They're Playing Our Song

When the bell rang for third period to start I happily settled down in my chair. Science was one of the only class I had with Mary, and I hated the awkwardness of being forced to be partner up in gym with people you don’t know. Mary smiled at me as I sat down, and pulled out her science notebook. I followed suit, and jotted down the notes that were written on the board. It was talking about why some animals look so similar.

“Take, for instance,” my science teacher began, “A llama and an alpaca. They both look strikingly similar, and sometimes its hard to tell the difference between the two.” He picked up a large, glossy piece of paper from his desk, and pinned it to the board. It was a large poster of an Alpaca…or a llama. It was rather hard to tell.

“So tell me class.” He smiled. “Is it a llama, or an Alpaca?”

“Pfft. Duh.” I whispered to Mary smugly. “It’s clearly a llama.” She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Um…no. It’s clearly an Alpaca.” She whispered back.

“Erm…no. It’s a llama.” I smirked.

“No. It’s an Alpaca.” She persisted. “See? It’s furrier.” I shook my head at her while the teacher laughed.

“See what I mean?” he said, smiling. “It’s hard to tell. But actually Louie, it is an Alpaca. Well-done Ms. Sanders.”

“See?” she said smugly, sticking her tongue out at me for a minute. “I was right.” I rolled my eyes at her lovingly, and copied down more notes that were being written on the board.

After a moment of quiet, the only sound was the whispers of kids talking amongst themselves, she spoke again.

“I’m probably right about other things too.” She said cautiously.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I just…nothing. Never mind. Look at the clock; it’s time for lunch.” She muttered. Just as she finished speaking the bell rang loudly. I could feel my eyebrows come together in confusion, but I stood and shuffled away to my locker as Mary made her way to the library.