The Life I'm Running From

5\ My Painting's Not Cold Enough

English, English. How I hate thee. Thou art a life-ruiner.

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the subject. Some of the books I've seen before seem like they'd be a little bit interesting. But can you blame a girl for hating to read when she has dyslexia? (And for that person in the back who is about to bring up my specialized contacts from Will Solace-I hate you. You sir, are the true life-ruiner around here.)

"McKinnley Bradden, you better be listening right now."

My head snapped up. "Yep, yep. Definitely. I love Shakespeare."

The English teacher, a man no older than thirty by the name of Mr. Harrigan, narrowed his eyes. "We're reading Edgar Allan Poe."

"Yeah—that's what I meant." Whoops.

Luckily, Mr. Harrigan let me off the hook and went back to his boring analysis of EAP's work. I picked up my pencil and started to twirl it on my desk. Too bad English was mandatory. Why was it anyways? It's not like I'll be sitting on a bench someday and a random guy will come up and demand I tell him the theme of Shakespeare's Juliet and Romeo. Schools should not force—

Whoops. I spun my pencil a little too vigorously, and it fell off my desk. I glanced up at the teacher. He hadn't noticed, thank goodness. I quietly turned around in my chair to pick up my pencil, but someone had beaten me to it.

"You dropped this," he whispered. It was the boy from the office, the one who had pretended to be sick. I wordlessly took the pencil from him. He seemed to be a bit embarrassed at the prolonged eye contact, which I was doing on purpose to see if I could learn anything about him. Unfortunately, it was interrupted.

"McKinnley Bradden! Peter Parker! You can talk after class!" I spun around in my chair and Mr. Harrigan crossed his arms. "The next person who interrupts this class is getting detention, understood?"

A few students mumbled "yes", and Mr. Harrigan, apparently satisfied, went back to the long boring poem. I opened my notebook to the back. Instead of writing down notes, I wrote down one name: Peter Parker.

Where had I heard that before?

★彡 ★彡 ★彡 ★彡

You know what's even worse than English? Physics.

"I heard Mrs. Treenage is giving us assigned seats," Charlie said as she sat down next to me. "Stephanie told me."

I quirked an eyebrow with disbelief. "Wasn't Stephanie the one who said the art teacher was pregnant? I don't think her information is reliable."

"Hey." Charlie pointed her finger in my face. "We won't know if she was right or not for at least a few months."

Mrs. Treenage opened the door to the classroom, chatting with one of the students. Even though she taught one of the worst subjects in the world, she was definitely friendly. Mr. Harrigan could take some tips.

"Before you all get comfortable," the teacher said, placing her bag on her desk, "I'm going to assign you spots. They will only be temporary--" She rose her voice to be heard over the outbursts of the students, and Charlie smiled smugly. "--your desk partner will be your partner for the upcoming project."

"I better get someone who can do Physics, or else I am going to fail," I muttered to Charlie.

"Ditto."

Mrs. Treenage started to read off the names, while pointing to the corresponding desks. All the rowdy students were placed at the front, and only when she got near the back, did she finally call mine and Charlie's names. Not together unfortunately.