BAE BOY

2-14

She would not budge, Wyatt. She wouldn't even unbuckle her seat belt. As if she felt like she needed to be restrained from touching me again or something.

Okay, that's ridiculous, but that's how it felt. That's how she looked at me, too. Like she was afraid to get too close.

So I said, "C'mon, just stay for lunch or something. Let 'em sweat you for once."

"I have to go back."

"The kids won't be mad or anything. I mean, they'll be disappointed, but..."

"Colton, I cannot do that to the other teachers," she said.

The pilots both turned around. And the one who'd actually flown the thing grinned and said said, "You're one of his teachers?"

The other pilot shoved him and said, "Show some respect, for Chrissake!"

"No, see, I thought she was, like, someone who worked for you guys or somethin'," the driver pilot said. "I mean, that I could see. But...a teacher..."

Wyatt got all red in the face and said, "I really have to go back. They'll divide up all my classes and you know what that's like."

"Tanker's on the way," the spare pilot said. "We'll fill 'er up', do a pre-flight check'n' be airborne pretty quick."

"You absolutely have to do this?" I asked her.

She tilted her head and smiled and said, "The world you live in is just a wee bit different from everyone else's."

"Boy, you can say that again," the driving pilot said. "They never had to send a helicopter after me, for sure."

"Count your blessings," I told him.

And Wyatt said, "Actually, I think perhaps you should do that."

"Oh, we're gangin' up on me now, huh?" I said.

And the three of them laughed. I did, too, actually.

And then I said, "Look, I get that, okay? I do."

And she said, "I know you do. And you deserve...well, whatever this is."

"'Whatever' being the operative word, right?"

"You'll make it what you want it to be. Something nobody else ever thought of--that, we know."

"Listen how she talks to this guy," the driver pilot said.

"That's why nobody ever cuts her classes," I told him.

He smirked and said, "I got one runs off from school every chance 'e gets. Dude had more absences last year than he had days in class, almost. Threatened to put us in jail, right? Cause o' him bein' absent all the time."

"It's very difficult for them now," Wyatt said. "School is such a restrictive environment for kids who have so many resources available. And so much autonomy, because of it."

"Gimme that in plain English," the pilot said, shooting her a little wink.

"Talkin' about the Internet," the spare pilot said. "Google'n' all that shit they do instead o' thinkin' on their own."