Pepper and Peppermint: by Evolutionary Spider
Chapter 5: Anti-Romeo and Juliet- Act II
'Aww man, I'm so dead.' Christy thought as she looked at the biology question in front of her.
23) Our atmosphere contains several gases. Circle the gas that is in the most abundance:
a)Nitrogen
b)Oxygen
c)Methane
d)Hyrdogen
She groaned to herself and tried to think of the answer. 'I know I studied this! Why am I forgetting it now? I know it's an easy question, so why can't I figure it out?' She looked up at the clock to see she only had 5 minutes before time was up and she still had 2 questions to go. She looked around her, hoping something in the room would jog her memory. Her gaze eventually fell on the boy sitting ahead of her diagonally. He was looking out the window and seemed to have already completed the test. He scratched the back of his neck and looked behind him. His gaze met her own, which caused her to look down. She circled 'A' on the question she was on and prayed it was the right one.
The bell rang soon after and the teacher called pencils down. All of the students got up to gather their things and laid their tests on her desk. Christy let out a groan as soon as she was out of the class. Before she could take a step out of the class, a voice startled her, "Killer test huh?" She looked behind her to see a boy smirking in her direction. Not knowing what to say she stammered out a "Uh, um, yeah, it was bad. I think I bombed it." She started to walk to her next class. The boy walked by her side as if it was the most normal thing on earth. Christy simply stared at him every now and then as he walked with her. After awhile he spoke up. "Maybe you'll get a 90% and tomorrow will be a good day." With those cryptic words he waved to her and turned a corner to his next class. Christy stood there dumbfounded in front of the door to her history class.
"Yo Johnson, do you think you can get your head out of the clouds and let me into class?" an annoyed voice said. Christy snapped out of it and looked to see who had spoken. When she saw that it was Lorelei Fisher, she couldn't help but glare a little as she moved aside. "Yeah, nice to see you too princess." Lorelei remarked, giving the girl a glare of her own. Both girls walked into the classroom and took their respective seats.
Christy was relatively bored through history and was off daydreaming. She only half paid attention to what the teacher was saying about their new assignment. It wasn't until she heard her name that she was shaken out of her thoughts. "Ms. Johnson, your presentation partner will be...Ms. Fisher." As soon as the words left Mrs. Alders mouth, twin protests erupted. "Mrs. Alders you can't do that!" "Your sticking me with the class ditz?!" Christy turned around and glared at Lorelei, who was a few seats down. "I am not a ditz, you reject." "Come over here and say that to my face dim-wit." "I would if I could tell the difference between your face and your as-"
"Girls!" Mrs. Alders shouted appalled, "Settle down!" "Aww and I was in the mood for a cat fight. Meeooww." The whole class, except Lorelei and Christy, erupted into laughter at Seth Cutter's outburst. "Class settle down." Mrs. Alders called out, trying to remain calm. She held her head feeling a headache coming on. The class eventually stopped with only a few occasional snickers being heard.
"Ms. Johnson and Ms. Fisher, I have never seen such behavior in my classroom and I would certainly never expect it from either of you. Your partner assignments will remain the same, no objections. I quite frankly don't understand where your hostility towards each other is coming from and I will not tolerate such behavior in my classroom. As punishment, the two of you now have an extra assignment. You will write a 1 page paper discussing the positive qualities in your partner and present it to the class. The two of you will stay today after school in my classroom working on it. Is that understood?" Both girls murmured yes.
Mrs. Alders straightened her glasses on her face before she spoke again, "Alright class, pair up with your partners and begin working on your assignment." She gave a wary glance at Christy who sunk down into her seat. 'Oh man, this day has gone from bad to worse. First I bomb my biology test, then I have a spat with Lorelei in class and make a total fool of myself in front of everyone including Seth Cutter. Just what else can go wrong.'
Lorelei plopped down in the empty seat on her left. 'Of course, how silly of me to forget that I have a big presentation with an ice queen. Ok Christy, time to play hardball, don't let her get under your skin.' "Alright powder puff, let's get one thing straight, you hate me and I hate you. Let's just get this thing over with, as quickly and quietly as possible so that we're out of each other's hair and-" "I don't hate you." Christy said confused. "Your interrupting." Lorelei said in an annoyed singsong voice. "Your assuming." Christy shot back in the same tone. "Like I'm supposed to believe that all the little evil looks you give me don't mean you hate me." "Yes. Besides your the one that started it. Look I don't hate you, it's just you annoy me, you have ever since you and Matt..." Christy didn't finish her sentence, feeling uncomfortable.
Lorelei's face showed a brief look of surprise before she covered it up with her usual look of indifference. She was compelled to make the girl finish what she was going to say, but thought better of it. The other girl had told her exactly was she needed to know, she didn't need to pry further. 'Well if what I deduced so far is right, this week will be bearable.' she thought as she looked at the girl in front of her who was now flipping through the history book. 'Besides, it's not like I care anymore about what she thinks of the apostle. It's all moronic anyway.'
Putting as close to a friendly face as she could, Lorelei caught the girl's attention, "Don't sweat the small stuff, girly, I say we do something on Joan of Arc. She was pretty cool. We could bring up what it would be like if she were alive today or something. Today she wouldn't have to deal with the same shit women dealt with in her time." Christy couldn't help but smile, "Even when you seem to be into something, you still sound like you don't care." "Yeah it's a gift." Lorelei replied still in her same indifferent tone. "Either way, your idea...is...a good one." Christy struggled to say. She'd notice the sudden personality change and couldn't help feeling Lorelei was up to something.
