Sofia and Amber walked down the long hallway towards Mr. Cedric's secluded graduate office. However, as they approached the closed door, they heard the squabbling of muffled voices. The two college girls turned towards one another, exchanging a puzzled look. They both knew that Cedric chose the most out of the way office in the University's Science Department as to not be disturbed during his experiments, and he hated commotion of any kind.
Without bothering to knock, Amber opened the door and the two young ladies were met with Cedric and Greylock hovering over a laptop, arguing noisily. Not hearing the students come in, they continued their argument, their voices growing louder.
"It's impossible! There is absolutely no way!" Cedric sputtered.
"Now, now, Picnic-" Greylock patted his distraught friend's back, grinning broadly.
Cedric swatted the hand away and scowled.
"It's CEDRIC, you bafoon. And I cannot believe you're rated higher than me on this ridiculous website!"
Amber, growing tired of being ignored, cleared her throat and crossed her arms.
The two older men looked up in surprise.
"Oh," Cedric said when he saw the impatient look on the blonde's face. "Miss. Amber, what do you want?"
"I need the key for the observatory." Amber replied brusquely, holding out her palm expectantly. "Sofia was going to help me with some research for an astronomy assignment."
"Oh, Miss. Sofia, I didn't see you there." Cedric's expression softened slightly as he spied the younger girl in the doorway. Sofia stepped forward and smiled back at him.
"Hi, Mr. Cedric!" she greeted him cheerily.
Cedric's eyes returned to Amber and narrowed his eyes. "Couldn't you have asked some other professor for they key? I'm quite busy at the moment."
"What were you and Mr. Greylock looking at, Mr. Cedric?" Sofia said, moving behind his desk to take a look at the laptop's screen, Amber mirroring her movements on the other side of the desk. Cedric hastily closed, heat rising to his face in embarrassment, but Greylock was too quick and had already pulled the website up on his phone.
"Oh, we were comparing our reviews on this professor rating site you students have been using lately. I was just showing Ol' Hattrick here my five star overall rating. Impressive, eh?"
"But you're not even a real teacher here!" Cedric groaned, "You just happen to do the occasional lecture! How is it that you have so many reviews?"
"In a way, that makes it even more impressive." Amber said, and Sofia could see her chemistry teacher deflate even more.
"What does yours look like, Mr. Cedric." Sofia asked kindly, trying to steer the conversation away from Greylock. Cedric let out another groan and reopened the laptop, pushing it over towards her to see before burying his head in his hands.
"Oh, a three star rating, that's not so bad!" Sofia said kindly.
"Read the comments." Cedric gloomily replied, not looking up. Sofia furrowed her brow, but scrolled down and read the first comment aloud.
"'Easy grader. Sort of creepy vibe though.'..."
"'Once I saw him write on the whiteboard with a permanent marker'...?" Amber continued, reading the next one.
"'What's the deal with his hair!'" Greylock chuckled and added, "That one is my favorite!"
"Mr. Cedric, that's just what three students had to say. People say lots of unkind things online to other people, all the time!" said Sofia confidently.
"Not to me, they haven't." Amber quipped, and Sofia shot her a stern look. The blode shrugged and turned towards the sad scientist again. "Anyway, could we have the key? It's going to start getting dark soon and I have a sorority event later…"
Cedric glared up at everyone in the room and then abruptly stood up.
"Fine, take it!" Cedric snapped, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a keyring of seemingly identical keys, fiddling with it and plucking one off. He tossed it unceremoniously to Amber who let out a little gasp of shock at his behaviour. He then quickly managed to push all three of them towards the office door. "Now all of you, out! I'm not in the mood for company right now!"
When they were all pushed out into the hallway, Cedric added testily, "And whatever you do, DO NOT lose that key!" before retreating back in his office and slamming the door.
The exiled trio looked at one another in silence before Greylock gave a casual shrug.
"Perhaps I took the teasing a little too far with Fishstick, hm?" he mused "Ah well, I'm sure he'll perk up by tomorrow."
"There is nothing we can do out here anyway…" Amber nodded in agreement, and then started making her way towards the stairwell that lead to the observatory. "Come along Sofia, I'll show you that newly discovered star we were discussing in my astronomy course last week! Goodnight, ."
"Goodnight, girls." he said with a wave as he turned towards the other direction. Amber began to climb the stairs, and Sofia couldn't help but give one last worried glance at Cedric's closed office door.
"Sofia?" called Amber, already out of sight.
"Coming, Amber!" she chimed back, before hurrying up the stairs. To be honest, she would have much rather tried to stay and cheer up her favorite teacher, but she had made the promise to go to look at the stars with Amber awhile ago and knew she couldn't possibly cancel this late. At the moment, all she could do was hope was right and her gloomy friend would cheer up soon.
A few hours later, Sofia was walking back towards Cedric's office alone. Amber had gotten very engrossed in showing Sofia her favorite celestial bodies, but had gotten two "WHERE ARE YOU?" texts from Hildy and Clio and realized she was running late for her sorority event. Without any time to return the key herself, she had begged Sofia to return it for her, and as a good friend of course the brunette obliged.
