10 FEBRUARY, WEDNESDAY, ART
The moment the bell rang, Mrs Henderson took pause. It was as if she was trying to decide what to do.
Keep us back to sort out the undercurrents evident in the class or turn a blind eye to the situation?
Liam raised his hand, "It's time for art, Mrs Henderson. Our class needs to go to the art studio now."
Mrs Henderson looked like she was about to concede when Pearl stepped back into the classroom, her eyes puffy and red.
I think we all knew the moment it happened that we were not going to have art lessons today.
"Liam, please go down to the art studio to inform your teacher that this class would not be coming down till the next period." Mrs Henderson instructed stiffly.
Henry chuffed at that, "I doubt you're going to get to the bottom of this in one period Mrs Henderson."
Liam paused, but Mrs Henderson waved him on, "I will still like to try."
Liam left.
"It would seem that this class has a bigger problem than meets the eye." Mrs Henderson said, "And none of us are leaving till we get to the bottom of this."
"Oh no..." Ivan groaned, "We'd be here forever. Mrs Hen, can't at least the rest of us go. This is clearly the issue between the two cheerleader groups."
"Actually, the problem is just with the one who ran out crying." Krystal said, "The rest of us don't have a problem."
Mrs Henderson looked like she was struggling to make a response. Finally, she came up with a, "Alright, the first step is always in admitting there is a problem. So you're telling me that there is a problem. That's a good start."
"Yes, but the problem is just with one or two people." Krystal tried to explain, "It's nothing to do with the rest of us."
"We are all in the same class. That makes us family." Mrs Henderson proceeded, "This is a safe place for everyone to air their feelings."
That was a lie, by the way. Naturally, no one believed her.
Abigail raised her hand, "I think Pearl is hurt by the mean things the cool girls say about her."
Mrs Henderson looked relieved, "Yes, thank you."
"It's just sickening how she acts like such a good girl when she is really a backstabbing b****." Zara said without raising her hand.
"Alright, Zara. Please, no name calling. But tell me what makes you say that about Pearl?" Mrs Henderson asked.
"I was talking about Abigail." Zara clarified.
"Abigail?" Mrs Henderson looked lost.
Liam knocked on the door and let himself in.
"They don't like it that I'm dating Henry." Abigail explained after Liam had sat down.
The class went "Whooooo...."
This was turning out to be like one of those talk shows where people trash out their personal grievances in front of a live audience.
"Then don't date me." Henry said crossing his arms.
The class went "Whooooo...." Again.
"That's not what I meant!" Abigail cried out.
"We don't care who Henry dates!" Krystal said, "It's you we can't stand."
"That's mean, first you girls pick on Pearl, and now you pick on Abigail." One of the random girls accused.
"We were very nice to Pearl." Zara said, "Even though she was always whining about what a poor thing she was, and trying to get closer to the guys, we always just let her."
"Mostly because her whining was irritating the guys anyway." Leia added.
"But you..." Zara stood up now, "You befriended us, used Henry to get close enough to be invited with us to Sam's party... We thought you were our friend. Two days later we find that you've stabbed Jaz in the back."
Now Jasmine started to cry.
Liam frowned. And then he raised his hand, "I admit. I liked Jasmine, but she didn't feel the same way for me. She didn't do anything wrong."
"She led you on." One girl said.
"She played you." Another one said.
"She slept with someone else even though she was dating you!"
She what?
I turned sharply to look at Jasmine.
"She didn't." Marcus quickly informed me, "That's just how the rumors spread."
I nodded, that's right. Jasmine wouldn't do something like that.
I flipped the homeroom notes idly... And then read the words, "The difference between groups of friends and cliques."
Which made me realize that the kind of clique Mrs Henderson was talking about wasn't like my inner circle in my pack. It wasn't even like my group of friends in school.
I raised my hand, "Mrs Henderson, I don't think we have any real cliques in our class. By definition, a real clique wouldn't let you talk or hang out with other kids. I think we're just groups of friends, although some of us are arguing right now. I mean, I hang out with Maria. Liam hangs out with the football guys. Half the football guys play games too. Janice is really nice and shares cookies with us... And everyone urm... helps everyone else with our homework."
And then Janice put up her hand. It was as if she had wanted to say this all along, but hadn't dared until someone else did, "Actually, I agree with Sam. I have close friends in class, but everyone else in class is very nice to me too."
That's probably because you gave us cookies.
"Anyway, it's all lies." Liam felt he needed to emphasize, "Jasmine is a really nice girl. She didn't do all those things. Please stop repeating the lies about her."
