Through Thick and Thin

Thankfully, the class hadn’t been out to get us. They seemed to understand that when Mr. Ericson was in a bad mood, it was best to steer clear of any kind of confrontation. However, that didn’t mean his foul mood wouldn’t reflect in his manor of teaching.

“A two page paper?!” Jimmy whined, staring at the hand-out he was holding. “How the fuck am I going to write a two page paper, about… whatever the hell that topic is, by tomorrow?”

I rolled my eyes, dodging past a freshman who was hauling ass towards the music department as Jimmy and I headed back towards out lockers. “Calm down Jim, I’ll help you tonight okay?”

“Ooh, so the vampire and the giant are an Item huh?” Monica said, standing in front of Jimmy and I, one perfectly manicured hand resting on her hip. “A match made in freak-a-zoid heaven!” She gushed, moving to clasp her hands together in front of her chest.

“Go away Monica, haven’t you done enough damage today?” I sighed, there was no point in trying to walk around her, Brooke was standing to her left, and another of her cronies; Bridget was on her right.

“Excuse me? Are you talking to me O’Conner?” She huffed, placing her hands back onto her hips.

“No, I’m talking to your shadow. Just, go away. You’re not worth the trouble.”

Jimmy for once was keeping his mouth shut, glaring down at the blonde girl in front of us.

“Why you little bi-“

“-Monica!” A brunette girl, jogged up to the trio of girls, a smile on her face. “Aaron is looking for you, he’s waiting by the gym.

The blonde shot one last glare at Jimmy and I before she nodded. “Thank’s Michelle. C’mon girls.” The trio turned on their heels and headed towards the gym, Unaware that the brunette that just sent them away was making a face while flicking them off.

Laughing I shook my head, “Apparently, she can’t tell you two apart as well as she thinks she can. Thank’s Val, but I’m going to fucking be late to science now.” I growled, hiking my bag up on my shoulder before placing my hand on Jimmy’s arm. “I’ll see you at lunch okay? Bye guys!” I headed towards my locker quickly leaving my two friends behind as I went and grabbed my chemistry book, and shoved it into my bag swapping it with my English book before running quickly towards the Chem lab. I slid into my seat right before the bell rang and the teacher himself walked in.

“Wow, nice save.” One of my lab partners said with a laugh, as he leaned back in his chair stretching out and groaning happily as his back popped.

“I do try, but seriously. Monica is out to freakin’ get me. Val saved Jimmy and I from her and her gang of Bimbo’s just now, the stupid bitch didn’t even know it was Val and not Michelle. “ I stated with a roll of my eyes, watching as the boy beside me leaned further back in his chair causing the front two legs to come up off of the ground. “Zack, I’m gonna laugh when you fall backwards and bust your head open.”

“Not like there’s anything in that head of his to injure anyway.” A feminine voice; that belonged to our third lab partner, said with a laugh, as its owner sat down on Zack’s other side, pushing on his leg causing him to lurch forward.

“Jade! What the-“

“Shut it Baker.” The other girl said with a roll of her rather uniquely colored eyes, you see, Jade Alexander’s eyes were two different colors, the right one was a rich hazel brown, while the left was an icy pale blue, nearing on the brink of white; many who didn’t know her were apprehensive to approach, simply due to the color of her eyes, forget about the tattoos that were mostly hidden from view, “I bet Monica wouldn’t have shit to say if you strapped her down in a tattoo chair.” She winked, with a wicked grin on her face before she turned in her seat to face the front of the class, shrugging off her jacket, revealing the tattoo’s that adorned her pale skin, her red hair, a more brilliant and lighter shade than my own was hanging in loose waves over her shoulders; the almost ultra-violent purple hair extension piece peeking through the waves of red, as she fished the appropriate folder from her pin and patched covered messenger bag.

“Sometimes, I really don’t like you.” Zack grumbled glaring at the girl to his right as he set all four legs of the chair back on the floor and grabbed his bag from the floor to get the needed items for class.

“Remember that next time you want a tattoo Zacky boy.” Jade cooed, patting his knee lightly, with her left hand, the word “PAIN” clearly visible on the pale skin of her knuckles as she did so.

“You two are a trip.” I laughed removing my own folder and picking up my pen to begin jotting down the notes on the bored.

“You’d think Kristoph would have sat us differently.” Zack grumbled, as we bumped hands while writing; a frequent occurrence with the two of us. Our teacher; Mr. Kristoph, had assigned seats, no moving allowed unless by his choice. The man failed to realize I was right handed, and Zack was left, so having me sit to his left, ended in our inability to write properly.