"Alright then. How's this?" she said as she shut Christy's book closed, "You leave me alone for the rest of the period and we wait till after school to duke it out on how we're going to do this project." Lorelei didn't wait for Christy to answer as she got up and went back to her seat. She put her head on her elbows and appeared to be sleeping. Christy just stared at her in surprise and shook her head in annoyance. She cracked open the book again and started to read up on the era Joan of Arc was born in.
Seth Cutter walked by her desk as he went to sharpen his pencil. He came back and sat down in the desk Lorelei had previously sat in. "Hey Christy." Christy looked up and smiled when she saw him. "Hi Seth. What are you doing here?" "What, do you mind?" he said giving her one of his bright smiles. "Uh, no, it's not that." "That's one hell of a partner, you've got there. Knowing her, your going to end up doing the whole project yourself." Seth pointed out as he leaned closer to her. Christy could feel a blush coming on. That's when a crazy thought came to her.
'Wait a minute, what if Seth is the guy that wrote me that letter? He has started to pay attention to me more than before. Maybe my day is starting to look up.' "Well actually Seth, she isn't that bad. I mean she already came up with the idea for our project." "So right now she's civil. I've seen you two glare at each other all the time. I mean sheesh, she has got one hell of an attitude problem. Why do you to hate each other so much?" Seth asked as he looked in the sleeping Lorelei's direction. Christy visibly tensed up. She let out a sigh as she too looked in Lorelei's direction. 'I don't, can't find a reason to hate her. All I hate is that she was there. She beat me to the punch. She only annoys me because she knows she won. But if it was between me and her then he played us both. No, it's all his fault. Stupid Matt.' Seth turned to look at her, "Did you just say 'stupid Matt'?" Christy looked at him putting on an innocent face, "No, I didn't." "Oh, I must have heard wrong. It'd be pretty funny though if the reason you two fight each other is cause of that wuss Carrington." Seth laughed, with Christy laughing nervously.
~~~
"Achoo!" Matt sneezed. "Bless you." came the reply from his best friend. John smirked as he said, "Someone's talking about you." "That's a load of- a-a-achooo!" Matt rubbed his nose, "Man I must be coming down with something." Before John could respond, the sound of a whistle was heard. Both boys watched as Coach O'Neil came towards them.
"Just what do you two ladies think your doing here?" the coach asked with his arms crossed. "Getting a drink of water sir." John said, not being able to stop the mocking tone in his voice. "Well that's fine and dandy Connor, but I need to talk to you two." The coach grabbed both of them, one arm around each boy's shoulder and he pushed them with him. "Your in P.E. class boys. Your here to exercise, play sports, learn teamwork." the coach said it all in a gentle manner that made both boys lessen their guard. The coach began the next part slowly, "So I'd like to know one small little detail......I want to know why you two maggots decided it was alright to get a drink of water without my permission! Games are being played right now ladies! Now get out there and join in or I'll make you two stragglers run laps until the sun comes down!" He blew on his whistle for good measure, sending both boys in an annoyed jog towards the field. Both boys exchanged a look of boredom as they saw what was being played. Eventually the two just took a basketball and played one on one fore the rest of the period.
When the bell rang for the end of class both boys ran to get to the locker room. As both were changing into their normal clothes, John spoke up. "Oh yeah, I caught Christy staring at me during our biology test." John reached into the locker for his shoes and thus did not see his friend visibly stop putting on his shirt. "When it was over she seemed really bummed about the test. I told her not to worry about it." "What'd she say?" Matt asked as he finished putting on his pants. "Nothing really. She just stared at me like a dead fish or something. That girl is definitely weird." Matt didn't say anything else and finished getting dressed.
The two friends walked off and went to their usual spot, in the quad area, under a couple of trees. It was a very isolated place from the other students of the school, perfect for a group of isolated people. Both of them dumped their things down and waited for the rest of their friends to show. They didn't have to wait long before they saw a boy with a blue Mohawk coming. "Hey look there's BlueJay." Matt laughed as he indicated to the boy that was coming near them. James Bartorni nodded as he came near them. He was dressed in black baggy pants and a dark blue t-shirt. On each of his wrists he had a spiked band and on his right eyebrow he had a small piercing. The other boy came up to them and gave a smirk when he saw them.
"Hey John, Matt." he said as he did the special handshake that they all came up with. He dropped his things and leaned against a tree before he finally spoke again, "Idiots." John looked up to see James staring at three boys coming towards them. All three were engrossed in their conversation, but were laughing loudly at the same time.
Simon, Bart and Thomas Perez were the only Latino triplets in Reseda. It was hard to distinguish them by physical appearance, even their family and friends had a tough time trying to tell them apart. The three boys were nearly inseparable and were known for being a little strange. Today they all wore jeans with white t-shirts. Each wore a different colored dress shirt, so that people could tell the difference between the three of them. The three boys stopped talking as they approached the other three.
