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Youth of Tomorrow, Shaping the Future	By : Gianni1968 Category: X-men Comics > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2433 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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"Hell Is For Children"

Chapter 03
(They cry in the dark, so you can't see their tears)

(They hide in the light, so you can't see their fears)

(Forgive and forget, all the while)

(Love and pain become one and the same)

(In the eyes of a wounded child)

(Because hell)

(Hell is for children)

(And you know that their little lives can become such a mess)

(Hell)

(Hell is for children)

(And you shouldn't have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh)
(Its all so confusing, this brutal abusing)

(They blacken your eyes, and then apologize)

(Youre daddys good girl, and don't tell mommy a thing)

(Be a good little boy, and you'll get a new toy)

(Tell grandma you fell off the swing)
(Because hell)

(Hell is for children)

(And you know that their little lives can become such a mess)

(Hell)

(Hell is for children)

(And you shouldn't have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh)
(No, hell is for children)
(Hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for children)
(Hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for children)
(Hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for hell)

(Hell is for children)
(Hell is for children)

(Hell is for children)

Theme: 'Hell Is For Children'

Performed by: Pat Benetar

Written by: Neil Geraldo, Pat Benatar, Roger Capps

Lyrics reproduced without permission
Starring, in order of appearance or as they are mentioned:
And many other characters as I think of them or they appear
Dr. Cecelia Reyes

Mrs. Barnes

Jon Rustin (Babe)

‘DeeDee’ Johanson

Senior Assistant Principal Frank Jennings

Charles Xavier

Scott Summers

Jean Grey

Andrew Snelson (Drew)

Theron Nunley

Pam Butler

Connie Haywood

Kelly Brown

Dr. Cecelia Reyes

6:45am, Wednesday, August 16th, 1995

faculty parking in front of Springville High School, Emmons Street, Springville AR
Mrs. Barnes arrives in a flustered flurry of purse and lunch bag and day bag and other stuff. I almost regret doing this; she obviously isn't cut out for teaching at this level, but she didn't discover it until it was much too late. Still her behavior isn't to be tolerated. I walk over and stand at the corner of her parking spot as she collects her stuff. She frowns at me as she locks her car.
"What do you want now?" I'm not sure if she doesn't like me personally, doesn't like me because I'm black, or because she knows I'm right and she's wrong, but she's made it clear she doesn't like taking my orders and she's about to find out how much authority I have to back me up.
"I want to rip you a new asshole, but that would make three for you, and that's clearly too many for any one person, even an Algebra teacher." She stops short in the act of brushing past me.
"What?" She stares at me. I smile sweetly.
"Once and only once. That's how many times I will ever have to tell you to stop bullying or belittling your students, especially the ones in your AP class, and most especially the sophomores, such as Jon Rustin. He's only there because there's no other place advanced enough for me to put him. So as long as he stays within the limits of good behavior and decorum, you will too.
"It's also the exact number of times I'll ever have to remind you that abusing the trust and authority given to you by the school board will result in immediate suspension of your duties and pay, that I'll be heading the investigation of the case, and I'll be lobbying for your immediate termination, with hard evidence in my hand."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" She hisses at me. I take a half step closer, which startles her so much she stumbles back.
"I'm the senior counselor whose advice that you ask a student to be your helper you twisted when you told him I said he had to be your helper. I'm the Doctor of Psychology employed by the Springville City School Board to bring this High School back into the National Top Ten List of High Schools. And I'm the bitch warning you that if you keep up this attitude of how much better you are than the students you are meant to be teaching, mentoring and encouraging, I promise you I'll see to it that you're out of a job by the semester break."
From the white color her face turns, I think she gets that message.
"And before I forget," I shove the folder from under my arm into her hand, "this homework is officially handed in on time."
My next stop this morning is the art room, to talk to 'DeeDee' Johanson. I hope this isn't going to be as annoying and silly as dealing with Barnes has been.

To my surprise DeeDee is a very intelligent woman, and she’s anticipated my visit. She offers me a rather good cup of coffee, and we relax for twenty minutes as we talk.

She's aware of my over-qualifications for my job, and curious about why I'm really here. So I tell her my 'cover story,' which just so happens to be completely true even though it's the least important of my jobs.
She’s heard about my efforts over the summer to streamline all the paperwork processes used in the school, and she even hints that she might have information I should be aware of. I’m curious what she’s referring to; I’ve got a good whiff of several somethings rotten going on already.
Happily, she’s already gathered the information I need from the other teachers who were in the hall during the confrontation between Jon and the other boy, and has signed statements waiting for me. Everything checks with Jon’s statements, even to him baiting the bigger boy to get the confrontation over with quicker.
In return she asks for some information about Jon, which is natural, so I give her some highlights of the things in his school file, and promise to leave it in her mail basket. Standing, I gather myself for the breakneck pace of the Attendance Office and Counseling Services.
“Come back anytime you need to get away from the idiocy of the front office and de-stress, or if you need someone to talk to about Frank’s bipolar mood swings.” She calls to me. I turn and smile.
“You can count on it.”
Back in my locked office with everything unplugged and the lights off, I dial the special number on my mobile phone. In the middle of the second ring I hang up. And wait.
I only have to wait for a few minutes before a quiet voice fills my head.
'Cecelia? You rang?' Slightly British sounding, his voice usually calms me. Today I'm already calm, thanks to DeeDee and her coffee.
'I did. I have questions about this boy of yours.' Nothing from him for a few seconds. I know this means he's sifting through my frontal lobe for my concerns.
'I see. I wasn't aware that his file hadn't been updated. Jon was manumitted two weeks ago, voluntarily, by his mother. Reason: unknown. I'll fax you a copy of the paper work. Possibly you can fill in that blank.' Lucky me.
'That explains a lot.' I can feel his amusement.
'I expect so. He seems to have adapted quickly.'
'Very quickly. He makes friends fast, too.'
'He will.'
'And ...'
'Your reaction to his smiling? He likes you; it's also why he'll make friends quickly. I suggest you re-read the section on what I call broadcast empathy in the file. He doesn't do it knowingly, but he does do it consistently. Scott and Jean have experienced it also.' I sigh and shake my head.
'Charles, about the other boy ...'
'I'll look into that, and send you word of the results.'

