September 9, 2013
Chrys pulled the paintbrush across the canvas, marking it with another shade of blue, and sighed. There was a lot on her mind, and art class made her uncomfortable. Ms Phillips, who was the art and photography teacher, would stand behind students and examine their work. Every few seconds, she would "hmm..." then move along like nothing had every happened. It was super awkward, especially when she would lean over the students shoulder and whisper in their ear.
As Chrys let another stroke fall into her painting, she heard a shuffle behind her and then the distinct hmming of a teacher much too involved in her students work. Regardless, Chrys ignored it, and painted the canvas with now a shade of white as to make clouds in the sky. After a few minutes of ignoring the hmming, Chrys felt a hand on her shoulder, and then Ms Phillips leaned down next to her ear. Chrys shouldn't have been surprised, but she was.
"Good job on the technique, Chrysanthemum." she whispered. "Even though that's not the assignment."
"Uh... thanks. And sorry..." Chrys said.
"Shush, no talking." Phillips scolded, then left alike nothing had ever happened. Just like she always did, and always would.
After Phillips had accomplished making Jimmy incredibly uncomfortable, she leaned in toward him, and whispered something in his ear. He flushed a sort of red, and then turned to Chrys as soon as the teacher walked away. Mouthing help in a way that seemed like a joke more than anything, Jimmy dipped his paintbrush in his paint and brought it up to the canvas. He was actually doing the assignment. Which was to paint Phillips, and it wasn't doing too bad. Actually, fairly well.
"You really caught the sexual tension in her face." Chrys whispered.
Jimmy smirked, "Yeah, thanks. I tried to catch the "I'm-obviously-flirting-with-every-male-student" look."
Chrys cracked a crooked smile. "Well, job well done."
Chrys was standing in between Jimmy (who was standing in between Chrys and the end of the row) and Mandy (who was standing in between Chrys and her boyfriend Ted Thompson). Chrys didn't mind Mandy, but she hated Ted with a passion. They guy had beat her up one too many times when they were kids, and they lead to an extreme amount of hard feelings. She didn't give a shit if he had changed. Jocks don't change. Their steroids and their booze addictions made sure of that.
With a faint thought of her first encounter with Ted in her mind, Chrys began to paint pinks, reds, and oranges to her painting of a sunset. It looked alright, she thought. And the clouds looked like clouds. She was glad because she didn't want to start over and she had no other painting ideas.
After an excruciating few hours of painting, ignoring the hmming, and whispering with Jimmy, the bell finally rang. Phillips, over the sudden roar of students, yelled to have a good lunch. Chrys wondered if she knew how awful the food was, but didn't ask, and instead grabbed Jimmy's wrist and pulled him out into the hallway.
"Want something from the vending machine?" she asked loudly, unaware that she was still holding onto Jimmy's wrist tightly.
He shook her off, then said, "Yes. Always."
Together they walked toward the vending machine. Chrys bought eight bags of chips, and several chocolate bars for good measure.
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After scanning over the cafeteria for a good minute, Chrys spotted Pete hauled up in a corner by himself. His hands were shaking as he was reading a book, and there was a fresh bruise on his cheek. Chrys turned to Jimmy and told him to wait a few moments, before she scurried off to Pete's table. Once she got there, she slammed her hands down onto the table top. Pete grunted, but quickly realized who it was: an unusually unkept Chrysanthemum Skelton.
He looked confused for a moment, but all at once realized what she was about to ask. "I'm not telling you anything — "
"Why not?" Chrys snapped, eyes narrowed. "What were you and Gary talking about?"
"Nothing."
Chrys gritted her teeth and leaned in close, spitting venom in her words. "I tell you everything bad he says about you! Why can't you return the favour?"
"What makes you think it's about you?" Pete said defensively.
"Because it is."
"It's not!"
"Look, if it's bad I want to know." Chrys was pleading now, unaware of how desperate she sounded. "I want to know if I can fix it."