"Hey guys." All three said at once. Each in turn did the special handshake with the boy in front of them. "So did you guys hear about the chick fight in Alders' class?" Simon said as he ran a hand through his short black hair. "Oh yeah homes, I heard about that." Thomas said as he unbuttoned his red dress shirt and allowed the slight breeze to sway it about. "Sounds just like Lorelei to pick a fight." Bart said smiling. "Who told you this?" James said looking at three boys with his usual ice cold blue eyes. "pH told me." Simon said defensively, "He said that Little Lorelei had a verbal sparring match in the middle of history class." John smirked when he heard that. "Who'd she argue with?" Matt asked. Thomas spoke up, "Some preppy girl, I think her name was Chrissie, or something." At this Matt's eyes widened slightly, "Christy Johnson?" "Yeah, there you go." Thomas said smiling. "Do you know her?" Bart asked curious. His counterparts also looked at him expectantly. Matt felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the three pairs of brown eyes.
"Yo." All six boys looked up to see the last and oldest member of their group come. "Hey Philip." the triplets said at once. Philip just raised an eyebrow at them before he continued to greet them. John looked up from where he was sitting and asked him, "Why are you late pH?" Philip just put a hand behind his head and laughed, "Yeah, sorry about that guys. I had a little trouble in science class. We were dealing with chemicals and Roxanne kinda spilled some on me." He unzipped his navy blue jacket to reveal his white undershirt. He took out a black rag from his jacket pocket and tossed it to Matt. Matt held up in front of him with a confused look on his face. "What the hell's this?" Philip answered embarrassedly as he cleaned his glasses, "It's what's left of my t-shirt." All seven boys were quiet, until John, Matt and the triplets began to laugh at the look on his face. Even James cracked a small smile at the scene.
"Well we don't call you pH for nothing." John said taking the rag in his hands. "Yes your the only idiot here, that's dumb enough to get his clothes burned off with acid every semester." James spoke up dryly. "Heh well alright, now that we're all here and for once without Lorelei and Roxanne, let's begin with the meeting." John said now standing up.
All seven boys were now standing and looking at him. "So did you and Matt deliver phase one of the plan?" Philip asked him. He searched the pockets of his brown khakis looking for his notepad and pencil. "Yeah." Matt said distractedly. He snuck a glance across the quad field to look at Christy and her group of friends. Philip nodded as he crossed off something in his notepad. "Alright then, now we move on to phase 2." John said with a smirk. The other six smirked as well.
~~~
Christy laughed at the joke her friend Andrea made. Judy, Petra and Kate were rolling on the grass laughing. Andrea was imitating Mrs. Alders using Judy's glasses. Christy felt much better about her morning now that she'd told her friends. She smiled at Andrea, feeling happy to have a friend as funny and wild as her. Andrea took off the glasses and handed them back to Judy. "Alright, let's get down to business ladies. What are we going to do after school?" Kate felt like speaking about Christy's letter, but thought better of it. She deemed it unimportant to tell the others until she found out some more about it. Besides it wasn't her gossip to tell. "How about we go to the movies?" Petra asked. Her voice had a Russian accent to it reflecting her recent arrival to America. "Yeah I can dig that jazz cats." Judy answered after she finished cleaning her glasses on her poodle skirt and placing them back to their proper place. "Rain check." was all Christy said. "Yeah the movies sound like fun. You in Kate?" Andrea asked the girl. Kate briefly glanced at Christy who gave her an encouraging smile that told her to go and have fun. They could search for her secret admirer later. Kate nodded. Judy, Petra and Christy began to argue about what movie the girls should watch.
Andrea plopped down next to Kate. "K, what's with the get up?" she asked pointing to Kate's clothes. "Nothing. I just felt like a change today." Kate lied, hoping her friend didn't notice. "Eh, I can respect that. I will miss you though. Little my little you won't be there anymore. A day here, an hour there and suddenly you'll be girly all at once." "What do you mean? I just felt like it today" Kate said. "Yeah, hahaha, and today you and I aren't the tomboy twins." Andrea said as she adjusted her baseball hat on backwards. She looked out across the quad area. Kate followed Andrea's gaze to where the jocks hung out at. "Just remember Kate, the guy that truly deserves you, is the one that can truly see and accept you." Andrea got up and joined the other three girls. She settled the disagreement and made fun of the other three for fighting in the first place.
Kate looked back at the jocks, looking directly at Paul Ramirez. He was laughing with his friends as they threw a football at each other. She looked at his handsome face and could feel herself melting a little more. She wondered if Andrea meant that her crush on Paul wasn't worth changing herself. She looked down at her clothes. She would admit that the clothes weren't as bad as she thought they were when Christy first suggested she wear them. She knew deep down though that they weren't really her. Maybe some day, but right now they're temporary. When she thought about her crush on Paul, she knew that it too was temporary, but that still didn't lessen how she felt. No, for now these feelings were here to stay whether she wanted to or not.
~~~
"Just look at them all, like god's little ants. They're all happy, sad or angry at some mundane thing, brought about by their own faults. They don't realize how what they feel, their pathetic problems, their very lives are of no importance in the great scheme of things. They're just empty space until they die. Even then, their little demon spawn take their place. All of them are growing and yet have learned enough knowledge to fill a spec of dust in comparison to a universe of knowledge." Roxanne said. The slight breeze, blew her shoulder length blonde hair, lifting up the top strands that were dyed with wisps of brown and black in them. The wind began to pick up more and blow the ends of her black dress and trench coat. She took another puff of her cigarette as she continued to glare at the crowds of teenagers that were hanging out in the quad area. Her piercing brown gaze went towards the football players. "Those modern day Neanderthals are the worst." "Hate humanity much?" Lorelei said, as she too took a drag from her cigarette. She gazed down to where John and Matt were, "Huh, looks like another meeting of the retarded apostles is getting underway." Roxanne sat down Indian style next to her.
