LOCKDOWN

Chapter 3

I watched nervously as Peyton walked slowly through my lounge room, coming to a stop by the kitchen bench where the pizza sat. She eyed it hungrily before looking over at me expectantly.

"The vegetarian pizza is for my mum, but you can have some of the pepperoni. I won't be able to finish all of it."

She didn't say thank you, not that I expected her to, instead immediately grabbing a slice of pizza from the box and shoving it into her mouth. I had no interest in hanging around to watch her devour my dinner, so I ran upstairs to grab the assignment worksheets and laptop before bringing them back down. I sat at the dining room table and began searching Shakespeare's movie adaptions while Dennis sat beside me, his head in my lap as I scratched behind his ears.

"Do you want to do 'Romeo and Juliet' as one of the materials?" I asked Peyton.

She scoffed. "Of course you'd pick the most basic one."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I retorted.

She looked taken aback, apparently surprised that I had responded to her insult at all, let alone angrily.

"It's just the most popular one, that's all."

I could tell that wasn't what she wanted to say. I knew there was more behind her insult than that, but I wasn't keen to break it down. But the fact that she hadn't further insulted me, instead choosing to keep the peace? That was confusing.

"Sorry for wanting to choose one that would be the easiest for us to access information on. If you want to choose a more difficult one then be my guest, but you look too busy inhaling my dinner so excuse me for taking initiative."

I'd truly shocked her this time. The slice of pizza in her hand was halfway to her mouth, her mouth slightly open as she stared at me.

"We can do 'Romeo and Juliet'," she said quietly, putting the slice down.

I huffed in response, turning my attention back to my laptop as I continued to browse Shakespeare's works to find our second material.

"Let's do 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'," her voice suddenly came from beside me.

I jumped slightly at the close proximity. I was so focused on my laptop that I hadn't seen her take a seat next to me at the dining table. Dennis abandoned post beside me and instead shuffled over towards Peyton, laying his head in her lap and staring longingly up at her, no doubt hoping for head scratches.

'Traitor', I thought.

"Yeah, okay," I replied. "Have you seen both of them?"

"Yeah, have you?"

"I haven't seen 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'," I replied, "but I can watch that in my own time."

"No, we can watch it and take notes," she suggested, and I nodded in agreement.

I pulled up an online streaming service and found a working link to the film. I could see her staring at me silently from the corner of my eye.

"Something wrong?" I finally asked, turning to face her.

"Well...aren't we going to watch it on your TV?"  she asked.