Anonymous

30

Bonnie craned her neck around again to glance at the back of the classroom. Usually in Mr Abadeer's class, the rules were strict. If you were caught paying attention to anything but his preliminary lecture, it was instant detention. If you messed around during an experiment, it was instant detention. If you broke the rules in any way... it was instant detention. Hunson Abadeer ruled his classroom with an iron fist.

But today, they had a supply teacher. Or a substitute, as everyone else in the class referred to them. Which meant nobody was doing the set work, and the supply teacher was having a pretty hard time controlling them. Usually, Bonnie would be silently judging her classmates for their lack of work ethic, especially in science class. But today, she was taking as many opportunities as she could to glance to the back of the classroom at Marceline.

Bonnie had barely seen her around school over the last week. Ever since her birthday, when Marceline had dropped a bomb on her, it was like Marceline had truly mastered the art of teleportation; she dematerialised at the end of every class they shared, so Bonnie never got chance to corner her.

She wondered if it wasn't just the texting thing. She wondered if Marceline had realised that she had a crush. If Bonnie's identity hadn't been that hard for her to figure out, surely she could deduce other things too? She risked another glance at Marceline, and much like the rest of class time, the older girl didn't look up or meet her gaze. Like she'd deactivated the sensor Bonnie always thought she had.

"Oh my god, Bonnie, does your brain ever stop working?"

She jumped at Elle's voice. Elle didn't usually sit near Bonnie and Lady, but apparently seating plans didn't matter with a supply teacher. At least that's what Elle had said when she and her friend Melissa dragged their chairs over to Bonnie and Lady's desk. "What?"

"You always look like you're thinking," Elle said, "it's like you never stop."

"She's got to exercise her big brain somehow," Lady supplied, "how else do you think she got so smart?"

Bonnie chanced another glance at Marceline and sighed. "Yeah, I'll get back to you on the smart thing. Or maybe being academically intelligent means I lack common sense."

Lady hummed in reply, "I'm pretty sure that's a thing-"

"Why do you keep looking at Abadeer?" Elle's gossipy friend Melissa interrupted Lady, and Bonnie considered that scientific evidence for her lack of common sense. Never let the gossips see the pattern, she told herself.

"They're like, friends," Elle said it like she didn't approve. She probably didn't, but Bonnie couldn't care less. "Not that I understand why. I mean, what if she gets mad and punches you? You know, I heard that she got that black eye she had the other week from fighting down at that bar her band always play at..."

Bonnie effectively tuned out of the conversation at that point. Elle had heard that story in her own imagination, no doubt.

Lady nudged her while Elle and Melissa were busy gossiping about the many brawls Marceline had apparently occupied herself with. "Hey, what's really going on? You've been spaced out all week. Does she have something to do with it? Did she hurt you?"

She knew that Elle and Melissa were listening in, so Bonnie just shrugged. She wasn't revealing anything with those two nearby. "Nothing's going on."

When the classroom door banged open, an odd silence fell across the room. It was laced with a little terror, and Bonnie wasn't surprised when she looked over and saw Mr Abadeer in the doorway. He flashed that tense, oddly threatening smile at the supply teacher, and it sent shivers down Bonnie's spine. She didn't understand how Marceline and her beautiful smile were related to him. Hunson's smile reminded Bonnie of an alien in a human suit, trying to mimic traditional human mannerisms, and it never met his icy blue eyes. It was wrong, like he couldn't figure out how to make it look genuine. Marceline's smiles – though rare if you didn't know her – were completely dazzling. Her green eyes lit up with warmth and electricity, and it animated her whole face. While she was good at keeping what she was thinking to her chest most of the time, Marceline's smiles always gave away her happiness.