Lorelei still found the roof of the cafeteria's building to be something of a surprise, even though she had been up there many times before. What made it so surprisingly appealing was that, from high up there, one could see the whole school hidden from view, but still well enough to make out the details of people. She looked at the group of boys that were almost hidden from view because of the trees. All seven of them were standing in a circle and Philip and Matt seemed to be explaining something. She ran her gaze through all the little cliques until she reached the football players. Unconsciously, she was seeking out the intriguing pair of purple eyes.
"They're some of the worse ones. A group of nobodies, with no fate and no future. Take that moron that you have a thing for, Matt-" "You mean had for, Roxy. I don't anymore." Lorelei said, cigarette in mouth. "Bullshit, then why do you still flirt with him?" "Same reason why you come up here and analyze people rather than join them? It's fun, passes the time, and is harmless. My thing for him, sizzled out 3 weeks ago." Roxanne didn't say anything more. The two girls continued to smoke under the sunshine above them.
Lorelei felt very much at calm up here with her friend. She looked down at Christy's group and finally spoke, "Did you hear about the apostles' plan to get revenge on the jocks?" "Yeah I heard, sounds like some stupid fun." "I don't think it'll work. The first part was to give Johnson, over there, a secret admirer note." "The beginnings of plans are usually slow and lame, till the action starts. What the hell are they thinking though, sending that note to her for?" Before Lorelei spoke, she crushed the cigarette she held before lighting up another one, "Turns out one of the jocks has a serious crush on her. They plan to turn Johnson away from him and watch the guy's heart break. I don't know all the details of their boring little plan, but I know that in the end, all the jocks are supposed to pay for what they do to our boys."
Roxanne looked down at her watch to see there were only 10 minutes left until nutrition was over. She looked at Lorelei and voiced her question, "Why'd you stop liking Matt? You said you did a lot of things to keep him yours, so why'd you give up on him?" Lorelei had a thoughtful look on her face, before she turned back to her friend. "I've been at this school what? 2 months now? The first people that were nice to me were John and Matt. They made me feel welcome and comfortable here, even they're friends did. Later on you came here and I finally had a another female to talk to." "Yeah the testosterone level must have been through the roof before I got here." Roxanne joked. "Yeah. Sometime within hanging out and being around him I found myself into Matt, I had even thought he was into me too. Then I found out that while I was staring at him, he was staring that that powder puff Johnson. It wasn't so bad though because Johnson didn't even know he existed, but when she did and the two of them became chummy, let's just say I wasn't a happy person." "You've never been a happy person." Roxanne laughed, which made Lorelei flick her cigarette at the other girl. Roxanne caught it and put it out.
"The ironic thing was, that both their best friends and little cliques didn't know a thing about that." she chuckled at the statement, "I did though. When I found out Matt planned on confessing his feelings towards Johnson, I wrote a letter pretending to be Johnson to Seth. It said that she liked him. It was perfect, at the very moment Matt was about to talk to her Seth was already there asking her out. I saw the poor dope walk away before he heard her answer." "So what'd she say?" Roxanne asked putting out her own cigarette and taking out some breath mints. "No." "Heh, guess she was sincere about him, cause she turned down Seth." "At the time it was a little too sincere for my tastes. By luck I saw Johnson sneaking a note into Matt's locker and I knew what it meant, but I still wasn't going to give up. I waited after school and followed Matt. I waited and then made my presence known. Before he could even respond, I just grabbed him and kissed him, at the very moment that Johnson came.
It was all like a bad soap opera from there. He broke the kiss only to realize that Johnson was running off. He chased after her and they both argued as he tried to tell her the truth. I saw this all as if it was on TV. It got more interesting when Seth came along. Johnson went with him to spite Matt." "I would've loved to see all this.", Roxanne said with a smirk, "So what happened afterwards with you and Matt?" "I told him how I felt, but he just got angry and rejected me." "Man that must have hurt." "Actually I remember that when he did, it didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. A week later he cooled down enough so that I could apologize. Took him awhile, but he forgave me finally."
Lorelei stood up as did Roxanne. "It's not the same is it?" Roxanne asked her. "No, he doesn't trust me and I don't think he will for awhile. If he found out the whole truth, how I did other things to kill his chances to be with Johnson, I don't think we'll ever be friends again." Despite her serious tone, a little emotion slipped into her voice. "Why would he care? It's not like he still likes Johnson or anything. I mean look at them. They glare, insult and ignore each other all the time." Lorelei looked at her friend with a look that said 'Duh'. "You don't actually believe their act, do you? What happened didn't drive their feelings away, it made them bigger. When they think the other one isn't looking, they'll stare at each other. Those two still got it bad for each other, but they just don't realize that. They're pride won't let them admit it to themselves or each other. It's kinda pathetic to watch them fight because they just don't get it. Sometimes I think nothing short of the end of the world will get these two together again."
With that said, the bell rang for third period and the two girls made they're way down the ladder that was connected to the side of the building. Both just walked in silence as they made they're way to biology. Roxanne thought about Matt and Christy, while Lorelei thought about how she was going to mess a little bit with the apostles' plan with the jocks. In her eyes, one of apostles needed to learn a lesson as well.
End of Chapter 5
End notes: Read and review. Tell me what you think. Next part will be here soon. It's about the first time Kate and John meet face to face. It's love at first sight, but not exactly for them.
