Click

Blade had grown accustomed to walking with me to school from now on. Apparently he had to go with his dad over to where their aunt lived, because both his mom and dad left for work early and they had to drop off Isabelle there. Then Blade could walk to school past my house, and his aunt would drop off Isabelle to her school on time.

Blade knew better than to knock on my door because my dad was always the first one there, and even though Blade could stand up to him fine, he admitted to being scared and intimidated by him. We walked up to the lights and I rubbed my left shoulder, groaning about how much my bag weighed.

“Why do you take three binders home then? Why do you even have three binders?”

“I have difficult classes!” I snapped.

“Chill,” he said laughing. “You know, you have quite the attitude.”

“I do not. I’m just stressed.”

We stopped at the lights just in time for it to turn red going against us. A couple grade nines walked across the road anyway, causing car drivers to honk their horns, roll down their windows and scream insults at them before advancing through the intersection. Blade shook his head.

“I like life!” he screamed at them, and then scoffed. “Stupid white people.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re white. And don’t make racist jokes.”

“It’s hardly a racist joke.”

“It kind of is. Racists are bad people. Don’t make me hate you,” I growled, pressing the crosswalk button and rubbing my shoulder again. “Can you hold this for a second?”

Blade nodded and took the bag I handed him. His shoulders hunched over and the bags weight pulled him toward the ground. “Holy sh—what the hell do you have in here? Marcy?”

I smiled. “No, just a lot of homework. And are you insinuating that Marcy is a heavy girl?”

“No, I’m—sheesh, you say one thing . . ." he mumbled, roling his eyes. I frowned. "And it’s only been like the first two months of the new semester! How many freaking notes do you take in your classes?”

“A lot.” I rolled my shoulders around until I was comfortable. “Oh God, that feels so good.”

Blade froze and shifted his weight. “Is it weird? I’m a little turned on.” I looked at him with raised eyebrows. He shook his head. “I don’t know why I do that.”

“I don’t know why you do that either. Thank you,” I said, and took the bag back from him, putting the weight onto the other shoulder and loosening the straps. The walking signal changed and we walked across the road. “Do we have a biology test today? I think she said something about one. I can’t remember. But I studied all of last night just in case.”

“You’re a dork.”

“Shut up. I’m just prepared.”

“Dude, you spend your free time studying when you could be out hanging with friends.”

“I’d rather not stay out all night doing stupid shit with immature boys,” I said, glaring at him through my sunglasses. “And don’t call me dude.”

“Okay, dudette. You need to learn how to have fun. Sheesh.”

“Don’t call me dudette either. And excuse me for caring about my education. I don’t want to get in trouble by my father. Did I tell you? He’s a cop.”

“Yes, because I couldn’t tell by the uniform and the gun he was gripping oh-so-tightly when I first met him. Why are you limping?”

“This bag is heavy!”

“Is it weighing you down? Down to the ground? Pants on the ground! Lookin’ like a—”

"Stop," I said, laughing.

Blade scoffed. "You stop," he mumbled. I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, it's one of those," I said. "It's about as effective as when David called me an airplaine because I brought it up in a conversation."

"You're a conversation."

"You're an idiot."

"You're an idiot."

"Blade—”

"You're Blade."

"What?"

"You're what."

"That doesn't even make any sense."

"Your face doesn't make any sense."

"Uhm, ouch."

"You're ouch."

"Shut up!"

“You have got to chill!”


“What’s your issue today? You’re so stressed out,” Nick said, leaning forward and looking at me with squinted eyes. I turned my head to look at him and shot daggers at his forehead. His eyes widened a little and he sat up straighter, clearing his throat and backing away.

“Don’t piss me off today.”

“Oh, I see what’s going on,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Premenstrual Syndrome?”

“Shut up!” I screamed, hitting him in the arm with my textbook. His mouth opened and he mouthed the F word. No noise came out as he rubbed his arm. “Chill!”

Why did everyone keep saying that?!

“Jeez, you’re violent,” Blade said, sitting down beside me and raising his eyebrows. “Do you have your p—?”

“Don’t finish that sentence! She’ll kill your arm!”

