Dome

6

“So, there I was, letting my three younger brothers paint ranch dressing on my face because one of them said that he would give me $10, and that's when Jess walked in, that's my older sister,” Demitri directed at me, “You know sometimes I feel bad for her, I mean she has four younger brothers, and a younger sister, but she's still a jerk”.

“Wait you have a sister, she wasn’t in that story, how old is she”?

“Oh, yeah she’s six, um, she spends most of the time at the children's hospital down in the city, she has leukemia”.

“I’m so sorry”.

“No, it's cool, we visit her on the weekends and take her out if we can”. 

“Ok kids, it's time for us to start for today”. Mr. Baker, my history and homeroom teacher, announced before I could respond to Demitri.

I sat through the class thinking about Demitri’s family, he had a big family, and it must be hard on him to have a sister who might die any day. I tried to push the thought out of my head and pay attention to what was being taught in class, something about economics. 

 After my morning classes, I headed to the lunchroom, only this time I found a seat near Demitri and Winston. I placed my lunch tray on the matte blue table. I looked behind me to see Smithy, sitting at her own table not paying attention. She could sit at any table in the entire cafeteria, and everyone would move. 

“Hey, Jeremy, you good”? WInston put a hand on my shoulder.

“Oh, yeah” I replied

“Dude, you just stared at Ms. Imma Kill You, for like a good 15 seconds”. Demitri looked up from sipping his juice box.

“Why are you drinking a juice box”? Winston unintentally changed the subject, I was thankful.

“Because juice boxes are good, and they are the perfect portion of juice for school lunch, and I think that we shouldn’t press the steryotype that juice boxes are for children, and I fucking love them”! Demitri slammed his fruit punch on the table and some of the juice sqirted from the straw onto his robotics tean t-shirt, “Shit, you know what this wouldn’t have happed if you didn’t make fun of me for my choices”. Demitri joked.

“Wow, I’ve known you for 16 years and I never knew you had such strong opinions on juice boxes”.

“You know juice pouches are good too, but the boxes are better”. 

“I personally don’t like juice anymore, I prefer seltzer”. I chimed in.

“I’m disappointed in you,” Demitri patted his shirt with a paper napkin, “I’m probably this way because I live with two seven year olds, and an 8 year old. I live with children”. 

“Well we're not going to judge you, also do you want my hoodie you got juice all over your shirt”. Winston said, pulling off his hoodie and handing it over to Demitri.

“Thanks”. Demitri put the hoodie on and took his shirt out from underneath.

“That was really smooth, how often do you do that”? I asked, surprised by how easily he made the switch.

“About once a week, he’s kind of a klutz”. Winston said

“Dude, I’m just,” he defended before pausing, “yeah, you right I’m a total klutz”. Demitri laughed.

The rest of lunch was filled with chatter, mostly coming from Demiti and Winston with me butting in at certain moments.

After lunch I walked across the school to my English class, and again Smithy was taken out of the room halfway through the class by a woman whos dark hair was tied back in a neat low bun. The bell rang and my teacher told us that we should read the first three chapters of our book. 

My next class was math, Smithy had returned and was sitting at a desk towards the corner of the room. Fifteen minutes into class, I looked back over to Smithy, she was staring into space because she had already finished all the work for the hour long class.

School ended at 2:30 and I got a text from my mom telling me that I should meet her around the back of the school. 

I walked out of the school, and was about to turn a corner, when I saw Smithy taking a tablet from Demitri. 

“So, these are the rough plans I made, they might need some revisions based on what we have, but I think they're mostly fine”. Demitri said.

“I’ll show this to the council, and bring it back tomorrow with revisions”. Smithy replied looking at the screen.

“Did you get Jacob Rash last night”? Demitri asked. I recognized the name from Smithy’s list.

“Yeah he was easy, he was an old man who wasn’t long for the world anyways,  could frame his death as natural with no trouble”. Smithy sighed. 

“Okay good, I should go before someone sees us, and I got to get to robotics, I’ll see you back with the plans tommorow”. They both nodded before walking off seperate directions. 

I saw my moms car, and walked over, wondering what they could be planning. I hopped in the front seat and said hi to my mom.

“Hey, bud, I’m going to take you to the lab if thats okay with you. I’ll have to give you a tour before you can start working on the project”.