That I Would Be Good

Chapter Four

“For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.”—Mary McCarthy, How I Grew

     I strolled into the classroom that was holding detention. My usual fellow detentioners were there today. I gave them a quick nod, and then turned to the desk to sign in. The usual teacher that took detention duty sat there glaring over her horn-tipped red glasses at me.

     Grabbing the pen, I smiled at her. She gripped the sandwich in her hands tighter, smooshing the mayonnaise off and falling sloppily onto the sandwich bag that lay underneath. I smirked, happy with myself and turned to give the pen to Ziggy.

     Ziggy was looking around his eyes wide. I guess this was his first time in detention. He probably wasn’t used to seeing the school potheads and bullies all in one room. I gave him a nudge to catch his attention. He looked at me seeming a little nervous but grabbed the pen and signed his name.

      I slowly walked over to my favorite spot to sit in detention. Front and center right in front of the teacher so she could feel my stare on her making her feel self-conscious, and was she ever self-conscious. I would have thought her being an adult she would have grown out of it, but she hadn’t. This made detention much more interesting.

     Slowly, Ziggy slid into the desk next to mine, and placed his hands on the desk, twiddling his thumbs. He tried to discreetly look over his shoulder at the other fellow detentioners but failed and ended up craning his neck much too obviously.

     Instantly I shoved his foot with my own, making his drag his gaze back to mine. I shook my head at him not to look at the other detentioners.  Detention 101: don’t look at your fellow cell-mates. It either a) gives them incentive to pursue a friendship with you (or a drug-deal) or b) decide that you’re a pussy and need to be taught a lesson and man up (this really only went for the bullies).

      Luckily for me, neither to potheads or the bullies ever bothered me. The bullies knew I’d fight back if they tried to start something with me; and the potheads knew that I didn’t buy pot from such obvious dealers nor would I want to be their friend. I was an over-confident loner.

     My stomach grumbled loudly. I felt everyone stares turn to me, but I ignored it. A stomach growling was just part of the human process. It’s not like a fart or a burp. It wasn’t disgusting. But it was damn annoying when you couldn’t settle that feeling of hunger since you were stuck in lunch detention and didn’t bring lunch from home.

     Raising my hand and waving it around wildly I waited until the teacher looked up at me from her book. I took note of the cover and saw it was one of those dirty romances. Her sex life was lifeless, I assumed.

      “Yes, Elodey?” she asked, sounding like every word said was an extreme effort.

     “I’m hungry,” I whined, clutching my stomach.

      “Then you should have brought something from home.” She shrugged and turned back to her book, telling me the conversation was over.

     However, I was not ready for this conversation. I turned to Ziggy and raised my eyebrows questionably at him. He shrugged at me confused and mouthed “what?”. I narrowed my eyes at him and mouthed “follow my lead.” He nodded and I turned back to the red-horned-glasses teacher.

      “Ziggy is new to detention, and he usually buys his lunch from the cafeteria,” I began sounding really concerned. “He has a disorder that if he doesn’t eat something soon he’ll have a seizure.”

     Ziggy started groaning and clutching his stomach. I had to hide my smirk. This kid caught on quick. Now we’ll have to see if he can follow through with this lie. If not then there goes lunch for me… and him.