“Oh the joys of being ambidextrous!” Jade cooed, switching from right hand to left with a huge grin on her face as she wrote.

“Oh shut it.” Zack huffed.

I shook my head laughing and placed my notebook on top of my text book and set them on my lap taking notes that way, allowing Zack to use the table top. “There, you big baby.”

He grinned at me. “Thanks Quinn.”

I just shrugged my shoulders as I continued to jot down the notes in a messy, almost illegible scrawl. “Not a problem, just shut up and do the work Baker.”

“Are you three quite done talking? Ms. O’Conner, what is it you’re writing?” Jade, Zack and I all looked up as our teacher stood in front of us, his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for an answer.

“The notes Sir.” I stated, handing him my notebook.

His blue eyes scanned over the page, he was one of the only teachers that didn’t give a damn about how sloppy my handwriting was because he could read it regardless. “Very well, but why is it you’re writing this on your lap?” He questioned once again, handing me my notebook back.

Zack rolled his eyes, as he continued to take down the notes. If you weren’t being talked to directly, you stayed focus on the task at hand or face the wrath of Mr. Kristoph; I.E. you had to write down the properties for each and every element on the periodic table in proper order, Zack could probably tell you everything about them all by memory with how many times he’d gotten into trouble.

“Zack and I keep bumping hands Sir.” I gestured to the boy next to me. “He’s left handed.”

Our teacher just raised an eyebrow at me, basically saying ‘yes, and?’.

“I’m right handed.” I clarified, for likely the 20th time this school year. “I thought I’d make it easier on the both of us and just use my book as a table top.”

“Very well, it seems you have it all under control.” He turned on his heel to move back to the front of the class room and continue writing on the board.

“Well then, guess we’re stuck like this for the rest of the year then huh, Quinn?” Zack sighed, setting his pen down as he finished the notes.

“Apparently so, okay Jade, you can stop showing off now.” The other girl had switched writing hands again as she finished up her notes.

The three of us finished our class work, more so Jade and I did the classwork while Zack asked the questions and copied the answers. There were no horrible instances to speak of, probably because we didn’t have a lab assignment today. Lab assignments weren’t always fun, especially if your group got paired with a group that didn’t particularly like the “freaks”, Mr. Kristoph typically paired us with such a group, I think he secretly liked to watch us struggle, and see if anyone; likely Jade, would snap beneath the pressure and criticism.

“Quinn, where the hell are you going?” Jade asked, once we exited the class room, she was going left, towards the outside table where we normally sat during lunch, and I was going right.

“I got lunch time detail with Jones.” I made a face. “Courtesy of Skank face and co. I gotta meet up with Jimmy, or we’re gonna get it even worse. Tell the others will ya?”

Jaded nodded her head. “Yeah, no problem. Have fun!” He voice took on a sing-song quality as she turned heading back towards the courtyard doors.

“Oh yeah, tons of fun.” I rolled my eyes, jumping slightly when I turned around, Zack was standing directly in front of me.

“She got you too?” He questioned, walking with me towards the Math department.

“Who?”

“Jones!” Zack stated with a roll of his jade-green eyes. “Apparently, it’s bad to throw paper balls at the back of Wendt’s head during class.” He hung his head heaving a sigh.

“No shit sherlock. Yeah, Monica and Brooke pulled a stunt and I had to pay for it, she was trying to give me afterschool detention, but ya know. Practice.”

He nodded his head. “Same here, now why do you have to meet up with Jimmy?” He asked, we had paused at our lockers, safely storing our things; his locker was to the right of mine.

“The dumb ass got caught cursing a few times, so he landed his ass in detention too. She gave him lunch detail, she’s not all bad. I mean, she’s letting the three of us serve together, typically that’d have any teacher running away in fear.”

Zack laughed, nodding his head as we made our way to Mrs. Jones classroom, Jimmy was already inside sitting grumpily in one of the desks.

“How nice for you two to join us.” Mrs. Jones spoke up from behind her desk with a smile as she noticed Zack and I in the door way.

“We stopped to put out things in our lockers, sorry.” Zack mumbled as he entered the room, sitting in a desk beside Jimmy, I sat behind him.

“It’s no denying the three of you are friends, and I typically don’t allow you to sit so closely to one another.” She eyed Zack and I, we both should have known better by now than to even try and sit close to one another during detention. “But, I’ll let it slide. I want you three to clean the chalkboard, put all the books back where they belong, and clean the erasers please, I’ll be in the teachers’ lounge for a minute, I need to go and get my lunch. Behave, and don’t try to escape, next time I won’t be so nice.” Her voice took on an odd melodic type tone to it as she stood.