I growled lowly. “I told you, I’m stressed. My dad won’t let me go to the party, not that I particularly want to anyway. It would just be nice to get some freedom once in a while. I’m sick of carrying my books home every night to study for tests that probably won’t happen for weeks on end. No I do not have PMS; I’m just having a bad day. I woke up with Aiden’s gum in my hair. Marcy’s still got me doing that stupid tutor-seduce thing for her, and I really just want a frickin’ Ice Capp right now!”

Nick and Blade stayed silent for a couple minutes, exchanged a look and resolved that none of them really had any advice for me. Nick tapped my shoulder.

“You’re so pretty,” he said in a fairly feminine voice. I looked at him oddly.

“Okay everybody! Pop quiz today! You better pray for your own good that you studied; this isn’t any walk in the park,” Mrs. Adams said, coming into the classroom and clapping her hands. The entire class groaned. I scoffed.

“See, Blade? Studying comes in handy.”

“Whatever, at least I didn’t waste my night,” he said, looking at me with a sideways smirk.

“I didn’t waste mine either. At least I’m not going to fail the test; unlike you.”

“Mhm, you study too much. Hard-ass.” I looked at him angrily. He froze and coughed into his fist. “Love you,” he mumbled, before the test was placed in front of him and he went hard to work at it, keeping his eyes off of me, but his cheeks went bright red.

It didn’t take me too long to finish my test, and I was the second person to hand it in to the teacher; next to the smartest guy in the class. Mrs. Adams was one of those “mark automatically” teachers, and the quiz was only a page, back and front, so it only took her about five minutes to mark mine and the other guy’s. She gave me my test back before some of the people in the class had even handed them in. I looked down at the test and she had written 100%, circled it and put a smiley face beside it.

I looked at Blade for a second. He was hunched over his test, biting the edge of his pen and reaching up to mess with his hair every so often. He looked at my test on the desk and widened his eyes.

“Frickin’ A!” he whispered. I smirked. “Hey, uhm . . . want to lend me some answers?”

I scoffed. “No. You should have studied. Karma’s a bitch, eh? Don’t call me a lame-ass. It will come back to bite you in your ass.”

Blade grumbled and looked back down at his test. Of course, since I was a good person, I sighed and pushed my test over to him. He looked up at me and raised his eyebrows. I nodded to his test and leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. Blade mouthed “thank you” to me and continued to work. He had to go back to the first place and erase all of his answers and from the looks of it, he erased everything else on his test as well. When he was done, he gave me back my test, gave me a huge hug around the neck—almost choking me in the process—and handed Mrs. Adams his test. Then he flounced back to his chair and sat their confidently. When he got it back, he grinned.

“Ah, so what do you think I got, Christabelle? An Aperhaps? I think so!”

I laughed and looked at his test. Written in black pen, and circled in red was the letter D. I burst out laughing and Blade’s jaw dropped.

“What?! How? I had the same answers as you!”

Mrs. Adams walked by and put a piece of paper on his desk; then she continued to hand back everyone else’s tests. Blade raised his eyebrows and opened the paper.

Don’t copy other people’s tests. I’ve got my eyes on you.

I snickered. "Oooh, that's creepy.

Blade groaned and hit his head on the desk repeatedly. “This is bullshit.”

“Wow, even when you do good on the test, you get bitch-slapped by karma.”

Blade looked up at me and narrowed his eyes. “Well, aren’t you a peach.”

When class was over and I headed back to my locker to put all of my things away, Blade leaned against the one next to mine and crossed his arms. I didn’t look at him, but he knew that I knew that he was there.

“What’s up, Blade?” I asked, brutally shoving my binder into the top section of my locker. He cleared his throat.

“What I called you about yesterday,” he began, “when you were in a . . . difficult predicament. Did you ask your dad if you’re allowed to come to the party?”

“I did,” I said.

“And?”

“I can’t go,” I mumbled, closing my locker door, locking it up, and then leaning against it. “He’s still in that obsessive father phase. This is getting out of hand. I don’t even see what the big deal is. Karlee called him a sexist and frankly, I’m one hundred percent on her side.”