Chapter 5: Anti-Romeo and Juliet- Act II
'Aww man, I'm so dead.' Christy thought as she looked at the biology question in front of her.
23) Our atmosphere contains several gases. Circle the gas that is in the most abundance:
a)Nitrogen
b)Oxygen
c)Methane
d)Hyrdogen
She groaned to herself and tried to think of the answer. 'I know I studied this! Why am I forgetting it now? I know it's an easy question, so why can't I figure it out?' She looked up at the clock to see she only had 5 minutes before time was up and she still had 2 questions to go. She looked around her, hoping something in the room would jog her memory. Her gaze eventually fell on the boy sitting ahead of her diagonally. He was looking out the window and seemed to have already completed the test. He scratched the back of his neck and looked behind him. His gaze met her own, which caused her to look down. She circled 'A' on the question she was on and prayed it was the right one.
The bell rang soon after and the teacher called pencils down. All of the students got up to gather their things and laid their tests on her desk. Christy let out a groan as soon as she was out of the class. Before she could take a step out of the class, a voice startled her, "Killer test huh?" She looked behind her to see a boy smirking in her direction. Not knowing what to say she stammered out a "Uh, um, yeah, it was bad. I think I bombed it." She started to walk to her next class. The boy walked by her side as if it was the most normal thing on earth. Christy simply stared at him every now and then as he walked with her. After awhile he spoke up. "Maybe you'll get a 90% and tomorrow will be a good day." With those cryptic words he waved to her and turned a corner to his next class. Christy stood there dumbfounded in front of the door to her history class.
"Yo Johnson, do you think you can get your head out of the clouds and let me into class?" an annoyed voice said. Christy snapped out of it and looked to see who had spoken. When she saw that it was Lorelei Fisher, she couldn't help but glare a little as she moved aside. "Yeah, nice to see you too princess." Lorelei remarked, giving the girl a glare of her own. Both girls walked into the classroom and took their respective seats.
Christy was relatively bored through history and was off daydreaming. She only half paid attention to what the teacher was saying about their new assignment. It wasn't until she heard her name that she was shaken out of her thoughts. "Ms. Johnson, your presentation partner will be...Ms. Fisher." As soon as the words left Mrs. Alders mouth, twin protests erupted. "Mrs. Alders you can't do that!" "Your sticking me with the class ditz?!" Christy turned around and glared at Lorelei, who was a few seats down. "I am not a ditz, you reject." "Come over here and say that to my face dim-wit." "I would if I could tell the difference between your face and your as-"
"Girls!" Mrs. Alders shouted appalled, "Settle down!" "Aww and I was in the mood for a cat fight. Meeooww." The whole class, except Lorelei and Christy, erupted into laughter at Seth Cutter's outburst. "Class settle down." Mrs. Alders called out, trying to remain calm. She held her head feeling a headache coming on. The class eventually stopped with only a few occasional snickers being heard.
"Ms. Johnson and Ms. Fisher, I have never seen such behavior in my classroom and I would certainly never expect it from either of you. Your partner assignments will remain the same, no objections. I quite frankly don't understand where your hostility towards each other is coming from and I will not tolerate such behavior in my classroom. As punishment, the two of you now have an extra assignment. You will write a 1 page paper discussing the positive qualities in your partner and present it to the class. The two of you will stay today after school in my classroom working on it. Is that understood?" Both girls murmured yes.
Mrs. Alders straightened her glasses on her face before she spoke again, "Alright class, pair up with your partners and begin working on your assignment." She gave a wary glance at Christy who sunk down into her seat. 'Oh man, this day has gone from bad to worse. First I bomb my biology test, then I have a spat with Lorelei in class and make a total fool of myself in front of everyone including Seth Cutter. Just what else can go wrong.'
Lorelei plopped down in the empty seat on her left. 'Of course, how silly of me to forget that I have a big presentation with an ice queen. Ok Christy, time to play hardball, don't let her get under your skin.' "Alright powder puff, let's get one thing straight, you hate me and I hate you. Let's just get this thing over with, as quickly and quietly as possible so that we're out of each other's hair and-" "I don't hate you." Christy said confused. "Your interrupting." Lorelei said in an annoyed singsong voice. "Your assuming." Christy shot back in the same tone. "Like I'm supposed to believe that all the little evil looks you give me don't mean you hate me." "Yes. Besides your the one that started it. Look I don't hate you, it's just you annoy me, you have ever since you and Matt..." Christy didn't finish her sentence, feeling uncomfortable.
Lorelei's face showed a brief look of surprise before she covered it up with her usual look of indifference. She was compelled to make the girl finish what she was going to say, but thought better of it. The other girl had told her exactly was she needed to know, she didn't need to pry further. 'Well if what I deduced so far is right, this week will be bearable.' she thought as she looked at the girl in front of her who was now flipping through the history book. 'Besides, it's not like I care anymore about what she thinks of the apostle. It's all moronic anyway.'
Putting as close to a friendly face as she could, Lorelei caught the girl's attention, "Don't sweat the small stuff, girly, I say we do something on Joan of Arc. She was pretty cool. We could bring up what it would be like if she were alive today or something. Today she wouldn't have to deal with the same shit women dealt with in her time." Christy couldn't help but smile, "Even when you seem to be into something, you still sound like you don't care." "Yeah it's a gift." Lorelei replied still in her same indifferent tone. "Either way, your idea...is...a good one." Christy struggled to say. She'd notice the sudden personality change and couldn't help feeling Lorelei was up to something.