"Yeah the lies that Abigail planted." Kyrstal said pointedly.
"Why do you keep saying it's me?" Abigail asked.
"Because you were there when it happened. Because you were there to tell us all the dirty secrets of the other girls in the class." Krystal smirked, "That is, if they had any truth in them at all."
"You and Pearl are both the same type. That's why you're BFFs." Zara added, "I don't know why Henry still goes out with you!"
"I don't choose my girlfriends for their good character" Henry shrugged.
"Please notice he said 'girlfriends' in plural." Leia highlighted, "You're not his only one."
"I'm the one he's with this Friday night!" Abigail argued.
"Who's he with on Saturday night?" Leia asked.
"Guess." Henry smirked.
Abigail looked at me, "We all agreed Sam's out of bounds!"
Henry laughed, "Close enough. I'll be working with her boyfriend. Sorry, Sam. Looks like you're dateless this Vday because of me."
Oh, the rogue hunt.
"It's fine." I shrugged, "I'm having a pool party."
"I want to come!" Zara raised her hand.
"No you can't go. That's Lycan land stupid." Ivan shouted.
"This is Lycan land too, stupid." Henry reminded him.
"But that's more Lycan than here. Don't you remember how dangerous that place was?" Ivan yelled.
"I only remember the cool guys. I don't want to spend Vday all alone." Zara said.
"Fine, I'll spend Vday with you." Ivan said with great reluctance.
"Whooooo..." The class said.
Zara started to smile.
"But it's not a date, understand?" Ivan quickly said.
Zara nodded smugly, "I'm not stupid. I understand."
"Whooooo...." The whole class understood.
"It's a date." Troy had to think aloud again.
Ivan turned red in the ears, "Shut up!"
"Well, at least something good came out from this." Krystal said.
"Liam, can we still go on our date on Friday?" Jasmine asked suddenly.
Liam turned to her, and then he produced his usual lopsided smile and nodded.
Jasmine burst into tears, "I'm sorry!" Liam patted her on the head.
Two good things happened. Perhaps Mrs Hen had a gift afterall. If she counselled our class every day this week, I'm sure everyone would have a date by Vday.
The bell rang again.
We all got up to leave without waiting for Mrs Henderson to say anything, lest she made us stay back another period.
I saw Mrs Henderson go over to where Abigail was sitting.
"Come on, Sam." Marcus came over to push me to leave, "Where's your art bag and your lunch?"
Marcus pulled them out from under my desk and then he propelled me forward to leave. Was he beta-ing me?
"Marcus! Sam is out of bounds!" Terrence yelled.
"I know! We're just friends, okay?" Marcus said.
"Yeah, like you carry every girl's art bag." Ivan sneered.
I took back my stuff.
Marcus shrugged, "She was just too slow."
I flared, who was he calling slow?
Marcus and Henry laughed and walked on ahead of me.
And after that, I did note how Mrs Henderson's class counselling session did work to break down the walls in our not-really-cliques.
We were making heart art, which was just sticking a lot of heart shaped confetti onto paper to make shapes. For example, a heart shape made of rows of tiny hearts, or a green field of hearts which was basically just a rectangle full of rows of tiny hearts.
We sat around our tables in our "cliques" at first but then our art teacher poured all the gold confetti for one table, all the red confetti on the other... It became like the colored packlands.
And we had to move to whichever colored confetti that we needed. It was like the mass migration during and after the great war.
I found myself sitting with Marcus, Janice, and Ivan at the blue table - which was like the least popular table. I guess it made sense that most of the kids would want gold or red or the cool colors like silver or black or bronze. Even green was pretty popular, because many of the guys were going to make fields.
Marcus had spread glue across his paper and poured the blue confetti over it.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Marcus tipped his sheet of paper to pour away the excess confetti, "I'm making sky."
Naturally, none of the hearts were in straight rows.
"Your sky has holes in it." I pointed out.
"Those are clouds." Marcus answered without missing a beat. He deftly retreived his phone and was back at work on it. Poor Beta.
"What are you making?" I asked Janice.
"A house." Janice told me, "Like a home full of love."
I watched her glue the little hearts to make the outline of her home, "Cool."
"What about you?" Janice asked.
I looked hard at the paper, "I don't know yet."
"Shouldn't you decide what to make before choosing a table?" Ivan asked.
"I just like blue." I answered.
"The prettier they are, the dumber they get." Ivan leaned over to tell Marcus.
But I heard him.
