Post by Chris on Jun 25, 2007 15:27:55 GMT -5
Classrooms
Chapter One
Different
Chapter One
Different
“It’s gonna be neat, huh?” Kyle grinned as he and James picked seats at the back of the class together. James just smiled absently as he tossed his bag on the worn wooden chair next to Kyle’s in the corner and slumped down. He didn’t share Kyle’s enthusiasm for the start of the school year. In fact, no one shared Kyle’s enthusiasm for the start of the school year. “First day of school. Yeah, make some noise!” Kyle bellowed cheerfully, a futile attempt at trying to stir up a little life in the grim classroom. The girls sitting in the row in front of James giggled, and Kyle ducked as a couple of older boys chucked wads of paper at him for his unabashed, uncool excitement. “Sit down before you wet yourself,” someone taunted, and laughter broke out derisively. Even Kyle manage to laugh at himself, albeit self-consciously. James just smiled a reserved smile with those large, crooked teeth, embarrassed on his friend’s behalf.
“Man, you’re so stupid,” a red-faced James spat teasingly at Kyle, causing his young friend to again descend into his high-pitched chuckle. He picked up one of the paper wads and tossed it at Kyle suddenly, hitting him right between his eyes, stunning him out of his laugh into a surprised gasp. Of course, Kyle had to return the favor, and soon they were pelting each other recklessly, Kyle cackling all the while. “All right, I give, I give!” James surrendered, cowering behind his freckled arms, outdone by Kyle’s sheer energy. “Stop! Uncle!” Kyle threw a particularly large one on the top of James dust-colored dome, and gave it a rest with a satisfied huff.
The first day of second year was off to a nice start.
Ever since this time last year, Kyle and James had been as thick as thieves. Kyle was the brainy village kid: clueless, young and didn’t know anyone. James was … James: noticeably different but forgettable. Kyle had been hanging out by himself on orientation day, leaning against the rusty railing of the balcony outside homeroom, just looking at people passing below. James had sidled up, started some small talk about something or other now forgotten, and the rest was history. They became inseparable overnight, and were so in sync. Kyle had the energy and usually could be counted on for the scholastic stuff, although James was just as good as he was at math. James had the ideas for stuff to do, and always had money on hand. Kyle, quite like the child he was, didn’t know any other kind of friend to be other than an unconditional one, and James, quite like the good guy he was (at least in comparison to everyone else), sort of understood and did his best to be the same in return.
Although they were boys, they were pretty dorky as boys go, the kind of dorks that don’t know they are dorks. Kyle was a dork because he was only 10, 3 or more years younger than everyone else, and seemed immature to everyone else because to him girls still had cooties, he didn’t know about the birds and the bees and he brought his toys to school on occasion. James was a dork because he was like an apple among grapes, a white kid with British roots who grew up among the predominantly Black and Spanish locals, using his overlarge teeth to do Austin Powers impressions, and hardly intelligible as he constantly sucked back the copious dribble that threatened to leak out as he spoke. Quite a pair they made.
They had an unusual, fun first year of high school together. Kyle signed them up in drama club, and they performed on stage at the civic center for a Christmas play. James paid the bus fare for Kyle for the abundant visits to James’ house in Teakettle, where they read the many books in his personal library. Kyle was a ‘game-head’, and constantly forced the less-skilled James to get trounced by him at the arcade (of course, James provided the quarters). James loved volunteering, and made them help out getting the school prepared for the people who would be using it as a shelter during Hurricane season (Kyle was less than enthused). They raced to see who could figure out math problems first, had pointless discussions about whose watch was more accurate and argued about whose teeth were worse: James’ yellow rat incisors or Kyle’s humongous gaps. It didn’t sound like much fun, but they sure had a blast, even when Kyle would want to do something childish like play hide and seek, or when James would volunteer them to clean the gross school bathrooms for a week straight.
“Do you know who our homeroom [teacher] is this year?”
“As long as it’s not Mr. Augustine or Ms. Piggy, I don’t care,” Kyle declared with finality. Kyle only knew Mr. Augustine by reputation as a man whose strict, uptight ways only waned when he was overcome with anger or frustration, and in such cases he devolved into a profane nightmare. Ms. Rivero, meanly dubbed ‘Ms. Piggy’ for her girth by students when she was out of earshot, had been their science teacher last year, and was constantly convinced that she was right when she was, in fact, wrong, and it was generally agreed upon that was utterly incapable of teaching her students seeing as how she didn’t know what she was talking about half the time. “I think I heard someone say something about Ms. Penner.” This caused James to groan disgustedly, and Kyle to chuckle again. Ms. Penner had been their literature teacher last year. Girls were constantly saying Ms. Penner looked like an exhausted prostitute, and she was fond of dressing-down students with her razor-sharp tongue. She often exercised it on James for his hideous penmanship, never failing to be creative. No one could forget the first time she had asked when James had asked if he had written his assignment with his left hand. “No, Miss,” he had replied innocently. ‘Then maybe you should have,’ she said icily, to the delight of the class. And she wasn’t afraid to fish for laughs to add injury to insult. ‘This looks like you wrote it on the bus on the way to school. With your ass.’ She was usually right (not about the ass part, of course, but judging from the indecipherable scribble in his notebooks, he might as well have given it a shot).
“No, it’s not Ms. Penner,” Elvira Makin chimed in. She was one of the girls who had giggled earlier. She was Mayan, and had a simple, native prettiness about her. She was probably just talking to them because her conversation with the reserved Sonya had lulled. “She’s with my friend Janelle’s class in third year.”
“Good. I hate that lady.”
“There’s nothing wrong with her!” Kyle said indignantly. “She played those games with us, remember? That was pretty cool.” James rolled his eyes. Only Kyle could find trivia contests on the appointed texts cool.
“Her hair is always crazy, and she wears so much lipstick,” Elvira said disapprovingly. Sonya just nodded.
“What does that have to do with what she’s teaching?”
Elvira scoffed as if she were put upon. Kyle never got it. “Well, we’re the ones who have to look at her.”
“Amen to that,” James concurred instantly. “I hope we get Ms. Brown,” he added hungrily, making his trademark spittle-sucking sound as he swallowed the pooling saliva. “Now there’s something I’d like to see everyday.”
Kyle frowned. Ms. Brown was a young, tongue-tied computer teacher. Quite like Ms. Piggy, she hardly understood what she was teaching most of the time, but, unlike Ms. Piggy, she was well aware of that. “The I.T. teacher? What’s so great about her?”
James raised his eyebrows and smiled lecherously. “She’s got a thing for miniskirts,” he said, to the exasperation of the girls, but Kyle just furrowed his brow even more, genuinely perplexed. “What, are you jealous?” he asked, so earnestly that Elvira bleated a hearty laugh, and Sonya sniggered shyly behind her hand. “No, you fool, that’s not what I’m talking about!” James’s naturally blood-tinged face colored even more at the sight of girls’ mirth and he slumped even lower in his chair. He was almost glad that the short, stout Mrs. Barrera walked in just then to start their first homeroom period for the year. Sometimes Kyle was so … Kyle.