Girl Meets Boy Wonder: A Prequel

I headed to homeroom, my mp3 ear buds crammed in my ears, and keeping my eyes averted from the students in the grades above me. Not that they’d do anything if they caught me looking at them, but it’d just be awkward. Plus, you know, there’s some kinda unspoken rule about not looking older students in the eye because you’re inferior to them. I dunno. Whatever, I’m gonna respect it and not get a potential “What are you looking at, hippie??”

I walked into homeroom and immediately made a bee-line for a group of desks right by the window. I sat down and took off my backpack, putting my mp3 player up on my desk. I nervously jiggled my legs up and down under my desk. The start of new semesters makes me a little nervous: I feel like just when I’ve gotten totally comfortable with last semester’s schedule, everything gets changed on me. I completely forget about any boredom I felt in my previous classes, or how sick of the same daily routine I had become.

Harold Song came walking into homeroom, his large headphones over his ears. I immediately waved him over to my spot. He saw me and walked in my direction. I met Harold at the beginning of last semester and he I and immediately clicked as friends. I don’t know why. But anytime that happens, it’s a good feeling, right? Plus, Harold is the kind of person who genuinely doesn’t care about what other people think of him (which is refreshing to be around). I like being his friend, it’s working out nicely. I thank my lucky stars that my last name is Svetson and his last name is Song so we can be in the same homeroom.

… although, I’m pretty sure I don’t have lucky stars. And I can’t believe I just thought that thing about thanking lucky stars at all. Freaking hell, what am I? A friggin’ Disney cartoon-

“Hey,” Harold said to me, sitting down in the desk next to me.

“Hi,” I said, taking out my ear buds. I looked at him properly and took in what he was wearing. I blinked at his t-shirt: it was black and had “TELEVISION MADE ME DO IT” scrawled across it in an angry, white font.

“Nice shirt,” I chuckled at him sarcastically. Harold looked down at it.

“Thanks. My parents gave it to me,” He said. I could hear whatever music he was listening to blaring mechanically from his headphones. He must have had his music turned up really loud.

“For Christmas?” I asked without thinking about it. Harold looked at me, his eyes looking as tired as I felt (Monday mornings suck).

“Not quite. They gave me a sweater vest with a gift receipt for the National Holiday of Capitalism,” He said, smoothing the front of his T-shirt.

Yeah, that National Holiday of Capitalism stuff? Harold doesn’t agree with the commercialism of Christmas one bit. He doesn’t agree with Christmas at all, in fact. He told me about how, once upon a time, when England was trying to establish itself as a nation and bring all the pagan English tribes together under one monarch by having them all commit to the same religion (Christianity), the government blind-sided the pagans by mixing together their traditional winter solstice with the birth of Christ as a way of tricking the pagans into converting to Christianity and giving up their old ways.

He says that it’s a classic example of a government mind-fuck and that the pagan religions were completely muddied up and then wiped out as Christianity took over. He says that, once Christ and the Winter Solstice got all smushed together, a story about Saint Nicholas (who delivered toys to the children in just one, single, Germanic village) got thrown in there too, when parents from other villages saw the black-mail value of an unknown, but trust-worthy grandfather figure only giving the well-behaved kids gifts. Plus, apparently, Jesus Christ was born in October or something, not December. And so, eventually, Christmas has boiled down to one, big, commercialized mind-fuck, laced with black-mail.

Harold says. He says that kind of shit a lot.

“But I exchanged it… once I got there blessing,” Harold went on about his t-shirt, interrupting my thoughts.

“Why?” I asked thoughtlessly again. Harold simply pointed at his shirt: “Television made me do it”, and smiled at me. I laughed. You can see why he’s kind of fun to have around.

Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Bird, called our attention and then took attendance. Harold didn’t take off his headphones, and I wondered if he’d get in trouble, but he didn’t. After attendance, Ms. Bird handed out our finalized class schedules. We’d already gotten a look at them before Winter Break, so I knew what to expect. Harold and I got our schedules and compared them for the umpteenth time. We had English together, but that was it.

When homeroom was over, Harold and I walked to Harold’s locker to meet up with Max. Max and I have been friends since elementary school. In fact, he’s the one that introduced me and Harold. Max and I are best friends, I guess. Well, we’re old friends. I think Harold might be my new best friend. But it’s a little early to tell…

“Hey kids,” Max said oh-so-cleverly.

“Let’s see your schedule,” Max nodded at me. I handed it to him. Max shook his mop of curly dark brown out of his eyes and looked down at my schedule.

“Ah, fuck you. You and Harold have English together, but we have nothing. I thought you were going to change into my PE block,” He said, slightly irritated. I snatched my schedule back.

“Well I didn’t,” I said kind of snottily to him. Max grinned apologetically at me and then rubbed his eyes. Ah, he’s sleepy (fuck you, Monday morning). I smiled apologetically back at him too. Harold stood up from his pig sty of a locker, and slammed the door shut. He smoothed his own long, poker straight black hair out of his eyes. Oh, he’s not some scene kid (er… no, yeah, I don’t think he is), his hair is straight and black because he’s of the Asian persuasion.

And Max is Jewish just… just so you know.

Isn’t that line ‘Asian persuasion’ in a freakin' Janet Jackson song??…

“We’d better get going before the bell rings,” Harold said.

“Yeah. I gotta get to Pre-Algie,” I joked lamely. They laughed at me anyway.

“K see ya after class,” Harold said. He and Max walked off together, in the direction of their classes and I walked in the opposite direction to my class.

“… Nice shirt,” I heard Max chuckle to Harold behind me.