Chapter 8

Fish quickly hurried down the street toward the sound of the ringing schoolbell. 'I Can't BELIEVE I overslept!' He kept thinking to himself. A couple of mothers walking with their kids stared at him strangely as he dashed pass and burst into the school. After skidding down the hall, he opened the door and snuck in while Mr. Woolensworth was on the phone with someone.

He carefully army-crawled to his seat and popped up, and pretended to be bored and blend with everyone as if he was there all along. Aorta looked at him, and growled. She looked back down at her drawing of something, and began to delicately color with a yellow-orange pencil. Fish looked at Mr. Woolensworth, who was still happily jabbering along on the phone about detention or some other teacher stuff.

Thinking it was safe, he leaned over to see what she was drawing, completely ignoring her warning growl. Aorta quickly snatched it out of his sight and snarled, baing her teeth and narrowing her eyes. "I'm not talking to you, you guppy!"

Slightly taken back by her action and insult, Fish turned and stared ahead, a wash of icey coldness sweeping through his veins. 'What the heck is her problem?' He thought. Fish strained his mind to remember anything that might upset a female. His mind trailed from home to her drawings to school, to certain classes. Then it hit him.

"Bluuub!" He whispered at Aorta to get her attention. She glared at him, freezing completely, her fur starting to stand on its end in agitation. Fish thought he had a reason for her strange actions. "I was wondering...are you having your period?" Aorta's jaw dropped, while Runt and the few around them snorted and had to constrain themselves from laughing.

"I am NOT!" She snapped back, looking horribly dangerous once again. "Ask your NEW girlfriend, Abbey. She might know." And with that, she reached over and deliberately pounded on the glass in front of his helmet hard. Fish felt as if his head was going to explode, as the vibrations pressed his eyes into his sockets, and his brain feeling heavy. He quickly grabbed his diving bell to stop it, and fixed it, his head now pounding.

Aorta laughed at his pain and turned back to her paper. Fish was shocked. She KNEW that hurt him, but why did she do that? Shooting her an angry look she ignored, Fish turned back to the front of the class as a dull clink of a phone hitting a reciver echoed through the room. Mr. Woolensworth was done talking on the phone and turned to the class and jumped seeing Fish.

"Fish! Well, I didn't notice you before. I though you were late! Oh well, I must have overlooked you." It was that moment Aorta's paw cut through the air like a sword and was raised high and unmoving. Mr. W turned and looked at her, lowering his glasses down his muzzle. "Yes, Ms. Houndtooth?" Aorta shot a sideways glance at Fish and smiled.

"I just wanted to let you know that when you were on the phone, Fish snuck into the room, hoping you wouldn't notice." After she said that, she put her arm down and kept staring straight ahead. A THUNK echoed through the classroom, making everyone look for the cause of this sound. It was solved immediently. Fish was resting his head on his desk, but by the looks of it, slammed it down on the desk after Aorta made her lovely comment.

Mr. Woolensworth looked at Fish and then to Aorta and sighed. "Right. Fish, judging by your actions, you have obviously done what Aorta accused you of. You are to stay after school for thirty minutes with me to catch up with the work you missed in class." And with that, the day continued.

As soon as the bell rang for the end of class, Aorta got up and dashed for lunch. Fish slowly got up out of his chair and slouched to the door where he walked head first into something very solid. This solid object was none other than the Football Captain, a silver wolverine by the name of Klutch. He was grinning, throwing a football up and down. Fish felt like he had something to say so he stopped and looks up at the huge figure.

Klutch kept throwing the football up and down, grinning like a psycho. Fish was ready to just scream 'WHAT DO YOU WANT?' at him, but never got the chance because Klutch started to speak. "I heard from a certain she-wolf that you got another detention in less than two months. Good show, Fish. Oaky Oaks' top student stooping so damn low." He threw the football into Fish's stomach so suddenly that it knocked the wind out of the poor goldfish. After inhaling a couple mouthfuls of fresh, cool water, Klutch laughed and walked off.

Fish's eyes followed the looming figure till the turned the corner and was out of site, still howling with laughter, and jumped suddenly when he felt sudden weight on his shoulder. There was Chicken Little, who was looking sympathetic and resting his feathered hand on FIsh's scaley skin. "Look.. buddy... what happened today.. I'm sorry.. if theres.. anything I can do..?" Fish shook his head, and smiled slightly. It felt good to have a friend like Chicken Little. Together, they headed off to lunch.

All through lunch, however, Fish still wasn't feeling any better. This was because Abbey and Runt kept attempting to start a conversation with him, thought better of it, and went back to poking the disgusting looking cafeteria food. it didn't help either, that Aorta sat in plain site of Fish a couple of tables away munching on some crackers. Fish watched her with a sudden feeling of emptyness inside him.

Before he could do anything though, Aorta looked up, her eyes locked onto his. She held up one of the crackers she was eating and Fish felt as if he was going to be sick. They were goldfish crackers. After making sure he saw, the wolven feriously ripped its head off and chewed on it for a few seconds, swallowed and crushed the other half. Fish looked away and shuddered. He never liked those crackers, ever.

As if he wasn't having a bad enough day, the worst was about to come. After staying his half an hour with Mr. W, Fish teetered out of the classroom and was walking past Ms. SpottedFur's classroom when she strolled out. "Oh! Hello Fish!" She said warmly, clutching a bouquet of purple and white roses. Fish looked at the flowers and complemented on how nice they were.

The teacher smiled, then dropped her voice a few decibles and whispered something Fish had barely caught. "I've just been asked out by Lenny, the janitor. He just gave me these. As sweet as these are, I don't want them." And with that she gave them to a confused Fish. "Give these to someone you find special!" The leopard patted him on his back and rushed away to the library. Fish looked and the roses and gulped. 'Well... lets go find Aorta so I can make up with whatever I did.'

Fish glanced at an event calender on the school's tac-board, showing sports practice times. The Tennis team had it till four.. Basketball, two forty-five... YES! Football was just letting out now. If he hurried, he could catch a certain wolf. As he dashed out of the backdoors facing the field, he froze dropping the bundle of roses, which shattered, spewing petals and thorns everywhere as they hit the concrete. He started to breathe heavily at the sight in front of him, anger pulsing though his body.

There was Aorta and Klutch, lips locked in a deep kiss.