No Time Like Now (Lesbian)

Chapter Eight

Mr. Shadler smacks down a pile of papers on his desk as an attempt to get the class's attention. Only the first two rows react to him. The rest are still having their important debates with each other.

"You all fail the class!" he booms. "And there's no way you can bring your grade back up before the year ends!"

Instant silence. You can hear the panic radiating from students who either like their good grades or have parents with high expectations.

He smiles. "Good, I have your attention," he says. No one moves. With a sympathetic glance, he adds, "Your grades are safe this time."

Everyone relaxes, and a couple people behind me are grumbling to one another over Mr. Shadler's dirty trick.

For a middle-aged beer-gut man with a lot of black hair everywhere, he certainly isn't as stupid as most people would assume at first glance. Hell, half the class thought they could confuse him by answering to the wrong names whenever he did the attendance the first two weeks of school. He ended that by taking all his free time to memorize who was who... with interesting nicknames. (I was known as Nosy Niamh for awhile.)

Gotta admit, I have respect for this guy, minus the nicknames.

"Now, this is a senior class, which means you all are trying to balance your homework, your extracurricular activities, your job and your life in general, all on top of having to decide how to spend the rest of your life."

Mr. Shadler waits for the bomb of a truth to settle. The girl with the shaved head next to me is taken aback over how true the statement is. "It's a lot to do, and I'm sure a lot of you are stressed or scared or just done. I get it."

Thanks? What's he gonna do?

He clears his throat. "That's why I and the other English teachers have come together and thought up of what we're hoping to be a fail-proof plan to get you on the right track; well, what the right track is to you."

Having lost interest already, I click my pen and draw little doodles along the paper in front of me. The desk I'm at must have been used earlier by students deep into art classes, because it's riddled with drawings of various styles and periods, even. Hell, someone took their damn time to draw those long, skinny tight braids for the drawing of a girl with the 'I will beat yo' ass' attitude. I don't really like drawing, but that doesn't stop me from being jealous over the artist's talent.

Now and then I'd tune back to Mr. Shadler's speech, listen for a few seconds, and then tune out again. He's talking about college, which isn't something I want to think about right now. I'd rather not think about college until I graduate, actually. But then I'd most likely be stuck living with my parents longer.

It's a lose-lose situation if I ever saw one.

Mr. Shadler gets to writing on the white board. I'm still not hearing a word of what he's saying, and the writing doesn't help; all I'm seeing on the board are scribbles with maybe a word here and there, if I'm lucky to find them.

Capping the marker, he put it down and faces us again. This time I listen. "Because this project's going to last until the end of the semester, it's worth 50% of your grade. With weekly updates I'll be starting up in the next week, there shouldn't be a reason for you to fail this."

He gets his point across by staring down at Dylan Shaffer, the one guy who managed to fail the syllabus quiz in this class and another class I have with him. He responds with a smile and 'aight'. 

"With that being said, I'll post the rubric in the next couple days so you can see how you can get an A on the project. Am I clear?"

When no one objects, Mr. Shadler puts on a smile. "Great. We'll be starting it next Monday."

He moves on to the book we've been reading for the past couple weeks. I reach into my backpack to get my copy; after digging into the sack and then actually looking for it, I curse under my breath when I come up with nothing. Where did I put it?

I go through my head for any clues. Since my victory with having one of my first private mornings in years, I've been happily going through my usual routine. Maybe at some point I went through the latest chapters I had to read before driving to school.

There's no book in my memory. Fantastic.

Instead, I just get my notes out and hope my seatmate is willing to share her copy with me.

In his teacher fashion, Mr. Shadler goes over the symbolism and picks someone now and then to pick one, explain what it means, and how it's important to the book. Every time he looks in my general direction, I'm pretending to write so he won't pick me to answer the one question I won't know the answer to.

This would have been a great strategy if my phone hasn't buzzed in the middle of silence.

I freeze in place as Mr. Shadler whips his head toward the source. Please, whoever the fuck is texting me, don't send me any more texts until class is over. Just this once, let something go my way.

Nope.

Bzzz bzzz. Bzzz bzzz.

Two more texts appear on my phone. Oh, another one just now. Mr. Shadler definitely knows where it's coming from, thanks to the people around me.

"Niamh, would you like to read your texts to the class?" he asks.

"I'd rather not," I answer. You know, because the texts might have something to do with the bar happening tomorrow night.

He stares at me, expecting me to cave in and read the texts. I stare back. The notifications for two more texts comes through in the middle of the staring contest. That heartless motherfucker.

With a sigh, Mr. Shadler opens the drawer. "Silence your phone and then give it to me," he says. I do so in defeat. Closing the drawer with a smik!, he adds, "You'll get it after school."

Getting out of here with everyone else was going to be hell today.