“Uh, Miss. Do you need anything that’s written on the board?” I asked, I’d gotten into even more trouble once by erasing important notes off of a teachers board once when I was told to clean it, not like it was my fault the bitch didn’t specify what could and could not be erased.

She turned around briefly and glanced over the board. “No Quinn, it can all go. Thank you though.”

As soon as she was out the door, the three of us looked at one another. “Think we should bail?” Zack asked, looking around the room, books were littered EVERYWHERE around the classroom, and the chalkboard was a huge mess of white writing that all blended together in a confusing array of numbers, symbols and letters.

“Nah.” I sighed, getting up out of my seat. “Jimmy, I’m too short to reach the top of the chalk board will you clean the board please? I’ll clean the stupid freakin’ erasers after.”

The taller man nodded his head as he got up, removing his bathrobe and letting it hang over the seat. “Sure Quinn, we’re still on for after school right?”

I nodded my head and smiled. “Yup, sure thing.”

He grinned and went to the chalk board, while Zack and I began picking up as many books as we could carry and organize them properly on the bookshelf in the back of the room.

“I thought you had practice after school?” Zack asked, Jimmy was too preoccupied cleaning the board and humming loudly to pay attention to the two of us.

“I do, Matt’s got practice too apparently and Jimmy was wondering if he could chill in the bleachers while you and I were being all athletic, then he’s gonna walk home with me, I’m gonna let him crash at my place tonight, help him with his homework. Ya know?” I shrugged my shoulders as I set and Algebra 2 book in its proper place.

Zack nodded, “Mind if I join you guys on the walk home?” He asked, putting a pre-cal book on the top shelf.

“Up to Jimmy, I don’t care. Your house is on the way, not like we can actually stop you.” I said moving to get more books, stopping in my tracks as I looked up at the front of the class room. “Jim, you’re supposed to be cleaning the board… not making a bigger mess!” I laughed; he was using the erasers to drum against the board making rectangular impressions with each clap of the eraser.

“I couldn’t resist!” He wailed, looking at the board. “Shit, it is all messy again. DAMMIT!” He sighed, and went around erasing all the chalk residue off of the board once more.

“Dumb ass.” I shook my head, as I handed Zack a stack of books before grabbing my own. The three of us were completely finished, clean erasers and all before Mrs. Jones returned. Upon her arrival she found me sputtering and slightly covered in chalk, she didn’t ask any questions just thanked us and said we could leave early. Jimmy bolted out the door before she even finished her sentence.

“That boy is…” She shook her head from side to side laughing.

“Crazy?” I suggested as I removed my hoodie, tying it around my waist.

“More like Insane.” Zack clarified, holding the door open for me.

“Yes, either of those would work.” Mrs. Jones laughed, “Have a good day you two. Don’t get into any more trouble!”

“Trouble finds us Mrs. J!” Zack laughed, waving as he shut the door and the two of us headed back towards our lockers.

I shoved my hands into my pockets as we walked silently together. “So, how’s the band doing?” I asked, breaking the silence; Matt and Zack had recently combined forces to create a band together, considering their own projects; Succesful Failure, and M.P.A; Mad Porno Action, didn’t really get them where they wanted to go. “I haven’t had the time to stop by during practice or anything lately.” I sighed.

“Good.” He nodded his head. “Wendt is workin’ out as a bassist. . . for now anyway.” He laughed lightly. “Jimmy’s got some pretty insane drum beats; we just need to work on ‘em to fit the guitars and some lyrics to it.”

“Y’all will work it out, I’ve got faith in you guys. I’ll be your number one fan! Just, ya know.. lemme know when you get the whole band name thing figured out. I kinda can’t promote your asses if you don’t have a name.”

“I’ll be sure to let Matt know that.” Zack laughed, leaning against his locker as I dug through mine, grabbing my backpack and shoving in the folders and binders I’d need for my next few classes, along with my case of art supplies.

“You damn well better!” I said while slamming my locker shut.

Zack rolled his eyes at me, as we made our way to the court yard. “How are things with you?” He questioned. “Can you even hit a ball yet?” His voice was teasing, but he yelped jumping away as I smacked him.

“Hey asshole, I can hit further out into left field than you can!”

“Pft. Whatever.” He scoffed, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Smiling I pushed the door open, letting the bright California sunshine blind us, Zack winced cringing backwards away from the sun. “IT BURNNNNS!”

“And they call me the Vampire?” I laughed, walking out into the bright sunlight heading towards our group of friends.