A Leap of Faith

Day Two

The day dragged on and on, and the anticipation for our plans after school was killing me. As my Latin teacher droned on about the key things to remember for first declension and second declension my mind wandered outside the classroom. What else could we do for the thirteen days remaining? Jessie had already planned something for today, so now that’s only twelve more things to think of. I began to doodle down the side of my Latin book a list of things I’ve always wanted to do with a tiny picture to match each.

An abrupt cough in front of me made me jump and drop my pen in an instant. “Anything you want to share Eva? Clearly you’re writing something far more important than the vocabulary you need to memorise for your exams?” I remained silent as Mr Fairfax picked up my book and read everything I had just been daydreaming about. “Sky-diving?” I blushed as he read out one of the items on the list to the whole class. “Well Miss Wren, unless the translation for ‘timor mortis conturbat me’ is printed somewhere on your parachute then I suppose you better see me after school today for detention,” the teacher said before turning to walk away. I realised that those consequences would interrupt my plans with Jessie, but I didn’t panic. I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste one of my last days in detention, so smoothly I replied, “The fear of death confounds me.”

“Excuse me?” confounded, Mr Fairfax turned back around.

“The fear of death confounds me,” I repeated, “timor mortis conturbat me, you asked for the translation. I didn’t quite get it from the top of my parachute but I did already learn this vocabulary at my old school.” The class sniggered at a student outwitting a teacher, so I quickly added, “Sir,” for good measure. You could practically feel the tension as I stared at him directly in the eyes, neither one of us willing to give in first, until the bell signifying the end of the lesson rang. Instantly I reached down for my bag, breaking eye contact with Mr Fairfax as I rammed my books into my satchel. All I could think was thank God it was the end of the day.

Ten minutes later I was at the front gate and I saw Jessie practically run from the doors to meet me. She linked her arm in mine as we set off to the destination of our second adventure, and just as we began walking a group of girls gave us a dirty look. “What’s their problem?” I asked, but Jessie shrugged her shoulders and looked to the floor. Ignoring the slightly odd encounter, suddenly Jessie’s face lit up and she said, “Oh my gosh did you hear about some girl and Mr Fairfax? Apparently some girl got out of detention with him, and that never happens! He’s the strictest teacher here, but she outsmarted him! Lucy told me, but no one knows the girls name. No one in the class had seen her before; it was probably her first day or something.”

I awkwardly looked at the floor and managed to fake a quick smile, but Jessie wasn’t fooled. “What’s wrong?” she asked as we crossed a road. I tried to change the subject, but she was determined to find out why I looked like someone slapped me in the face. Finally I gave in and said, “It was me. The girl that no one knows the name of, despite most of them spending four hours in the same group as me for orientation, is me.”

“I’m sure they do know who you are, or maybe your name just slipped their minds,” Jessie said supportively.

“Jess, they learnt your name in seconds. They all know each other’s names perfectly.” When Jessie began to look at me with sympathetic eyes, I simply said, “Stop that, I’m used to it. Ten girls from my old school moved to Kinsella High with me, yet they still introduced themselves on orientation day and asked me what school I was from.”

“Those girls, outside school that gave us dirty looks, I’m not friends with them anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.