I'm standing in the doorway to Counseling Services when the three of them walk in the lobby doors, directly across from Frank. I've got my mobile phone in my hand, and the fact isn't lost on him, if his scowl means anything.
None of the three of them so much as glance at him, but they all look at me. Drew nods, while Jon smiles. The other just looks and goes on.
I'm surprised that they aren't doing anything about Frank; these are not the kind of boys who forgive easily, or ever forget. I'm willing to bet that they're hatching a plot of some sort. I'm betting it most certainly won't be pretty, and it may well prove to be a royal pain to deal with.
Jon Rustin

1:17 pm, Wednesday, August 16th, 1995

The Lobby outside Assistant Principal Jennings’ office, Springville High School, Emmons St., Springville, AR
Mr. Jennings is standing in the Lobby when we arrive, waiting just outside the attendance office, but we walk past him as a group, as we'd planned, Drew closest. He desperately wants Baldy to say or do something, and I can tell by the way he's standing there that the idiot means to, but Dr. Reyes is standing facing him from across the lobby, a cell phone in her hand, obviously waiting for him to try something. There's no one else in the area, and only a couple of janitorial staff straightening chairs and sweeping in the cafeteria before second lunch. Way quiet.
It strikes me that I'm going to start something serious in just half an hour, and if everything doesn't go exactly right, someone is going to get in trouble, and I don't think I'm going to be able to stand by and let them take the blame, even if they don't name me as the instigator.
We get some lunch from a bored food service worker, and eat quickly in the deserted cafeteria. The bell signaling the beginning of second lunch rings, and we gather our stuff and head to the lobby to sit at a bench where we can talk in private.
Pam meets us there as soon as she can after second lunch begins, and listens quietly while she eats as I sell the first step in my plan to the guys.
"To have a successful resistance, first you have to have something to resist, an overbearing authority figure to villify to the affected public." I tell them.
"We just happen to have an eager volunteer on tap don't we?" Drew asks, grinning happily, and I nod at him.
"After yesterday ... I have to agree. I'm very concerned about how easy it was for him to do that." Theron speaks up.
"There are rules in place to prevent that kind of abuse of power. He's subverted those rules somehow, and we've got to do something about it, to get him out of here before someone gets hurt."
"Um ... guys? Dr. Reyes told me yesterday that there's worse things than that going on around here, and she needs him where he is until she's ready to bring it all down at one time." Drew tells us. Theron and Pam stare at him. "What?"
"You talked to her?" I comment ironically.
"Wasn't it you who said not to trust her?" Theron reminds him quietly, and he goes red.
"Yeah, it was. But then I got a new angle on things. She's on our side, I think. I trust her, a little." He looks a little ill as he admits it.
"Academically speaking, I think she's on our side, too. But I don't trust her, and I bet she wouldn't like what we're about to do. Not if she's willing, as you say, to protect Baldy in the interest of some project of her own." Pam speaks up, automatically including herself. I think she's going to fit right in.
"It doesn't matter if she's cleaning house some other way as she seems to have convinced Drew, or she's setting up some other agenda-furthering system based in our school. The point is that the follicly-challenged psycho was simple to goad into violence, and he must be dealt with now." I remind them.
"I'm on your side, remember?! He's gotta go, and quick! I'm already there! But I'm telling you she's gonna try to finagle things so she keeps the stooge she can already control in the front office to take the heat. She's getting someone to watch him from the attendance office, and report to her if he leaves it. She said she's going to be with him every day when we get here; she's having our ride call her when we leave the other school. And she's sending him to anger management groups."
"Too little, too late. It's so bad she's already started sandbagging." Pam looks at me, startled.
"Sandbagging? Like to hold back a flood?" I smile and nod; Theron has found himself a real smart one. But in the back of my mind a Sci-Fi icon presses his fingertips together, arches one eyebrow, and comments 'Fascinating.' I'm going to have to give Dr. Reyes more thought, definitely.
"I'm giving her this one tiny chance to keep this thing out of the courts. If she wants to hold on to him until whatever else she's doing is ready, then he has to walk the line perfectly. And we all know he can't do it."
"So how are you - I mean, how are we getting rid of him?" Pam asks, getting us back on track.
"Babe started to tell us before; we turn Baldy into a public spectacle, turn the entire student body against him with the propaganda flood he came up with, right?" Theron asks, and I nod.
"This is the warning shot, the freebie. I'm not going to the police, this time; I'm taking it to the students. I made up packets of neon colored fliers, tape dispensers, and surgical gloves last night. The slogans are huge eight inch letters, one per sheet, ready to tape to locker doors."
I explain the slant my pointed slogans take; how only the four of us, plus Baldy and Reyes know all the details, but how whoever puts up the slogans seems to know everything about it.
"We'll all be safe because the flyers are going to be put up at a time when none of the four of us could possibly do it, and the rest of the resistance will be safe, provided the timing is with them and they don't get caught in the act, because the slogans are calculated to be shocking even to them."
"What about the police officer stationed at the school?" Pam asks.
"The on-site officer will be out patrolling the campus and Reyes will be sure to get the fliers down before he can find out." I smile reassuringly. "So the first act of the Resistance is going to be hanging fliers in the locker halls as soon as those halls clear for first lunch tomorrow."
We spend the rest of lunch discussing possible second wave actions, and there are some great ideas put in all around, but in the end we agree that the most appropriate response can only be decided on after we see the reaction to the fliers.
The bell rings, and we start strolling toward the door, no one wanting to be late again.
“Well?” Dani asks as she comes up on my right.
"What's the resistance doing?" Teri asks as she brackets me from the left. Satisfyingly warm arms circle my waist.
The other girls catch up to us as we walk out the lobby door. I lead everyone to the far end of the big brick 'Welcome to Springville High School' signboard, and put up a simple flat barrier to sound waves between us and the building.
Just ten yards past the barrier is the window to Mr. Jennings’ office. His blinds are partly open, and he's at his desk, back to the window, phone to his ear and doubtless concentrating on some bit of paperwork on his desk.
The girls crowd in all around us, forming a solid wall as we guys put on the latex surgical gloves. They look at us in confusion for a few seconds.
“Operation Ulcer is a go.” I tell them. “It will be safest to start as soon as the halls clear for first lunch tomorrow.” Drew hands each of them a baggie with a cheap tape dispenser and a pair of gloves like the ones we have on. "What you will be doing is called 'hanging paper.' It's a very old way to get a message across."
“We've provided for precautions which will make it impossible for you to be implicated if you aren't actually discovered in the act. Remember to wear the gloves when touching anything, even the envelopes. Don’t take them off until you flush them down the toilet closest to the cafeteria. Baggies too.” He tells them quietly. Theron and I hand out the plain brown mailers.
“Tear up the inner and outer envelopes, and throw them and the tape strippers in the trash as soon as you're done, right there in the hallway where you’ve hung these. And be careful not to cut yourselves on the tape strippers.” Theron says seriously. “If you do, you have to stop hanging paper immediately. Toss it all in the nearest trash can and go to the nurse’s office because you got cut on a sharp edge on a locker. Take the other stuff off campus to throw it away after school.” He stresses parts heavily. They're very quiet now.
"Is there anyone who isn't absolutely sure they want to do this? Now is the time to ask questions or raise objections. No one is going to give you a hard time if you decide you don't want to do this." Several of the girls are obviously nervous, including Dani, but no one speaks up or hands the packets back.
In less than three minutes nothing untoward is to be found by visual inspection. For better or worse, they (and we) are committed to the Resistance. The girls are quiet; the seriousness of this has sunk in. Teri and Dani are bracketing me, like the day before, and their arms tighten around me for a few seconds. I let the sound barrier fade away.
