TO BE FRANK

CHAPTER TWO, the physical jerks

Juliette reminded herself to give them a call again when she reached home. How ironic the complains she blabbered about this morning were nothing but an afterthought now that she really missed their presence in a classroom.

As thoughts rode in a whirlwind of tandem, she supposes it was her way to treat herself, to turn her brain off for just a second after having to deal with Mrs Giraud for an hour and a half. Though, this teacher didn't seem to be much better either.

    You had to be a certain type of pretentious to teach Latin, a language that has been dead for thousands of years, and yet here she was, learning it from a monotonous man with an insufferable ego.

    "Well?" he asks the class, "Can anyone tell me what this means?"

    Annick's hand had been raised for a good second now and Juliette considered to raise hers as well, but she does not remember the last time she spoke up in class. It was not like she liked to, anyway. His opinion of girls joining the school was blatant in the way his eyes shot past the girl next to her like a ghost, eyes scanning for nonexistent hands and ignoring her completely.

    Until finally someone did, that is.

    "Yes, you?" There was a certain excitement in his voice when a boy finally speaks.

    Juliette did not have to turn around to know who it was. He'd been making remarks throughout class the entire day and clearly has no intention to stop. His strong designation to be the class clown was showing poorly, at least to the girls of the class. None of them found any of his one liners even remotely funny, not that he wants any recognition from the girls, anyway.

    "I think she has her hand raised," he says and a chatter of laughter follows with it.

    Mr Douillard nods, feigning a type of innocence in his expression, "Indeed."

    He motions for Annick to speak. She stands from her seat in one swift motion, brushing down her skirt and answers, "The Romans welcome Heratio with joy and congratulations and escort him to his house."

    Cheer, Juliette answers in her head.

    "The Romans cheer Heratio," corrects Mr Douillard, "can you conjugate the verb 'ovare?'"

    Juliette listens to Annick answer. She conjugates the word swiftly, not missing a single beat and when Juliette finally looks up to see to what she expected to be an impressed Latin teacher, his attention was not even towards his speaking student, but rather to the boys behind them.

    "Give me that," he interrupts as Annick lets out a sigh and sinks back down into her seat, "Come on."

    The boy caught, adorned in a mustard yellow shirt makes his way to the front, stopping just next to Juliette. Mr Douillard snatches the paper out of his hands and unfolds it, watching as his brows furrow with a scoff.

    He shifts his weight from one leg to the other, "You think this is funny?"

    "It wasn't me," the boy defends and it was clear the teacher was not happy with his answer.

    "Then who is responsible for this?" Douillard waves the paper back and forth, but Juliette could not make out what was scribbled onto it.

    It takes no genius to know it was something inappropriate written all over that page, nor did it take a genius to make the safe assumption of who did it. Juliette turns over her shoulder, eyes scanning the desks next to her until her gaze falls on a bespectacled individual. She did not know much about this boy besides being a complete dickhead, but she knows for a fact that he could not hold a poker face for the life of him. The slight smirk plastered on his face was enough of an alarming red flag screaming, it was me, I did it!