I let the kids streaming through the hallway bounce off of my shoulders as they blazed past. I felt lost and alone in the sea of people without Ponyboy to lead me through, but I resigned myself to the fact that I had to get to class, with or without him. I scooped up my pile of schoolbooks, which had fallen all over the floor in the excitement, and checked my wrinkled schedule to see which room my first-period class was in. Room 113, Mr. Syme, English IV, it read. I looked over at the classroom across the hall from me, whose number read 104. I was at the wrong end of the hallway, it seemed. Adjusting the books cradled in my arms, I kept my head down and pushed against the flow of people to get to Room 113. I didn't look anyone in the eyes as I walked; enough trouble had found me today already.
I was almost to my classroom when the bell rang piercingly. All the students still milling in the hallway stopped and fell silent at once, staring at the clock in shock. Slowly, the sound of them talking crescendoed again as they began to push against each other in their rush to get to class. I was caught between a girl freshman and a harried sophomore who were both trying to head separate ways. They both glared at me angrily before I was able to extract myself. I felt slightly suffocated in the pulsing, living river of kids, but I finally managed to duck into Room 113 without any major injuries besides a chipped nail.
The teacher, Mr. Syme, was a balding man with thin brown hair and watery blue eyes behind thick horn-rimmed glasses. He blinked at me as I slid into an empty seat near the back of the classroom. I was hardly the last to arrive, though, because a few more people slouched in after me, smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. I assumed they had been in the bathrooms up until the bell had rung.
Mr. Syme walked over to my desk and handed me a few sheets of paper as well as two small books. "Hello, Ms. Jean. I received the memo that you would be joining us here at Tulsa Central High. Say hello to Diana Jean, class," he said cheerfully enough.
Most of the class said nothing, except for a few nice-looking Soc girls at the front, who chirped a cheery hello to me. They all flashed me wide smirks, the perfection of which was only somewhat diminished by the metal braces on their teeth. I smiled half-heartedly back just to be polite. I wasn't about to forget how badly their male counterparts had just treated me and Ponyboy just a few minutes before.
Mr. Syme looked disappointed with the meager response, but overall not surprised. "Well, Ms. Jean, you will find your syllabus in the pile of papers I just handed you, as well as a few guidance worksheets about the novel we are reading, which is one of the books I gave to you." He pointed at the larger of the two books on my desk. It was falling apart, the cover was yellowed with age, and little brown spots freckled the pages. The cover displayed a dramatic pair of lovers clutching at each other, and the title crested across the top of the image in elegant block lettering. It read Romeo and Juliet.
I struggled to suppress a groan. Shakespeare?
Mr. Syme tapped the cover of the second book he had placed on my desk. "This is your writing notebook. We will be completing journal activities in here over the course of the semester, and I will be grading it for fifteen percent of your grade instead of having you sit for a final exam," he explained. "I expect you to complete at least fifty entries of six to seven paragraphs from now until then."
The writing part didn't bother me as much as the Shakespeare part did. "Okay, thank you," I mumbled. He nodded and made his way back up to the front of the room.
"Good morning, everyone. Let us pick up where we left off with Romeo and Juliet. Yesterday, we discussed the Prologue, and how it will relate to the rest of the play. Can anyone summarize what we know so far about the plot so Ms. Jean can catch up with us? Anyone?" He stopped at the desk of a boy who had slumped over his desk, apparently asleep and rapped it soundly with the pencil he was holding. "How about you, Mr. Oliver?"
The boy started awake, rubbing his face and glancing sheepishly up at Mr. Syme. He looked groggy, confused, and probably still half-asleep. "I-uh-um, pardon me?" he stuttered.
"Can you summarize what has happened so far in Romeo and Juliet for Ms. Jean?"
"Who's Jean?" the boy mumbled.
"Ah, never mind. The teenage brain seems to be in a constant state of sleep deprivation. Ah, Ms. Valance. Would you care to answer?" Mr. Syme called on one of the Soc girls at the front, one who had a cheerleading bow in her ginger hair.
"Well, we've learned that there is a feud going on between two families and that Romeo and Juliet are from the opposing sides. They fall in love anyway, though," she said pertly.
"And your thoughts on this are?" Mr. Syme prompted. "Is this good or bad?"
"Completely ridiculous," the girl replied without so much as a pause to consider the question. "Their relationship caused too much conflict between the two families, and Romeo and Juliet even died because of it. People should stick to what's safe: their own kind. That's what's best- and safest- for everyone," she concluded wisely.
I had never hated an answer more. I glared at the back of her head, which was covered in perfect ringlets, disliking her already.
"Coming from such an expert on the topic," Mr. Syme said kindly. "How about someone else? What are your thoughts on Romeo and Juliet's doomed relationship?"