The group of them is about to turn and walk away when Drew speaks up.
“So, um … where’s – uh … the tall … with the long dark –“ Oh wow! He gets nervous around girls?! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it. No one speaks for a long second or two.
“Lynn?” Teri whispers, as she looks down at me for a split second, and then slips away to pull him aside. Another of the girls moves toward my empty arm, and even as she growls softly in her throat Dani quickly wraps her arm around my chest, grabs my shirt sleeve and tugs me around to block that, moving into my arms and pressing her face to my shoulder. Someone giggles under her breath.
It had never occurred to me that she might react like that to another girl; she doesn't have any problem with Teri being on that arm. I can see the other girl's startled look, even if I can't see Dani's face, and I begin to suspect I'm got a little tiger on my hands. And she feels good there.
“Do you mind being quiet about Lynn? A guy asked her out Monday and again Tuesday between 2nd and 3rd. She’s walked with him to all his classes so far today. They’ll probably be going steady by next week. And we don’t want to tell Babe if we don't have to.” Teri whispers to Drew behind me, but not softly enough that I can’t hear.
“Good for her!” I say, looking around at them all. They’re all watching me, except for Drew, who’s blushing, spluttering and mumbling to himself, Dani who's got her eyes closed, and Theron who’s watching them all with great interest.
“You’re okay with that, Babe?” Dani asks me slowly from just beside my collar. I look down into her eyes.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” She doesn’t move or reply, and I blink quickly. She closes her eyes again.
“We, uh … thought you had a – a thing for Lynn.” Another says.
“A romantic thing? A little bit, I guess. But, can you blame me, after Monday’s fashion statement?” A couple say ‘no,’ and the others shake their heads. “Of course, I know better than to think it could work between us.” I let them take that however they want to, and most of them pink up, before glancing away. Dani pushes back to look up at me.
“Tall guys date short girls all the time, why not the other way around?” Dani seems incredibly indignant about that, which is humorous considering, and Teri nods energetically, as she comes back over, turns me back to where I was before, and insinuates her arm around me again, gently forcing it between the clinging girl already there and me.
Several of the group giggle and pink up, and Dani looks away for a few seconds. I finally realize what she's said, and what else she's said, and have to laugh at them both.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m totally into girls of any height. All sorts of girls. Girl-shaped girls, anyway. I meant that, well, I’m a beach and water sports kinda guy, and she’s a racquet and court sports kinda girl. Even if there's sometimes a net in common, it wouldn’t work out. I bet she's way too 'high-strung' for an easy-going guy like me.” I grin, and they laugh. Dani hugs me tighter, and Teri squeezes my shoulder with her free hand.
“It really doesn’t bother you that she’s going out on a date Friday?” One of them asks. I shake my head as someone tries to shush her.
“I hope she has fun. But I’m busy this Friday anyway. Hot date with a hectic job.” I tell them. This takes a few seconds to sink in.
“We were trying to distract you, keep you from noticing it going on.” One of them grumbles. “Guess we didn’t do a very good job.”
“Oh no, please, the distraction has been very nice. You are very welcome to distract me all you like. Either in a group, a smaller group, or even one at a time.” I smile (and hug Teri and Dani a bit tighter) as they all laugh.
“So you weren’t hitting on Lynn?” Teri asks. She holds me closer on her side, my hip firmly against her thigh.
“Those weren’t lines?” Another asks right after.
“You meant those things?” Dani whispers the rest as she pulls herself tighter under my other arm, pressing her little body firmly to me, and putting her little sandaled foot on top of mine. “Even the part about being a super-hero?”
“In order: No, no, and what do you think?” I say to them.
“I believe you.” Dani tells me softly, her lips close to my ear and her breath tickling me. "About everything." She's so close, and feels so good, and my body is reacting to the stimulation.
"Thank you for believing me." I whisper back. "It feels good. But right now," I raise my voice to normal as I gently push her away, "we all need to get to class before we're tardy."
Teri grins even as Dani pouts at me. She squeezes me for a second before taking off, and Dani follows her. The other girls hug me quickly, touch my arm or give my hand a quick squeeze before they hurry away, and the guys run off in their own directions.
I make it in the door of Mrs. Barnes' classroom just before the bell rings. By the time I take the only empty seat (interestingly near her desk) she's already begun taking roll.
"Rustin?" She calls out in an even tone.
"Present." I reply cheerfully. So far, so good. I'm behaving properly, and so is she.
Class goes smoothly, which surprises me. She hands back homework, including mine, and takes up homework. Obviously Dr. Reyes has spoken to her more forcefully this time. The 100% grade is expected, but her note is pleasing.
'Since you like Algebra so much, I expect all the problems every time.' I give her my biggest smile, and nod, which elicits a frown.
She collects Tuesday's homework, and then begins demonstrating new derivations on the board. As I listen I take notes on alternate ways to explain things to other students, and alternate ways to get to the same answers.
I know she sees me writing on my notepad, and she calls me up to work the rest of the problem on the board for spite. I take the chalk from her hand with a smile. The problem has been chosen as an example because it goes through the whole range of permutations of the days' lesson, and I remember all of it. So that's what I do; starting with the basic problem, and calling on my classmates for the next step, I run through the permutations in an entertaining but fast-moving manner. I also show them the shortcuts that I've come up with.
At one point she tries to interrupt me, and I'm forced to simply overpower her vocally, and roll my eyes at her. I know that she's going to tell me that my shortcut doesn't work in all cases, such as if the base divisor is negative. Which is the next thing I tell them.
After that she stops trying to correct me, and simply sits and gives me dirty looks. After a while that stops, too.
In a very short time we've worked our way through all the permutations of the days' lesson. When everything is done, I turn to my classmates.
"Is there anything that I didn't explain well enough? If there is I'll do it again slower." Lynn, who had seemed very distracted when I came in, is grinning from ear to ear, and so are most of the others. Even the guy from study hall has a smile on his face, and he gives me a bull's eye circle. I think I've done well.
Mrs. Barnes asks to see me out in the hallway.
"Why are you in my class? If you already know how to do this level of Algebra you should be in a further course." She asks me once the door is shut.
"The way I understand it, the head of the math department says I have to complete three years of math courses. That means this, AP Pre-Cal, and AP Calculus. I have to be here to graduate."
She can't argue with that, at least, not without talking to her department head.
"W-would you be my student helper? You wouldn't have to do the homework." I know this takes a lot of guts on her part, but I was never interested in that. I shake my head. She doesn't seem surprised.
"Well, can I call on you to work the example problem every day?" She asks quietly. Dr. Reyes has worked some sort of magic, that's for sure. I shake my head slowly, but raise my hand before she says anything else.
"Once per week, please. I don't really want to be singled out, and I'm already tutoring in maths and foreign languages sixth hour every day. I suggest you try asking Lynn and several someone else's for the other days." She looks startled.
"You're tutoring in lower Algebra and a foreign language? At the same time?" I shake my head.
"All the maths, and Spanish, French and Italian. At the same time." Her eyes glaze over for a few seconds. I’m concerned that she might faint.
"You really mean it, don't you?" I just nod.
"Would you mind keeping them occupied until class ends? Please? I have to go do something." She's being so polite, I have no reason to refuse. The little left of the class goes quickly as I help the ones with difficulty find work-arounds and reminders.
Mrs. Barnes hasn't returned when the bell rings, so I remind them that the homework is due as soon as roll is called the next day, even though I'm sure some are done with it, and the rest are almost done.

