Blue Eyes

“Buenas tarde, clase.”

“¡Buenas tarde, Andrés!”

“En honor de nuestro nuevo estudiante, tengo un composición asunto perfecta.” Andrew picked up a stack of papers from his desk and read off the top one “‘Describe adondé usted creció’. No menos de ochocientos palabras y no más de mil palabras. Return them to me before the Friday before Halloween.” Andrew was about to pass them out when Peter interrupted him.

“That’s in two weeks, Andrew.”

“Hablé español, por favor. Y sí, yo sé que está en dos semanas. Sufficiente tiempo a completarlos?” Andrew looked out at his class nodding their heads frantically. Jen shot Carry a confused look which made Carry laugh at her. Again Andrew made to pass the paper out but was interrupted.

“¿Maestro? Uh…” Jen didn’t want to sound stupid so decided to ask Carry later her real question but Jen had already started talking so had to finish her sentence. ‘Shit! What do I ask him?’ “Uhm, permission to ask a question in English?”

“As long as it does not pertain to this class.” Andrew sat on his desk, holding the compositions in his right hand. He smiled at Jen, putting her on the spot.

“Figured. I want to ask about Halloween. It is on a Saturday this year so are we allowed to wear our costumes to school on Friday?”

“Oh hell yeah!” Andrew stood up and put the papers down. “Halloween is a big deal here at gee-aich-es! Right class?”

The class erupted in cheers and the different cliques started jabbering with each other, “I think I should go as a witch this year!”

“NO! Witches are so overrated! Go as Lady Gaga!”

“Hey, party at my house this Halloween? We moved and have so much more room now!”

“I will spread the word.”

“Kyle? I think I am going to actually dress up this year.”

“Seriously, Carry? That would be amazing!”

Jen looked around at the hubbub and laughed in wonder. “Ghidotti was never this excited over Halloween. I love these people!”
***
“Andrew is not one for giving us time to do an assignment,” Carry explained from Jen’s floor. Kyle was watching Carry intently as she painted her toenails pink and orange. Jen was hugging her knees and hoping neither of her friends opened her curtains and saw Andrew next door. She wanted her hot neighbour to be a secret only she could ogle at late at night. “So him giving us two weeks for this composition is a miracle.”

“And thankfully he did. This paper will take a lot of work. We have to answer all the questions on that sheet in our essay. There are, like, twenty of them!” Kyle flung his hands up and almost knocked the nail polish bottle over but he caught it before anything spilled on Jen’s rug. “Sorry.”

Jen shrugged. “It shouldn’t be hard though. They are all personal questions so there is no research involved.”

“I need to do research. I don’t know what words to use. I fail at Spanish. You know what? I fail so much I deserve the double fail: f-a-l-e!”

“If you want me to tutor you, Carry, I can.”

“Bragging about your top-of-the-class-status-for-three-years-in-a-row award?”

“No.” Jen looked hurt. “I just don’t want you fail and not be able to graduate.”

“Hey, Jen? That wasn’t an insult. I’m mad at myself.” Carry finished her toes and closed the nail polish bottle. She put it in her book bag and took her time pulling the flap of the bag down. “I already have failed Spanish so many times I’ve been unable to graduate high school for three years. I am twenty-two, Jen, and a senior in high school. A virgin if you can believe. And my parents kicked me out so I live with Kyle. But my parents still think they control me. They forced me to get a job at my mom’s law office and they force me to check in with them about my grades.”

“Wow. That sucks, Carry. And I thought I had a bad home life. I should be lucky to have a home.”

“What’s wrong with your home life?”

Jen looked up to make sure her door was still closed and locked. “My parents hate my guts. They won’t let me do anything fun. They ignore me. They don’t like associating with me, hearing about me, looking at me.” She picked at her new green area rug Carry bought her as a “room-warming gift”.

“Why do you think they hate you?”

“The same reason we had to move from Grass Valley to Los Angeles.”
***

Carry’s mom called her into work after that so she and Kyle had to leave. Jen didn’t walk them to the door this time.

When she heard the front door close, she woke up her laptop and connected to the Internet. She logged onto Facebook to find 12 new friend requests from kids at school. She smiled when she saw Colby the Junior had added her. She accepted them all then accepted a Jack-O-Lantern from her brother for her FarmVille. She placed Ol’ Jackie next to her other five then harvested her peach, apple, date, and banana trees. As she was collecting peanuts from her elephants her email alerted her of a new message and a little one popped up on her notifications “Colby Jackson commented on your photo.”