I decided to raise my hand, lifting my chin challengingly. Mr. Syme pointed to me, and everyone in the class turned to look in my direction. I didn't let that faze me, though; I shook my hair back confidently and said, "I think it's fine, even admirable. Romeo and Juliet persevered in their love even though others told them it wouldn't work out. Sure, they died in the end, but the love that everyone thought was doomed ended up doing some good. If Romeo and Juliet had 'stuck to their own kind,' where would their families be? Probably dead or dying because of their feud. But because those two people loved each other, even though they were from different families and backgrounds, they helped their families to realize that they shouldn't fight anymore." I lifted my chin and looked the ginger-haired girl hard in the eye. "They taught their families that maybe they didn't have to be so different after all."
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I struggled through the rest of the day tiredly, wishing it would just end. The rest of my classes seemed to be easy enough, but by the end of the day, I was so loaded down with books that it was hard to carry them all. I had barely seen Pony anywhere to ask him where our shared locker was, so I didn't have a place to drop some of them off. The only time I had seen him, even briefly, was across the crowded cafeteria, but by the time I had fought my way over to where I had seen him standing, he was gone. My arms were aching from the weight of so many schoolbooks: Now I had my chemistry textbook, history book, and math workbook to carry as well as my English books. I was taking home economics and music as well, but luckily both of those teachers had adopted a more hands-on approach and didn't assign me more books for their classes.
After my last class of the day- Math- I stepped out into the hallway again. It was even more of a zoo then it had been in the morning; the thrill of dismissal seemed to have infected everyone and tripled their usually exhaustive energy. I wondered how crazy the halls would become on Friday afternoon. After all, it was only Monday, and already things were extremely wild, and the energy was escalating fast.
I quickly ducked under people's arms and skirted around brewing fistfights, looking for Ponyboy. Luckily, the school was only two stories, so it wouldn't be an obscene amount of time before I found him. I paced down the hallway at a clipped speed. Every time I saw a greasy-haired kid, I almost called out Pony's name before realizing it was someone else. I was almost to the opposite end of the hallway from my math classroom when I saw something that made me stop in my tracks.
A girl, heavily pregnant by the looks of her round belly, was pinned against the lockers by two boys. One was snarling in her face, while the other hung back a bit. She held her schoolbooks protectively in front of her chest. Her face was turned up defiantly, but I could see the fear in her eyes. I felt pity and anger for her at once. She was very pretty, with midlength blue-black hair and striking features, and she was wearing jean capri pants and a cropped t-shirt that looked too big for her but covered her belly neatly.
"You better not have cheated on Hank, you know he'll beat you if that baby's not his," I overheard the boy close to her growl. "He sent me to make sure that you're telling the truth."
"If he wanted to ask me he'd ask me himself. He's my husband, for God's sake. Now get out of my way," the girl snarled right back at him.
Husband? I halted in the middle of the hallway in confusion. The girl looked to be only about Pony's age, maybe a year older, but certainly younger than me. How could she be married? Then I realized that her 'husband' was probably the one who had gotten her pregnant, and she had needed to marry him in order to save face.
"He only married you because you were his buddy's younger sister," the boy said scathingly. "It's not like he loves you."
"And I only married him because I thought I was pregnant. Then he went and really got me pregnant, so I couldn't leave him. Neat, how he worked that out, isn't it?" Her voice contained just as much venom and scorn, but she shrunk back from the boy as he raised a fist up to her face. I dreaded the moment I knew had to be coming; he was probably going to hit her. I desperately wanted to avoid that scene as much as possible. I didn't want to see this pregnant girl get beaten.
"Do you think I'm stupid, Angela?" the boy snarled, his fist trembling in Angela's face.
"Hey!" I said stepping in and grabbing his arm. "Don't hit her."
"Mind your own business, girl!" he jeered at me.
"I mean it. Get away from her," I hissed at him.
He only sneered at me, not moving his fist from where it hovered in front of Angela's face. It was the other boy who took my words seriously. "Come on now, Joe, Jesus. Hank'll kill you if he finds out you beat his girl," he said nervously. "He'll beat the both of us."
Joe seemed to see the clear good sense in his friend's words, because he stepped away from Angela and let his fist fall to his side. "Alright, fine. But I won't forget this, Angela, you hear?" he threatened menacingly.
Angela didn't answer. She just stared after him, a hard, blazing look of hatred in her eyes, as he spun away and walked down the hall, his friend trailing after him. Then she turned to me. "You didn't need to do that," she said coldly. "I had it under control."
"It didn't look like it," I said softly.
"Who do you think you are? I'm a Shepard, for God's sake. I can handle anything," she growled ungratefully. Then she turned, one hand placed protectively on her swollen belly, and walked slowly away, leaving me standing alone in the noisy hallway.