When I made it to school it reminded me of my first day last year.
…Danny's past…
I walked into the court yard I noticed lots of other kids I knew and a sea of people I didn't. "Is that Simon? Score I have a friend, I can use him to get more friends, ill like feed off his energy." I thought with joy. I had often unknowingly used this strategy to gain friends, if there was someone familiar than I could bounce joke and conversation off them. It's hard not to laugh if others are laughing. I walked over to him and noticed some familiar faces. Eric, my best pal from elementary who had fallen off; Maximino, Italian and Japanese, he is one of the hardest working people I know; and Gabriella, I had a small crush on her back in middle school but I was naïve and young, we kissed once, cuddled too but we never went to the next step, as is typical for middle school kids. "Sup Guys."
Simon was the first to turn around and notice me. I saw his face; his appearance had matured almost more than mine. We both had peach fuzz above our top lips and chins, mine being much thicker and it didn't help that I had side burns going straight into my ten strands of hair people called a beard. "Hey Dan, how was your weekend?"
"Yeah what did you do?" Eric added.
We had all already met up last week Friday at, "FRESHMEN INVASION!" The excitement rushed through me, just as it had the morning of Freshmen Invasion. Even in my head I'd announce it as if I were a cruise ship captain announcing to all my organs, in this case it was to my friends. Freshmen invasion was an event in which a few people from all the grades greet the incoming freshmen. I was not a freshman, I was a junior now, but it was a new school so it couldn't hurt. Seeing familiar faces there made the transition and learning process easy. It was a fun day with games and events planned and I participated in them all, I was a hit with the freshmen. "Yeah I just hung out with Lorra for the majority of the week and after that I think I just watched Contract Killers Guard with Eric and then pulled an all nighter finishing our summer reading project." It's not that I didn't care it's more like it wasn't interesting, neither was what I did but that was for them to decide I guess. Eric went out with his boyfriend who was one of my friends but we weren't close, Gabby went to universal which was cool, but she didn't have any cool stories to share, on the other hand, Simon had done some oddly interesting but otherwise unspeakable acts over his weekend, but that was to be expected, I mean this was Simon we're talking about.
Lorra was still attempting to transfer over. Her school even tho was ranked lower than ours was harder and her parents specifically her father was a big fan of corporal punishment. Meaning if she ever got anything less than a perfect gpa, grade point average, she would be in for a beating. Which I assumed was fair as my mom was similar she'd beat me if I screwed up but nothing that extreme. At the moment Lorra transferring was the only thing I could think of, "would she even be able to get in next year?" I was the one that pushed for her to transfer.
There was a loud ear-piercing sound of ringing that almost shocked me out of my clothes, the bell rang ad the first class I went to was art with miss Z, well I called her Z-breezy.
The sound of Bob Marley filled the class room. "Okay I can work with this." I thought to myself. She looked like what my mother would call a sophisticated flower child. She wore a floral tie-dye shirt, she had purple hair, she had sandals and light blue jeans. She had given us assigned seating the moment we walked into class.
I looked around the table and saw Dan, Simon's cousin. Dan was basically the opposite of Simon. He was well mannered, chill but he did like to roast… everyone from miss Z to me, classmates, teachers, friends, no one was safe. I usually went by dan when we were together not to confuse everybody.
"Hello Dan, what's with those thick side burns, don't burn yourself. It's like a forest over there on your head, did you comb it?"
"Yes, I did but from the looks of those waves you have there you didn't, man I could surf on that but it's so wild. Do you even brush that thing?" I retorted. I had gotten quite good at that, it was basically like a requirement for my family.
"So quick witted."
"You're not making it very hard." I shrugged, "And what can I say, I have a silver tung which could rival even the god of mischief." The reference was from Norse mythology, Loki the god of mischief, I could be like James Halliday from ready player one at times with my wealth of knowledge.
"Man, you'd be so much cooler if you weren't a nerd." He's jested.
"Ouch. But aren't we all nerd and geeks to an extent?"
"I guess, you win this one Danny." He conceded, which was rare for Dan, he usually fought me tooth and nail, metaphorically of course, I'd never fight Dan… okay there was that one time but we made up after and well let's just say… I don't think he'd ever want a round two. I winced at the memory. I might also have thought about fighting him if he were a zombie or some sort of monster okay. He didn't say anything back at me he just let slide.
"Look at you, no quips? Maturing and everything."
He looked up at me confused. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing." I sighed, "So did you hear about James?" I had talked to James over the phone that weekend.
"Know what happened to him?" I could tell I caught his attention but unfortunately the teacher was going to start speaking.
"Does anyone know why James is absent today?"
