Piece of Work

The next day, I saw Ben in the hallway a couple of times. He smiled at me, and I grinned back before I even realized what I was doing.

"Who..." Olivia started at lunch, seeing that I was searching around the cafeteria (discreetly, of course), "are you looking for?"

"No one," I covered, turning back to face her, putting the most innocent look I could on my face.

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. My face didn't waver. "Who is he?"

"There's no he. What makes you think it's a he?"

"What? It's a she? You got something to tell me?"

I burst out laughing. "Okay, okay...it's a he."

"And who is he? Where did you meet him? Is he cute?"

"One thing at a time," I urged her, motioning with my hands for her to bring it down a notch. "His name is Ben, I met him at a party last night, and yes, he's very cute."

"At a party?" she scrunched up her nose in distaste.

"Yes, but you'll like this. Ready? He doesn't drink."

"Does he smoke? Do other drugs? Committed any crimes? Have you done the mandatory background check?"

"Okay, someone's uptight," I rolled my eyes. "And background checks are mandatory only to you..."

"No. Plenty of people use it to find out the past of the person they're dating to give them the okay...right?"

"This is why you're single," I nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Now I'm going to go buy ice cream before they run out." Every Friday, my school sold ice cream and offered a whole bunch of toppings to go along with it. It was kind of the best part of the school week...scratch that. It was.

After I got my ice cream and put chocolate syrup, strawberries, and cookie pieces on top of it, I journeyed back across the cafeteria to sit back at the table.

"God, enough chocolate?" Olivia questioned, laughing as she caught sight of the bowl.

"Nope." I licked the chocolate sauce off the spoon and grinned. "So do you have any homework for the weekend yet?"

"Yeah, a little. I have to watch the governor debate and do a worksheet on it."

"Ew." I scrunched up my nose. Nothing sounded more boring than that. Well, maybe watching grass grow...but other than that, nothing.

"It might not be as bad as it sounds." She shrugged, trying to put off the subject before finishing off her bag of carrots. Ugh. I hated carrots. They were just the worst vegetables in the world, at least in my opinion.

"Why do you eat those?" I whined. She didn't bring them that often because when she did...I'd complain about it. I had no idea why I felt the need to express my discontent for them every single time, but I guess I just did.

"Because I like them, whether you do or not," she snuffed playfully before getting up from the table to throw away her trash.

When she came back and sat down, I continued my rant. "I mean, you might as well eat asparagus. At least it'll be humorous because it'll make your pee smell funny."

Olivia looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you sure you're not drunk right now?" she questioned.

"Nope," I answered, popping my lips on the p sound. "Just curious."

"Okay..." She shook her head and started gathering her stuff. "I swear, one of these times, they're just going to lock you up in a loony bin."

"I'd rather die first," I joked, taking up the last of chocolate sauce at the bottom of the Styrofoam bowl. Then, I got up and threw it away in the garbage bin.

"We have biology next..." Olivia whined, glaring at her schedule. "I don't want to go."

"I never wanna go," I empathized, picking up my bag and slinging it over my shoulder, "but we gotta go. Otherwise, we get put down for cuts and that's...bad."

"Yeah, I know," she grumbled, getting up too. The bell rang, and we walked out way to the second floor, where biology was waiting for us.

Mrs. Parrish was standing out in the hallway, ignoring the people she knew and saying hi to all the people she'd never seen before in her life. I never really understood that...but whatever.

"Good morning, class!" she exclaimed when she walked into the classroom.

Everyone mumbled in response, since we were all tired. Teenagers are always tired, pretty much. Unless it's really late at night. There's another thing I never understood, but it was a fact of life.

"They're sleeping, goodness gracious." She walked out into the hallway and started talking to someone (who I couldn't see...so I kind of doubted there was someone there), saying, "They're all sleeping in here. They should be awake by now, but they can't even say good morning to their teacher. Oh, dear."

Then, she stepped back into the classroom and repeated her greeting. We all mumbled again, except for a few kids who screamed, "GOOD MORNING, MRS. PARRISH!" back at her. That kept her satisfied, and she started droning on about something.

At the end of class, she got an almost evil look on her face before saying, "I'm going to let you guys switch your seats."

FINALLY! I had been sitting between a few obnoxious kids for the entire year, and now I was finally being allowed to move. Pretty great.

"The only rules are that you have to move your seat and you can't sit next to the people you sat next to before. Now...go! You have two minutes."

Olivia and I locked eyes and stood up. "Where are we going to sit?" she asked. She hated making decisions.

"Um...here." I said, stealing a seat almost in the exact middle of the classroom. It was only a seat to the left and one up from my old one, but that didn't matter. I followed the rules.

Olivia sat to my right and we waited while the other people figured out what they were going to do. When Mrs. Parrish looked around again, she clapped a few times. "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Pick your seats!"

The rest of the kids settled and she looked around. "Foo, you barely moved."

I looked behind me before looking at her again. "Me?" I questioned, pointing to myself.

"Yes, that's your name, isn't it?"

"No...it's Faye."

"Close enough." She waved the problem away with a flick of her hand.

"Anyway, I did move enough. I followed the rules. I'm not sure what the problem is."

"The problem is your attitude," she snapped. This was the first time I actually heard her angry. Cool. "Every time I talk to you, you have some sort of snappy remark."

"Maybe that's because you're so scatterbrained that you forget everything. I figured that you wouldn't even remember me being rude."

"That's it. Go to the office. I don't want to deal with you."

"And I don't want to deal with you either, so I guess we're on even ground." I hadn't raised my voice once, but she definitely was. At least I was being mean calmly.

The class chorused, "Oooooooo"s as I stood up and grabbed my bag. Olivia gave me a judgmental look, which I replied to with a shrug.

"Now. Out." She followed behind me, mumbling, "Shoo shoo shoo," like I was a bad spirit or something.

As I dawdled down the hallway to the office, I looked into every classroom on the way by. Some were working in groups, the voices of the kids so loud they could be heard in the hallways, some others looked like they were taking a quiz or test.

When I entered the office, the receptionist hung up the phone. "Faye Kane?" she questioned, glaring at me over her small glasses.

"Yup," I responded, running a hand through my hair.

"Sit down. The principal will come get you in a minute."

I nodded and leaned back, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Hi, Faye," a voice greeted. As I turned toward it, I realized the voice belonged to none other than...

Ben.