The Average Lives of Above Average Teens

Chapter Three - Carl Interests Women

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Trixie cried, bounding into Charlotte’s room.

                “What?” Charlotte groaned.

                “Wake up!” Trixie repeated, throwing open the curtains. Flaxen rays of sun flooded the room, blinded Charlotte, made her pull her comforter up over her head. “It’s the first day of class! Get up!”

                “No!” Charlotte whined.

                “Yes!” She whisked the comforter off of the bed like a magician pulling a tablecloth out from underneath a place setting. “Oh…you sleep without pants? Good to know.”

                “Trixie, get the hell out of my room.”

                “And let you be late for…er…” there was a brief shuffling sound in which Trixie grabbed Charlotte’s schedule off of her nightstand, “…Art? Wow, I didn’t know you were an artist!”

                “I’m not,” Charlotte yawned grouchily, “but my therapist thinks painting might be therapeutic for me. Now seriously, leave.”

                “Really, Char, it could be worse. I have Chemistry first period. You get to start off easy.” She frowned as she skimmed the rest of Charlotte’s schedule. “Oh, hey, we both have Physical Education fourth hour! …And Algebra seventh hour! Ugh, I hate math.” She peered at Charlotte form overtop the paper. “You gonna get up now? Or am I gonna have to make you?”

                Charlotte didn’t respond.

                “Alright, I’ll make you.” Trixie grabbed Charlotte’s size nine feet and gave them a firm tug, expecting Charlotte to slide off the bed, but Charlotte grabbed on to the top of the mattress and clung. She was stronger than Trixie was and after a few seconds of futile pulling, Trixie gave up with an air of great exasperation.

                “Whatever!” she sighed, hands raised like a convict held at gunpoint, before she stormed out of the room.

                “Shit,” Charlotte muttered into her pillow. She slowly rose from the tangle of sheets like a mummy rising from a tomb, hair in a wild state of disarray and matted with sweat to the back of her neck, black Jack Daniels tee shirt twisted around her torso. A white line of crusted drool ran from the corner of her puffy pink lips to her upturned chin. Sleep had not done her well.

                She padded over to the bathroom across the hall, splashed some water on her face, brushed her teeth, yanked a brush through her hair. According to the schedule, class began at 8:30, giving her…eight minutes to get ready. She pulled a pair of skinny jeans up over her lacy white panties, stuffed her feet into a pair of Converse, grabbed her bag, and left.

The Art room was a lofty, airy studio, bright with track lighting and lined with rows and rows of easels and tables. Charlotte was the last one in the room and was forced to sit in the back right corner next to a maxi dress-wearing girl who introduced herself as Harmony Abbott.

                “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she chirped, staring over Charlotte’s head and out the window. “Just beautiful.”

                Charlotte turned to look out the window and noticed a large fly caught in the screen. Its wing was bent and one of its legs had been snapped off. “Yeah, sure.”

                “Alright, class!” said a crisp voice from the front of the room. “I’m Mrs. Elliot, and welcome to Art.”

                Charlotte looked up and double taked. She had expected the art teacher to be a Molly Weasley type, a dumpy old woman with kind eyes and an apron smudged with paint, but Mrs. Elliot was anything but. Though she had to be about fifty, her honey blonde hair (and you could just tell, somehow, that it had never been colored) was perfect and without a single strand of gray, clipped back in a low bun. There was hardly a wrinkle on her tanned skin, and her linen pant suit was crisp and perfectly tailored.