I couldn't hold back my laughter. I broke out into full blown laughter. Everyone looked at me as if I were crazy. I half smiled as I raised my hand with a chagrin and tried to hold back my laughter. "He was riding his bike back from freshmen invasion and a pizza box fell out of the sky knock him off and he broke his leg and sprained his shoulder. He also got a concussion. So, he's in the hospital." I immediately felt pretty bad after saying it out loud, it was a ridiculous occurrence but no person should take joy in that, which made it even harder to not laugh. "I hate this inappropriate and nervous laughter." I thought when the voice came back, "then Dont laugh?" As if it would be that easy… but then it was. After their shock wore off the teacher went back to talking.
Again, it's not that I didn't care what she was saying but I had heard what she was saying almost thirty times before I put my body on auto and followed her instructions. She gave us papers to bring home. As she went on giving commands while I responded to them like a drone, I looked around the class and noticed the four girls sitting at the table.
I recognized one and knew… "is that Katie?" I thought as I looked her over as best I could. She was probably the cutest and most popular girl in our 11th grade. Her hair was shoulder length and red-brown. She was all curves and had a bosom that would make any uncivilized person do a double take of her chest… okay civilized too.
Luckily I'm not any person. They seemed to notice my little altercation with Dan. I could used that. "I already showed them a bit of my self with out having to talk to them directly, so this will be much less awkward. If I need assistance just bounce a joke off Dan." I thought and then shrugged. I looked at Katie, sitting next to me, she was fit and had a slightly narrow face, she had eyes that were green with gray mixed in, she was wearing a rainbow-colored tie-dye, tight fit, v-neck shirt and tight bellbottom pants. I looked her in the eye for a split second, then… decided on what I was going to say.
"He's been like this from middle school." I said in a low quite voice, trying not to be heard by Miss X.
She wasn't shy or awkward like I thought she might be, she didn't keep her voice down like I did, she seemingly didn't care for what the teacher was saying. "Yeah he seems like it. You guys knew each other in middle school?"
I answered almost instantly, "Yeah. You were there the last year but you didn't have any classes or lunch with him…" I rolled my eyes at the teacher. "I've heard this like a hundred times before, we don't need to hear it again I'm sure we can figure it out ourselves." I smirked with my mouth open as I talked.
Her eyes lit up. "Yes! Jackpot." I said to my self in my head; I had brought up something we had in common, or at least thought we might have in common. From the look on her face I could say I was right. Her cheek went up a little, her smile grew a little, her eye opened a bit more and she shifted her whole body to face me. That's when the voice returned "gossiper, be careful what you say, she likes to talk about people remember all the rumors and social media beef she's had, her joy at being able to talk bad about something is too high, that or her desperation to have someone who thinks like her talk to her in class must be pulling her to you. Use that if that's the case." I froze as attempting to ignore that feature length advice from this voice of few words drew my attention.
"I know right. Oh my god she's just been droning on," She had been cut off by her friend across the table, "Alexis I think her name was, that's what the teacher said in attendance" I remembered, she apparently wanted to join in, or not be left out, I couldn't tell for sure but they were more or less the same in this case.
"Yeah she's so boring, I can't believe she hasn't noticed everyone's attention sifting from her to their phones and friends." Her voice was just as happy and loud as her friends if not a bit more because she was on the other side of the table. If I had to put it into distance than it would be around one point seventy-three meters away.
I looked over to her, she had blond hair that was almost white at the tips and dirty blonde at the roots, it was like her hair was a value strip showing the different variations of blonde. Her hair was wavy. She had blue-green eyes, she had a small nose and she wore a similar outfit to Katy. She was a few inches shorter than Katy, who was a couple inches shorter than me but sitting down it was hard to tell to most, not me, not now at least. It may have been the height but her proportions seemed bigger and her face rounder.
I spoke up the moment she paused, "I'm sure you'd find out later, but my name is Danny, that there is Dan and you are?"
"Al-" She was abruptly cut off by Katie who sat much loser to me, who also spoke more confidently than her.
"You can call me Kate or Katie," She was then cut off by the teacher.
"Quiet can't you see I'm trying to tell you what you need to do, this isn't for me, I'm already out of high school… I have my degree."
I looked at her, unfortunately our table was at the front of the class meaning that she was standing closest to me the entire time, with a desk and a meter of space between us.
"I can't believe we didn't get caught sooner." I whispered at my new friends. "But are you really out of high school, because you're in this classroom with us… in a high school. They all come full circle don't they." Alexis and Katie chuckled. Katie then decided to mimic our not so distant teacher.