Marcus only laughed and nodded. WTH.
I stuck on a single blue heart on the paper. It wasn't even in the centre. Just somewhere in closer to the top left hand corner.
"Did you think of something?" Janice asked.
"No." I answered.
I kept staring at the little blue heart glued on my paper.
"I don't know what to make." I mumbled to myself.
"Then don't glue it yet, Sam!" Marcus looked up from his phone and sighed.
Ivan rolled his eyes, "Girls!"
I pressed my lips together.
"Guys, don't tease her." Janice said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." Ivan shrugged.
"What are you making?" I asked.
Ivan had stuck a long row of blue hearts, "I'm making the sea."
Which I suppose was going to be the blue version of the "field of hearts" example.
"Like the sea of hearts?" I asked.
"More like a sea of love." Marcus quipped without looking up from his screen.
Ivan shook his head, "Don't name it something cheesy like that!"
Hahaha.
I looked back at my lone little blue heart. It looked lonely on the paper, I imagined my wolf running in the white snow. Then I got an idea.
Troy and Terrance came over to our table. I left to the next table. It had black hearts.
I sat in the empty seat next to Henry, "What are you making?"
Henry shrugged, "A black box."
"Why?" I asked.
"Mind your own business." He said.
I stuck a black heart for mate, just half a pace behind next to my blue heart. My Luna! And then I realised that it was wrong. Mate was a white wolf. Opps. I guess that could be Ben then.
"What the hell is that Sam?" Henry asked at the two lone hearts on my paper.
"Me and Ben." I answered.
"I won't tell James." Henry smirked.
Gah! Don't misunderstand! I punched Henry in the arm.
"What the hell, Sam!" Henry laughed.
Our art teacher frowned over at our direction.
We stopped playing and I left to find my mate. I walked over to the next table to see what color it was.
"Why are you walking around, girl?" The art teacher asked me. She was still frowning.
"I'm looking for silver." I said.
"Silver is here, Sam!" Jasmine called.
Oh. I nodded a quick bow to the teacher and went over to Jasmine. I exchanged the black heart for the silver one. Then I added another silver one for Ki.
"What are you making?" Jasmine asked.
"My pack." I answered.
Jasmine looked at the blue heart with the two silver hearts and single black heart. I had put the hearts in the position of our wolves whenever we run together. But from the look on her face, it didn't look like anything to her.
After that, I went in search of the red heart for Harvey. I realised there were no brown hearts and decided to go with gold ones for the light brown wolves, and red ones for the dark brown wolves.
Most of our wolves were golden hearted. So I spent a lot of time laughing with the cool girls who were at the gold table. We teased Zara about her date with Ivan. Leia made jibes at me flirting with Henry at the black heart table.
Apparently, my punching him looked like flirting to everyone else.
This was confirmed at the red table where Abigail had come to class late, so Pearl and the other random girls told her about Henry flirting with me.
"Sam, don't forget you're out of bounds." Pearl reminded me sternly.
"You even have a fiancé." A random girl said, "You shouldn't be flirting with Henry."
"I don't flirt." I answered.
"Yeah, I'm sure." Pearl gave me another one of her wide smiles, "I envy you though. You do it so naturally, I never know what to say."
"Just be yourself." I answered. I've decided to not let her get to me.
Maria was silently seated next to me replicating the red heart from the example. She was actually the only reason how I got this seat at the crowded red table - nobody else wanted to sit next to her. Her heart, like the rest of her was made of unnaturally neat rows.
I stuck a red heart down for Harvey, and then tried to figure out who else was red. Jessica probably. Maybe Dean. And up front Jack? A lot of the wolves were bicoloured, which complicated things for me.
I hit jackpot when I found bronze confetti among the gold ones.
And then I had to put down grey wolves! I was about to resort to green hearts when the silver table ran out and upon refilling, I heard loud shouts of dismay that the new bag of silver was too dark.
I went back to the silver table to sit with Jasmine. By now, Jasmine's silver heart was halfway done, but because of the new darker shade, she had to pluck out the lighter colour so that she could use them with the darker silver to make it look like the heart was shaded.
We were running out of time. The lunch bell would ring soon. I was also running out of patience. I quickly stuck on the last of my wolves. Including a bronze one right at the back of the pack for Dean. That should be everyone.
I felt quite pleased at my final output when I was done. My pack running together with me across the snow, like a streak of magic on the white piece of paper. I was quite proud of my work too. Every heart correlated to a particular wolf by name, stuck exactly in their run position. I nailed it!