Well Played

As he waited in the office the next morning, Zayn tapped the beat of an older Elvis song on his thigh. God, the office was slow. He was just about to go crazy from all the waiting around, and no one really seemed to be paying attention to him, either; the secretaries and every passer-by seemed to go about their business without any glance in the boy’s direction.

Finally, after about twenty minutes and the first bell, the older secretary looked over at him, peering over a pair of small rectangular glasses, her eyes narrowed. “What are you here for?”

“I have to see the guidance counselor,” Zayn answered, sitting up straighter in his seat. “I have a note from my teacher.”

The woman smirked, clearly assuming that Zayn was too dumb to keep up with the sad excuses for students in his English class, and nodded. “You can go in and see her right now. She just got in.”

Zayn got to his feet and disappeared into the room the secretary had gestured toward without saying thank you.

The short, blonde woman was at her desk, writing furiously on a piece of paper. Her face was slightly flushed, as if she was under a whole lot of stress, and her green eyes looked a little bloodshot.

When a minute passed and she didn’t look up, Zayn cleared his throat and said, “Um, hi.”

She looked up, eyes wide, and ran a hand through her hair. “Oh, hi, hon. What can I do for you?”

Instead of answering, he handed over the yellow slip from his teacher and stood back, watching critically as the woman unfolded and read it, her eyes scanning over the paper slowly. Her hands were shaking a little bit, her long, bony fingers wrapping around the request.

“So your teacher thinks you’d be better suited in the honors class? Are you sure you want to make that step? It’s going to be a deal more difficult than your ordinary class.”

Zayn hated the word she used for it: ordinary. It was definitely not ordinary. The people in that class were far below ordinary.

“I’m sure,” he answered, figuring that correcting her would have done nothing. “I’ll be able to take it.”

She looked unconvinced, but she took out the form and filled it out anyway. “Just sign at the bottom,” she directed when she finished, spinning the paper around to face Zayn before handing him the pen she’d been using.

He scribbled down something that seemed to resemble his signature before picking up the paper and going to fold it.

“No, no!” she objected, slapping her hand on the table in case Zayn hadn’t heard her insane outburst. “Don’t fold it. It’s an official school document. You’re going to make it void.”

Zayn rolled his eyes as he stopped his process and kept the paper in his hand regularly, putting it down by his side.

And without another word, he strolled out of the office and toward the indicated room on the paper. The one that housed the class that might actually keep him awake.

He hadn’t told any of his friends, even Sodapop, who always tried to understand, about the class change. He figured that all of them would think he was crazy for trying to apply himself. After all, in the long run, what was he doing it for? Greasers didn’t go to college. Most of them didn’t even have the behavior for getting a job. Or, if they did get jobs, they sure as hell couldn’t keep them long.

To Zayn, it wasn’t about the long run. He knew that he couldn’t go to college, and he knew that he was probably going to end up running his father’s car garage, which was more than fine with him. But, in his eyes, why was it that people didn’t work their hardest when they could?

He knew that, when he looked back on his high school years, he would remember the moment he finally took the plunge and started to have confidence in his abilities. And he would be proud.

Taking a deep breath, Zayn approached the English room. The teacher was at the front of the room, moving animatedly, getting enthusiastic about what she was teaching. Already, she was an improvement over Mrs. Wordsworth.

Without knocking or asking if it was alright, he threw the door open and stepped in.

Although he’d felt confident and excited about the opportunity when he was in the hallway, the second all those Socs turned to glare at him, he started to feel defensive.

His eyes scanned the classroom quickly, picking up no trace of a worn t-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, a leather or denim jacket. Everyone had on preppy polo shirts and khakis, skirts and sweaters.

One girl in particular caught his eye. She was sitting straight up in her seat, one leg crossed over the other, her light pink skirt lying over her legs perfectly. Her white ruffled blouse was tucked in nearly, not a wrinkle in sight, and a sweater the exact same color pink as her skirt rested around her shoulders in the way that girls had taken to doing.

“Can I help you?” the woman at the front of the room asked Zayn, snapping him out of his trance.

Zayn turned to the woman and handed her the paper. “I’m in this class now,” he explained calmly.

She appraised him slowly, her eyes dragging over him, judging him as trash, taking in the appearance of his ratty clothes, his heavily greased hair, the stubble he hadn’t had time to shave that morning, and the bit of tattoo that peeked out from underneath the collar his black t-shirt, probably imagining the various other ones that he’d covered. If she were anyone but her, he would have given them a death look, maybe thrown out a threat. But she was a teacher, his teacher, so what in the world could he do?

So he just stood there and waited for it to be over, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying to keep up his cool demeanor, even though he felt wholly uncomfortable.

“Take one of the empty seats,” she allowed after what seemed like three hours, though it was probably less than a minute.

Putting on a tight smile, he made his way across the class and slid into the seat next to the girl with the pink cardigan.

While the teacher started to talk again, Zayn zoned out, a victim of habit, and looked over at the girl sitting next to him.

Her light brown hair was straight, up until the loose banana curls at the bottom, possibly the product of her iron-straightening job starting to come undone already, and held back by a thick headband. Her skin was incredibly fair with flushes of red across her cheeks, a spattering of freckles across her nose. Her lashes were incredibly long and dark, despite her relatively fair hair. And, Zayn realized, her eyelashes had to be real, since Socs didn’t wear the large amount of makeup that greasy girls did.

He took in her clothes again, this time noting her slender stomach and large bust, which was just the way Zayn liked his girls. And he ignored the varsity letterman’s jacket hanging off the back of her chair.

“Will you stop?” she snapped at him under her breath, only sneaking her eyes over for a second. But it was long enough for Zayn to see that they were the same color blue as the sky during twilight.

“Stop what?” he whispered back, trying to keep his voice low, since he knew that was the way most girls liked their guys’ voices.

“Staring at me,” she responded. “Now shut up. We’re going to get in trouble.”

The thought of trouble didn’t exactly worry Zayn, but he wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to get on his teacher’s bad side on the first day.

So, for the first time in his life, he sat back in his chair, slouched down, and listened to the lecture.

It was easier than he’d figured, since the teacher expressed a large amount of passion for the aspect of grammar she was teaching. It might have come off as strange for some people, but Zayn had to admit to himself, though grudgingly, that he admired it.

“Okay, I’m going to put some sentences up on the board and, in pairs, I want you to work together to correct them.” After giving the direction, she took a piece of chalk in her board and started to write sentences listed on a sheet that she held in her left hand.

For a second, Zayn wondered who he was going to be his partner. No Socs would ever want to work with him. And if they were made to, they’d probably just try to see how many writing utensils they could stick to the grease in his hair.

Zayn glanced to the side to look at the girl sitting there, and noting that she was talking to another girl, probably to plan working together, he shoved his desk against the hot broad’s desk, making a loud banging noise.