"You're going to make me do bad things to you, sweetheart." | Frank Rider is the new teacher. His favourite word is 'detention'. He's iniquitous, rude and vicious. To get on his bad side would be suicide. Unfortunately for Cleo, she's already dived...
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CHAPTER LIV
"I'm leaving," Irvin announced impassively, expression apathetic, a lit cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He blew out greyish-white smoke, hooded golden-brown eyes squinted against the sudden appearance of a bright sun. With a hand attempting to tame his curly locks, he explained. "I'm returning home on Friday. Taking a flight back to the U.K." He angled away from a passing teacher with her attention on a defective tablet, holding the smoke in until she was some distance away before exhaling through his nose as if she couldn't smell the acrid scent on our clothes and in the stained air.
"Why are you leaving?"
He smiled slightly, amused with a joke only he knew, and said with a careless shrug. "It's time to move on."
"You asked me to the winter formal and now you're bailing on me? You suck ass. I won't be able to find another date in time."
"I've got you covered. I have a friend, Marvin Junior. He goes to Squirrel High. He needs a date, I'll give you his number and you should give him a call. Come on," he stomped on his cigarette as the bell for the afternoon classes rang out, "we should head in. It's so cold. I hate this weather." He grumbled to himself, rubbing his hands together. "I don't know how I'm going to survive in England's miserable wet weather. I'm a summer lovin' baby."
We joined the masses of students traipsing along the corridors to their classrooms. As Irvin babbled on about his crush on Meredith from Grey's Anatomy, I allowed my attention to rove the hallways, past the students with their heads in their lockers, over the bickering group of jocks, around the two trainee teachers gossiping about whatever the hell someone's boyfriend did last night, and straying on an unhappy Rodger. We caught up with him as he slammed his locker door shut, pushing his textbook into his backpack and slinging his backpack across his shoulder. "Hi." Rodger greeted rather angrily and uncharacteristically so. He always was civil and courteous.
"What's the matter, tubby?" Irvin asked.
"This," he gestured to his Harambe t-shirt, "is apparently offensive! Can you believe it!?"
I heaved the longest sigh in the world.
He continued on his rant, passionate and infuriated. "I have to go to the principal's office during my lunch break and my parents have been told to come in to discuss my behavior. I'm being persecuted. It's an outrage. It's a crime against humanity, against free speech."
Irvin and I shared a glance.
"Well," I began, glancing at his chest. "It does say 'Dicks Out For Harambe',"
"You're wearing a picture with a pink dick on it." Irvin cut to the chase. "Twitter retweets are not worth it, tubby. See you guys later."
"I'm exercising my right to protest against the unjust treatment of animals." Rodger continued on saying after Irvin abandoned me. "I want to hold a march outside the school grounds. We could call the newspapers and make headlines and get the principle fired."
