Fate Had Nothing to Do With It

I met up with my one of my best friends, Alexa, after homeroom. Her piercing green eyes crinkled in a smile as she gushed about how happy she was about how she had gotten Mr. Garbo. I smiled and rolled my eyes, knowing that he was her favourite teacher simply because he cracked jokes every other sentence. I was happy to have gotten Ms. Burrows, because outside of school she was the adult I was most likely to trust with anything.

At the moment we made our way towards our first lesson, which we happened to share. It was math. Even though I had never been fond of the subject, I found it much more desirable knowing that I wasn’t going to have Mrs. Landon as a teacher anymore; not only was she scary, but she gave out homework like crazy and expected us the understand everything as soon as she brought up the topic. That’s probably why I was her least favourite student; I didn't get math. Unlike my least favourite classmate, Brianna George; the ironic slutty nerd.

Maths flew by with Mr. Howard. He was rather like Mr. Garbo, the only difference being that he was much older and wore glasses that obscured half of his face. Alexa and I left once the lesson was over to have recess, and made our way back to our homerooms which happed to be in the same department. On the way I saw Ms. Burrows and stopped to ask her a question.

She had been walking with my music teacher at the time but he left when I came to talk to her. You know, seeing them together, laughing and stuff, made me think... they would look extremely cute together. Yes, they happened to be both attractive but they already got along well, knew how to make each other smile and I could tell Audrey- I mean, Ms. Burrows, got inexplicably flustered in the cutest kind of way when he was around.

As I turned away after my question was answered, I turned back and said, “Oh, and Ms. Burrows?”

She turned around too. “Yes?”

“What’s going on between you and the music teacher?”

“Nothing, why?” There she was getting flustered again. I’m not sure if she noticed, but her mouth turned up in a small smile when I mentioned Mr. Jonas and her cheeks went pink.

“Oh, just wondering,” I replied, grinning. I then turned around and went back to my classroom.

For recess, we weren’t allowed to leave our classrooms, even though we all wanted to. That was one thing we all loathed. But I was never one to follow all the rules. I knew of the small window that peered into the room next door and used it to check to see if the coast was clear. Luckily it was.

I stealthily slid out of my classroom and into Alexa’s. I didn’t see her at first, because she was all the way to my right, peering into my own classroom via the small window. I slid over to her as quietly as I could and put on my best Mrs. Landon voice:

“Miss. Rhodes, what do you think you are doing? Stalking Ms. Burrow’s students?”

She jumped and turned around quickly, her long black hair nearly whipping my face and her pale skin rising with colour. She looked as if she were going to stammer apologies before she realized that it was only me, to which she got a little angry and slapped my arm, though it didn't hurt much.

“That was so mean,” Alexa said, pouting.

I laughed. “Your face was...” I couldn’t finish my sentence due to the laughing. Once I calmed down a bit I asked, chest still heaving, “Why were you looking in there anyways?”

“I was checking to see if the coast was clear.”

“For what? Were you gonna sneak in?”

She nodded. “I needed to talk to you about something.”

“What?” I asked, wondering if possibly she was thinking the same thing I was.

Apparently not. “Schedules!” she exclaimed, going to her desk and pulling hers out. “What do you have next?”

That was one thing clearly different about Lex and I; she loved school. But why wouldn’t she? It was the thing she was best at... other than teasing her younger brother, she was definitely good at that too. Alexa was good at every subject except Dance, which is probably why she finally dropped that class. I, on the other hand, was only good at a handful of subjects; Music, Dance, Art, Drama, History and English. I was moderately okay in everything else.

I pulled out my schedule from my pocket and handed it to her, so she could compare the two. She smiled and leaned over to show me the lessons. For a moment I was surprised when I realized that she seemed to be about an inch shorter than me, and then I remembered my heels. Surprise shattered; three inch heels usually do add height to a person.

“Look at this!” Lex said excitedly, brandishing the time tables at me. “We have Music together next! ... We’re not in the same English class though, I have Ms. Burrows and you have Ms. Tuxworth. Not bad, not bad... Then you have Business and I have Chemistry and we have Modern Studies together.”

I raised my eyebrows at our good fortune; three lessons together in one day? This year was going to rock. Well, Mondays of this year were, anyways.

“So, what did you need to talk to me about?” Lex asked as she put her schedule back in her desk while I folded mine neatly and put it back my pocket.

“Okay, well,” I began, eager to tell her my theory of the two teachers.

But the bell rang.

I swore under my breath before bidding my friend a short goodbye and slipping back into my classroom before they noticed I had been gone. Cameron, a good friend of mine since elementary school, handed me my school bag when I came in. I was slightly confused before I realized that if we didn’t leave now, we’d be late for class.

“Thanks,” I said as we got lost in the crowd of students rushing to their classes, avoiding the freshman already queued up at the classroom doors, waiting to enter.

“No problem,” he said, shaking his head to get some of his black, skater boy hair out of his green eyes. It would have scared me how he and Alexa looked alike, but I knew his hair was dyed black. It used to be blonde. “What do you have next?”

“Music, then English with Ms. Tuxworth,” I said as we turned a corner.

“Ah, lucky,” he nodded. “I have Physics.” I was about to tell him that wasn’t so bad before he added, “With Mr. Scott.”

I shuddered. “You poor child. English?”

“Ms. Burrows,” he said, a smile lighting up his face. “Thank goodness she’s taken over. I would just about die if Mrs. Grant was still here.”

