Dutchy and I walk into English class, and I feel every head in the room turn to stare at me. I freeze in the doorway, but Dutchy marches me up to the teacher's desk. The tall, brown-haired man sitting on the edge of it looks up from his notes.
"New kid, Mr. Denton," Dutchy says, slapping me reassuringly on the back.
"Ah, Daniel Weinberg, I presume?" Mr. Denton extends his hand, smirking slightly as I shake it and nod. "I'm glad you finally decided to join us, Daniel."
"I'm sorry, sir, I couldn't--" I start to explain myself, but Dutchy interrupts me.
"Go easy on 'im, Denton. He's new, he's a little confused. And we call him Specs." He grins proudly, as if giving me my nickname is some great achievement.
"Alright, fine. Well, Specs, let me get you a syllabus..." He ducks down anddigs through his desk drawers for a few moments, re-emerging with a stapled pamphlet. "Take a seat, and if you get lost or confused, Dutchy here can help you out. Okay?" I nod. Ooh.Can he help me out with other things, too?
"Come on, Specs, we cool kids sit in the back." Dutchy chuckles at his own joke andgrabs my arm – he's touching me he's touching me – and pulls me to the rear of the classroom. I sit down beside him and observe as class begins.
The rest of the class is in a discussion about The Grapes of Wrath while I sit with Dutchy and show him some of the little doodles I'd done in my history notebook. He seems to be genuinely impressed, and I'm explaining the drawings to him when Mr. Denton comes back to my desk and looks down at me.
"Specs, seeing as you're brand-new to this school and you've already missed five straight days of my class, I don't think you can afford to spend your time in this classroom talking with Dutchy," he says. And here I was thinking he was a pretty decent guy. "Now, why don't you tell us your opinion of The Grapes of Wrath?"
"Um..." I close my notebook and clear my throat, looking up at Mr. Denton and then at the blackboard. "Well, I think that Steinbeck was one of the most definitive authors of the twentieth century, but The Grapes of Wrath is absolute drivel. It's very slow-paced and full of more pointless metaphors than a reader should have to deal with, and if you aren't used to the dialect, it's very hard to follow and ultimately completely disappointing." Leaning back in my chair, I look up at Mr. Denton. "I guess you could say that my opinion of the book is that all copies of it should be set on fire and forgotten about."
Dutchy sits there, staring at me with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. The other kids in the class have all turned in their seats to see how badly Mr. Denton is going to tear into me, but he just grins. "I like you, Weinberg," he says, and strolls back up to the front of the class.
I smile with pride, relaxing at my desk as Dutchy gives me a high-five. "Ho-ly shit, Specs," he says with a huge grin, then turns his attention back to Mr. Denton.