When I get to the cafeteria I find that my two students have grown to five, and all the extras are from the class I've just left. Today all I need to do is help the other student; the four from my fifth hour start the hour whispering loudly, and spreading rumors about me through the cafeteria.
After just ten minutes their tales have lost all resemblance to reality, and I don't like the way it's going. So I send my original guy to Theron's table with a little handwritten note that reads:
,iH

!level edarg no daer t'nac I

.smelborp drow htiw elbuort gnivah m'I
When he looks at the note for a single second then gives me a big grin I know I've won my bet with myself; Theron can read reversed script.
I also scatter the other three that don't really need my help to other tables. They'd thought that they would be able to socialize with their friend at my table, and I would let them. Silly them, they were so wrong!
This leaves me with ample time on my hands, which I use to examine what's going on with Dani and Teri and I. But my experience with teen-age girls in a social setting is almost zero, and I have no clue about what’s going on between the two of them.
What I do know is that they both like me, although I have no real understanding why they do, and I like both of them. Dani is tidy and fits against me very well, she’s bold and determined and completely taken with me, and her eyes are incredibly responsive to the medicine man skills I’ve been taught, although I can’t really believe I actually meant to use them with her. If it was a fluke, I'll need to find out how likely it is to happen with anyone else.
On the other hand, Teri delights in the irony of being taller than me, and enjoys just as much as I do her penchant for holding my face close to her taut ripeness, while she’s amused by and at the same time approving of Dani’s actions and demonstrably very much enjoys touching me in any way. The look in her eyes tells me she has mixed feelings relating to but not about me. Somehow she’s concerned that she’s doing something she shouldn’t be by enjoying being close to me.
The two of them are friendly and know each other pretty well. There seems to be some sort of bond between them, but while Teri seems to be competing with Dani for my attention in a relaxed way, Dani seems quite serious and rather possessive of me. I'm more than a little concerned about that.

