-: Part 3 :-

The jittery blue lines begin to sort themselves out and line up the right way again, and between the faint stripes lies Chris' heavy chicken scratch:
     Does Sam have practice today?
     Rolling my eyes, I set the paper on top of my notebook and take the cap off my pen. Yes - until 6. I fold the paper a little, and wait until Wheeler starts writing things on the whiteboard next to the projection, her back to me. I lightly toss the paper onto Chris' desk, one desk up and to the right of mine. He turns to grin back at me, mouthing a "thanks". I smile back, though really, I'm thinking about how ridiculous it is that he never even knows his girlfriend's schedule. I don't think a day's gone by yet this year that he hasn't asked me sometime during this class. I'm not on the team this year, but Sam, Kimmy, and Cheryl all are, so I pretty much always know when they have practice or a game, and what's going on with everyone playing. Still, he sees her like every morning before class, there's always a few minutes to hang out in the hall, and he's always at her locker, so I don't know why he doesn't ever know. Half the time he carries her duffel bag for her, and still asks me... whatever.
     Whatever it is I'm doodling, it looks like shit. I'm going to start coloring it in, and see how far down the page I can go, not letting the tiniest bit of white show... I'm so bored. I'm bored doing this, but I don't have anything better to do. Last time I played something on my cell phone, I got caught, so I'll wait awhile before I try it again. I mostly understood how to do the homework, enough to pass the quiz on Monday alright, and anytime I listen in to her too long I start dozing off anyway. And if I watch her too long, she'll get used to me doing that, and the occasional glances I use to make her think I'm paying attention won't work anymore, because she'll think I watch her constantly when I'm paying attention. Screw that. Dad would flip if they ever got a call from school, or an iffy comment on my progress report... but I'm too careful for that to ever happen, anyway the worst I ever do in class is not pay attention, and that's how half the other kids are too.
     I can hear Chris whispering to Melinda, who's sitting in front of me. Her shoulders are shaking - she must be trying really hard not to laugh. I can't quite make out what they're saying, but I think I heard Jason's name. I feel kinda bad for that kid, he's always getting picked on by everyone, and I'm really not sure why. Well alright, he does dress pretty badly, and he talks about really weird stuff when he does talk, which isn't very much. He was on my bus when we were in elementary school and his house looked really sketchy, like there was a dead car next to the garage, all torn up and rusted out, and just random junk, y'know? Like there wasn't enough room in the house (which was kinda small) for all the crap they'd accumulated, him and... I think he has like three brothers or something crazy. And the yard was just sort of a dumping ground for stuff, it wasn't kept up nicely at all. The house is a little apart from the ones near it, it's not like it's in the nice part of town to begin with, so I guess it doesn't matter as much that it looks so crappy, but still, it looked pretty iffy. He's just... I don't know, awkward I guess, and whenever you start talking to him you start to feel awkward too, I don't know why, it's kinda weird. But he always brings up really obscure subjects, or references some random person no-one's ever heard of, or something. Like I think the history teacher likes him pretty well, he gets along with adults better than people his own age I think, but even then he's pretty closed-up. I can see him up at the front of the room, his hair's a mess as always, like I know guys never comb their hair (that they tell us about, anyway), but he's one of the ones that really should, y'know? It's just like everywhere some days, and the cut isn't right for him at all, he's got what could be a nice shade of blond hair, if he'd just put some highlights in, and cut it so it wasn't hanging in his eyes all the time, stuff like that. I don't understand how people can be so completely oblivious to their appearances - that's the first thing other people notice about you, that's the first impression they get, and sometimes the only impression you ever get a chance to make. So shouldn't it say a lot about you? I guess maybe it does say something about you, if it's all unkempt and shit but still, all that says is that you hate taking showers, or you're too poor to go do laundry. That's not something you want to tell the world. Like there are some people who can do the natural look, without make-up and without really styling their hair, but that's only a very few people, like movie stars and models, people who are the most beautiful people in existance, spend hours and hours in make-up and hair styling before the camera takes a single shot of them. I don't know, I just think it's crazy to leave things like the condition of your skin completely to chance, when there are so many things you can do to keep your appearance pleasant. Like even over the summer, I made sure my tan stayed nice, and took care of my skin and hair and everything, even when I was just going to be sitting around the house all day. Like I didn't put a ton of effort into it, but I didn't just like roll out of bed and then be ready for the day, that's disgusting.
     I hear the clock hands sticking, and glance up out of reflex. Yep, it's nearly nine o'clock, like I thought. The clock always sticks right around that last minute of the hour, it hangs up and shifts back and forth a little, clicking a bit, for like a whole minute, before finally moving over to the next little black line. God I stare at that clock way too much in here, I could tell you where every little scratch on the convex plastic covering of it is, could tell you exactly what time the sunlight coming in through the windows behind me puts a glare on it so it's hard to read... ugh, this class is so incredibly boring! It's not even a month into the school year, and I've already got the goddamn clock on the wall memorized. That's really sad. Then again, like every clock in the school, and in the elementary school too I think, are the same old ones, white face black numbers and hands, little notches to mark the minutes, and probably half of them stick like that right near the hour... they must've gotten these in fucking bulk back in the fucking sixties, I've seen the same damn clock in one of the ridiculously old film strips they showed us in driver's ed. Film strips! God I hate this town, I can't believe they still have those things here, that we still use fucking film strips, have those film reels in the big round metal canisters, the projectors for them... God that's so sad, they're like fifty years old. Get a fucking DVD player.
     Is that the heat on what the hell! It's not fucking winter yet. And they say there's no money for new soccer jerseys, so don't waste money on heating the building in the damn summer! I think there's a hair tie in my purse... there it is. There, my hair's in the tastefully-messy sort of partial ponytail that always looks really good, keeps it off my neck so I'm cooler now, or will be soon. Cool enough air still seeping in from the edges of the window. Just need to remember to keep my purse away from the heater, I'd be really fucked if anything in there melted.