The Casanova's Class Clown

Chap. 36: Update

She plopped down on a chair, pulled out a hanky from her pocket and wiped the monitor screen, then felt her phone buzz.

She pulled it out as she booted up the system, and her heart rang in her ears with guilt when she saw it was five consecutive texts from the same person. She read the heading a few times before she breathed in an air of reminder that now wasn't the time to talk even though she really, really wanted to talk, and put the phone on silent. She laid it next to the monitor screen as the computer asked for her ID code and password.

She typed in her information, and as she waited for the PC to load, she couldn't help but wonder about the conversation she had with Kat after she got changed and ready for school.

"Ruby Faint was always a thorn on our butts throughout Glob knows when." She had said then in a fit of unbridled rage, folding Kat's blanket like it deserved to be straightened like a wrinkled crime.

"I know." Kat said weakly, fixing her hair with her soft brush. Then, more quietly added, "But she wasn't the worst part of it."

Emma finished with the poor quilt and stood next to her friend, who sat on the swivel chair in front of the desk. "You okay?"

Kat nodded, then paused to lower her towel over her eyes and shook her head. "It's just that I thought I was over this..."

She gave Kat's shoulders a reassuring squeeze. "It's all right, you know. No one can get rid of what's already happened."

"I know that." Kat answered, her voice rising into a tiny squeak. And even tinier, "It's just that..."

"What?" She asked after Kat remained silent. "You can tell me anything, if it wasn't already obvious."

Kat hung her head, hands clutching at the ends of the towel over her shoulders, then looked up at her. "Do you remember Sicily Ambers?"

And one memory led to another and they were in full conversation.

Sicily Ambers, the one who filled Terrence Albatross's locker with kittens and got him hospitalized from severe allergic reaction because he didn't do Ruby's science homework. Sicily Ambers, the one who spent her weekend night to gut a pig and filled a bucket of it to be poured onto poor Fantasia Grace because she stepped on Ruby's shoes in the hallway by accident. Sicily Ambers, the one who threatened not to put Harper Coop's family business out-of-business if she gave her role as Cinderella for their second year play to Ruby Faint, who then proceeded to destroy the play by constant rewrites until there was no play at all by the day of the performance, then leaving the drama club in the air by not showing up too.

If Ruby was the calm, a warning that things would get worse, Sicily Ambers was the actual storm, raining down on everything Ruby asks for her to.

Emma leaned back, hands on the counter top, the desktop screen flashing for evaluation if she wanted to use Mozilla Firefox as the default browser.

She tapped a finger on the countertop, then two, then three. Pretty soon she had a steady beat going, her mind racing with thoughts. Back when she still had some say on math and science, she would do a steady beat with her fingers, tapping on any surface nearby, counting each beat and trying to remember every right formula. But when her talent went, she started using the tapping technique to start reading between the lines, try and assess situations as best as she could and try to find a loophole to be able to find just the right move to make next.

During all the hullaballoo, she hadn't been able to do it, her mind was too distracted, but now, in the plain quiet of the Nerd Hangout where no one was perpetually there, she was able to. And she knew she was close to an answer. The five questions already standing with their solutions.