"Alright then. How's this?" she said as she shut Christy's book closed, "You leave me alone for the rest of the period and we wait till after school to duke it out on how we're going to do this project." Lorelei didn't wait for Christy to answer as she got up and went back to her seat. She put her head on her elbows and appeared to be sleeping. Christy just stared at her in surprise and shook her head in annoyance. She cracked open the book again and started to read up on the era Joan of Arc was born in.
Seth Cutter walked by her desk as he went to sharpen his pencil. He came back and sat down in the desk Lorelei had previously sat in. "Hey Christy." Christy looked up and smiled when she saw him. "Hi Seth. What are you doing here?" "What, do you mind?" he said giving her one of his bright smiles. "Uh, no, it's not that." "That's one hell of a partner, you've got there. Knowing her, your going to end up doing the whole project yourself." Seth pointed out as he leaned closer to her. Christy could feel a blush coming on. That's when a crazy thought came to her.
'Wait a minute, what if Seth is the guy that wrote me that letter? He has started to pay attention to me more than before. Maybe my day is starting to look up.' "Well actually Seth, she isn't that bad. I mean she already came up with the idea for our project." "So right now she's civil. I've seen you two glare at each other all the time. I mean sheesh, she has got one hell of an attitude problem. Why do you to hate each other so much?" Seth asked as he looked in the sleeping Lorelei's direction. Christy visibly tensed up. She let out a sigh as she too looked in Lorelei's direction. 'I don't, can't find a reason to hate her. All I hate is that she was there. She beat me to the punch. She only annoys me because she knows she won. But if it was between me and her then he played us both. No, it's all his fault. Stupid Matt.' Seth turned to look at her, "Did you just say 'stupid Matt'?" Christy looked at him putting on an innocent face, "No, I didn't." "Oh, I must have heard wrong. It'd be pretty funny though if the reason you two fight each other is cause of that wuss Carrington." Seth laughed, with Christy laughing nervously.
~~~
"Achoo!" Matt sneezed. "Bless you." came the reply from his best friend. John smirked as he said, "Someone's talking about you." "That's a load of- a-a-achooo!" Matt rubbed his nose, "Man I must be coming down with something." Before John could respond, the sound of a whistle was heard. Both boys watched as Coach O'Neil came towards them.
"Just what do you two ladies think your doing here?" the coach asked with his arms crossed. "Getting a drink of water sir." John said, not being able to stop the mocking tone in his voice. "Well that's fine and dandy Connor, but I need to talk to you two." The coach grabbed both of them, one arm around each boy's shoulder and he pushed them with him. "Your in P.E. class boys. Your here to exercise, play sports, learn teamwork." the coach said it all in a gentle manner that made both boys lessen their guard. The coach began the next part slowly, "So I'd like to know one small little detail......I want to know why you two maggots decided it was alright to get a drink of water without my permission! Games are being played right now ladies! Now get out there and join in or I'll make you two stragglers run laps until the sun comes down!" He blew on his whistle for good measure, sending both boys in an annoyed jog towards the field. Both boys exchanged a look of boredom as they saw what was being played. Eventually the two just took a basketball and played one on one fore the rest of the period.
When the bell rang for the end of class both boys ran to get to the locker room. As both were changing into their normal clothes, John spoke up. "Oh yeah, I caught Christy staring at me during our biology test." John reached into the locker for his shoes and thus did not see his friend visibly stop putting on his shirt. "When it was over she seemed really bummed about the test. I told her not to worry about it." "What'd she say?" Matt asked as he finished putting on his pants. "Nothing really. She just stared at me like a dead fish or something. That girl is definitely weird." Matt didn't say anything else and finished getting dressed.
The two friends walked off and went to their usual spot, in the quad area, under a couple of trees. It was a very isolated place from the other students of the school, perfect for a group of isolated people. Both of them dumped their things down and waited for the rest of their friends to show. They didn't have to wait long before they saw a boy with a blue Mohawk coming. "Hey look there's BlueJay." Matt laughed as he indicated to the boy that was coming near them. James Bartorni nodded as he came near them. He was dressed in black baggy pants and a dark blue t-shirt. On each of his wrists he had a spiked band and on his right eyebrow he had a small piercing. The other boy came up to them and gave a smirk when he saw them.
"Hey John, Matt." he said as he did the special handshake that they all came up with. He dropped his things and leaned against a tree before he finally spoke again, "Idiots." John looked up to see James staring at three boys coming towards them. All three were engrossed in their conversation, but were laughing loudly at the same time.
Simon, Bart and Thomas Perez were the only Latino triplets in Reseda. It was hard to distinguish them by physical appearance, even their family and friends had a tough time trying to tell them apart. The three boys were nearly inseparable and were known for being a little strange. Today they all wore jeans with white t-shirts. Each wore a different colored dress shirt, so that people could tell the difference between the three of them. The three boys stopped talking as they approached the other three.
