I waited in a figurative jail full of talkers, who looked like they wouldn't stop screaming even if the teacher was in here. The teacher's desk was unoccupied, so I imagined if he or she was sitting among the students in order to catch anyone doing Things Not Allowed.
In that case, fourteen of them were likely to be sent to the principal as soon as class commenced.
That was when the door cracked open and someone strolled into plain sight very slowly, dragging out every moment she needed to. She was wearing a vest-like garment and boots of a matching color, but that was it. Insert setting-the-record-straight Justin to describe the color of her fur.
The entire class zipped up with almost-too-straight faces the instant after she laid the stink eye on every student she was likely to call out. I was set on neither standing out nor fitting in. This class was gonna do it for me. No doubt.
"Alright freaks. I'm your substitute teacher."
She took the piece of chalk and assumingly wrote her name on the black board stained with years of teaching in this room.
"My name is Sally Acorn. I taught this class for fifteen years, so don't even think about messing with me. Got it?" I expected a loud murmur of agreement here, but the entire class stayed silent. "Good. Let's take a register." Stereotypically technologically challenged much.
"Pay-tear."
For the longest time the class was zipped up.
"Is there a Pay-tear in this class?"
Then someone slowly and awkwardly raised his hand.
The teacher eyed him evilly for a while, and eventually replied, "Yes, sir?"
"It's Peter..."
"Ok," she snapped. "So that's how it's gonna be. I say a name, and you come up with something totally random that isn't a real word. Ok then." She picked up the clipboard and read on. "Jay-nice."
The girl sitting to my right muttered awkwardly, "Uh, do you mean, Janis?" As in Janis Joplin.
"Really? Janis? What kind of a ridiculous name is that?"
"That's my ridiculous name."
There was the stink eye again for two seconds. Then she scolded, "You talking smack, Jay-nice?"
"That's even more ridiculous. That's what everyone calls me, is Janis."
"You wanna go to war, Jay-nice?" she started yelling. "Cuz I know I'm better at talking smack than any of you. Y'all wanna play, ok." She waved her finger at the entire class. "I got my eye on all of you."
I leaned over to that girl, a slightly taller, maroon cat draped in a judo suit, and whispered, "Hi. I'm Zenith."
"First year?"
"Yeah." I was wondering how she knew that. Maybe she was in one of my other classes?
"Looks like I'm not the only one who hates this ridiculous system."
"You too?!" I didn't care that my whispering was getting louder by the second. "I got called out in both of the other class periods. Where am I!?"
"Is there a Zuh-cherry?" called out the teacher. Still no answer. "No Zuh-cherry? Well you better be sick, dead, or mute, Zuh-cherry."
"My name's Zachary..."
"SON OF A BIPOLAR!"
The intensity of her reaction was characterized by her splitting the clipboard in half on her knee.
"You say your name right, right now."
He just shrugged. "Zachary."
"Correctly."
"Zachary."
"Correctly."
"Zachary."
"Correctly."
"Zachary."
"Correctly."
He sighed and shrugged again. "Zuh-cherry?"
"That's better." The master at picking up foreign systems was now ready to strike. "Now, the next freak to say some stupid-arse name will feel my wrath."
She eyed the list contemptuously. "Zen-nythe."
"Pre-sent," I shouted, my left hand raised, emphasis put on the "sent".
"Thank you! Wait a minute..."
"Son of a bitch."
She held up her right index finger and waved it back and forth, obviously calling me out to the hallway, what with that glare fixed at the crimson streak with the bad do. So I slowly got up from my desk, immediately followed by a round of laughter from the rest of the class. Unfazed, I proceeded to the front of the room and waved my own finger at them and muttered quietly so as to let no one hear me, "Thanks."
Sally was waiting right in front of the classroom door. As soon as she saw that streak of crimson, she remarked, "You think cracking my system will get you anywhere?"
"I figure cracking every system should get me somewhere," I replied simply.
"You think you can actually do that?"
"Well yeah!" Maybe not instantly, but... "Somewhere down the line. I think. I don't care what my teachers think of me at first glance, but I'm not like everyone else, and frankly, I feel like I don't need to be."
"Well then," she started, "you must be pretty smart. I can tell you that this chemistry class will be pretty smokin' hard. How much do you wanna bet that less than five students actually turn in their first assignment on time?"
I looked back into the room to get a quick glance at every bullshit student that was talking to someone else. "Thirty-five dollars."
"Done."
Then we shook on it.