"Literally it's nothing. He's just being... nervous." Pete said, his eye right eye twitching. "You know he has a problem with paranoia."
"It's not nothing. You're lying."
"I'm not." Another twitch of his eye.
"Nice try, idiot, but your eye twitches when you lie."
Pete bit his lip nervously, and shook his head. Swearing under his breath, he closed his book and stood. He was at least half a foot shorter than Chrys, but he had no doubt she wouldn't hurt him. Not now.
"He just thinks you're — "
But before Pete could get it out, Jimmy interrupted. "Hey, are we gonna eat outside or what?" he asked impatiently.
"Yes, yes." Chrys waved him off angrily. "We're right behind you."
Jimmy rolled his eyes, and then walked off. Pete and Chrys followed behind.
"So, what were you saying?"
"All it is, is that he thinks you and Jimmy are more than friends." Pete said, quickly followed up by, "But, really, it's nothing serious. It'll be fine. He's just... overreacting again."
Chrys swore loudly. "But we're not more than friends."
"I know that, and you know that, and Jimmy knows that. He'll come around, Chrys."
"I hope so." Chrys sighed as the gloomy sky filled her vision. "I really fucking hope so."
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Unfortunately for Gary and Chrys, English class had a seating plan in which Gary sat at the way front near Mr Galloway's desk near the people who usually caused the most disturbance in class. Whereas Chrys had the pleasure of sitting in the middle of the class where the people who were troublemakers but not gigantic ones sat.
She supposed she should've been angrier about her boyfriend being situated pretty far away in one of the only classes she had with him, but the people surrounding her made it better. It was only a few hours, and besides it wasn't like they wouldn't see each other after school. So Chrys sat down in her desk, and fist pounded Johnny when he turned around in his seat to say hello.
"Your boys all the way at the front, huh?" Johnny asked, running a hand through his hair to get some of the loose strands down. "Sucks."
"I guess, but you're here, and asshole's here. So I'm good."
"Who's asshole?"
Chrys smiled, "Mr Northwick, here."
Trent punched her shoulder. "Shut the hell up." But he was smiling.
"I mean, c'mon... You are an asshole." Chrys reasoned.
And Trent agreed, but said, "Yeah, so are you though so it's even."
Johnny laughed, and then Mr Galloway shouted at the class to keep it down. "Now, the curriculum demands you do these vocabulary — uh... assignments. Why don't you get them done in class so you have more free time?"
He then handed out a single sheet of paper with a box of scrambled letters in it. The directions read: "Students are required to find all possible letter combinations using these letters." And Chrys just raised her eyebrow.
She heard Trent aggressively scribbling something on the corner of her page, and then poked her shoulder and angled the paper toward her. It read: WTF are these assignments?
They're like at a kindergarden level. Chrys wrote in response, glancing up at Gary to see that he too was leaning over the page questioning the educational standards in Bullworth Academy.
One of the words is meow.
Trent, I'm not stupid I know that.
Okay jeez I was just saying.
And then the conversation stopped so they could work on their "assignments."
The thing was fairly easy by Chrys' standards, and she could see that Pinky was having trouble with hers. Chrys waited until Mr Galloway left the room to lean across the aisle and show Pinky the answers. Pinky quickly copied them down, and then Chrys slumped back down into her seat, feeling good about helping somebody.
After a few minutes, Mr Galloway slumped back into the classroom, saw that Chrys and a few other students were finished, and announced, "Anybody who's done their assignment, come hand it into me, and you're dismissed early." A little less than ten people stood up (among those was Gary, Pinky, and Chrys), and handed in their assignments before stampeding out the door.
"So what'd you think of that?" Chrys asked Gary.
"I... don't know how that's in the curriculum." Gary stated loudly, not caring who heard. "If that's what they're teaching the high school population, what are they teaching the kids?"
"They probably don't even get taught the alphabet until fifth grade."
"The educational standards have gone down so much since we were kids."
"Yup, Bullworth is one hundred percent and most definitely fucked."