“And then,” Gerard said, his voice uneven and high pitched with constricted laughter, “And then she offered to blow him! Like, ‘I won’t tell if you won’t, sir.’ And she looked at him with this pout that she meant to seem sexy. I mean, granted, the girl had things going for her, but come on! Mr. Foster was, like, 70! And you should have seen his face!”
Gerard’s face contorted in a hideous expression of mixed horror and desperation, and Frank dissolved into giggles.
“I always thought,” he laughed, gasping for breath, “I always thought Stacie got kicked out for being caught blowing her boyfriend, not for propositioning a teacher!” He thunked his head on the table and stuffed his fist into his mouth to stop his giggles from bubbling out of his mouth. Next to him he could see Gerard doing the same thing. They were perched on their chairs in the library, swapping stories until Mrs. Cunshaw came to see them like she’d promised she would.
“Okay,” he said, “Okay. I can do this.” He took a couple of deep breaths. “I can sit here and not burst into laughter every other fucking second thinking about Stacie Blackington propositioning Mr. Foster.” He clapped his hands over his mouth again and forced himself to look at the table and only at the table to calm down. Out of his peripheral vision he could see Gerard’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter as well.
“Boys.” Mrs. Cunshaw's voice suddenly sounded to his right and Frank’s head shot up, desperately trying to keep a straight face. “How are you two getting on?” she beamed.
“Quite well, ma’am.” Gerard said to Frank’s left and out of the corner of his eye Frank could see Gerard’s face was smiling appropriately.
“And you haven’t tried to get out of this, have you?” she looked at them in turn, a shine of disapproval in her eyes. Frank averted his eyes and opened his mouth, but Gerard kicked him in the shin and he jumped and tried to glare covertly at Gerard.
“No, ma’am.” Gerard smiled sweetly, blandly ignoring Frank and keeping his eyes fixed on Mrs. Cunshaw. "We've both been here every Tuesday and Thursday."
“Good! Good!” she beamed at them. “Now, why is it you asked for me to come?”
“Well,” Gerard started, still smiling innocently, “We were actually wondering about two things, actually. You see, we’ve got this really good idea for our project, but the problem is, our scene doesn’t have enough content?”
Mrs. Cunshaw looked confused. “What scene did you boys draw then?”
“Well, the scene were Romeo and Juliet get married.” Frank clarified. “But, the only thing that really happens is that Romeo and the Friar discuss the marriage and then Juliet arrives and then the scene is done. Which is far too short for what we had planned. We were wondering if you could maybe let us use the story as a whole, rather than limit us to one scene?”
Mrs. Cunshaw smiled widely again. “Well, I am intrigued, dearies. What is this ingenious idea you were planning?”
At this point Gerard cut in. “Well,” he hesitated, “do you remember how you said that we could use all mediums we wanted?” Mrs. Cunshaw nodded and Gerard continued, “Well, we were thinking of incorporating some visual mediums as well.” He bit his lip, “we could explain in detail, ma’am, but that would ruin the surprise a bit, I think?” he turned his wide eyes to her, “but we can tell you if you really want to know.”
“Oh no, no, that’s okay!” she smiled widely, “I am happy you’ve gotten so invested in this project, dearies! I will discuss it with Principal Ellis, but I’m sure it will be all right. Now what was that other question you had?”