It was well past midnight at this point, and Sofia was sure that she must be the only person on campus at this time. She planned on dropping the key in Cedric's letterbox outside his door, and go home. However, as she approached the out of the way office, she noticed the tell-tale glow of a computer coming through the blinds and knocked twice on the door to check if he was still there. Sure enough, she heard a familiar "Come in" and she opened the door.
Cedric had not appeared to have moved from his desk for several hours, the circles under his eyes even darker than usual. He was clicking every few moments, his stare not wavering from the screen. Sofia swallowed, unsure of how to react to him in such a state.
"Um, Mr. Cedric, I brought back the key. Amber had to go to her event, and asked me to return it for her."
"Thank you, Sofia. Just put it on my desk, there." he muttered, not looking up. His clicking continued.
Sofia knew that she should probably go, but instead she peeked over his shoulder at the computer screen. He was still on his page on the professor rating site, apparently clicking the 'refresh' button over and over again without change.
"Mr. Cedric-" she started to say, but he cut her off.
"I know it's just a silly website, but it just isn't fair…" his voice was barely a whisper, but was cracked with sadness. "I've taught here a handful of semesters already, a couple hundred students at least, and all they can remember my by is some time I ruined a whiteboard in class…?" He let out a sigh, and pushed back his bangs and stared at the ceiling. "Perhaps father was right, I wasn't cut out for teaching…" He tilted his head towards Sofia, who was just behind his chair and gave her a mirthless smile.
"Do you think Greylock would let me be a janitor or something at his research lab?" he asked, his pitch eyes wearily searching hers as if he half expected her to say 'yes'. "Maybe he'd let me change the bedding for the lab rats."
"Mr. Cedric!" Sofia blurted, not able to take another of his self-deprecating remarks. "Please, I'm begging you, stop…"
The instructor's eyebrows raised in slight surprise at her outburst. Realizing what he had done, he began to stand up and push in his chair.
"Sofia, you're right. You're a student and it isn't my place to burden you with this pitiful display. I apologize my dear."
"It's okay, I just… hate seeing you talk about yourself like that. I think you're a wonderful teacher, for what it's worth."
He smiled at her kind words before peeking at his watch. "It's later than I thought! Let's get you to the dorm, shall we?" he asked offering her his arm. "I wouldn't want a young lady like you to be walking back alone."
"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself," Sofia rolled her eyes at him goodnaturedly, but grinned as she linked her arm in his. "but, I'll take you up on your offer. For the company."
Cedric locked up his office and they walked across campus in the crisp autumn air, their breath trailing in the air behind them like a faint fog. Sofia shivered at the cold and Cedric could feel her pressing into him as they continued on, her warmth seeping through the material of his tweed jacket and he tensed slightly at the contact. He glanced down at her and could see her cheeks glowing red.
'Poor thing,' he thought 'it must be the cold.'
Before they were in sight of Sofia's dormitory, they untangled their arms in a silent agreement that it could be misinterpreted, and instead walked side by side. They said their goodbyes and Cedric waved to her through the glass doors of the communal lobby, and only when she disappeared out of his site did he turn to leave.
The last wisp of the heat she left on his arm was gone, and he felt even colder than before. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he made his way towards his car so he could drive home. He lived close by to the university, and at that hour there wasn't another soul on the road. Even driving at his usual cautious pace he managed to get home fairly quickly. His apartment was quiet and empty, and he sat quietly on the foot of his bed, playing out the events of the day in his mind silently. Although Sofia had managed to lighten his mood, he had a feeling that the thought of his 'rating' would be picking away at his ego the next couple days. He eyed his personal laptop, charging on the bedside table.
'One last look couldn't hurt...' he thought, as he booted it up and opened a new tab on his web browser. He knew that going through with this was just cruel to himself. If Sofia knew that he was peeking again, he thought idly, she would probably chastise him. But it was just too tempting not to check one last time.
To his surprise, the page had altered since his last refresh fest. Flemings' fractals! Cedric couldn't believe his eyes!
"'Mr. Cedric is Sensational.'" he read aloud to himself. A giddy smile broke across his face, and he chuckled to himself. He had to agree with whoever wrote that one! They had rated him well, too, raising his total rating to a 3.5 stars. He read it over and over again, feeling a thrill of joy each time.
Around the fifth time though, he noticed an icon he must have overlooked. It hadn't been on his page before, and neither was it on Greylock's (he checked) and so he hadn't been looking for it. Next to the new comment was a small image of a red pepper that was lit up.
'Hotness?'
Would in the world could that mean, in terms of his teaching? He had no particular love for spicy food, and even if he did, I didn't quite understand how a pixelated icon of a red culinary vegetable would indicate that clearly. And why would his students need to know that? Puzzled, Cedric closed his laptop, resolving to ask Greylock about it tomorrow, if only for an excuse to showcase his new comment.
He turned off his bedside light and crawled under the covers of his bed. Closing his eyes and felt the pull of sleep start tugging at him almost immediately.
"Cedric the Sensational." he murmured to himself before giving into sleep. "I like the sound of that…"