Now Or Never

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen.

 My first impulse is to hide. But looking around in the tiny plain closet, I don’t have many options. 

 Jonathan is walking slowly towards the door while the rest of us are progressively backing away from it.

 “Hayley, when are you getting out of there?” grumbles a voice. “I’m waiting for the mop ‘kay? If I don’t mop up the damn place that old lady gonna kill me.”

 Oh, so it’s one of the janitors... trying to get a mop.”

 “Ehh... sorry Brent, can’t, I’m changing...” Jonathan replies in a perfect woman’s voice... in fact, so perfect that I stare. “But here’s the mop. Here.”

 He grabs the mop and throws it out, careful to pull his sleeve over his hand.

 “Thanks Hayley,” grunts the man, just as the four thirty bell rings out.

 We stand in silence until Jonathan lets out a loud breath. “It’s safe to go out.”

 We all breathe and go outside. We make our way up to the math room, laughing at our antics. Funny. Hah. 

Wondering who the remedial maths teacher is, I plunk down between Asher and Katia. Asher groans, taking out paper and pencil. I take a look at the people sitting down. Mostly kids that didn’t study or future high school dropouts. I sigh, and take out my pencilcase.

 “Surprise, everyone!” a gravelly old voice attempts to scream joyfully but doesn’t succeed. “Anyway, I am doing remedial maths this year, great, isn’t it?”

 Mrs Coves, the oldest teacher in history smiles at us through her blackened dentures... if dentures can even blacken. 

 “Okay, so what test are we going over?” she asks, going back to her gravelly voice and sitting down as the chair groans under her weight.

 I slowly drift into a fantasy where I am meeting Gale Hawthorne of the Hunger Games. Then I take my imaginary bow and arrow, scream “HAI-YAH!” and shoot right through an imaginary Glimmer’s face while doing a kung-fu dance around him. I feel a nudge on my arm. Annoyed, I continue kung-fu dancing while screaming war-cries at Glimmer’s body. But I get two more insistent nudges on my arm. WHAT? I shake myself away from the fantasy and get brought brutally back to reality. The whole classroom is staring at me expectantly. I gulp.

 “So, Florence?” Mrs Coves asks, and I know she has asked me a question.

 “Uh... um...” I clear my throat. “Kung fu?” I ask, hopeful.

 Mrs Coves frowns at the few giggles threatening to turn into roaring laughter and turns to me, “No, Miss Esmond.” I gulp, noticing the transition from Florence to Miss Esmond.

 I look down at Asher’s sheet. There is only one equasion scribbled on it. I don’t have a choice. “Um, the sum of y and the relative number to 35.3 times 78...”

 I know it is hopeless as soon as I finish the question. But Mrs Coves turns grudgingly to the board, and writes down another long and complicated equasion.

 “I can see someone’s been listening,” Asher whispers to me.

 “Oh, shut up,” I reply, annoyed. “You’ve only got one equation yourself.”

 I open my iPhone and show Asher some sorelatable.com pictures on tumblr, like ‘Dear Math, Grow up and solve your own problems’ , ‘Dear Math, I am tired of trying to find your ‘x’. Accept the fact that she is gone. MOVE ON DUDE!’ , and ‘Dear math, I liked you a lot better before you started hooking up with the alphabet.’ Smirking, we look up feeling considerably better about maths with Mrs Coves.