Rich Re:grets

Chapter 1.2: Rich Mutatio

(OCTOBER 2010)

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RICH MUTATIO

"You three are late," Mr. Darley stated calmly as he opened the classroom door to let us in.

   "Sorry, Mr Darley. It won't happen again," Bond replied.

   "Uh-huh."

   We made our way to our grouped-up desks.

   There were twenty-four desks which were split into four groups of six. Our class consisted of twelve boys and eleven girls. Though it made sense that each desk occupied one student, our class was one student short and our group got the short end of the stick.

   Mr. Darley was nice enough to let us pick our own groups.

   Ours consisted of me, Mallory, Bond, and two of our close friends, Charlie and Conan. We usually just used the extra desk as extra storage when our desks were full.

   Mr. Darley continued with the science lesson: "That is a major drawback to highways; animals cross it to get to the other side and the unlucky ones get hit by cars and trucks. Human interference like this are factors that lower a species' population."

   Mr. Darley was the best teacher we had. It wasn't even close since most of our teachers before sixth grade had a reputation of being unlikable. This was Mr. Darley's first year teaching which meant we were his first-ever class. The sixth-grade teacher before him was known for being strict and a hard marker, so imagine our relief when he announced his retirement last school year.

   The thing about Mr. Darley was that you could strike up a conversation with him about anything and he'd listen to you like an equal.

   Even the way he dressed screamed laid-back. He dropped the professional suit and tie most male teachers wore in favour of a more down-to-earth type of attire.

   While Mr. Darley continued his lesson, I found myself sketching characters for a graphic novel idea I had over the weekend. It was going to be about five thieves (with code names based on card suites) robbing a bank. I imagined them wearing identical suits with the only feature to differentiate them being hockey masks with the card suite's symbol their codename corresponded to.

    Every class has a designated art kid. Mine was me.

   It was in first grade when I found out I had a talent for art. Mrs. Jelavic, our teacher at the time, asked us to design a character that represented us. She was surprised that the quality of my piece trumped everyone else's.

   I enjoyed doing art at home but never thought anything of it. I thought my talent was a normal skill to have. After that interaction, I decided to commit and dedicate myself to this hobby.

   When Mr. Darley switched the subject to math, Bond passed me my notebook underneath our desks. We made a deal over the weekend that I would do his art homework and he would do my math. Between us, there was a creative and academic genius.

   Bond's real name wasn't actually Bond. It was Bonaventure. Back in kindergarten, he found his name hard to spell and his friends had a hard time pronouncing it. He shortened it to Bond—a  nickname that fit more than his real one.

   Mallory had the most explosive personality in our group. She was a tall and strong girl who resorted to physical communication to get her point across—hitting, kicking, elbowing—those sorts of things. You could even say she had the most boyish nature out of our group of five.