CHP ONE
Elizabeth MacDonald lifted her head off the desk and glanced lazily around the art room. She grinned as she watched blonde and perfection-personified Blaine Stokes chase her friend Leann Morrison around the room. Leann had filmed Blaine dancing around the room a while earlier. He chortled as he nearly fell flat on his face after trying to dodge Rebecca, another one of her best friends. Blaine grabbed Leann's arm playfully and attempted to delete the film. Mrs. Ferringer, the art teacher, choose this moment to enter the room. She looked sternly at Blaine and Leann and the room fell silent. Blaine let go of Leann's hand and it fell silently to her side.
"Mr. Stokes and Miss Morrison, see me after class please. Leann give me the camera. You can have it back after school." Ferringer said then snatched up Leann's camera and the rest of the kids scrambled back to their seats. Lizzie grinned at Rebecca who was trying not to laugh. Leann looked as if she was going to die of embarrassment. Blaine smiled widely at his friends and sat down laggardly beside his best friend Aaron Baker.
"Now, we are going to start our Humanity Collage today. Please take out the magazine's I asked you to bring." Rebecca pulled out her Elle magazine and looked attentively at Mrs. Ferringer. Art was Rebecca's best subject aside from French.
"I kinda forgot my mags, Mrs. F." someone piped up. It was Aaron Baker; he was easily the most popular guy in the grade ten class. He was the kind of guy who played football, was on the student council, the drama team, yearbook and still had time to volunteer at the local soup kitchen. He was perfect. Except for the fact that he had a reputation of being a player. He had dated all of the popular girls in Lizzie's grade, all the grade nine's and even some of the grade elevens.
"Oh Aaron that's too bad, I guess you'll just have to use some of mine. There in the closet next to my desk," The older woman gestured to the ancient wardrobe like unit beside her and Aaron obediently rose up from his blue plastic chair and sauntered over to the closet. "Now, the rest of you, there are three glue sticks, scissors, glazes and sparkle dust for each group on the counter, please send someone from your group to get your supplies." Aaron walked back to his table, flashing Hetshepsit, the gorgeous Egyptian girl at the popular table, a dazzling smile. She grinned back, then leaned in and whispered something into Denise Mailey's ear. Denise gave Hetshepsit a small squeal to show her enthusiasm then quickly looked the other way, her muscles strained and her eyes fierce. Then she turned back to look at her "friend" and said something. Hetshepsit laughed and looked over her shoulder at Aaron, who was showing Blaine his magazines. They were parenting mags from the seventies. Blaine laughed and pat Aaron on the back then picked up his glue stick.
"Denise is looks likes she gonna hyperventilate. She keeps shooting daggers at that Egyptian chick when she's not looking. What's her name anyways? Hesthethsip? Herstsethship?" Rebecca asked, looking both puzzled and amused.
"Hetshepsit," Leann answered, looking at the other table warily, "And it looks like she has her sights set on Baker over there,"
"So does half our grade," Lizzie said smiling.
"Denise like seriously loves him though," Rebecca observed, sticking a picture of some pasty skinned model onto her collage paper.
"Well I can't blame her, really. Just look at the guy, " Lizzie said in a slightly wistful tone.
"He is good looking. I'd date him if he asked me, if he wasn't such a player." Said Rebecca, not looking up from her paper.
"Speaking of dating," Leann whispered conspiratorially and leaned in towards the other girls, "What's with Natalie and that grade twelve guy?" Lizzie felt a pang of fear and her voice wavered as she asked, "What guy?"
"Oh, that hot guy? I don't know, I think he's friends with her brother. What was his name?" Rebecca added, plastering another picture, a lipstick tube, to her collage.
"Adamo was it?"
"Adamo!" Rebecca snapped her fingers, dropping her scissors, "Adamo something!"
That was when Denise Mailey walked by there table.
"I can't believe you have to stay after class with Blaine, you poor thing." She gave Leann a sympathetic look then went to Mrs. Ferringer to ask for a bathroom pass.
"How long do you think she'll make me stay? I have piano at four, you know." Leann reminded her friends.