Blade shrugged. “It’s all good. I’m not going to go either,” he said. I raised my eyebrows.

“How come?” I asked.

“Like I said, parties aren’t my thing. I was only going to go if you were.”

“What about Amanda?”

“She’s obsessing over every little detail; what to do with her hair, what dress to wear, what mask to pick, what colour to paint her toenails and if pink would match with brown. It’s driving me crazy. I know most girls go into hyper mode about big parties where, most of the time, they just end up hooking up with some random guy and then tell all of their friends about it but I’m not all for that. It’s just stupid,” he said. “I only encouraged you to go because you deserve some fun in your life for a change so if you’re not going, I have no reason to. Amanda wants me to go because I hold the boyfriend title, which I’m really starting to regret now. I told her I had to babysit but she’s still going with some of her friends.”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Is she upset?”

Blade smirked. “As upset as the drama queen can be.”


“. . . But the second-degree polynomial is when the variable in at least one term has an exponent of two, and no variable has an exponent greater than two. Here, I’ll give you an example.” Mr. Griffin turned away from me and began to write on the board. He wasn’t as shaky as he was when he first started doing tutoring about stuff that I already knew. I was writing down notes for Marcy in case I didn’t end up being able to steal the answers to the test for her. I knew she probably wouldn’t even take a second look at the notes I was taking for her benefit, but it was worth a shot. I crossed one leg over the other and bent forward a bit. Mr. Griffin turned around and began to go into greater detail about the example he left on the black board.

I desperately wanted to nod when he asked me if I understood but instead I smiled and batted my eyelashes, trying to be flirty but I felt like an idiot. This wasn’t me and really, it was the lamest thing in the world. I wasn’t going to do what Marcy said anymore. “Could you get me some water?” I asked him, tilting my head to the side. Mr. Griffin scratched the back of his head.

“Uhm . . . sure. I’ll be right back. Practice what I taught you, okay?” he said, leaving the room before I could answer. This was my chance. It was the perfect opportunity to steal the answers from his desk. Mr. Griffin had mistakenly left the key to his desk in the keyhole, and the drawer was opened. I leaped up and ran to his desk, shuffling through the notes he had until I found the answers sticking out of a file. Unfortunately, I lifted it up in the air and cried “yes!” right when Mr. Griffin walked back into the classroom with a glass of water. He cleared his throat and leaned against the door jam.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. My eyes widened.

“Uhm . . . I couldn’t find a napkin and, well . . .” I began, biting my lip. I cursed in my head. I loathed myself. Mr. Griffin raised his eyebrows.

“What’s going on, Christabelle? Why were you going in my desk?” he asked, walking towards me. I panicked. There was no way out of this. I had to tell him the truth.

“Okay, before you get me in trouble, I was doing this for a friend,” I said. Mr. Griffin stopped walking and crossed his arms.

“You’re not convincing me, you know,” he said. I sighed.

“My friend Marcy,” I said. “She was really worried about a test you were about to give her because apparently she isn’t doing too well in your class. So, she wanted steal the answers to the test so she would be prepared,” I said, nervousness causing my voice to shake. Mr. Griffin’s mouth opened in an “ah” shaped and he nodded.

“Yes, she hasn’t been doing as well as I had hoped for her to. I have to admit, I was a little surprised when you asked me to tutor you, since you got the highest mark in my class. It didn’t make any sense. And your role in this was to . . . what? Just steal the test?” he asked. I cleared my throat and looked at my feet.

“Uhm . . . actually, she wanted me to seduce you,” I mumbled, covering my face. Mr. Griffin was silent for a minute and then he barked out a laugh.

“Seduce me? I guess she isn’t aware I don’t get involved with my students then,” he said, smirking. I bit my lip and shrugged.

“I didn’t want to do this, I swear. I just . . . I wanted to, like . . . help her out, I guess. She looked really nervous and desperate, and I told her she could just ask you for help, or talk to someone about a tutor and that this wasn’t the ideal way to learn but she didn’t listen and she wouldn’t have it any other way,” I explained.