I was going to ask him what was so bad about the dear old English teacher who was now retired, but we had to go separate ways. I made a mental note to ask him at lunch, and then I continued to go to the music room. I arrived in the nick of time.

Well, at least I thought I did.

“Nice of you to finally join us, Demi,” said Mr. Jonas, a joking smile playing on his face.

I looked around and saw only nine other people were taking this class. I wasn’t surprised that people had dropped it; if you didn’t play an instrument you were gonna be screwed when you took your exams.

“Sorry!” I said, sliding into the seat next to Alexa and letting my bag drop to the floor.

“No worries,” said Mr. Jonas. “In fact, since this is the first day back and you all know how nice and generous I am-” He paused, waiting for us to agree. Only after a few seconds did we take the hint and nod our heads furiously. “We’ll work on that,” he said, grinning with his dark brown eyes, before continuing, “I think the first music lesson should be a warm up.”

“Warm up?” asks my least favourite person in the year; Brianna George. Gosh, I could see her eyes full of lust over the relatively young music teacher as she leaned over in her seat, a finger twirling through her strawberry blonde hair. Of course, that was not its original colour; she had gotten rid of the mousy brown she had grown up with when she was thirteen.

“Yes,” said the music teacher, “warm up. Basically spilt off into groups and come up with a piece of music. You can migrate towards the other rooms, or just stay in here, and use the instruments. You know where the xylophones and those things are?” We nodded. “Cool, and each room has its own piano, so you are good to go.”

“For the piece of music, can we sing?” asked Brianna in a sugary voice.

“Of course,” Mr. Jonas stated, as though it were obvious. Which it was. Brianna squealed.

“Now, I’ll separate you into groups.”

When we groaned he thought for a moment and held up a hand to make us stop. He took out his attendance sheet and said, “Okay, we’ll do this at random. I’ll close my eyes and you say stop. I’ll point to a name, okay?”

We all agreed and he put a hand over his eyes, though from the angle I was at I could tell he was totally peeking, and when we said stop he called out, “Alexa Rhodes.”

Lex nodded to show she had heard. We timed him again and he called out the name of Brianna George. Though I felt sorry for my best friend, I was celebrating inside; thank God I hadn’t gotten her.

I got paired with Michelle Rayburn, who I remember seeing in Lex’s homeroom. I hadn’t hung out with her much, or at all. I guess that was because I had been at DHS since grade one, and she had come in halfway through elementary school and ended up becoming friends with people I never hung out with. Nevertheless, she was my partner and I was going to make the most of it! I didn’t even know what she was like anyways.

The rest of the pairs were called out and we all separated into the different practice rooms, except for Michelle and I, who just stayed in the classroom. I mouthed a sorry to Lex as she walked out the door, but she merely grimaced as Brianna thrust a xylophone into her hands. That wasn’t going to sit well; Lex was a stellar piano player and was proud of it. Xylophone?
Not going to happen.

“So,” I said, starting to make conversation, “what instrument do you play?”

She flipped her light brown, red streaked hair over her shoulder as she hauled a xylophone and placed it on a desk and said, “The bass. You?”

“Piano and guitar,” I responded.

Mr. Jonas walked in. “Demi! There you are. Ms. Cowell sent me an email saying she needed help with something, so I’m going to be gone for... well, I don’t know how long. But you’re in charge until I come back. Cool?”

“Cool,” I nodded, smiling widely.

As he was turning to go, Michelle piped up, “Wait, Mr. Jonas. I have a question. Instead of making our own piece up, can we do a cover of a song or something?”

“That’s perfectly fine,” he said, waving his hand over his shoulder and he turned around again. “Do with that what you will.”

She smiled and then turned to me, her dark eyes bright with an idea. “What songs do you know and can you sing?”

“I know a lot. And I’ve taken vocal lessons before, so I can sing a bit.”

“Better than Brianna?”

If there were any doubts that I wasn’t going to get along with Michelle, they had disappeared after that music lesson. It seems that she had her own pot of dislike for Brianna brewing inside her too, which meant we automatically had something in common. The interesting thing about Mitchie, for that is what she preferred to be called, is that she used to be friends with Brianna. Best friends.

We talked and laughed very much while we practiced our small piece. It was a rendition of Coldplay’s ‘Clocks’. Since Mitchie’s bass wasn’t here, she did some cool melodies on the xylophone. From the various noises and harmonies coming from some of the practice rooms, their pieces were not going to sound as put together as ours.

Mr. Jonas came back about halfway through our hour long lesson with an uncharacteristically huge grin on his face. Something in the air around him seemed to be filled with triumph and pure glee, and he certainly seemed bashful when Mitchie asked him what the eccentric drama teacher wanted. He had merely allowed a pinkish twinge of colour rise on his cheeks and ran a hand through his coifed curls, deliberately disturbing them.

After our performances (in which the following were included: a severely out of tune violin, a temperamental trumpet and a girl who’s singing was reminiscent to that of nails on a chalk board) the sophomores headed to English. To my surprise Mitchie was in Ms. Tuxworth’s class as well, so we walked back to the English department and then bid goodbye to Lex, who had walked into Ms. Burrow’s classroom.

English was a subject I liked, and was obviously a favourite of my new friend’s. Last year, I had had Ms. Burrows as a teacher, but now I had Ms. Tuxworth; she was known for being very strict and very sarcastic. But during the lesson- where I sat down to Mitchie and the new girl, Trista- I found that the teacher was awesome; we liked the same books, shared some of the same humor and she seemed to favour me over some other students.

That was soon over, having flew by without Ms. Tuxworth setting us homework, and we went to the cafeteria for lunch.