Tame Chapter 1

I walked out of Mr. Richwood’s classroom to find Heather outside leaning against a nearby wall waiting for me.

“What was that all about?” she asked as she walked along side of me.

“Oh nothing, he just wanted to ask me something.”

“Was it about me?” Heather asked eagerly.

“No, it was about something else.” I said this far harsher than I had intended. Heather didn’t appear to notice it so I tried to change the subject. “I still can’t believe you asked him if he had a girlfriend.”

“Well he didn’t say he had one, so I’m assuming that he doesn’t, which is going to make this a lot easier.”

Before I could say another word, Heather showed me her schedule and asked where she had to go. We were going to have to split up for two hours since our classes were different. I gave her directions and then we split up to follow the unique schedules we had.

Each class was pretty much the same with teachers going over the rules for their class and their expectations. After two class periods without Heather, I met her again when we went to our fourth hour class which was Algebra.

Our Algebra teacher was named Miss Daniels. She was a young woman fresh out of college and this was her first year teaching. Miss Daniels had thin, dark brown hair that hung over her shoulders. She was as thin as a light pole and looked small for a teacher. Anyone would mistake her for a student at first sight.

She kindly asked our class to treat her nice since it was her first time teaching and she wanted the experience to be memorable. The impression I got from Miss Daniels was that she was a very sweet person.

Miss Daniels didn’t waste time going over rules, but instead started class off by having each of the students introduced themselves to her and tell a little about themselves. Once every student in the class spoke a little about who they were Miss Daniels began to distribute our text books, which sent groans throughout the class. She informed us how we would need this book everyday while in her class.

I was guessing that some students thought she was going to be really strict, but in my eyes she was just a new teacher that was excited to start working. I hoped that whatever I choose to major in that I was as passionate about it as she was.

I was relieved after her class because I shared lunch with Heather. Last year, before I started going to Mr. Richwood’s class, I was forced to endure the hardships of the cafeteria.

The lunch room was strictly divided into clichés. Each group of students sat at a certain part of the lunch room. Since I didn’t have any friends or cliché to identify with, I found myself sitting at a table in the middle of the cafeteria that I called “The Left Overs Table”.

This was the table where all the weird, outcast kids sat at. The table was located in the center of the cafeteria and usually whoever sat there were the victims of the popular kids who would make insults about them or throw things at them. To make it worst, the table was in the middle, therefore everyone in the lunchroom would stare at the table and make fun of whoever sat there.

Last year, I sat there with three other kids. One was this boy I called Smiley because he had this serial killer smile that he always wore on his face. His smile frightened just about anyone who saw it. The other was this really fat boy named Simon who literally packed his refrigerator every day for lunch. Then the third kid was this very tall girl named Stella who was always carrying around this rag doll and combing its hair.

I never felt like I belonged there with them, but since I had nowhere else to sit, I had no choice. I could never eat lunch because I always felt that I was being watched by someone. Going to Mr. Richwood’s class every day for lunch saved me from having to be labeled as part of that group.

I wasn’t sure where Heather and I were going to sit, since we didn’t identify with any of the clichés yet. Usually on the first day of school people sat anywhere, and then as the school year progressed and the clichés began to form they choose the spot in the cafeteria that they would dominate.

When we entered the lunch room Heather asked me where I wanted to sit and I told her she could pick our seats. She chose a table near the back of the lunch room. We took a seat and I placed my lunch bag on top of the table.

“Do you have a free lunch card?” Heather asked me.

“No, I bring a lunch from home.”

“I wish I had one, but I don’t like to have to prepare it. I like my food the way I like my men…hot,” She laughed at this and for some reason I found myself laughing too. “Well, I have to go get my free lunch. I feel poor,” She grinned.

“Everyone is a little poor. If not in money, then in manners,”

“Oh well, if anyone calls me poor, you got my back, right?”

“Of course,”

Heather laughed and then wandered over toward the lunch line. Most of the students who had a free lunch card were denoted by others as being poor since they couldn’t afford to buy the school lunch.

It was meant to help struggling families afford lunch for their kids, but at the same time it sort of shames the students who use them because their peers will consider them poor. This was the reason I brought a lunch from home to avoid having to deal with the bullying.

I unpacked my lunch which consisted of a melted peanut butter and jelly sandwich, along with some cookies, and a diet coke. I watched the hundreds of students trickle into the lunch room and claim the tables they would sit at for the year.

A few minutes later, Heather returned carrying a small bowl of soup in one hand and a water bottle in the other. She placed her food on the table and then slid into the seat next to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me that the free lunch is terrible?”

“That’s why I don’t eat it,”

Heather began to explore her bowl of soup with her spoon making puking faces in the process.

“I’m afraid to eat this. It looks foreign.” she grinned. “Oh, I just remembered, you never did tell me what Mr. Richwood spoke to you about.”

I frowned. Heather didn’t know that I had Mr. Richwood as my teacher last year and to be honest, I didn’t want to tell her. I just wished she could drop him from our conversation for at least an hour. Ever since we had arrived at school he was all she talked about and when she wasn’t talk about him she was making flirtatious remarks about him that were making me very uncomfortable.

She stared at me waiting for some kind of response, but before I could open my mouth we were interrupted by two voices.

“Hi Heather,” said two girls in unison.

I turned and spotted two girls standing in front of our table. One of the girls had two long pony tails on each side of her head and was twirling her entire pony tail with her finger. She was chewing some gum and had a puffy face. She reminded me of a lollipop or one of those Bratzs dolls because her really big head was sitting on a small stick of a body.

The other girl had a very pale complex that made her look unhealthy. She had short brown hair and hundreds of freckles scattered across her face. Her eyebrows were unusually thick for a female. I noticed she was wearing a plain, pale orange t-shirt and some navy shorts that extended to her kneecaps.