"Hey guys." All three said at once. Each in turn did the special handshake with the boy in front of them. "So did you guys hear about the chick fight in Alders' class?" Simon said as he ran a hand through his short black hair. "Oh yeah homes, I heard about that." Thomas said as he unbuttoned his red dress shirt and allowed the slight breeze to sway it about. "Sounds just like Lorelei to pick a fight." Bart said smiling. "Who told you this?" James said looking at three boys with his usual ice cold blue eyes. "pH told me." Simon said defensively, "He said that Little Lorelei had a verbal sparring match in the middle of history class." John smirked when he heard that. "Who'd she argue with?" Matt asked. Thomas spoke up, "Some preppy girl, I think her name was Chrissie, or something." At this Matt's eyes widened slightly, "Christy Johnson?" "Yeah, there you go." Thomas said smiling. "Do you know her?" Bart asked curious. His counterparts also looked at him expectantly. Matt felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the three pairs of brown eyes.
"Yo." All six boys looked up to see the last and oldest member of their group come. "Hey Philip." the triplets said at once. Philip just raised an eyebrow at them before he continued to greet them. John looked up from where he was sitting and asked him, "Why are you late pH?" Philip just put a hand behind his head and laughed, "Yeah, sorry about that guys. I had a little trouble in science class. We were dealing with chemicals and Roxanne kinda spilled some on me." He unzipped his navy blue jacket to reveal his white undershirt. He took out a black rag from his jacket pocket and tossed it to Matt. Matt held up in front of him with a confused look on his face. "What the hell's this?" Philip answered embarrassedly as he cleaned his glasses, "It's what's left of my t-shirt." All seven boys were quiet, until John, Matt and the triplets began to laugh at the look on his face. Even James cracked a small smile at the scene.
"Well we don't call you pH for nothing." John said taking the rag in his hands. "Yes your the only idiot here, that's dumb enough to get his clothes burned off with acid every semester." James spoke up dryly. "Heh well alright, now that we're all here and for once without Lorelei and Roxanne, let's begin with the meeting." John said now standing up.
All seven boys were now standing and looking at him. "So did you and Matt deliver phase one of the plan?" Philip asked him. He searched the pockets of his brown khakis looking for his notepad and pencil. "Yeah." Matt said distractedly. He snuck a glance across the quad field to look at Christy and her group of friends. Philip nodded as he crossed off something in his notepad. "Alright then, now we move on to phase 2." John said with a smirk. The other six smirked as well.
~~~
Christy laughed at the joke her friend Andrea made. Judy, Petra and Kate were rolling on the grass laughing. Andrea was imitating Mrs. Alders using Judy's glasses. Christy felt much better about her morning now that she'd told her friends. She smiled at Andrea, feeling happy to have a friend as funny and wild as her. Andrea took off the glasses and handed them back to Judy. "Alright, let's get down to business ladies. What are we going to do after school?" Kate felt like speaking about Christy's letter, but thought better of it. She deemed it unimportant to tell the others until she found out some more about it. Besides it wasn't her gossip to tell. "How about we go to the movies?" Petra asked. Her voice had a Russian accent to it reflecting her recent arrival to America. "Yeah I can dig that jazz cats." Judy answered after she finished cleaning her glasses on her poodle skirt and placing them back to their proper place. "Rain check." was all Christy said. "Yeah the movies sound like fun. You in Kate?" Andrea asked the girl. Kate briefly glanced at Christy who gave her an encouraging smile that told her to go and have fun. They could search for her secret admirer later. Kate nodded. Judy, Petra and Christy began to argue about what movie the girls should watch.
Andrea plopped down next to Kate. "K, what's with the get up?" she asked pointing to Kate's clothes. "Nothing. I just felt like a change today." Kate lied, hoping her friend didn't notice. "Eh, I can respect that. I will miss you though. Little my little you won't be there anymore. A day here, an hour there and suddenly you'll be girly all at once." "What do you mean? I just felt like it today" Kate said. "Yeah, hahaha, and today you and I aren't the tomboy twins." Andrea said as she adjusted her baseball hat on backwards. She looked out across the quad area. Kate followed Andrea's gaze to where the jocks hung out at. "Just remember Kate, the guy that truly deserves you, is the one that can truly see and accept you." Andrea got up and joined the other three girls. She settled the disagreement and made fun of the other three for fighting in the first place.
Kate looked back at the jocks, looking directly at Paul Ramirez. He was laughing with his friends as they threw a football at each other. She looked at his handsome face and could feel herself melting a little more. She wondered if Andrea meant that her crush on Paul wasn't worth changing herself. She looked down at her clothes. She would admit that the clothes weren't as bad as she thought they were when Christy first suggested she wear them. She knew deep down though that they weren't really her. Maybe some day, but right now they're temporary. When she thought about her crush on Paul, she knew that it too was temporary, but that still didn't lessen how she felt. No, for now these feelings were here to stay whether she wanted to or not.
~~~
"Just look at them all, like god's little ants. They're all happy, sad or angry at some mundane thing, brought about by their own faults. They don't realize how what they feel, their pathetic problems, their very lives are of no importance in the great scheme of things. They're just empty space until they die. Even then, their little demon spawn take their place. All of them are growing and yet have learned enough knowledge to fill a spec of dust in comparison to a universe of knowledge." Roxanne said. The slight breeze, blew her shoulder length blonde hair, lifting up the top strands that were dyed with wisps of brown and black in them. The wind began to pick up more and blow the ends of her black dress and trench coat. She took another puff of her cigarette as she continued to glare at the crowds of teenagers that were hanging out in the quad area. Her piercing brown gaze went towards the football players. "Those modern day Neanderthals are the worst." "Hate humanity much?" Lorelei said, as she too took a drag from her cigarette. She gazed down to where John and Matt were, "Huh, looks like another meeting of the retarded apostles is getting underway." Roxanne sat down Indian style next to her.