"Maybe a half hour or so. She probably just wants to lecture you about the "No cameras" rule and the class disruption crap she's always talking about." Rebecca reassured her. Lizzie was relieved that they had changed the subject. But that didn't make the nauseous feeling she was having go away, especially after she remembered seeing them in the hall today, Natalie practically falling all over him.
"You ok Lizbeth?" Leann asked.
"I'm fine, "she murmured and gave Leann a fairly convincing, yet incredibly fake, smile.
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"Hey Ed! Wait up!" Lizzie called chasing after her step-brother. Edwin continued walking. He obviously hadn't heard her. He was talking to Aaron Baker by a bank of lockers.
"ED! EDWIN!!" She called shrilly pushing past several grade nine girls who where giggling hysterically at some boy. Edwin turned and waved, happy to see her, "Liz, hey."
"I'm going over to Stephenie's tonight; tell George that her sister will drive me home around six-ish, ok?" She asked, adjusting the strap of her Nike backpack.
"Hi Liz," Aaron said, giving her a breath-stopping, heart-aching, beautiful smile.
"H-hi Aaron," she said smiling back cautiously.
"How was your day?" He asked, leaning up against a locker.
"Fine. Yours?"
"Great, except the old hag gave me parenting mags for art." He rolled his eyes.
"That's to bad, I'd let you use some of mine but their kind of girly…"
"Anything's better than the 'Ten Stages to Accepting your Wife's Pregnancy'." He said laughing.
"I gotta go meet Steph so I'll see you later Ed. Bye Aaron,"
"Bye," Aaron and Edwin called after as she pushed past some grade nine's.
"Is she single?" Aaron asked, opening his locker and pulling out Nike soccer ball. Edwin's eyes popped open wide and he looked reproachfully at the other guy, "Yes, but she's not really your type anyways."
"I know, Ed. I was just kidding, ok?" Aaron sighed heavily, "Are you gonna go to Little Caesar's with us tomorrow?" he asked.
"Uh," Edwin ran his finger through his wavy black hair, "I guess. I though I'd ask..uh…Rebecca if she wanted to go with me…" he broke off, clearly embarrassed.
"No way? What made you finally grow the balls to…" He asked. Edwin grinned bashfully and shrugged, "It just seemed like the right time to ask her…"
"I was gonna ask that one girl from my art class? Hetshepsit? She's hot and I'm pretty sure she'd say yes.." He said cockily. Edwin rolled his eyes.
"Anyways," Aaron continued, "So you're going, Rebecca probably, Denise, Blaine, Teddy and maybe Hetshepsit. Are you gonna ask Liz to come?"
"Uh, sure."
"Cool. Did you get that crap Mr. Boyd was trying to explain?"
"Yep, see the guy from the book saw that super computer as a god because it practically knew everything about everybody and everything. And then that tied in with that movie we watched. Bicentennial Man? How he was really alive at the end of movie even though he still had one of those robo brains." Edwin explained as they walked down the hallway.
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"I don't get this at all, Lizzie!" Steph shrieked as she squinted down at her math textbook.
"What part?" Liz looked up from her socials notebook. She was reading an article on the Virginia Tech incident and then writing a response paragraph on whether on not she though it could have been prevented. Then she had to look at other school shootings and write some more responses.
"My math teacher is awful! I don't get this at all? Where do I put this x number anyways? Am I supposed to times it by the 27 or what?" Steph asked, her voice wavering.
"Do you want some help?"
"Wait! Wait! If I multiply that and then put this over here then I get….108!!" Steph practically yelled and gave her friend a huge dimpling grin. Lizzie smiled and ten returned to her book, she finished the questions with ease then looked over at Steph who was looking at her math, teeth clenched, breathing like a John Deere tractor.
"Hey. Steph, you okay?" She asked waving her hand in front of her friends eyes. Stephenie looked up and laughed in a small voice.
"Yeah?"
"Um, do you know what's up with Natalie and Adamo Watters?"
"Oh," Said Stephenie in flat voice, "that." She looked at Lizzie with a look of concern and sympathy.
"He…I guess they um, well he…..he can up to her during lunch the other day and they started hanging out and they might go to a movie this weekend or something." She mumbled the last part.
"Oh. Does she really like him that much?" Lizzie asked feeling like she had just eaten a seven month old yogurt tube.
