At lunch, everyone laughed when they saw me. "Oh, SHADDUP!" I yelled at Vinson. "I haven't really ridden for eight years!"
Neal smirked when I sat down. "The gods were punishing you for being so mean to us." he said.
"Hey! Mr. Barns did WAY worse to us, so you shut your trap, o idol of idiot worshippers!"
Cleon slapped Neal on the back while Neal stared. "That fits you, all right!"
"Did you make that up?" Merric asked.
"No way! That's Shakespeare," I told him.
"Who's he?" Seaver asked.
"Oh my God! You don't know who Shakespeare is? He's like the greatest writer of all time! Well, Tammy's better, but let's not go there... 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' Ever heard of that?"
They shook their heads.
" 'Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble?"
Nope.
"Man, you guys have a lot to learn...."
Neal changed the subject. I don't think he liked me saying he was inferior to me, even though he was. "Laurie, nice necklace," he said. "Where did you get it?"
I looked at the cursed locket, as I called it. "My grandma gave it to me a while ago."
"Oh. It's nice." he said.
"Thanks."
The next morning, I made myself act cheerful. I thought that it would annoy Owen. So when the pages and squires came into the practice courts, I said/sang, "Oh, come on! Smile! 'Gray skies are gonna clear up! Put on a happy face! Brush off the clouds and cheer up! Put on a happy face! We're rolling back prices all over the place, so put on a happy face!'"
They just looked at me like I was crazy.
"Okay," I said. "Let me put it this way: Smile or fifty pushups."
You would be amazed at how wide those smiles were.
"Muuuuch better! Aren't you all just little balls of sunshine!" I said as I pinched Owen's cheek. "Now, warm-ups! Five high punches, fast as you can go! Keep you technique, though, now start!"
The morning went by quickly. Numair didn't give me a "riding lesson," so I didn't see the pages until that afternoon, when Numair gave a lesson to them. He was in a pretty bad mood, I didn't catch why, but I didn't know until later. So that afternoon when he asked for some "rules to live by," and I raised my hand and said what I said, I didn't know I was waving the red flag in front of an angry bull.
"When all else fails," I said hyperly, "use SUGAR!"
Numair turned to face me very slowly. "Um....make that a text book....I get scared easily? Hurting people isn't good? The Golden Rule? It's against the Scriptures to kill? DON'T KILL ME!!" I screeched as he started running at me.
I dodged around desks and chairs, while Daine, who was helping Numair with the class, laughed her head off. Numair ran after me.
"Class...dissmissed!" Daine gasped as she ducked a bottle of ink.
Three hours later, I was in my room, holding an ice pack to my eye while Daine looked at a bruise on my arm. "And how did you get this?" she asked.
"A flying text book," I told her, as the squires, who had wanted to see how bad I looked, laughed.
"Uh-huh. And the black eye?"
"I tripped and hit the chair."
"All right...so Numair didn't give you any of these?" She pointed at my mass of bruises and scrapes.
"Not intetionally," I said sullenly.
"Well, I'll see you later then. I'll try to convince him not to be too hard on you."
"Bye," I said, resettling the ice pack.
And so the weeks wore on.