I'm a little surprised (and then again a little not) that the seat beside Connie has a purse in it when I walk into art. Is it a place-keeper, or a sign she doesn't want me to sit with her? I stop and look around for another seat, and find one at each of the other two tables.
When I look back she's smiling hesitantly at me and moving the purse to the floor beside her chair. Her eyes are hard to capture, but that in itself tells me what I need to know; she likes me and wants me to sit with her, but she's too shy to say it or even show it except in this silent offer.
For the three seconds before I smile back and move to take the seat beside Connie I notice that everyone, even DeeDee, is watching me. Even the other guys.
Which is a weird thing, because Monday I'd been persona-non-grata and yesterday I was just the guy who sketched. The guys had been interspersed with the girls both days, but today they’re all at the far table giving me hard looks, and I'm not sure why.
In fact, today the table where Connie and I are sitting has four other girls where yesterday there had been me and another guy among the girls, and the girls aren't the same ones from the last two days.
But this doesn't really make an impression on me right now: I'm more interested in the way Connie is blushing every time she so much as glances at me. Have I done something to embarrass her? Well, probably. Heck, given how easily and how often she blushes, almost certainly.
"Hi," I say as I sit beside her. "Thank you."
I don’t say a word to her about how I see her today; after the way she reacted yesterday I know she's afraid to socialize, for whatever reason she has, and that isn’t going to change in the short run. So I have to regroup, and change tactics.
Today she's making a new effort at the still life, using a clean sheet of the expensive vellum. But everything she does is awkward; possibly an unconscious reaction to me. She’s struggling with the charcoal pencil, and getting her hand and arm dirty. After ten minutes I can’t bear to watch her struggle with it any more.
When she looks up at the bowl of fruit again, I snatch up her paper and walk away as I wad it up, just to turn and toss it over my shoulder a few feet from the trash can. I don't have to see it to know that it goes right in. As I'd hoped that brings up her fire quickly.
“Hey! What did you do that for?” She jumps up and comes at me fast, to stand a little less than a foot away from me and look very angry. I think she might even swing at me! But at the same time her shirt front is outrageously tented in two strategic spots. Proof of her sensuous and sensitive nature, as well as the life and fight and passion that really is in her. I ignore her display, interesting as I suddenly find it; I don't need her to bolt in embarrassment.
DeeDee starts over from the far side of the room to see what's happening, but I shake my head at her as our eyes meet, and she backs away, slightly startled.
"I paid a dollar for that!"
“Calm down, Connie. Let me help you with this. I promised I would.” She looks up into my eyes, and takes a slow half-step forward, until she's taken me into her space, less than an inch left between my shirt and hers. We're both surprised by this move; her eyes tell me that she doesn't understand why she's done it.
“O-okay, but you just threw m-my paper in the trash, and I d-don't have the m-money for another.” She whispers to me, blushing furiously yet again when she realizes she's come this close.
"Fair enough." I take her hand and, even as she blushes, lead her to the supply cabinet. I pull a fresh piece from the shelf, drop a dollar on DeeDee's desk to pay for it, and walk back to our table. I pull a Wet Wipe out of my bookbag and wipe her smudged arm and palm off with it, while she struggles, and turns deep red.
She snatches her hand back and gives me an unhappy look when I finally let it go. "That w-wasn't nice." She whispers to me.
“Connie, I'm sorry. I took your paper away so we could start over again with a fresh piece.” I sit down with her, and show her the very basics of freehand sketching, such as grip and range of hand and arm motion. I don’t expect it to be easy for her to learn, what with the tight control that working clay requires.
I show her a lot of things, like how to spot tape a sheet of paper to the vellum for putting her hand on so she doesn't smudge her sketches or get her hand dirty. I show her the most comfortable way to hold the charcoal pencil, what to do with her other fingers, how to angle the vellum to her arm for less awkward angles, and how to tilt her head to the paper but not enough to hurt her neck.
Snitching a throw pillow from behind DeeDee's desk, I get Connie to a better height, keeping her elbows from splaying out and tiring her shoulder muscles needlessly.
I position her forward in her chair with half the pillow behind her, and show her that sitting taller makes the sketching easier than hunching over the vellum. Even just touching her hand brings a blush up her neck to her cheeks. Imagine when I pull her elbows in, or her body forward on the pillow, or push her shoulders back toward the line of her hips and back.
I hadn’t thought I’d spend the rest of the class correcting her grip and keeping her shoulders back and loose. But I do. By the end of the hour I’m well aware that she probably has a crush on me. I’m not sure how to take that or what to do about it, never having been the object of a crush before. And she never really loses the surprisingly large points in her shirt. I'm surprised she hasn't noticed them herself. I suppose she's so focused on the sketches, or my hands on her back and neck, to notice.
The other girls at the table, the ones I think are older (and thus seniors) are watching the whole time. So is DeeDee. I expect they've noticed.

