It was time for biology class. It would be an understatement to say that I was dearly anticipating this. Oh, I was possibly chomping at the bit. I head we'd get to play with microscopes. We'd probably watch cells divide and use awesomesauce chemicals to dress all the bacteria in pimpin' purple and make those stone-cold mothers dance and shift and writhe under the spotlight. Fun was going to be had, for sure.

Well, that was the plan, at any rate.

As it turns out, the lab tables could only hold one pair at a time. There was only one free chair left; I was expected to share the table with the one person who had worked by herself until now.

That would be Edwyn Cullen.

As I approached her, I realized it was time for a reassessment. When I had first seen her from afar, in the cafeteria, I had found her stunning. In person, she was...

She was...

In retrospect, many actions would have been appropriate. I could have wept. I could have started singing about where that babe came from and how she had know I needed her. I could have removed my shirt and played "Careless Whisper" for Air Saxophone, in sexy sharp. I could have simply asked the girl her name and her astrological sign. Instead, all that came out was a barely whispered: "Hello."

She was such, that I could not even bear to look at her.

She did not reply. Worse than that, she appeared extremely tense. She did not talk to me or reply to me in the entire session. She sat at the very furthest edge of her seat. She turned her face away, as if I smelled bad. The sheer discomfort her body language expressed was so strong, so sincere, that I caught myself (discreetly) checking my armpits at some point. They smelled (faintly) of Axe (I reminded myself to ask for a refund).

My hands smelled of White Spirit from the time I'd spent yesterday with Muscle Princess (thankfully, otherwise they would be smelling of motor grease).

My clothes smelled of lavender.

My hair smelled of Old Spice.

My shoes smelled of leather.

I smelled fine.

I most definitely didn't smell that bad, or I would have gotten this reaction from the other people I had sat next to that day. Were they just being polite?

But what about her? She had the poise of a lady. Even in her current state, she did her best to keep up some dignity. Maybe she was too polite to tolerate it? I was at a loss.

Somewhere inside me, the child who wants to be validated and appreciated and loved was shocked and horrified and wanted to cry, as it usually did when it knew it had messed up big time, but not where, or how.

Everything had been going so swell until then. I had been bonding with new people, having fun; a great start. And then the most bewitching person I had ever met or seen, literally turned her nose up at me, acting like I was some loathsome horror that she couldn't wait to get away from, let alone bear to look at.

While my mind was in turmoil, my body was undergoing a biochemical war of its own. My skin tingled, my hands were sweaty, my breath was shallow, my mouth was dry, and I had butterflies in my stomach. My heart was beating frighteningly fast; a lot of the blood went to my brain, feverishly sorting the hows and the whys and the oh-mys and the what-to-dos and the dayums. Not all of it, though. I was in the middle of puberty, and it showed-in the most inconvenient times, as usual. I was quite glad she was actively not-looking in my general direction.

Finally, the bell rang, and she was out and away like she was running from Death itself. As for me, I was reduced to inextricable tarball of conflicted feelings, stirrings, and passions.

Michaela, who had seen the whole tragedy unfold from the seat behind, came to talk to me.

"Don't let the girl get you down, Ben."

"And the sign said, long haired freaky people-"

"-need not apply. That's right, Ben, she's long-haired freaky people. You shouldn't worry about what she thinks. She may be rich, she may be beautiful, she may have the best grades in the class, but she's still a freaky-dicky loner, and, if she wants to turn her nose up at people from no reason, I say she can stuff it. Quick, get your stuff, we should be out already."

"Micky?" I asked as I got my stuff togehter.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"No biggie. Wait a minute-" Micky got close to me and... took a deep whiff? "Just making sure."

I was unamused. "So?"

"No worse than any dude your age, at any rate."

So early in our friendship, and I was already giving her a long-suffering look.

She snickered. "Nice Martin Freeman impression. Now let's go, or we'll be late!"

Why, perish the thought!


Soon thereafter, I found myself walking alone down the corridors.

I had taken a detour at the restroom to make sure there wasn't anything wrong. Who knew, maybe Micky didn't have as good a sense of smell as she liked to think?

Having freshened up insofar as the available facilities allowed, I left for class... and found that I was quite lost. With all doors closed and no-one left to ask, there was only one solution left: the reception.

As I walked towards it, I overheard the most melodious, seductive whisper, reverberating through the empty corridors. It was like... well, nothing as vulgar or thick as, say, hot chocolate. It was more like... hot, smoked tea, served in a large, red clay cup, indoors, a sunny but cold winter afternoon. It was gentle, and graceful, and just a little carcinogenic, in a good way.

"Please sir, there must be a way," the angelic voice pleaded. "I must change groups," I wonder who was this person, that gave the word "soft-spoken" an entire new dimension, "I simply cannot bear to sit next to the new boy."

My heart, which had navigated the storm and thought it was safe at the harbour, sank.

I forced myself to turn the corner with a swift gait.

"I'm sorry," the receptionist fumbled, "it doesn't appear to be possible. You're not providing any good reasons that the administration would accept. Was he rude to you? Did he bully you? What's wrong with that kid, that you'd go to such lengths to avoid him? What am I supposed to tell them, that he smells bad?"

I tried to Jhonny Walker my way past the scene towards the god-damned exit. She was going to say it. She was going to say it out loud and then the entire school would know me as Benedict "Poop Ratstinker" Swann and my future here would be ruined and I would have to switch schools all over again.

"Don't be silly, he doesn't smell bad," she contested hotly.

I don't?

I walked in front of one of those air ducts, which they used as heating. The hot emanations made me feel uncomfortable and dizzy, as usual.

"He-" She stopped talking, and went rigid.

Aw crud. She noticed me.

She turned to look at me, and I was paralysed at the look of hatred in her eyes. I actually felt like I was going to die, then and there, such was the killing intent she emanated.

I was past the turbulent torrents of mere fright and gently floating upon a calm lake of utter terror. It was an underground lake, and my last light had just gone out.

I'd love to say I'm being melodramatic, but that was precisely the gist of it.

Then, a mask of composure descended upon her face, and the tension lowered slightly.

"Never mind," she snapped, and she just left, going down the corridor that led furthest away from me.

I fainted.

I genuinely fainted.

My knees gave out under me and I crumbled into a heap, under the alarmed eyes of the poor bureaucrat.

As he shook me from my stupor, a strange feeling overtook me: an immeasurable relief, an overwhelming joy at being alive.

I stopped staring into the horizon, and met the clerk's gaze, an irrepressible smile creeping into my features.

"Boy, what did you ever do, to get this girl to hate you so much?"

In other circumstances, I would have been scandalized at the double standard. I would have explained, at length, that I had been the one who was terrorized out of his wits, that blaming the male every time a girl felt discomfort was unjust, and so on and so forth.

In my joyful numbness, all I could manage was, "Dude, I have no idea."

"Also, why do you smell of the school bathroom's bar soap?"