Once Upon A Time, Back In Highschool

I lay awake that night I went out with Mr. Way, my eyes gleaming with remembrance. I rolled over every detail about him, I couldn’t help myself. Mum had asked why I had a grin plastered to my face, I couldn’t answer though, which in turn made it grow even bigger. What me and Mr. Way had wasn’t big, but it was big enough to not be right and that made the whole situation exciting.

Besides comic book art, English was my favourite subject and history. I was in English now, waiting patiently for the day to pass so I could go to art. I wanted to talk to him, to see him again. Luckily we were reading The Lord of the Flies and I’ve read that five times now, savouring each and every word like an expensive chocolate. I twirled my ring around on my finger, remembering the feeling of his hand when he was inspecting it.

I had asked mum about the ring a few nights ago, she told me my grandpa gave it to my gran before he died, she said it was like a goodbye present, un-planned though.

She had also told me it had a matching necklace, but no one ever found it. They searched the house but they simply found it impossible. Mum said she thinks grandma hid it after she was forced to write her will. My mum’s sister was controlling, she was a teacher too, a different state though. She had rung up grandma and told her that at the age of 80 she should be writing a will.

My grandma didn’t want too, I could tell when she signed her signature, but she did anyway.

Mum said she hid the necklace after that. Then a bit of her was in the house forever.

I looked up from the desk seeing everyone had begun packing away. I did the same, a small smile on my face. The snow had gotten heavier after the last three days but not so much school was closed, it’d stop during the night then hammer down when we were all in class. I slipped into art, trying to stop myself from stamping my foot when I saw a gang of boys already sitting at a desk. Mr. Way looked up when he saw me, and nodded beckoning me over.

I went over to him. My heart racing, my throat closing in and a undeniable stutter becoming apparent in my breathing. He grinned at me, sending a nauseas feeling to my stomach.

“Meet me by the gate,” he whispered, passing me a piece of folded paper.

I nodded and went to sit down, ignoring the leering stares I received as I walked passed the boys. I quickly sat down in my seat, inhaling deeply the smell of paints coming to my senses. Then I unfolded the note.

Let’s go for a walk? Newark Woods? We’ll get Starbucks and go. I want to show you something.

The next fifteen minutes was torture. He was explaining in detail how he was going to assess us in out work. We had to draw and write out own comic book in the space of six weeks. In that six weeks we could come back after school, during lunches, break times, anytime spare to work on them. He handed out paper, pens, scissors everything. I was up until the point of busting.

“What are you gonna show me?” I asked when he sat down on my desk again.

“A surprise. Trust me?” he said. I sighed and nodded, “Don’t look so glum, we’ll have a good time. I know it’s snowing and all –but hey!” he laughed, tucking his hair behind his ears, “We won’t be outside for so long anyway but we’ll have to walk fast,” he grinned, “By the way your caricature was great! Especially the whole lips area, I loved the shading between the nose and lip made it really life like a different. You’re not afraid to just go for it are you?”

“How’d you mean?” I asked, sketching out ideas on a blank piece of paper, absent mindedly trying to create my own character.

“I just got an adventurous side form caricature is all, most people start with light lines and go over in the black thick line after, then add the shadow and other things in a dark pencil. I loved the way you just got straight in there, drew out the lines in black and did the shading in hatch-cross and fine liner. It was good, show’s a lot of skill,” he complemented, making me blush madly, even though I wasn’t looking at him.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling shyly down at my paper. We stopped talking for a while and I let him flip through my folder. I had taken picture of different people walking down the street for a reference, I was lucky enough to catch a fireman having to climb The Bank to get some one down form the top.

“How come you took these?” Mr. Way asked, putting the eight different photos down on the desk.

“To draw from. I get stuck sometimes on a how an abnormal person would look running but if you draw the skeleton of a normal person it’s easier,” I shrugged. He nodded and slipped them back inside the pocket, retracting my caraciture and pointing to the small spot I had drawn on my left cheek by my nose.

“Warts and all is it?” he chuckled.

“Oliver Cromwell?” I asked, cocking my head to the side, “Quoting the dead, nice,” I chuckled. He grinned and tucked that too back in my folder.

“I’m guessing you enjoy history then?” he asked, I nodded into my paper, concentrating on trying out my character for skills, adding different parts to him and taking parts off, “I did when I was a kid. Especially the Bubonic plague. Man -that was nasty, our teacher handed round a picture of what a picture of a buboes looked like. I nearly puked and I had seen a lot of horror movies by that time too,” he laughed, sticking his tongue out.

“We saw a video, I didn’t care too much, it was just when they started trying to burn them off. I didn’t like that,” I told him.

He laughed and shook his head, resting his hands back in his lap. A while later he jumped from my desk with a thud and went to chat with some of the boys, his laughter echoing around the classroom. I wanted to know what he was going to show me later, sadly I was going to just have to wait.