Jen clicked the photo link, leaving her elephants behind. A picture of her and her two best friends in Grass Valley came up. She, Lindsay, and Michael had gathered around her laptop and opened Photo Booth. They changed the effect to black and white then struck an old school pose not looking at the camera. Jen really liked it and decided to post it, tagging her friends after she promised not to.

Michael Cook likes this.

Lindsay Stone HEY! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T TAG ME BITCH!

Jenny Billock You can always remove the tag…

Lindsay Stone Naw, Mikey says to let you have your fun.

Jenny Billock sweet :)

Colby Jackson Wow. You look great in this. All three of you. ;)

Jen got another email and notification as she stared at the winking face.

“Colby Jackson commented on your photo.”

Jen clicked the photo link. It took her to the same picture but with a new comment.

Colby Jackson Hey, I just visited your friends’ profiles… I can’t see them… It says they are memorialised… If you ever need to talk to me… about anything… go ahead. I’m a great listener. I can be there for you, Jen. :) I want to thank you for sticking up for me and do whatever I can for you.

Jen logged off and closed her laptop. ‘How dare he do that to me? Bastard.’ She got up from her desk, turned her light off, and curled up under her covers.

Her parents never woke her up for dinner. When she did wake up the next day for school, her pillow was stiff and her eyes red. She busted out her makeup then stared at it. ‘I shouldn’t give in so easily. I should just ignore it. He didn’t know. He doesn’t know. He knows nothing about me. And he won’t. Nobody will know Jenny or Jennifer!’

She hid her makeup again, logged into Facebook and changed her name. “We confirm all name changes before they take effect. This will take approximately 24 hours, so please be patient.”
***

“French the Llama the square root of negative one is a letter!?!?!” As the class burst out laughing, Andrew shook his head and tried not to join in. He liked to quiz his freshman homeroom on what they were learning. Today was a math day and some sweet girl in a flowery dress shyly asked to be shown the steps to solving one of her problems. It involved square rooting negative one and stating that it could not be solved because they hadn’t been taught the methods yet but the girl was confused because she solved it. Andrew had to tell her that the square root of negative one was i – the symbol for the imaginary number.

That’s when a boy in the back of the class blurted out about llamas.

“Derek. Do you pay attention in math class?”

“No. But apparently neither does Kaitlyn since she also didn’t know that about i.”

“Derek, don’t be an ass!”

“Don’t call me an ass, Kevin, or I will tell you to look who’s talking.”

“Well, at the moment, you are ass.”

“Both of you hush!” Andrew yelled before another comment could be made. “Derek and Kevin I will go get the principal. She loves seeing you in her office. Kaitlyn, ignore the asses. I will tell your math teacher that you might need some tutoring.” He smiled at her and she blushed and slid down in her seat.

“Thank you, Mr. Fields.”

“Anytime. So, who is this ‘French the Llama’, Derek?”

“Hahaha! About that! The vlogbrothers last year in a video after the Project for Awesome, John says that eff-tee-el is now ‘French the Llama’ not ‘for the loose’.”

“Whoever the vlogbrothers are!” Andrew said as the bell rang. “Have a great day!”

The class grabbed their bags and bolted out the door. Kaitlyn ran into Jen on her way out.

“Woah, sorry, there freshman!” She bent down to help Kaitlyn pick up her papers. “I’ll watch where I’m going next time, okay,” Jen looked at one of the papers. “Kaitlyn?” She smiled even as Kaitlyn snatched her paper and ran down the hallway.

“Hey, Andrew! I have just a few minutes ‘till I have to rush to be late for Government… Can I ask you a question?”

“I don’t know? Can you? Are you able to?”

“Hush, you! I was wondering if you need a TA for Spanish one and two? I have some extra periods during the day and I wanna fill ‘em up because yesterday afternoon was just boring! Kyle and Carry are in classes all day so…”

“Sure! I could use the help. You can grade papers, help in class during assignments. Oh! And you can feed the fish. I tend to forget.”

Jen looked around expecting to see a small bowl or big tank of fish but saw nothing. “Okay. I’ll milk the cow while I’m at it.”

“Great!” Jen laughed and shook her head.

“When would you like me to start?” Jen walked over to Andrew’s desk. Andrew had his feet up on it and was playing with a rubber apple, the kind used to take away stress. She put her palms on his desk, the inside of her arms facing him. She leaned forward pretending to read the papers under her hands.

“Today or tomorrow is good.” Andrew said, tossing the apple into the air then catching it with a loud smack.