Not Where, But When

Chapter 2: Please!

    "She wasn't even at class," I said sort of confused. To this day – ie. the present – I'm not sure as to how Faith got her hands on that information so quickly without being present. Faith stopped attending towards the end of Ms. Sunny's time teaching at PAA (Phoenix Art Academy). Maybe Kathryn told her, but I'm not sure how she did it so quickly. On a completely unrelated note, did she share those chocolates Ms. Sunny gave us with Faith?

    Justin shrugged. "My mom took away my phone because she was texting me about it too much," he said in a defeated tone.

    "Oh, there there buddy," Cynthia said with mock sympathy. "What are you going to do now without your precious phone?" Justin only rolled his eyes at his sarcastic classmate.

    "Wait, who is Ms. Sunny again?" Wyatt asked.

    I shot him a confused look. By this time, he had to know who Ms. Sunny was! Her leave set everything in place for the whole PAA issue. "What do you mean?" I asked.

    "She was the dance teacher right?" Wyatt said, sounding genuinely confused. Did Wyatt lose his memories? How could he – we haven't even been in the past for that long. It's only been roughly three hours.

    "Yeah," Emily said. "It's a shame that she had to leave. Apparently, her grandmother is ill, and Ms. Sunny is taking it upon herself to care for her."

    "Ms. Sunny wasn't that good was she?" Justin asked.

    Kylie looked at Justin and scoffed. "She's better than the teacher we had before her. That dance teacher who always wore blue didn't know how to do choreography, and a whole class because of the teacher before her."

    "She doesn't get the respect she deserves," Emily said, half glancing at me.

    "What did I do?" I asked semi-offended.
    "Nothing," Emily said. Looking back at it, I guess I could've followed Ms. Sunny's directions more often than I did. "You don't have to believe everything Faith says about Ms. Sunny," Emily continued. "We all knew that Ms. Sunny wasn't Faith's cup of tea."

    "She just doesn't like the dancing style," Ryan defended.

    Emily shrugged in a way that made it seem like she wasn't trying to bag on Faith Hartono. "I'm just making a comment. Besides, 'not liking the dance style' doesn't make it okay to disrespect the teacher behind her back."

    "I didn't know..." Justin said in a weak voice.

    "Ah, buddy, you see," Wyatt started putting his arm around Justin's shoulder. "There is a gift of common sense – and morals."

    "Ouch," Kate commented. It didn't help the situation, but it was entertaining. Ah, Kate.

    "Rude," Justin muttered, ignoring Kate's unhelpful comment.

    "And, I'm pretty sure that you're aware of how Faith can be when agitated," Emily said, ignoring Kate and Justin. "Both you and Ryan should, seeing as she seems to go to you two to vent about things."

    "I'm not saying that her behavior is acceptable all the time," Ryan grumbled.
    "I'm not saying that you're saying that, I'm just –" Emily was cut off by Wilson.

    Wilson exclaimed, "Haha! You're not bagging on me this time!" Everyone gave looks ranging from irritation because of the situation in general to incredulity of Wilson's gut to take the chance of being the punching bag again. "Okay, maybe not the best time to try and lighten the mood."

    "And this means that we're probably going to go through a number of bad dance teachers," Lauren Wong sighed switching the topic. When the GPA dance classes got more publicity, we needed another dance teacher, thus Lauren Wong became a GPA faculty member.

    "Or just one," I said in an asking tone.

    "We went through like five different teachers between Ms. Sunny and the last good teacher," Kylie pointed out.   

    I chose not to reply to that. "I'm sure it'll work out," Luke said sympathetically. At that moment, the bell rang for the end of lunch and the whole cafeteria slowly moved to throw their trash away or to head back to their respective classroom.

    "Anyways, see you guys after school," Cynthia said getting up to throw her trash away.

    There was a general muttering of "see you later"s from my friends. I capped my thermos (by the looks and tastes of it, I had leftovers from the night before), placed it in my lunch bag, and headed over to throw my plastic fork away as Luke made his way over to the trashcan near me. "Hey, Luke," I started. Luke turned his head to indicate that he was also listening. "Did Wyatt tell you what's going on after school?"

    Luke gave me a confused look.

    "We're meeting in the band room after school? We're meeting even though we have PAA after school? To deal with all – this?" I continued. Luke's facial expression remained as confused as before. Disgruntled I quietly said, "Did you come from the future or not?"
    "'Come from the future?'" Luke repeated, but it sounded more like a question than a statement.

    "Yeah," I said like it was the most obvious thing. "You know, GPA, the preparations for the performance, then the blackout?" Luke had a blank face on. "Does none of this ring a bell for you?"

    Luke's expression didn't change.

    "You've got to be kidding me," I muttered exasperated. I can't be stuck here with just Wyatt! I mean, no offense, Wyatt. If I could choose, I would much rather be stuck in the past with Jessica. A moment of silence passed.

    "Just kidding!" Luke said in a voice an octave higher than his regular voice.

    "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"