which had fallen all over the floor in the excitement, and checked my wrinkled schedule to see which room my first-period class was in. Room 113, Mr. Syme, English IV, it read. I looked over at the classroom across the hall from me, whose number read 104. I was at the wrong end of the hallway, it seemed. Adjusting the books cradled in my arms, I kept my head down and pushed against the flow of people to get to Room 113. I didn't look anyone in the eyes as I walked; enough trouble had found me today already.

I was almost to my classroom when the bell rang piercingly. All the students still milling in the hallway stopped and fell silent at once, staring at the clock in shock. Slowly, the sound of them talking crescendoed again as they began to push against each other in their rush to get to class. I was caught between a girl freshman and a harried sophomore who were both trying to head separate ways. They both glared at me angrily before I was able to extract myself. I felt slightly suffocated in the pulsing, living river of kids, but I finally managed to duck into Room 113 without any major injuries besides a chipped nail.

The teacher, Mr. Syme, was a balding man with thin brown hair and watery blue eyes behind thick horn-rimmed glasses. He blinked at me as I slid into an empty seat near the back of the classroom. I was hardly the last to arrive, though, because a few more people slouched in after me, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. I assumed they had been in the bathrooms up until the bell had rung.

Mr. Syme walked over to my desk and handed me a few sheets of paper as well as two small books. "Hello, Ms. Jean. I received the memo that you would be joining us here at Tulsa Central High. Say hello to Diana Jean, class," he said cheerfully enough.

Most of the class said nothing, except for a few nice-looking Soc girls at the front, who chirped a cheery hello to me. They all flashed me wide smirks, the perfection of which was only somewhat diminished by the metal braces on their teeth. I smiled half-heartedly back just to be polite. I wasn't about to forget how badly their male counterparts had just treated me and Ponyboy just a few minutes before.

Mr. Syme looked disappointed with the meager response, but overall not surprised. "Well, Ms. Jean, you will find your syllabus in the pile of papers I just handed you, as well as a few guidance worksheets about the novel we are reading, which is one of the books I gave to you." He pointed at the larger of the two books on my desk. It was falling apart, the cover was yellowed with age, and little brown spots freckled the pages. The cover displayed a dramatic pair of lovers clutching at each other, and the title crested across the top of the image in elegant block lettering. It read Romeo and Juliet.

I struggled to suppress a groan. Shakespeare?

Mr. Syme tapped the cover of the second book he had placed on my desk. "This is your writing notebook. We will be completing journal activities in here over the course of the semester, and I will be grading it for fifteen percent of your grade instead of having you sit for a final exam," he explained. "I expect you to complete at least fifty entries of six to seven paragraphs from now until then."

The writing part didn't bother me as much as the Shakespeare part did. "Okay, thank you," I mumbled. He nodded and made his way back up to the front of the room.

"Good morning, everyone. Let us pick up where we left off with Romeo and Juliet. Yesterday, we discussed the Prologue, and how it will relate to the rest of the play. Can anyone summarize what we know so far about the plot so Ms. Jean can catch up with us? Anyone?" He stopped at the desk of a boy who had slumped over his desk, apparently asleep and rapped it soundly with the pencil he was holding. "How about you, Mr. Oliver?"