Not His Girl

Friday Funday

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Excuse the mistakes

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“Now, something to note is the parallel between Satan and Adam and Eve. Both fall from paradise because of what? Knowledge. If all of you will turn to book four, we can examine a certain passage that outlines ignorance and knowledge.”

I thumbed through my copy of Paradise Lost, whose pages were covered with scribbled, barely legible notes until I reached the passage Mr. Whitman was directing us to. I scanned the passage as he began to lecture us, and despite knowing that I was looking at English, I had no idea what I was reading.

I think that when John Milton sat down to write Paradise Lost, he kept a thesaurus by his side, and he decided to jam every big word he knew into the text. At first glance, the poem is so pedantic it hurts. However, once you got beneath the string of SAT words that Milton uses, the essence of Paradise Lost is interesting and complex. It just took a hell of a lot of discussion and time to wade through the language.

I was having trouble doing just that because I wasn’t really focusing on the discussion. My mind was on the art competition. I was supposed to hear about my pieces and whether or not they had been chosen to be shown last week, but there had been a delay in the judging. So, a week later, I was anxious to find out, no matter if the outcome was a happy one or not.

Mr. Whitman started writing notes on the chalkboard, and as I forced myself to focus and scribble them down in my notebook, I snuck a glance at the clock above the door. Not only was I having trouble focusing because of the art contest, but also because of the close proximity of the weekend. School got out in less than fifteen minutes, and today was Friday, which meant I was fifteen minutes away from the weekend. It also meant I was getting closer to my date with Duke tonight.

Before that, however, Gretchen was coming over to my house so we could type up our PowerPoint we were using in our history project. Last period we confirmed that we were meeting afterschool in the parking lot, and she would follow me over to my house in our cars. Gretchen again assured me that she would be out of my house by five, which resulted in her unintentionally assuring me that my date would go on as planned.

Just as my hand started to cramp from how fast and how much I was writing, the bell rang. Everyone stopped writing and started scrambling to get their stuff and get out of the classroom as quickly as possible. The weekend had officially begun, and no one wanted to waste it.

“See you all on Monday,” Mr. Whitman called as the first students started to file out of the classroom, “Please have book five read for discussion!”

I slung my backpack onto one shoulder, and I said goodbye to Mr. Whitman as I walked into the hallway. I turned the corner and squeezed my way between people to get up the stairs, and I made my way to my locker. I twisted my combo into my lock, and two seconds after my locker swung open, it was immediately slammed shut.

“Hey bitch!”

Olive grinned at me and leaned against the row of lockers. I rolled my eyes and reopened my locker, making sure to hang the lock on the hook so that it blocked the door from being shut again.

“Hey O,” I replied, pulling the notebooks I wouldn’t need for the weekend out of my backpack. “What’s up?”

“Does something need to be up for me to find my best friend after school?” Olive asked, shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Something needs to be up if you’re still at school five minutes after the last bell rang,” I replied, shutting my locker. I put on my backpack and started to walk down the hallway. Olive quickly fell into step with me, and she looped her arm in mine.