“So I assume that she expected me to just give you the answers to the test,” Mr. Griffin said simply. “Did she want you to drive me insane with your stupidity that I would give you the sheet so that you could ‘look over the answers’ as a way to fully memorize everything? Or did she want you to use this seduction thing so that I would just give them up if you asked me to?”

I was surprised. “You catch on quickly.”

He chuckled. “I’m a teacher, remember? I’m not stupid . . . despite what’s written on the back of some of these desks.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m sorry. And . . . here,” I said, handing him the test sheet. He took it from my hand.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, turning around and heading to the phone. “Hi, can you bring Marcella Brown up to room 248 please? Thank you.”

When he hung up and turned back around to face me, I asked “is she going to get into trouble?”

“Shouldn’t you just be happy you aren’t in trouble instead of worrying about your friend? Again,” he reminded me, raising his eyebrows and leaning back against his desk beside me. He crossed his arms.

I shrugged. “Worrying about my friends is my officially unofficial duty.” Mr. Griffin laughed. It was only shortly after that that Marcy walked into the math room, looking red-faced and fidgety.

“Hi, Mr. Griffin. Oh, Christabelle. What are you doing here?” she asked, faking her actual knowledge of the situation and pretending to not know a thing. She widened her eyes at me obviously. I smiled.

“Ms. Brown, is there something you would like to talk to me about?” Mr. Griffin asked her.

“Uhm . . .” Marcy looked from her shoes to me, and then back at her shoes. “I don’t think so. Why? Did uh . . . did Chris say there was something I needed to talk to you about?” She tucked hair behind her ears and folded her arms. Mr. Griffin sighed and rubbed his forehead. I was sure that on some level, he was enjoying it that Marcy was so uncomfortable, but at the same time, he was clearly frustrated that she wasn’t caving in as easily as he had hoped for.

“Marcella, I know that you asked Chris to steal the answers to the test,” he said, dropping his arms to his sides again. “Do you have anything you want to say for yourself?”

Marcy blushed so bad that she resembled the tomato I cut up last night. “I’m sorry,” she said, covering her eyes, as if that was supposed to shield her from the embarrassment. “I’ve just been struggling so much—I didn’t know what else to do!”

“And this seemed like a smart decision?” Mr. Griffin asked, raising his eyebrows.

“I didn’t want a tutor,” she grumbled. “I panicked. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you need to apologize to,” he said, looking at me. Marcy looked at me too.

With full seriousness, she said “I’m sorry” but since I knew her well enough, I could tell that she was furious at me for letting the cat out of the bag. I smirked. I knew that it was partially my fault since I actually agreed to it but still, it was mostlyher fault.

“Marcy, if you ever need help, talk to me. I can help you out. I’m a teacher, remember—it’s what I’m here for. To teach,” Mr. Griffin said.

“Okay, but some of the desks say—”

“I know what the desks say,” he said, putting up a hand, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “I’m not gay either. I can’t give you the answers to the test, but I will give you an extension. Come into the classroom tomorrow on your lunch period and I’ll help you out. Then you can take the test on Monday and if I see that you need extra help with it, I could tutor you or refer you to someone else. I just can’t give you the answers. That would prove me unsuccessful as a teacher, and it would probably get me fired to.”

Marcy’s past anger and embarrassment were suddenly sucked right out of her and she was practically beaming. “Really?”

Mr. Griffin nodded. “It’s no problem. Just . . . don’t get any more of your friends to try and seduce me. That’s highly inappropriate.”

Marcy laughed and nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Mr. Griffin,” she said as she walked backward to the doorway. He lifted a hand to her.

“Any time, Ms. Brown.” Marcy slipped out and walked off down the hallway. I looked at Mr. Griffin and raised my eyebrows.

“You let her go awfully easy for someone that wanted to steal the answers to your test,” I said, tilting my head to the side. He shrugged.

“I know that it’s my obligation as a teacher to come off cruel and nasty and try to make my students fear me,” he began, “but it’s not me. Besides, I’m sure any student would do the same if they were that desperate for help. Although, they’d probably go about it a different way.” I smiled and headed to the door but Mr. Griffin called me back for a second. “Uh, Chris,” he said, crossing his arms. “I hope you don’t do this with a lot of teachers. It could get you in a lot of trouble when you’re older and I’d rather not have one of my best students get the reputation as a teacher seducer. That isn’t exactly the ideal thing to have other people saying about you behind your back.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t. This was the first and the last time.”