Class ends none too soon; Connie's head droops much too easily. Even simply touching her shoulder can send her OTL. She always starts awake when I call her name, and blushes when she realizes she's drifted.
She's gotten some good work done, despite the drifting. Her bowl is great, and her bananas are good. The apples aren't very good, but the pears are so very Reubens’ stylized that I have to smile at her obvious research results.
Connie puts her stuff away, and DeeDee calls me to her desk. She motions me to the side away from the door, and she's just my height sitting in her chair.
"It's great that you want to help your friend, but you really ought to work on your own sketch." She tells me in a low tone, leaning back a bit.
"Mine is finished, and waiting for Friday. Look in my cubby." She nods, and I know she's not surprised.
"Some of the others might like some help, too." I simply shake my head.
"I help Connie because she's the only one who smiled at me when I walked in the door Monday. But I speak clearly enough that everyone can hear me if they want to listen, and they can use my advice if they want."
"I think you're starting to make some of the senior girls jealous." I shrug. (Jealous! Of what?) Connie is standing nervously by the door, not sure if she should wait for me or not. I smile at her.
"I don't see how that's my problem, do you?" The instructor grins and shakes her head. I walk to Connie and the door, take her hand in mine, and we walk out together.
Kelly Brown

3:52pm, Wednesday, August 16th, 1995

Outside the East End of the Senior Hall, Springville High School, Emmons Street, Springville AR

I'm beginning to think that someone or something is warning him to leave before I can get here. This is the third day in a row that he's walking away when I get to the east side of the school. Damn it, I want a look at his face!
Not that the view I have isn't nice, but still. And his Monday walk is back, so hopefully Con is in a good mood, too.

Monday and every day since I’ve found Connie outside the East door of the Senior Hall, which I didn’t expect. At least, not the first time. She’d said she’d meet me inside. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand, and staring after a guy who was walking across the big field behind the school, going toward the Public Library and Municipal Park.
He was far enough away that I couldn’t really tell much about him, except that he had gorgeous shoulder length red-gold hair and a great tan on his toned arms and legs.
And good shoulders.
"Hey, Connie." I called out. She turned and smiled. I was astounded; my cousin never smiles! Sometimes she grins, but this was a real mouth-full-of-teeth smile, which she’s much too self-conscious to do. She hates how big her teeth are, and how wide her mouth is, compared to the rest of her face.
"Hi, Kelly!" She even sounded happy! She quickly turned back and watched the guy walking away. I took another look at each of them. She liked him!
"Who's the guy? He's kinda cute." I watched her watching him walk away. He had the kind of strut that usually means he’s more than likely got a good-sized package in his cut-offs. "Maybe more than kinda, he walks hot."
"That's Babe. We have art together. He does sketches in charcoal and chalks." She showed me a picture, drawn with heavy pencil, or fine charcoal, of a face. At first glance it was a very good drawing. At second glance, it’s Connie all grown up. After that I just stared at it. That guy crossing the street drew this picture?
"Wow," I finally whispered. "He did this? Today?" She looked at me.
"I think so. Maybe. I saw him draw something. What makes you ask?" I stared at her. She didn’t see it? I knew that I’d never seen all of those things at once, but every part of that drawing was a bit of Connie, from her throat to her hair to her eyes to her ears.
"You had to've posed for this." I looked back down at it. He’d captured every beautiful thing about my cousin, all the lovely things I’d ever seen in her, and some I’d never even noticed until then, and put them all together at once. "Unless you've met him before, he had to do it today."
"What? Posed? Why?" She denied the patently obvious, shaking her head. Who was she trying to convince? I had to stare. I knew that she was the same girl in the drawing; deep in my heart I knew.
"Don't you know? This is you." She started to smile, thinking I was joking, I guess. But then her smile crumbled, and I knew she knew, even though she’d been denying it to herself for several minutes.
"No it's not." She told me slowly, almost desperately. I held it up and pointed at it.
"This is the thing grandpa means when he says you have a wonderful smile. And why grandma tries to get you to wear your hair up to church, and why she bought you those contacts." She looked closely and I knew she saw what I meant, but after a few seconds she shook her head. I knew she felt she had to deny it just one more time.
"I guess I can see that she looks a little like me. But she's so …"
"Look, here's the clincher." I pointed to a little half-moon mark I’d only just noticed, peeking from under the girl’s jawline. "That's your beauty mark." I knew she hadn’t even seen that until I pointed it out.
"P-pretty?" It was a whisper.
"No, not pretty, Connie. This is past pretty." I looked at the picture again. "I never noticed how long your neck is. You don't wear your hair up, so I couldn't. I like it up. What did he say to get you to pin it up like this?"
"I … I didn't … pose. Not really. My hair wasn't up." She shook her head slowly, still denying the truth.
"Well, it had to be for him to see your beauty mark. And he drew these muscles in your throat that only show when you smile or laugh." I looked at her, daring her to deny it.
"He said funny things. Babe's easy to smile for … at … both, really." She took the picture from my hand and stared at it. She was turning red. Eventually she turned it away so she wasn’t looking at the drawing.
"Did he smile back?" I asked to keep her interest up, to keep her talking.
"Oh, yeah!" She blushed suddenly, obviously remembering something. "I mean, um, yeah, he did. He was interested in my sculpture and pottery. I could tell. And he looked me in the eye when he talked to me. Did I mention his eyes? They're a wonderful deep green. And big."
"Well, Con, he likes you. And you seem to like him a little too." I giggled without meaning to, but its okay, because she knew I wasn’t making fun of her.
"How do you know?" She asked.
"Because of the way you look when you talk about him." She stared at me. "Oh, you mean about him liking you. Easy; he drew you the way he sees you, and it's really you, even though he's never seen you this way. He drew you as a sensual, provocative person, though you hide that part of yourself away." She stared some more, and slowly turned a funny color, like she was about to be sick.
"But how could he do that? He doesn't even know me. I met him just an hour ago. It takes longer than that to know someone as well as this." She held the drawing out to me. I took it, and looked at it again. I could feel myself smiling hugely.
"Come on, Connie, you told me yourself that you can't create something you don't feel. You never said you had to feel it for a week before you could sculpt it. Isn't creation a right now, in the eternal present kind of experience?"
"For me, and doing what I do with clay, yeah, it is. But this, this is a scary kind of thing. How could he know me this way in under an hour?" I smiled triumphantly even as I realized that she’d been confirming and reconfirming that the girl in the picture was the way she secretly saw herself. I could see her color come back in a rush, darkening until I realized that she was blushing.
"Maybe he's sensitive enough to the emotions people hide, even from themselves, that he can see them and bring them out in his drawings. Did you think about that? What if he really sees you this way? What if he can look inside of you and see what you feel about yourself? He couldn't possibly have drawn this if he didn't see you this way."
Connie was quiet, not saying a word to anyone, as we walked to the bus, and after the ride, all the way home. I hoped he was as nice as she thought; I’d kill him if he hurt her.

