Sightless

Chapter Five

            Chapter Five

Alex wandered into English with a feeling of contentment from the weekend still lingering. He had played the piece at four dozen times throughout the weekend and had his mother write down the notes on paper as a formality. He hadn’t thought much about anything else, especially not the issue at hand involving Angela.

Before Alex made it to his seat she had wrapped him up in an overwhelming bear hug. It had surprised the blonde enough so that he flinched away from her.

Angela released Alex and inspected his expression. “What’s wrong Alex?”

Alex sputtered. He was about to say something uncharacteristically rude when he thought better of it. “Nothing, I’m just not used to all the touch-y feel-y stuff.”

Angela’s face fell. She was a touchy feely person and it made her sad to know she couldn’t hug the blind boy she was crushing on. She was beginning to get the distinct feeling that her feelings were unrequited. But she was not going to give up now. “Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe you’ll get used to it.”

Alex was about to facepalm when he realized how terribly rude that would be so he just swept his hair out of his face instead. “Maybe,” he replied shortly and brushed past the overzealous teenage girl to plop down in his seat.

She gave a quiet humph and took her seat beside the distant blind boy.

The bell rang and in rushed Mrs. Hayden. “Sorry, sorry, class. I had to deal with an issue in the hall,” she explained calling the class to order.

Mrs. Hayden began digging around behind her desk and tugged a medium sized cardboard box out from under it. She walked to the middle of the classroom before speaking. “Now I know a lot of you hate reading with a passion and are only in this class because it is required, but unfortunately we have to read a certain number of novels by the end of the term. But don’t worry I won’t make you read Beowulf, pause for dramatic shudder," Mrs. Hayden teased actually pausing, and the class actually shuddered, "or A Tale of Two Cities, I like the more modern novels. The book's of today’s pop culture. So can anyone guess what novel I have selected?” She rattled the box as if hearing the books banging into the sides of the box would give a hint to the students as to their mystery novel’s identity.

“Twilight?” Someone ventured indifferently.

Mrs. Hayden smiled. “No, not Twilight.”

“The Notebook?”

“No, not the Notebook.”

“Fifty Shades of Grey?” A boy seated in the back sniggered.

The teacher's face paled and her eyes popped slightly. “No, Robby, not Fifty Shades of Grey either. That’s hardly appropriate.”

“Harry Potter?” Angela’s friend, who was very popular, Meredith suggested.

“Meredith, just no,” Mrs. Hayden replied shaking her head.

“Hush, Hush?” Angela asked excitedly.

“Very excellent series, but no, not Hush, Hush. C’mon class wake up and use those big brains you all are bound to have by now.”

All throughout the little game Mrs. H was playing with the class Alex had kept quiet due to the fact that the only thing he ever got to read were books transcribed in Braille, which could get very expensive. But he had at least heard of these titles before. He listened as Mrs. Hayden rattled the box one more time and then opened his mouth. “The Hunger Games.”

It was spoken so quiet and so unsure that Mrs. Hayden had to look again to make sure that the statement had indeed came from Alex. “Correct! We are in fact going to be reading the masterpiece Suzanne Collins came up with. Has anyone read it before?”