He smiled and nodded his head once. “Good. So I assume you’re going to return those clothes now.”

My eyebrows shot up. So he did pay attention to my attire. “You know, this could be considered sexual harassment if someone heard you say that but didn’t know the actual situation.”

Mr. Griffin put his hands up. “Like I said, I don’t hit on students. I just know that’s not your style. Plus, you kept squirming when I was re-teaching you.”

I blushed. The skirt was very uncomfortable, and now that I thought about it, anyone could have realized I didn’t dress like this. Mr. Griffin wasn’t being a pervert, and I knew that it might have been slightly inappropriate to talk about this with a teacher—no matter what the situation was. But he was just being himself, and he was one of those teachers that related to teenagers well. After all, he wasn’t that much older than us so his generation probably had the same style as ours. He knew what was going on, and how low some girls went just to be considered attractive. Of course, it turned them into total sluts but if they got called hot, that was all that really mattered to them. Class went right out the window with them.

“Well I should go,” I said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

He nodded. “It happens. You’re a good friend,” he said. “Not many people would be willing to go to that extent just to help someone out.”

I smiled. “Thank you,” I replied, grabbing my backpack and heading to the bathroom to change out of this ridiculous outfit.


Marcy caught up with my in the bathroom, of course. The girl was like a fox; super fast and a great hunter. She had the nose of a bloodhound too, and she knew what my perfume smelt like so she was onto my trail before I even had a chance to turn around. And obviously I got freaked out of because I ratted her out when my objective was the complete opposite of that.

“Shouldn’t you be happy that you got an extension on the test?” I asked, fixing my hair in the mirror and then shoving the skirt and shirt into my bag. I yanked on my jeans and pulled my shirt over the top of them. “That’ll give you the whole weekend to figure it out. Plus, he’s going to tutor you. What’s the big deal?” I pointed out, throwing my bag over my shoulder and heading down to the cafeteria. She dragged herself behind me, whining about how I could be a major pain in her ass sometimes, but I didn’t want to tell her that she was even worse than me because we would just end up starting a silly argument that was really quite pointless.

When we got to the cafeteria, I saw Shane and Blade sitting together with a big group of their friends, laughing at something one of the guys had said. Amanda had attached herself to Blade’s side while his arm lay casually over his shoulder. He looked a little bored with it, and she looked angry that he was more interested in the conversation he was having with his friends than having to talk to her while she huffed and frowned over what she was going to wear the Trix’s party.

Blade looked up when I passed him and smiled. He kicked Shane under the table, mumbled something to Amanda and kissed her on the cheek quickly before getting up and coming over to where Marcy and I sat down. Shane followed suit, and suddenly Kayti raced out of the food line with David on her tail.

“. . . And you probably could have avoided telling him I asked you to seduce him! You should have just said that it was your idea so it wouldn’t be me getting in trouble!” Marcy continued to wail. The entire way down, she was complaining about my mistakes with the Mr. Griffin situation, but I had tuned her out after a while. She began to go in circles but the only thing that made her points different was that she used bigger words.

“You told him what was going on?” Blade asked, crossing his arms on the table and raising his eyebrows at me. I shrugged and grabbed the book I was reading out of my backpack.

“Well, he caught me going into his desk,” I said, stealing a glance at him through my eyelashes. “There aren’t many ways to recover after that. Besides, it’s not like he gave her too much hell for her plan. She got an extension on the test and he’s going to tutor her. The way I see it, it’s a win-win situation.”

“How is it a win-win situation?” Kayti asked, sitting down on my other side and putting her elbow on the tabletop.

“Marcy gets more time to learn that math unit, and I don’t have to be crazy seduction lady anymore,” I said, nodding matter-of-factly. David laughed.

“You know, isn’t it kind of silly to think that if you just did that in the beginning, you would have avoided that week of hell in a skirt?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows. I glared at him.