Tuesday afternoon he's already gone, again, and she's in an absolute funk when I meet her after school. But I learned a few things about her that I never suspected. She's crushing on him after knowing him less than two hours, and she's got it bad. And, apparently, she's not been as sheltered as I thought!

"Damn, I keep missing him!" I say out loud. Connie turns toward me. Whooaa! My cousin is sporting some serious dresser knobs in her shirt. As far as I know that only happens when she's so pissed off she isn't scared anymore, which I've only seen twice. Oh jeez, what's happened now?
Wait, her face isn't red and she's smiling. She's not angry. How? I want to just come right out and ask her bluntly. But I know better; she'd just cry and clam up on me.
"How ... how did things go?" I'm glad Gram doesn't buy her cheap shirts; if this one was any thinner everyone would know about those lumps. As it is, her purse-strap is emphasizing it (behind her books) enough that someone besides me could notice at any second.
That's when the bus comes, so I wait. But as soon as we're setting in the seat, I ask again.
“Tell me everything." I hiss in her ear. "Please?” I'm almost begging, but I don't mind; this is too important.
“Well, we were working on the still lifes again, right? Anyway, he showed me how to hold the charcoal pencil so I had good control without making my fingers numb. And he helped me keep my shoulders back so I wouldn’t become tense and tired while drawing.”
“Details, girl. Give me details.” She takes my hand in hers, and turns it as she explains. “Well, he placed my fingers just so on the pencil, and curled the pinky just so, and turned my hand until the point of the pencil kept my hand from touching the paper and smearing things. He showed me how to use a cover paper to keep from smearing things if I really had to work near something that was already done. He showed me how to keep my hands flexible while working on a sketch.”
“Go on, go on.” She's turned pink by now, just thinking about it.
“Babe showed me about certain postures which keep an artist from getting tired and shortening their range of motion. And he demonstrated where the really important muscles are in the neck and back of the head that have to be kept warm and relaxed.” I know she knew that part from working on the pottery wheel. So ... that means she'd purposely slouched to get him to spend more time with her! Way to go, cuz!
“So, he held your hand, moved your arms, touched your shoulders, and rubbed your back and neck?” She looks a little embarrassed when I put it that way. Yeah, she'd been sneaky just to get under his hands again.
“Um..., yeah, basically.” My cousin closes her eyes and shivers. I wonder what it is about this guy that remembering his touch can get that kind of reaction, even out of her.
“Was it good?” I ask when she opens her eyes. She nods sheepishly, and I grin at her.
“Yeah.”
“How good?” I ask. She grins back.
“Really, really good!”
“Just so you know, I already knew it was good.” She looks surprised, which is funny, and I giggle at her
“How did you know?” How did I ... Who wouldn't know?
“When I walked up, and he was walking away, you were showing. You still are.”
“Showing what?” I point at her pigeon chest. When she looks, she sees her nipples are still hard, maybe harder than ever, and sticking out under her shirt.
“Ohmygod.” She covers her chest with her binder. "I've got to get a training bra. Like, tonight!"
“Yeah, probably a good idea. It’s not good if you let them know how much they turn you on. Well, usually.”
“Do you th-think he … saw?” I can see in her eyes that she's not sure if she wants me to say yes or no.
“He has eyes, doesn’t he?”
Andrew Snelson

12:21 pm, Wednesday, August 16th, 1995

East Side Door, SouthSide Junior High School, Princely Avenue, Springville, AR

On the ride over I ask Theron and Jon if they want to stay over Friday night and roleplay until dawn. I'm joking, mostly, but one says he'll have to think about changing his diurnal cycle, and the other isn't sure if he'll be able to sleep if he isn't in his own bed. What the hell!?
I guess my face shows I'm upset, because they both laugh and tell me they'll ask. They were goofing me, and after yesterday I should have been expecting it!
Walking up to the lobby door I see Baldy leave his office, so I move to that side to stay between him and Babe. Just as I thought he'd do, he's standing near the lobby entrance to the attendance office watching us. His face is blank but his eyes are mean.
Across the lobby is Reyes. I give her a little nod. We three walk across the lobby in a row, turn into the hallway, and as we make our way to the room with the a la carte lunch I drop back behind and between the guys.
We pass the door to the school library, and there's a nice looking lady standing there in the open door. She smiles at us, and I wonder why until Theron waves.
"Hi mom." He says. Mom?
We walk on, and when we get into the small dining area where the a la carte stuff is, I just have to ask.
"Your mom is here?" He nods.
"She works in the Library." His mom works here, and he's joined a subversive group out to discredit an assistant principal in particular and the propaganda system in general?! Oh hell, what have I got myself into?
And just as I was finally getting Dad's approval. Things were finally looking up, and now I find out the one that I really think can deliver the goods turns out to be a Teacher's Kid.

