As soon as they stepped over the threshold, Alfred busied himself with sifting through the contents of the top drawer of the desk. He pulled out a stack of papers and sat down. The key ring circled around his finger until Arthur strode pass and leisurely and plucked it off.
The American nation skimmed the papers, then, in a relatively unexpected flick of his wrist, tossed them at his British companion. "Here, you can read these. It's all basic stuff."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "Today, if I remember correctly, you couldn't remember the address of the school and had to Google it. And you want me to trust you to remember something that happened…" His eyes scanned the page, "...more than 80 years ago? The Twenties?"
Alfred nodded. "Well, you wouldn't expect me to forget that, would you? I remember towing you from speakeasies to clubs, then you got so drunk that one time that you asked that flapper to-"
Arthur scowled. "You should have never invented that awful moonshine of yours. I was under the influence, or, what were those many euphemisms your people tended to use? I 'had an edge', or I was 'petrified' or something else that was equally ridiculous."
"Well, everyone was pretty much a crazy teenager in the 20s. Now hold on to your seat, Artie, class switch in 3…2…1…" A bell rang, resulting in a sound akin to a tsunami of wildebeest filling the halls. Children poured out of the class and into a passageway that seemed to have spacial properties akin to a TARDIS if it could fit that many souls between those lockers.
Alfred sighed. "I'll stand by the door and make sure nothing too bloody happens. Or do you want to give it a shot?"
"Well," Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, "I suppose I might as well."
If hell had lemon-yellow walls, burgundy lockers, and a cold spell this year, Arthur imagined it would be something like this. Spirits of the damned crawling past each other, practically stacked one on top of the other. No windows, little breathable air, and ear-splitting noise. Yes, this place had the image.
As Arthur stepped out from under the door frame, he almost stepped on a familiar-looking fedora. The owner quickly noticed the danger to his prized possession and flipped it onto his head before pulling a backpack out of a bottom locker.
"Hey Wes," a voice said, distinct throughout the discordant symphony of sound, "we need to give the script to Señora Hernandez tomorrow, right?" The girl, Mei, pulled a binder out of her locker and fiercely stuffed it into a blue bag.
Westley stood up, backpack zipped up and slung over his shoulder. "Well, if we're planning to film this weekend we'll need to get it back Friday."
"Okay, I'll work on Google Docs this afternoon. Can you add the tildes while I write the new part?" A text book was mercilessly compacted into the bag.
The boy turned and walked right past the Brit, into the class taught by Mr. Alfred F. Jones. "Sure, Mei. See you in class."
She smiled. "When don't you?"
He turned around and shot back, "Math, P.E and chorus." with a winning grin before doing a 180 and walking over to a desk.
"Egotistical ignoramus," she grumbled, pushing a series of pens and pencils into a few empty compartments of the bag. Arthur felt a smile tweak at the corners of his mouth. He liked these two.
Arthur walked back in just as "Mr. Jones" had managed to settle the class down. The class was scattered randomly, picked so that the obviously talkative kids had only shrinking violets and solitary types in the immediate vicinity.
"Okay, so Mrs. Hopper had to go to a conference, so for the rest of the day, I, Mr. Jones, am going to sub for the class." Alfred proclaimed brightly, rousing only a few mumbles from the class.
"Um, exuuuuse me?" The annoying sound came from one boy wearing pink shorts and a blue striped polo, his tone the farthest from sincerity as humanly possible.
"Yes?"
"Why are there, like two of you? Are y'all," he pretended to whisper "homo-buddies?" Being as immature as 7th grade classes are, some kids giggled lightly, others more familiar with these antics just rolled their eyes, while a few of the more obnoxious practically fell out of their seats laughing.
Alfred shrugged. "And what if we are?" He asked casually. This just made the class laugh harder.
"Then that'd just be hunky-dory!" The kid said, not missing a beat. Collective exasperated sighs from the more mature. Collective chortling from the more immature.
"Well, sorry to disappoint, but it's a completely professional relationship," Arthur said, lying through his teeth rather flawlessly, "now could we move off the topic of such things and back to history?"
"Right, right." Alfred said, shuffling through some miscellaneous maps, documents and essays to find the roll sheet, "Found it! Now, let's start…Maria?"
"Here."
"Katherine?"
"Here."
"Um, Carti-er?"
"Present!" The obnoxious child from before waved his hand wildly, "And it's pronounced Car-ti-eh, thank you." His voice dripped with a false sweetness like poisoned honey.
"Okay. The first name's cut off, Grell?"
"Here. It's Victoria." A girl raised her hand, indicating her place. Arthur remembered her as the girl from the cafeteria, her distinctive ebony hair with pinkish-purple highlights was quite uncommon and seemed like it would be more at home on the streets of New York City instead of a middle school in suburban Virginia.
"Right. Sweet hair by the way." Some students snickered, as if remembering their other teachers' less than enthusiastic responses to the unusual style.
"Thank you." She studied her computer screen, looking back and forth between it and her teachers. Satisfied, she closed the top and jotted down a quick note that was promptly passed to Mei.
"Renfield?"
"Here."
And so on. The names hardly seemed to change as the roll progressed. On the other side of the room, once Mei had received the note, she too glanced at the two teachers, nodded slightly, wrote something back on the note and passed it back to Victoria. A small agenda was pulled from her overstuffed blue bag, and she began drawing in it as a distraction.
"Westley?"
"Here."
"Mei?"
"Here."
"Okay, end of the roll, who wants to run this up to the office for me?" A couple of hands were raised, 'All right, you." Alfred selected the calm Indian girl who already had her passbook out. He quickly signed the letters AFJ with a flourish, and she left for the office.
A/N: The reason for two updates in the same day? I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow, so I won't be able to post daily. Therefore, I'll post again as soon as I get back, so until then, enjoy the bonus chapter! And I had a kid like the annoying OC in my history class, and gosh darn it, I'm normally a calm person but he just makes you want to slit his throat within the first five minutes of meeting him. No joke. If his bit offended anyone, I apologize, but I'm trying to portray the immaturity of middle school.
Put some lovely words in that white box below to let me know what you're thinking? Main question: How are my OCs doing? Good? Bad? Unoriginal? Completely unique? Thanks!
