Textbook Love

Chapter 1: Chalk, Nail Polish and Everyday Theft

Chapter 1: Chalk, Nail Polish and Everyday Theft

I was in the classroom after school,

working on the chalkboard once again.

You were in your uniform standing by the door,

when I saw you, saw you there.

You were wondering if I'd walk you home

Even though I lived on the opposite side,

I said sure I don't need to home soon anyway, anyway.

~ ‘Textbook Love’ Fleet Foxes

Fuzzy worms, I think absentmindedly. Yes that’s right. The white, scribbled words on the chalkboard were turning into little fuzzy worms, sliding off the pasty board ridiculously slowly. I dropped the half-chewed pen out of my hand and looked at my doodled handiwork. The thin scrawled hand-writing and the frequent blots of ink from pressing too hard on the full-stops filled up three lines of the ripped out page. The rustling off students shuffling out of the school gate distracted me as I set to work.

I will not back-talk to the teacher.

I will not back-talk to the teacher.

I will not back-talk to the teacher.

Three lines and my hand ached like kingdom come. Let’s just say I have no real stamina when it comes to writing things. I prefer to type. My friends peered in through the window, squeezing up their face up really close to the window, leaning over the spiky bushes. They stuck out their pink tongues and pulled out the sides of their mouth. Normally they would be a real attraction to the young ladies around school but I have to say right now all the girls would be moving to the other side of the country. My best friend, Tyler, waggled his dirty finger and made ‘tut tut’ noises I couldn’t hear. I shook my head at them and pretending to write and soon they were strutting away through the wide school gate. I wrote one more line. The clock hanging limply from the wall taunted me, the smallest hand of all ticking away slowly. Just one more hour before I could go home. Detention was hell.

It all happened like this. Our normal English teacher, Ms. Dennis, was absent from her usual pink, fluffy seat behind her desk with the 101 ornaments. Instead Mrs. Babcock taught us. Head of the English Department and the strictest teacher in school. Hard as nails that one. She had a tight greying bun that had once been blonde, red rectangular glasses, skinny as the anorexic girl in our school who had to leave for health reasons and pointy shoes that I’ve only ever seen gathering dust in my mother’s cupboard. Today was the worse day not to do my homework. I had been gone to see my grandfather the night before to remind him he had a grandson.

‘Couldn’t you have done your homework in the hospital, Sy?’ she sneered, red lips pursed. ‘Maybe your grandfather could have helped you’.

‘Well I couldn’t very well do my homework or have my grandfather to help me since for 7 hours I was trying to help him remember that he had a fricking grandson!’ I seethed. With the peripheral vision God gave us, I could see my ‘pals’ giggling from under the hands like 5-year-olds and others stared at me with bewildered expressions. It was then I had noticed that I had stood up and knocked my plastic seat onto the grey carpet and that everyone could see the veins that had popped out of Mrs. Babcock’s forehead.

Well, you all know what came after that. I was handed the familiar yellow slip with angry red letters and shipped over here once the bell had rung. I wrote another line, pen gripped tightly in hand. I listen intently to the clock ticking by slowly when someone barges in with a big bang. It was a girl with glasses and books that had fallen on the bacteria-inhabited carpet (if the commercials are true). I stood up to help her but she already had her books in her hands once again. She smiled weakly at me and sat down at the seat in front of me, hair swishing my way. She looked vaguely familiar. A light splash of freckles over the bridge of her button nose, rosy cheeks, dark-honey hair tied up into a loose pony-tail, a side fridge that passed her eyes, nails painted green with white flowers and light green eyes behind her pink glasses. I don’t know why I didn’t remember her face or know her name. Frankly, she was pretty, even if more-than-not geeky.