Lorelei still found the roof of the cafeteria's building to be something of a surprise, even though she had been up there many times before. What made it so surprisingly appealing was that, from high up there, one could see the whole school hidden from view, but still well enough to make out the details of people. She looked at the group of boys that were almost hidden from view because of the trees. All seven of them were standing in a circle and Philip and Matt seemed to be explaining something. She ran her gaze through all the little cliques until she reached the football players. Unconsciously, she was seeking out the intriguing pair of purple eyes.
"They're some of the worse ones. A group of nobodies, with no fate and no future. Take that moron that you have a thing for, Matt-" "You mean had for, Roxy. I don't anymore." Lorelei said, cigarette in mouth. "Bullshit, then why do you still flirt with him?" "Same reason why you come up here and analyze people rather than join them? It's fun, passes the time, and is harmless. My thing for him, sizzled out 3 weeks ago." Roxanne didn't say anything more. The two girls continued to smoke under the sunshine above them.
Lorelei felt very much at calm up here with her friend. She looked down at Christy's group and finally spoke, "Did you hear about the apostles' plan to get revenge on the jocks?" "Yeah I heard, sounds like some stupid fun." "I don't think it'll work. The first part was to give Johnson, over there, a secret admirer note." "The beginnings of plans are usually slow and lame, till the action starts. What the hell are they thinking though, sending that note to her for?" Before Lorelei spoke, she crushed the cigarette she held before lighting up another one, "Turns out one of the jocks has a serious crush on her. They plan to turn Johnson away from him and watch the guy's heart break. I don't know all the details of their boring little plan, but I know that in the end, all the jocks are supposed to pay for what they do to our boys."
Roxanne looked down at her watch to see there were only 10 minutes left until nutrition was over. She looked at Lorelei and voiced her question, "Why'd you stop liking Matt? You said you did a lot of things to keep him yours, so why'd you give up on him?" Lorelei had a thoughtful look on her face, before she turned back to her friend. "I've been at this school what? 2 months now? The first people that were nice to me were John and Matt. They made me feel welcome and comfortable here, even they're friends did. Later on you came here and I finally had a another female to talk to." "Yeah the testosterone level must have been through the roof before I got here." Roxanne joked. "Yeah. Sometime within hanging out and being around him I found myself into Matt, I had even thought he was into me too. Then I found out that while I was staring at him, he was staring that that powder puff Johnson. It wasn't so bad though because Johnson didn't even know he existed, but when she did and the two of them became chummy, let's just say I wasn't a happy person." "You've never been a happy person." Roxanne laughed, which made Lorelei flick her cigarette at the other girl. Roxanne caught it and put it out.
"The ironic thing was, that both their best friends and little cliques didn't know a thing about that." she chuckled at the statement, "I did though. When I found out Matt planned on confessing his feelings towards Johnson, I wrote a letter pretending to be Johnson to Seth. It said that she liked him. It was perfect, at the very moment Matt was about to talk to her Seth was already there asking her out. I saw the poor dope walk away before he heard her answer." "So what'd she say?" Roxanne asked putting out her own cigarette and taking out some breath mints. "No." "Heh, guess she was sincere about him, cause she turned down Seth." "At the time it was a little too sincere for my tastes. By luck I saw Johnson sneaking a note into Matt's locker and I knew what it meant, but I still wasn't going to give up. I waited after school and followed Matt. I waited and then made my presence known. Before he could even respond, I just grabbed him and kissed him, at the very moment that Johnson came.
It was all like a bad soap opera from there. He broke the kiss only to realize that Johnson was running off. He chased after her and they both argued as he tried to tell her the truth. I saw this all as if it was on TV. It got more interesting when Seth came along. Johnson went with him to spite Matt." "I would've loved to see all this.", Roxanne said with a smirk, "So what happened afterwards with you and Matt?" "I told him how I felt, but he just got angry and rejected me." "Man that must have hurt." "Actually I remember that when he did, it didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would. A week later he cooled down enough so that I could apologize. Took him awhile, but he forgave me finally."
Lorelei stood up as did Roxanne. "It's not the same is it?" Roxanne asked her. "No, he doesn't trust me and I don't think he will for awhile. If he found out the whole truth, how I did other things to kill his chances to be with Johnson, I don't think we'll ever be friends again." Despite her serious tone, a little emotion slipped into her voice. "Why would he care? It's not like he still likes Johnson or anything. I mean look at them. They glare, insult and ignore each other all the time." Lorelei looked at her friend with a look that said 'Duh'. "You don't actually believe their act, do you? What happened didn't drive their feelings away, it made them bigger. When they think the other one isn't looking, they'll stare at each other. Those two still got it bad for each other, but they just don't realize that. They're pride won't let them admit it to themselves or each other. It's kinda pathetic to watch them fight because they just don't get it. Sometimes I think nothing short of the end of the world will get these two together again."
With that said, the bell rang for third period and the two girls made they're way down the ladder that was connected to the side of the building. Both just walked in silence as they made they're way to biology. Roxanne thought about Matt and Christy, while Lorelei thought about how she was going to mess a little bit with the apostles' plan with the jocks. In her eyes, one of apostles needed to learn a lesson as well.
End of Chapter 5
End notes: Read and review. Tell me what you think. Next part will be here soon. It's about the first time Kate and John meet face to face. It's love at first sight, but not exactly for them.