Al and Gil were already in class when I went into Computer Graphics.

"What're we doing today?" I asked as I sat down.

Gil sighed dramatically. "Same shit we were doing yesterday."

"if u dont like the class y ru here?" Al asked.

Gil and I stared at him.

"wat"

"How the fuck are you doing that?" Gil asked incredulously.

"doin wat?"

"How are you talking like you're texting?" I asked.

Al shrugged. "idk feli"

Gil winced. "Gott, that burns my ears! Cut it out!"

"dont u tell me what to do!" Al exclaimed.

"Oh mein Gott make it stop!"

"Al, can you stop?" I asked quietly.

He grinned. "Okay, fine."

Gil uncovered his ears. "You're inhumanly fast, you can talk in chatspeak, I don't even want to know what kinds of other weird shit you can do."

"Fast?"

"Ugh." Gil turned to his computer and opened up his project.

"This is for the birds," Al complained as he got to work. I quickly opened up my project too.

Gil whipped around and stared at Al. "Did Mattie tell you?!"

"Tell me what?"

"Uh—nothing—thought you were talking about something else," Gil said quickly.

"Uh, okay, whatever." Al glanced at my project. "Feli, how are you so good at this?"

I shrugged. "Um . . . instinct?"

"You're cheating," Gil decided. "Tell me your secrets."

"Secrets? I don't have any! I just do what feels right!"

"Do what feels right . . ." Gil muttered. "Got it."

He opened up a tool, clicked on his image, and somehow smeared all the colors.

"Maybe you should do what feels wrong," Al suggested.

"Alright," Gil agreed. He clicked with the same tool and the colors became a jumbled mess.

Al made a face. "It looks like clown vomit."

Gil undid his mistakes and sighed. "Back to the drawing board."

"I have a drawing board," I said, "but I left it in art class . . ."

"I didn't mean a literal—never mind."

When I got home, I went upstairs and found Eliza reading a book on her bed. She looked up and smiled. "Hey, Feli," she said, putting down the book. "How was school?"

I shrugged. "Pretty good. Can Ludwig come over for dinner on Friday?"

She looked startled. "Ludwig? Your boyfriend?"

"Yeah." I jumped up and sat on the bed next to her.

She sighed. "I'd love to have him over and meet him, but I don't know about your stepfather . . ."

The familiar sound of the piano floated through the door as she said this.

"Maybe—maybe he'll be okay with this," I said hopefully. "I mean—I'm his stepson, so—he might—?"

Eliza looked at me sadly.

"Maybe," she said softly. "Ludwig's nice, isn't he?"

I nodded. "Yeah! He's smart, and he's really handsome, and strong, and he's really polite and nice, and he's looking forward to dinner—oh! And I gotta go over to his house for dinner soon, too, 'cause I gotta meet his dad!"

Eliza smiled. "That's no problem. We can just tell your stepfather you're going over to a friend's house for dinner . . ."

"But . . . I can't say boyfriend's house?"

She sighed through her nose. "We'll see."

The Good, the Bad, and the Italian series: breaking the fourth wall since chapter 26

Speaking of which, for some reason, this thing won't let Al say that first thing with "y r u" separated, so I had to put "r" and "u" together. Otherwise it makes it say "if u dont like the clas here?"

Translation:

Mein Gott = My God