Phenomen-04: A Narrative of Naivety

Group Four

He spoke with a voice as coarse as sand and a condescending cadence as if his students were just annoying rain showers that come and go at their own leisure. His voice would rival that of a baritone saxophone, so low that it might blend in with the sound of the radiator. "For your first project in this class..." he began examining the promiscuous array of students, looking for even one he thought might qualify for an A, "you will be working with two partners to solder a working series circuit and turn on two lightbulbs. You will each be responsible for completing a section of the corresponding research paper before we begin the physical project on Monday next week."

August opened his eyes and jolted his head toward Jackson, who sat across the room from him. As if on queue, Jackson did the exact same thing and gave August a look of, "Hopefully we're partners". All that would need to happen was for Mr. Shroder to assign them together, and then the project might actually be fun.

"An outline for the paper is on the desk here. Be sure to make a title page, MLA format, you know the script." Mr. Shroder sat back in his chair and appraised the students once more.

"Um, are you gonna pass out the outline?" A commonly boisterous and annoying student snarkily asked. No one else wanted to ask the question, but everyone wanted an answer, so long as they weren't the ones getting punished for asking.

Mr. Shroder looked at the kid and smirked, "Hmph. You kids are independent now. In my class, you're gonna do your own work to get your own direction. Now, as for partners," he reached for a mug full of popsicle sticks next to an unorganized pile of papers, "I will be picking them randomly."

As he did so, students cheered when they were assigned a friend, at which point Mr. Shroder would rearrange their sticks in the mug and assign them different partners. So when he picked August and Jackson, both opted to stay quiet. "August, Jackson, and Kylah. You'll be group four or whatever, I don't really care."

August spent the rest of the partner-picking event wondering who Kylah even was. He examined the group of peers just like Mr. Shroder, not knowing how he could've been in a class with her for this long and not have heard her name.

When the groups were dismissed, a friendly-looking blonde girl looked over at August and approached him casually. She wore a white button-up shirt with a navy-blue cardigan that hung down just below her waist, which had a darker blue skirt wrapped around it. Her hair was almost white, but still a little blonde, and it was mostly tied up in a ponytail besides a string of it she left dangling by her face. Square, black glasses shielded her green eyes. "Hi," she looked at him with a smile, as she did for Jackson. "Alright, don't forget the outline. Gonna need that. I'll go grab one real quick."

"Alright, Jackson and I'll start the document." August looked down and opened his school-issued and obligatorily awful netbook. He typed in his password and closed out of his cool-mathgames tab to open a document to share with Jackson and Kylah, once he got her last name.

"Alright, title page, title page, title page!" Kylah sat down and judged August's complete and unreasonable ignorance. She giggled.

"Okay, jeez, you don't gotta be so intense!" August laughed it off, "You sound like the captain of the Titanic!" He smiled. He knew she wouldn't inhibit his enjoyment too much. "Hey, how come I didn't really see you before now? I think I would've noticed someone like you out of all these robots."

"Oh, yeah, I switched classes. AP was a little too hard for me, so I decided to move down a little." Kylah's voice was soft and comforting, a stark contrast to the abominable science teacher staring at his laptop and wondering how to bookmark a website.

"Oh, so you're, what, a nerd?" August leaned back in his seat and smirked at Kylah.

"Stop that!" Kylah grimaced, but then considered it for a minute, "... Yes." She scratched her neck and grinned. "Yeah, I'm in AP Math, so what?"

"AP Math!? Isn't that where people who skip grades go when the people around them are too stupid to recognize their superior intelligence?" August put his elbows on the table looked over Kylah's shoulder. "Plus, you don't look too much like the AP student with Jackson doing all the work over there."

"I'm just doing my work, August. Not letting you or this new girl hamper my good grades." Jackson didn't smile. He seemed to have a dismissive and angsty look on his face like he was disappointed in the menagerie that he knew was his friend and someone who was going to soon become his friend.

"Uh, vibe check?" August prepared his hand for a critical slap to Jackson's face but knew that wasn't going to actually happen, and Kylah grabbed his arm to stop him, shaking her head in disapproval.

"If you-- okay, don't do that to me." Jackson laughed and looked over at the teacher, who was finally putting his laptop down on the desk in front of him.

"You will be graded on your in-class behavior and our use of time!" He shouted over the noisy classroom with a disapproving smile on his face.

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Why can't I do that? Jackson thought to himself while walking to the bus at the end of the day. August didn't even know she existed before today, and vice versa, yet they still hit it off like they've known each other for years. He clenched his fists in self-deprecation. It must be so nice being the social butterfly. Everything I've been doing here socially, I've been dragged into. He looked angry at something as he stomped onto the bus. Being friends with some shady outcast who appeared out of freakin' nowhere, being friends with August... I mean, what's next? Am I gonna launder money with a mafia boss because my new best friend Paul Ryan wanted to get fired?

The bus was comfortable, though. His thoughts could rest for a while as he lost his thoughts in the relaxing music he played through his phone. The headphones were cheap, but at least they worked and he didn't have to pay $150 for them like some of the other people he knew.