Femme Fatale

Parker Parker

My mom likes to brag about her children. She says things like Xavier is going to be valedictorian of his class. He's been working at being the top of his year since he was in grade school. Piper has a solo in the Jr. High Choir recital. Can you believe it? They only give out two of those once a year. Xander won the second grade spelling bee. The other boy couldn't spell indifferent, but Xander could. Xavier is on prom court. My children are so accomplished. What have yours done recently? Okay, that doesn't sound exactly like my mom, but it's close.

What she doesn't brag about is how Piper burns everything she puts on the stove or how Xander can't seem to understand the concept that the dog is allergic to chocolate. She doesn't brag about how Parker can eat two medium pizzas in one sitting, how Parker writes a superhero fan fiction about Spider Man and her OC the Orb Weaver, or how Parker has the force field manipulating, floating, orb creating powers of her character.  

She doesn't say much about Parker, and that's fine with me. Parker's a little too special. I'm Parker, if you haven't figured that out already. I'm the super powered middle child of a better than yours family. 

Right now I'm sitting in my science class waiting for the professor to get to the part of mitosis that is actually supposed to make sense. At this point in the lecture I don't think one exists. Mr. Ross keeps telling me that if I can't keep up with him in class, I should get a tutor. Maybe if someone were to work with me one on one then maybe biology would make sense to me. I highly doubt it. If biology were supposed to click with me, it would have happened by now, and then my mom would have been able to pridefully announce that Parker has straight A's and is going to get into a college that your kid could only ever dream of.

As I zone out on the idea of not being as disappointing as I likely am, I stare at the boy who sits two seats over from me. He's the one who Mr. Ross says would be a fantastic tutor for me to meet with. He's extremely smart and is apart of the debate team or mathletes, or something. Something, that Mr. Ross says I can aspire to be more drawn to, as if I needed something challenging to commit all of my time. I was actually quite satisfied with using giant air bubbles as a trampoline and writing embarrassing fan fiction in my spare time, thank you very much.

I glare daggers at the boy and start chewing on my eraser. He didn't even seem that focused on the professor. He was secretly looking at this phone again as if he were waiting for something. He always seems like he's waiting for something. Pathetic. This is the boy that Mr. Ross wants me to be more like? Probably, the boy that my mom would want me to be more like. Yea, right. It never ever seemed like he was paying attention. He seemed just as disoriented from this lecture as I was. What, did he already just have this information stored in his head? Maybe he went home and read the information from the book three times over. It was super annoying.

"Miss Gillis?" a voice asks. I look up to the front of the room to see Mr. Ross looking at me quizzically.

  "Yes?" I ask, trying to figure out what he wanted. Hopefully he was only asking for my attention and wasn't wanting me to answer a question relating to what he was talking about. Whether I was paying attention or not, I wouldn't know the answer.

"Can you stop daydreaming about the day when your last name matches your first and answer my question?" he glares at me. With his question, the entire class laughs and my cheeks go pink. That is not what I was doing. I was not... I would never dream of the day I would become Parker Parker. I didn't even like Peter as a person. It's not that I didn't like him, I just didn't know him all that well. All I knew was that he was smart and... "Miss Gillis what is the metaphase?"

"I'm not sure but I can google it. Peter, can I borrow your phone?" I ask, looking back to the boy who had previously captured my gaze. Startled, Peter looks up to meet my eyes and throws his hands out in front of him in defense.

"Wo, wo. I'm not looking at my phone," he states. He gives me a dirty look and then turns his attention to our teacher "Metaphase is the second stage of cell division. This is where the chromosomes attach themselves to the spindle fibers."

"Thank you Mr. Parker. Next time that I ask you a question Miss Gillis, I expect you to have more of an answer," Mr. Ross states sternly. As he goes to say something else, the bell rings and I quickly throw my notebook in my bag before getting out of my seat. There was no way I was staying in this classroom any longer than I needed to.

I hated biology. I hated science. I wish it made more sense to me like history or English did. Hell, I wish it made as much sense to me as my economics class did but it didn't. It was hard and at this rate I was never going to graduate with honors like I was oh so pressured to do.

"Parker wait," Peter says stopping me outside the classroom door. I hesitate to stop, but deciding to be polite I turn around "Why did you out me like that?"

"Honestly?" I ask, crossing my arms. Peter nods "I was embarrassed that Mr. Ross caught me staring at you and I wanted to give him a good excuse so the whole class didn't think I liked you or something,"

"Why were you staring at me?" he asks. Then his cheeks turn pink "Do you like me?"

"No! Peter I barely even know you. I was starring at you because I suck at science and Mr. Ross said you would be a good tutor," I tell him honestly.

"Well it is one of my best subjects," he tells me. In response I roll my eyes. Obviously it was one of his better subjects or his name wouldn't have been brought up to me by our teacher in the first place "I suppose if you want, I could tutor you, but it would have to be during study hall. I can't do after school."

"That's fine. I don't want to spend anymore of my free time doing things that I don't understand, and I really don't want my mom getting any ideas about why you might really be at our house," I say, imagining my mom making the same statement that Mr. Ross had earlier. Parker Parker... I shutter. That is definitely something that I didn't want.

"So do you want to start today?" he asks me.

"I guess that sounds good. I'll see you at 12:45," I say. Peter nods again, and then heads down the hall. He stops for a second, gives me a small wave, and then continues on his way. I smirk. When that kid smiles he looks like he has a frog in his mouth. What a dork, and I just made plans to learn something I didn't even care about with him.