A Few Hundred Poppies

2. Brown Privilege

Within the next ten minutes, I was the only girl who hadn't changed yet, since I was desperately wracking my brain for a way to escape becoming a high-school laughingstock. I supposed I could pretend that I was having terrible period cramps, but I doubted that with the rumour that she'd had come from a juvenile correctional facility, the substitute would fall for it. Just when I'd reached for the doors after deciding to sneak away, she slammed the doors open, startling me halfway to death.

Looking down at me along the length of her aquiline nose like grim reaper, she marched back into the pool area.

I was beginning to freak out. But then, all the commotion in the pool abruptly dropped to a zero, making me perk up to see why everyone's, and I mean everyone's, eyes were glued to the scene on the patch of mosaicked floor in front of the pool.

I could clearly make out the new guy standing against the sun even from a significant distance, lazily pulling off the school shirt to reveal his smooth, gorgeously tanned, brown-version-of-a-Greek-god chest. It dawned upon me that with everyone so immersed in him (even the substitute), it was the perfect moment to escape from the pool. I crept to the doors as inconspicuously as I could, and the moment before slipping out, I spared his figure another glance just as he dived into the pool.

The sudden hitch in my breath said it - the stupid twins were right about his hotness.

-

"See you at Physics," Ever muttered, the last to get up from the table. I wiped the corner of my mouth with the already crumpled tissue, contemplating whether it was a good time for bribing my way to an extra red velvet cupcake from the batch that the lunch lady kept aside for the teacher's lounge.

The speakers screeched for a split second before nearly making me choke on the grape juice as the Headmistress' voice, unusually stern, reverberated throughout the school from the speakers: "Miss Aditi Rashid, please come to my office at your earliest convenience - within five minutes."

The whole ordeal before lunch had left a disgusting sensation in the pit of my stomach, and the last thing that I wanted to do was confront the Headmistress. Nevertheless, I needed to know whether or not I'd been crossed off the People to Throw Out of Clubs Hitlist. I rose from the seat.

On my way out, Troy's emerald eyes brightened as he spotted me and jogged over from the group of jocks huddled in the hallway. "Here," he took out two pieces of paper, handing them to me.

"Finals: EA vs. HTS : Gate Pass," I read aloud from the laminated tickets, a rich green in colour. These were much fancier than the typically hot pink passes made out of the cheapest paper in Edelweiss that Ever and Troy usually got me for their matches.

"Be there on Friday, I gotta go practice, shortie," he said, ruffling my hair in an attempt to make me mad, but I was too used to it to be unnerved.

I called out to him as he started jogging back, "But there's two tickets, Holsten!" Looking over his shoulder, Troy winked.

"We've been wanting to go on a triple date for ages, Adi! You better put those tickets to good use!"

Somebody somewhere was going to have a good time tearing the extra ticket to shreds, because if I hadn't found myself a decent date in sixteen years, no miracle was happening in three days. Or was it?

Kneading my forehead with my knuckles in a futile attempt to reduce the throbbing headache, I tossed the empty juice can towards a bin, but I missed and it rolled unceremoniously across the floor. I sighed irritatedly before moving to bend down to pick it up, but Mr. Gonzales appeared there with immaculate timing, his stomach bulging, an apparently heavy lunch threatening to pop open a button or two of his shirt.