"This isn't for me, I'm already out of high school… I have my degree." She said in a terrible raspier impression of Miss Z.
As she continued to mimic the words and actions of our teacher when Alexis whispered as she rolled her as and looked off to the side. "My Names Alexis." I smirked, my eyes darted to her. No one else had seemingly heard and I don't know what about my expression told her that I had heard but she looked, well… gleeful. The rest of class was just learning what we would do in class, Dan and I played a game of well verbal Mortal Kombat, roasting each other, even Katie joined in and Alexis provided commentary as if this were a sport or tournament which required such narration.
The bell rang catching us all off guard. We were not yet aware of the new bell schedule. Your pal BJ, he was amazing. When I walked into "IT" we had and argument and that's how I knew I liked him, he was in the middle of having a slightly heated conversation with our teacher Mister H he told the class to call him that, he was a 5'7, Italian man.
Mister H was lean, toned and tan. His hair was curly, thick and black. Eyes were bark brown. He wore a white dress shirt and black dress pants. He had white leather dress shoes and a black tie and belt. He looked like he could be in his mid thirties. From the way I heard him speak from down the hall I, he sounded like he wasn't just experienced when handling children, children were his life his sole purpose for being. The teenager talking to him wasn't more than sixteen. The class was mixed with freshmen, seniors, sophomores and juniors. The boy's hair was wavy and parted on the top left of his head with a bit of his curly esc hair falling over the top of his ears and forehead.
He had eye glasses tucked into his left pocket, he wore a dark blue polo with red and white outlines, he was wearing denim joggers, and a burgundy bomber jacket. You could consider him stylish the way he stood tall and held his own in the argument, as if he wasn't going to lose, it wasn't arrogance, it was just…confidence that he projects in a way that would give you confidence in him.
"With all due respect sir, I believe cheating and copying to be to different things. As a man who's gone to school himself and has been teaching for quite a while you know this." He stood not condescending but as if he was genuinely trying to relate to his teacher.
"Yes, but you don't learn anything from that either way." He wasn't falling for it he stood his ground against the boy.
"Yes, you can, I learned that for question fifty-two of an online chem quiz 'how do glow sticks produce their glow?' The answer was, the glow in a glow stick is the result of two chemicals reacting together and giving off light energy in a process called chemiluminescence. But regardless of that, having students mindlessly copy down answers from the book produces the exact same results as cheating and copying homework and test. They'll both make it to the last test with much more security and they'll be well," he clapped his hands together an inch from his nose and then used his hands to point at the teacher, "They're screwed." He had a point, and from the look on the teacher, he was worried or more anxious, like someone who been caught in a lie but wasn't sure if the other person noticed, he was just waiting for him to call him out on his teaching style.
"Oh." I interjected, "But that's assuming that everyone is consciously choosing to remember and save such information for a later date where it might be necessary. I can tell you that most of the students on their phones right now don't know what the time is without checking, even though it's right in front of them. Class!" The students looked up as the boy folded his arms and glared at me with a smirk, he as the rest of the class seemed mildly interested. "Okay I need all of you to turn your phones off, then turn them back on and look at the lock screen-"
They did as I asked as if they thought the teacher asked for me to tell them this, "Now I need you to turn them off again. Now without looking at your phones or watches can anyone tell me what the time was, you'll get extra credit." They all stared at me with a dumbfounded look, some of them searched around for a clock, but there weren't any in the room. After four seconds passed I called it. "Okay now can anyone tell me what their lock screen background was."
Only a few raised their hands. "Okay thank you for participating, you can go back to what you were doing." They turned away annoyed, some of them whispered under their breath about me making them mess up a Fortnite game they had downloaded on to their computers. I turned back to the boy, he seemed a bit impressed. "Well like I said, not everyone will remember, the school's system as a whole, needs to be fixed, not cheating. Because in life if you cheat you still, succeed, if you steal ideas or designs and you're not caught you'll still succeed. So, they need teachers to teach not just follow some lesson plans or give you busy work. Teachers need to be charismatic, smart in their subject and they need to actually make their own curriculum and teach based on that. There are some lazy teachers that do that, and I've learned best from them." I glanced at Mister H, he seemed relieved.
"Touché but was that really necessary. The names Benjamin Joseph, you can call me BJ," He winked but I didn't get why at first. "What's your name?" He put out his hand.
"Well information and points brought up without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. The name's Danniel Everight by the way." I gripped his hand and shook it. Neither hand was tilted to either side, it was even. Neither of us felt the other superior and neither felt the other lesser than ourself. We were equal. He had a devilish grin.
"What's your view on religion." He smirked. "Oh don't do this. And here I just wanted to be friends." I thought.