Heather stared at the pair with raised eyebrows.

“Uh, hi, do I know you two?”

“No,’ said the extremely pale girl, “But we’re in your Art class and we just love what you said to Mr. Richwood.”

“Really,” Heather said sounded slightly unimpressed. “Is that so?”

“Yep,” said the girl who was twirling her pony tail. “It’s all over the school. Everyone’s talking about it. We should introduce ourselves. I’m Lydia,” she pointed to the pale girl. “And that’s Ashley.”

“I’m Heather and this is my friend Amanda,”

The girls looked over at me and politely smiled, but then directed their attention back to Heather. They obviously wouldn’t even have noticed that I was at table if Heather hadn’t pointed it out.

“What do you two want?” Heather asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

“We heard you were new to town so we want to help you get acquainted with everyone,” said Ashley.

“My friend Amanda has already been doing that.” Heather said flatly. “So you really don’t have to,”

“But still…,” Lydia’s voice trailed off and the she quickly added. “Let us give you our phone number and maybe you can text us later.”

Heather shrugged and reached into her pursue. She found her cell phone and handed it to the pair and watched as they began to place their phone numbers in her phone. A minute later, they handed her phone back to her.

“Text us later, okay,” Ashley said and they walked away.

Heather turned to me and made a face that appeared to be mocking them.

“Weirdo’s, who are they?”

“I don’t know them,” I then asked. “Are you going to text them later?”

“I might,” she then added after a moment. “I don’t like feeling like a stranger so maybe they can introduce me to some additional people.”

After school, Heather and I walked home together, reminiscing on our school day and complaining about the new hassles we would have to deal with this year. I was relieved that she left Mr. Richwood out of our conversation.

When we reached our house, we split up and she went to her empty house and I went into mine. My house was relatively small. With only my mother and I living in the tiny building there was no need for a large amount of space.

I entered the house and climbed the stairwell toward my room. My mother was either getting ready for work or already at work. Her scheduled varied each week, but she was usually working from 6am until 1pm, then she came home, but had to be at her second job by 3pm so I usually just missed her as she left for work.

I entered her bedroom and found that it was empty, indicating she had already headed to work. I wished she didn’t have to work so much and that she would spend some time with me, but that was in a dream. Work would always dominate her life because without it, we couldn’t possible survive.

I made my way into my room and collapsed on my bed, recalling the school day. With the exception of Heather’s open desires for my favorite teacher, everything had gone okay.

I thought back to when I was in Mr. Richwood’s class and he asked me whether or not I was going to join the Art Club this year. Repainting the image of his eyes in my mind made my heart pound. The compassion he wore on his face was just something that really touched me.

“I hope he likes me,” I said out loud to myself.

I sat up and shook my head, reminding myself that he would never like anyone like me. He would most likely fall in love with some one that was pretty…someone like Heather. Maybe that was why I felt uncomfortable whenever Heather spoke so openly about taming him. Maybe I feared she would actually somehow do it and I would lose the only person in the world who I thought cared about me.

I buried my head in my pillow and began to relive every precious moment I had with that man in my life. My day dreaming took me into a dreamless slumber.

I sat up in my bed to find that my room was pitch dark. I climbed off the bed and searched in the dark for the cord to the lamp that sat on my dresser. As soon as I turned on the light, I heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.

I hurried downstairs and grabbed the phone off the hook just as it was about conclude its ringing cycle. I was hoping that it was my mother, but to my surprise it was Heather.

“Amanda, I’ve been calling you for like an hour,” Heather sounded really excited and full of energy on the other side of the phone. “I thought about coming over, but I was cooking myself dinner and didn’t want to leave anything on.”

“Sorry, but I was sleep. Why were you calling me?”

Heather didn’t answer my question, but instead she said. “How come you didn’t tell me you had Mr. Richwood last year as your teacher?”

I stared at the phone in horror. How did Heather find that out?

“How did you-”

“Ann Windslow told me,” she then repeated her question, sounding not angry, but curious and excited. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

“Heather, wait, how do you even know Ann Windslow and how did you find this out?”

Ann Windslow was a very popular senior at our school who only associated with those she felt to be worthy of her time. I couldn’t believe Heather was telling me Ann Windslow had spoken to her personally when it was clear that the seniors didn’t waste time on the lower class students.

“Ashley gave me her number saying that she wanted to talk to me.”

“You called Ashley and Lydia?”

“Well, yeah, I was bored.” Heather said obviously. “I don’t have anything to do here and I called you and you weren’t answering…so I called Ashley. She told me you were in his class last year.”

“Why were you talking about me to her?” I asked, now getting annoyed that I was being gossiped about.

“Listen Amanda, calm down.” Heather said still sounding as if this wasn’t a big deal. “It’s nothing. Somehow we started talking about him and I mentioned how he spoke you after class.” She then abruptly changed the subject. “Listen Amanda, this is great. Since you’ve had him before you can tell me what he likes.”

“What do you mean?” I asked suspiciously.

“All I know is he’s an Art teacher. If you tell me more about him, I can take an interest in the things he likes and slowly get closer to him.”

I felt like throwing the phone at the wall and letting it smash into a hundred pieces. There was no way that I was going to help Heather make the man of my dreams fall in love with her. Couldn’t she realize that I didn’t want to help her and that I was tired of her talking to me about Mr. Richwood?

“Heather, my mom’s on the other line. I have to talk to her,” I lied.

Heather understood how rare it was I spoke to my mother, so she agreed to hang up and ordered I call her back later. I hung up the phone and slumped against a wall in the kitchen.

I didn’t know what I was going to do. If I helped Heather out, then I would lose the guy that I loved to her, but if I didn’t I might lose my first and only friend.