The first weekend of the school year came and went before anyone knew it. After only two days all of the students attending Jump City High stumbled back through the gates and headed to their first period classes.
A tall, blonde girl clad in a cheerleading uniform perched on one of the benches in the quad. She held a large stack of pink fliers. "Come one, come all, to the Homecoming Dance!" she cried, handing out fliers to anyone she could reach.
Below her standing on the ground was a blonde freshman girl, wearing matching attire and passing out the same fliers. "It's at eight o'clock on Friday night," she said hopefully, though earning a not-so-fond look from her elder standing above her. Richard and Raven walked by the scene, not even pausing to look up.
"Cheerleaders," Raven mumbled distastefully. "How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways…"
"Raven, mind that we only have five more minutes before class and not a decade," Richard interrupted, smirking. "Though we should go to that dance on Friday. It could be fun."
"Heh. Yeah, you can count me out."
"Raven, I command you to come with me and Garfield and Kori to the dance on Friday."
"Since when do you have that kind of authority over me?"
"Since I'm taller."
"Yep. You sure have me beat right there," Raven said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "And you're not that much taller."
"I'm tall enough to say that I am! Come on, Raven…at least this one dance."
The two of them entered the building and approached their classroom.
"All right. I'll keep it in mind if you quit bugging me about it."
Richard grinned. "Good enough for me." They entered their history classroom and took their seats in the back.
Lenard arrived shortly after the bell sounded. "Good morning, class. Mr. Conte and Miss Roth, I expect to see you in here at break."
Neither of the two students mentioned bothered to respond.
"Everyone, we're starting on page 59 in your textbooks…"
XXXXXGarfield gingerly placed the ground beef her had rolled into a tube shape onto a tortilla; this concoction was to become a taquito in the end. Ugh, so gross, he though, wincing as he quickly tucked the meat under the tortilla to get it out of sight. This feels so wrong…
"Nice work." Mr. Closki was circulating around the room, inspecting the students' work. After complimenting the girl next to Garfield he peered over the green-haired boy's shoulder. "Quite exceptional, Mr. Logan. You've handled the ground beef excellently. Are you sure absolutely sure you haven't considered becoming a butcher?"
To Garfield, it felt as if part of him had died.
XXXXXApproximately two hours later two students met at Mrs. Lenard's classroom door. They exchanged a glance, and entered the room.
The teacher eyed the two of them as they found seats near the front of the room. "Thank you for coming. I trust that you two will get some work done today?"
No answer.
Lenard gathered her bag and began to head out the door. "I'll let the both of you get started now. But, keep in mind, if I find anything out of place when I get back you can expect to stay in after school."
The students nodded sullenly and the teacher left.
Raven slid a history book out of her desk. "We left off on page…64, was it?"
Rorek said nothing. Raven disregarded his silence and turned to the aforementioned page in the text. She handed the book to the boy. "Read. You'll feel so much better when you accomplish something for once."
"Don't talk to me," Rorek barked suddenly. "If you think that you are influential enough to make me do those ridiculous assignments then you are mistaken."
"I'm not trying to be influential," Raven countered angrily. "I'm trying to get this over with so I don't have to spend my free time with a random fellow student that I've barely known for a week. Now do me a favor, and learn something."
"I don't do favors." Rorek's eyes narrowed and the rest of his face contorted into a pissed-off snarl.
"I don't do arrogance. Read the damn book, or else I'm maim you."
"Some tutor you are. Resulting to violent threats." Rorek leaned back in chair and looked away from Raven, uncaring. For a moment there, the two of them were completely silent. In that moment of silence Raven just stared at him in frustration, wondering how to get through to this boy.
Finally, she spoke up: "Why in seven hells are you so unmotivated?"
Rorek turned to look at her again. "History just doesn't matter to me. It never has."
"Ah. How old are you, Rorek?"
"…Sixteen."
"Well! Who couldn't have seen something like that coming?" Raven rolled her eyes with exasperation, while Rorek glared defiantly. "This is high school, Rorek. Technically, our future has already started. Whatever happens now is going to influence us later. So, unless you want your later life to absolutely suck, you should do well while you can."
There was another pause. Rorek wasn't buying it…and he had to get this girl away somehow. "So, you're last name's Roth, is it?" he queried. "Doesn't that mean that you're the daughter--?"
He was cut off by the sound of Raven abruptly slamming the textbook closed. She locked her own glare with his. "You think you're so perceptive, don't you?" she seethed. "And I have no idea what you're talking about." Raven grabbed her bag and stormed out of the classroom.
Breathing a victorious sigh, Rorek picked up his own bag and left the room as well.
XXXXXRichard, Garfield, and Kori leaned against the trunk of the big tree. Garfield was entertaining his friends with his recount of what happened in cooking class when Raven came trudging briskly to join them. She sat down next to Richard with an ungraceful plop and dug into her bag, whipping out a novel and turning to a book-marked page. The other three peered around the tree trunk curiously, wondering what brought on this reclusive mood.
"Uh, Raven?" Garfield piped up cautiously. "Are you feeling okay…?"
"Where on earth did you get that idea?" Raven replied distractedly, not looking up from her book. "Of course I'm not pregnant, Garfield."
The green-haired boy stared for a while, and then leaned back against the tree with a groan. He would never understand women…