“Let’s not think about it that way,” I said. David was right though; it was silly. If I had just come clean to Mr. Griffin, he would have gotten more time to help Marcy with the unit and I wouldn’t have had to wear the insane outfits.

Nick walked over to the table now, and crossed his arms. “Amanda didn’t want me to tell you this, but she said she hopes you drown,” he said. “Want to explain what you did to her?”

I shrugged. “Maybe because I’m friends with her boyfriend so she thinks I’m a threat?” I suggested, shrugging. “I don’t know. I’ve hardly said two words to her.”

“We all know Amanda’s super jealous,” Shane said.

“And possessive,” David added.

“Hey,” Blade said. “That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.”

“Dude, we all know you don’t like her,” Shane said, looking at him doubtfully. I looked at him too, but he didn’t see me staring. As bad as it was—even though Amanda was extremely rude and deserved to be stepped on at times—hearing Shane say that made me really happy. I knew that I probably didn’t have a chance with Blade or anything, but everyone became joyous when they realized that the person they were secretly pining after wasn’t actually head over heels for the girl or boy they were dating. Blade pointed his finger at Shane and opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out and he dropped his hand. Then he shrugged.

“It’s not like I’m going to tell her that. I’m not one to hurt people,” he said, shaking his head. I cursed inside of my head.

“Wow, she’s glaring holes into your forehead, Chris,” Kayti said, raising her eyebrows. We all looked over at Amanda, who was looking at me menacingly, but then looked at Blade and waved, before turning back around. Blade groaned and slammed his elbows down on the table, making us jump. He covered his face with both hands and mumbled something that sounded like a swear word but since it was only three syllables, we all just assumed it wasn’t that important.

“Whatever. What we need to talk about is the party,” Marcy said, shaking her head. “Kayti’s going with David, and I’m going with . . . Shane? Are you taken yet?”

“Nope,” he said, crossing his arms and shaking his head. “I’m flying solo.”

“I thought you didn’t even want to go,” I said, raising my eyebrows. He shrugged.

“Might as well. Trix has a kick-ass sound system, a massive house and I’m sure that her fridge is filled with so many six-packs, they aren’t even six-packs anymore,” he said. We knew what he meant, but the way he worded it was all wrong.

“Plus, she’s got a lot of bedrooms, and you know what that means,” David said, winking. Kayti and I laughed as he high-fived Shane.

“Yeah, man!”

Blade smirked. “Dude, if you plan to make out with someone, you might want to ask a girl to be your date in the first place,” he said. “Any ideas?”

“Not quite yet. I’ll think of something.” Shane’s attention was drawn away from us when a tall, thin, long-legged brunette with a tiny skirt walked by us and winked at Blade. He frowned but Shane was already all over it. “Ooh, Elizabeth Myers. Have mercy. I’ll check you guys later,” he said, and tore off after her.

I chuckled. “You know Marcy, you could ask Preston,” I said, pointing over to him. He stood against a wall with his arms crossed over his chest, nodding at something the boy who he was talking to said. She shrugged.

“I guess so, but I’m sure he’s already got a date. A guy like that hardly shows up to parties by himself,” she said, leaning back in her chair. I called Preston over and crossed my legs when he got to the table.

“Are you going to Trix’s party for sure?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“Marcy needs a date and she was wondering if you would like to go with her,” I said, smiling. She turned to me with wide eyes, so I widened mine right back until she looked back at Preston. He grinned at her.

“Sure, sounds like fun,” he said, leaning down closer to her. Her face went bright red and he hardly did anything at all. It amazed me that Preston could make one of the roughest girls in school turn into putty without even having to try. “You know, Trix has a lot of rooms in her house,” he said seductively. David threw his hands up in the air triumphantly. I guess he was happy that there were more people that had their mind on that than just him and Shane. If it was even possible, Marcy’s eyes grew wider in size.

Kayti nudged me with her elbow. “You know how his initials are PST but we couldn’t think of a nickname that went with it?” I nodded. “I think we need to start calling him Pretty Smooth Talker.”

I took a quick glance at Nick, who frowned and looked at his knees. I instantly knew that I made a huge mistake.