"I think she does."
"Does he like her?"
"Um, yeah." Stephenie bit her lip, "Sorry Liz. But it's not Nat's fault, she doesn't know." Stephenie and Leann where the only ones who knew the whole story. Edwin knew only snippets and that was because she didn't want to damage his "poor virgin ears" as Leann put it.
"You look like your going to be sick…"
"I'm fine. Are you sure you don't want help with that math Steph?" Lizzie asked quietly.
"I..Liz…you," Steph tried but then bit her lip hard and muttered a quick "I'm fine, thanks."
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"So Ed, what are your plans for this weekend?" Nora asked as she placed the chicken fingers in the oven then slide the mitts off her hands.
"A couple of us are going to Little Caesar's to hang out tomorrow then we might rent a movie." He said as he poured himself a glass of milk.
"What friends? What movie? What time?"
"Blaine, Aaron, a couple other guys and girls, Hetshepsit and Rebecca. I think Liz is going, too."
"Sounds fun, Who's this Hetshepsit girl?" Nora asked, confused.
"She's new and Aaron's date," Edwin responded grumpily, taking a long dip of his milk.
"You're mad at Aaron." Nora said wisely. "But why?"
"He's just so…so…Aaron!" Edwin said angrily "He thinks that every girl in the whole school is in love with him! He's so arrogant I can't stand being around him sometimes."
"Is that all?" She asked, raising an eyebrow in his direction. Edwin sighed irritably and slouched over the table so that his head rested on his elbow.
"Maybe…I don't know. He said something about Liz today and it bothered me." He frowned and tried to gauge Nora's reaction. She sighed heavily.
"Did he? What did he say?" Nora said trying to keep the edge out of her voice.
" 'Is she single' then he kept making little hints and references and stuff to her for the next hour during drama club."
Edwin didn't know how it had happened but over time and he and Nora had become very close and he almost though of her as one of his best friends. This was extremely weird for him sometimes but she was a good listener and didn't judge him or tell his dad anything personal unless it was really serious.
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"What did you guys think of the movie we watched in English? Bicentennial Man?" Lizzie asked as she settled herseld own next to Aaron on the couch, a slice of vegetarian pizza in her hand. Duran Duran was playing in the back ground and Edwin and Rebecca were passing out pizza to everyone. After a long debate over which pizza was better, they had finally decided on vegetarian, pepperoni and ham and pineapple. Steph and Leann were playing Xbox against Blaine and another boy. Aaron's arm was draped lazily over Hetshepsit's slim shoulders and Denise was glaring at them from the other side of the room.
"It brought up a lot of questions for me, like was Andrew the Android a person in the end even though he still had a positronic brain? Were his feeling real or a malfunction?" Steph said, her face contorting in glee as she won the Xbox game.
"Yeah, it was kind of confusing, but it really made you think about what is human and what isn't. This one sci-fi writer said 'It thinks, there for, it is.' But wouldn't that mean that computers are alive?" Leann wondered aloud, running her hands through her sugar blonde hair.
"As fascinating as that is…did any of you watch America's Next Top Model last night? Bronte is sooo going to win." Denise said. Hetshepsit's face lit up, "You're crazy, Jessamine is way better than that Bronte bitch, did you even see Bronte's last photo?"
"Hah, I'd be surprised if Jessamine made it through the next round, it's either her or that Libby girl from Tennessee, one of them is going home."
"Riight then…what movie shall we watch?" Edwin asked, clasping his hands together. Aaron sighed gratefully for the interruption and removed his arm from the slender Egyptian girls shoulder and moved over to a large chest.
"Across the Universe!" Denise squealed.
"Nah, that movie's like three years old." Aaron protested, "And it's a romance…"
"We should have gone to Transformers 2," Blaine muttered.
"How about Prince Caspian?" Leann suggested hopefully. Leann was a sci-fi, fantasy nut.
"No, I vote for Charlie Bartlett, all the Degrassi actors are in it." Lizzie said. After several minutes of debating on which movie to watch, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was inserted into the Blu-Ray disc player and the lights in Aaron's basement were dimmed.
How is it so far? I need reviews people!!
-Nourdyn