The worst part about seventh period is that you can hear the waves crashing on the beach just outside the window. A treeline and about half a mile of land separates Westerburg's hallowed halls from the roar of waves charging in from the Pacific and crashing onto the North Shore. It's an easy ride down from school to the beach. Hell, if I had a car, I could just throw it in neutral and roll all the way there. Some life that would be.
"Sawyer!" I jerk my head away from the window with a start.
"Is the riveting life and death of Julius Caesar not entertaining enough for you?" Mr. Hall's mousey voice was laughably annoying and weird on its own, but could be alarming when you weren't expecting to hear it in the middle of daydreams.
I shrug, settling back into the reality of class in front of me. "It's certainly interesting," I offered, "but also very far away and very, very old." My disinterest here is feigned; I've been reading Greek and Roman texts for years now and know a good bit about why their thoughts might be worth discussing, but longer, more drawn out answers are not conducive to being left alone. And god, there was nothing I wanted more than to just be left alone.
He chortles with the kind of insincerity you might expect to hear from a well-meaning relative over the holidays when they aren't sure what to make of your new views on politics.
"Right you are Miss Sawyer, but the knowledge you can pick up here can help you across a myriad of other disciplines. Now, back to the lecture. Contrary to what you may believe, Caesar's rise to power was incredibly well orchestrated and slow…"
I'm back to tuning him out again, opting instead to take up the role of student proctologist. I usually find it much easier to imagine myself studying the life of a high school student instead of living it. Looking around the room, I see the familiar faces of those who have been acquaintances of mine for twelve years now, give or take a few. Take Elizabeth White Hammer, or "Liz", the "more chill" name she insists on. She's got a fall birthday, like me, and you can tell when she's celebrating because she'll be stoned out of her mind. She's not anyone I associate with, but given the eleven years and two months of grade school we've spent together and dynamics of a small town, I feel like we may as well be best friends. She's asleep and propped up in her chair with her mouth open, breathing loudly and threatening a snore with every rise and fall of her chest. She fidgets in her sleep and elicits a muffled laugh from our classmates. I can't blame them— after years of her antics, I'm pretty desensitized, but the first time I saw it, I almost split my sides laughing.
"Looks like Hammer's gotten hammered again," a breathy whisper observes, prompting another, slightly louder round of laughs from the middle of the classroom. Heather Duke smiles, proud of her joke, beaten to death though it may be, and Kurt Kelly beside her tucks his mouth into his elbow to muffle his childlike giggling. My eyes roll involuntarily and I fight to hold in a loud sigh.
After spending so many years battling through the public school system in classes with her, any soft spot I may have had for Heather Duke has been thoroughly and completely covered by scar tissue. Smart. Pretty. Petty. Heather Duke once was someone I felt could be a kindred spirit, another academically motivated girl who didn't mind stuffing her face in a good book instead of a football player's crotch. I soon found out that while we run on the same wavelength intellectually, we differ wildly in approach. I'm sure her mean streak is due largely to her low self-esteem, but when she's sneering from across the room, pointing and guffawing at other, "fatter" girls, it's easy to forget that. It's no secret Heather Duke thinks food is so nice she needs to see it twice, as evidenced by her daily bathroom trips right after lunch. I'm certain other girls at Westerburg have started worshiping the porcelain god to imitate her, but rather than taking it as flattery, Heather Duke sees this as a fantastic weak spot in their psyche to take advantage of.
I don't hate Heather Duke because she's bulimic. I hate her because she's a hypocrite.
Her on-again off-again boy toy, the part time quarterback and full time idiot Kurt, doesn't seem to mind that at all, though. Duke's got Kurt by the balls so tightly I'm surprised she hasn't yanked them off yet. Given their looks and combined prowess, the two of them very well may rule the school in some alternate universe. I feel ya there, Duke.
"We, as history students, must remember that Caesar's actions, bombastic and fantastical though they may have been, ultimately led to the demise of the Roman Empire," Hall continues from the front, ignoring the noise from the students in the back. "His approach to governing was brutal and, in retrospect, woefully ineffective. His assassination by Brutus and company only serves as further proof that..." Blah, blah, and blah. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows who Brutus is. Discussing it in class borders on insulting.
It's times like this I wish someone, anyone I even mildly tolerated was in this class. Betty Finn, my closest friend and confidante, hasn't had a class with me for going on two years now. Given my AP-loaded schedule and her… slightly more open one, we're stuck only seeing each other during lunch. After-school is fair game, though, and given her parents run a fantastic surf shop that's practically in my backyard, we're never separated long enough to miss each other too much. She's a real master with an ebony pencil, a true and serious artist with true and serious talent, so some days "hanging out" is just me carving waves and her translating anything and everything in sight to sketches and still lifes. How detailed and smooth her work is never ceases to amaze me, and at one point I nagged her endlessly to teach me how she does it. These lessons ended in near disaster, but we did find out I have a knack for forgery. "It's a type of art!" Betty said, smiling sympathetically at me one day after several failed still lifes and one perfectly signed permission slip for a field trip. "Not to mention probably more profitable than the kind of stuff I make." Since then, I've used my powers of deception for pranks and "get out of jail free" cards in the form of unlimited hall passes. I could probably do more with it to help "the greater good", but I'm not convinced any such thing exists at Westerburg.
Heather and Kurt are still at it, cackling loud enough now that it's hard to hear whatever Hall is rambling about. He might actually call them out this time, given how—
"Shut up, Heather."
The command, though whispered, immediately cuts through every other sound in the room. Seats rustle and students shift uneasily, waking up from the lull and monotony of another lecture. Kurt turns back to the front of the room as if hypnotized. Duke visibly shrinks.
"Sorry, Heather."
Red lips quirk upward in what seems to be a cruel attempt at a smile.
Ah, the one obstacle keeping Duke from her dreams of a dictatorship. The Caesar to her Brutus. Heather Chandler.