Dad wasn’t home when I got there tuesday. Mom said he’d gone to town to do some shopping. I know my dad, and he hates shopping; he’s a catalog or sale-paper shopper, and he gets catalogs from all over, three hundred or more every year. When he wants something he gets on the phone, checks the price with tax, with delivery, with whatever, then calls the other places in the county likely to have the same thing or something similar to what he wants, and compares. He’ll spend all day getting the best price for what he wants, go get it, and come straight home.
So if he’d ‘gone shopping’ he was looking for something special, but he didn’t have a picture to look at. And some poor sales people somewhere had been earning their pay today! I wondered what it was.
I went to my room and started in on my homework. I’d just finished the stuff for the SouthSide classes when mom came in and asked me if I’d like a snack. She hadn’t done that for over a year. When I looked at her I could tell she was proud of me, and wanting to encourage me to keep going. I grinned.
“Mom, I’m having more fun doing this than I’ve ever had before at school.” I got a big hug and a kiss on the forehead for that. She asked me again about the snack, and I asked her for the sandwich and chocolate milk Babe had requested of the cafeteria worker. She looked at me funny for a second, then nodded.
Twenty minutes later she came back with my snack, minus a bit at the corner. I looked at it, and then at her, and she shrugged.
“I had to try it. It’s really good, the toasting brings out the flavor of the peanut butter.” Score one for the kid, he knows his PB&J. She sat down on my bed, and for no good reason except that she was there and listening, I started talking. I told her about what had gone on that day, and filled in the stuff I’d left out about Monday.
I told her about the counselor not being a counselor, about how I really saw the gorgeous girl, about Babe, about him and the girls and how I was sure I’d caused that, and about being jealous when they liked him and even flirted with him, about how all three of us guys were tutoring in lots of stuff in study hall, about Babe and the assistant principal and going to the not-counselor for help just that morning, about getting between them before the little guy got hurt (and I didn't fudge about moving as fast as I could at the end).
I told her about how the three of us confused an upper-classman with facts to end a confrontation, about going to the counselor later to thank her, about how she took my statement about what had happened with the assistant principal, and about how she told me there was stuff going on at the high school that was very not-good.
She was staring at me when I finished.
"What?!" I ask. She shakes her head a little.
"I know you aren't lying, I can tell when you are. But I'm having a hard time accepting that the assistant principal would do that."
"I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard. And I did what I knew was right, mom." She nodded seriously.
"That's all you can do at a time like that." Then she grinned at me. "It's still a little hard to believe: you went to the counselor for help, and thanked her later, and in between times you used words and knowledge to derail a confrontation? Where’s my son?!” She laughed and hugged me again. “I’m so proud of you, sweetie!”
"Proud of me?!" I asked, confused.
"You're growing up! You made good adult decisions in tough adult situations. Your dad may grumble about you moving that fast in public, but you watch his eyes; he'll be proud of you, too."
"I hope so!" I tell her fervently. She looks a question at me.
"Mom, could I invite a couple guys to sleep over Friday night?" She looks at me in surprise.
"You want to have someone over?" I nod.
"The other two boys in the program, I'm guessing?" I grin. My mom is a smart cookie.
"I'm good with that, but we need to ask your dad. I suppose you want me to add my support to this request? You know he'll want to know how you're doing with your schoolwork?"
So I show her what I've been doing, how yesterday I'd done two days assignments from the high school and all week at the junior high, and today I was doing the rest of this week in all the subjects from the high school and another weeks worth from the junior high. She was suitably impressed, and I got another kiss.
"Ask him tonight, I'm sure he'll come around before Friday, sweetie. Go ahead and ask your friends."

I was feeling so good about that, I zipped through all of the week's lessons in the courses I tutor in time to be in the living room watching some TV when dad got home.
"Hi dad," I call out.
When he sees me he stops and stares for a few seconds, then walks slowly across the room and into the kitchen. Something in the way he walks across the room tells me he's not happy about something; in fact, I'd say he's furious.
A few minutes later he comes back in and crosses the room again, right to the front door.
"Come help me unload the truck and the trailer." This time he's just dad, all his anger gone. I shut off the TV and follow him out to the truck.
I direct as he backs the trailer up to the carport, and then we unload a pallet of two-by-twelves, a half pallet of two-by-fours, a couple of pallets of concrete mix, and two dozen six-by-six fifteen foot posts. From the truck bed we unload a pallet of inch thick plyboard cut 18 by 48 inches. I'm pretty sure I know what this is about.
"Laying a foundation?" I ask carefully as we straighten the last plyboard sections on the stack.
"For a new machine shop." He says. "The sand comes tomorrow, and the backhoe and operator start clearing first thing in the morning." He'd been planning this for a couple of months now, drawing things up, moving tool stations, looking for maximum effective usage of space. It explains why he went 'shopping' all day. He'll have inspected every piece of lumber and bag of mix himself.
Mom called us in for dinner just a few minutes later. Partway through dinner she prompted me to start telling dad the stuff I'd told her earlier. He listened like he always did, quietly, his head down over his plate, glancing up at the parts that interested him, 'hm'ing at the others to show he heard me.
I went to my room and came back to the table with all my subject folders so I could show him that I really had already completed all the work in over seven subjects for the three following days, and four others for this week and the next.
Everything was good until I got to the part about the Babe and Baldy. He held up his hand to stop me as he finished chewing, swallowed and wiped his mouth. His eyes were unhappy, but he kept his voice even.
"Andrew, you promised me you wouldn't run in public." There was an unspoken 'what were you thinking?' right there, as usual, so I simply told him what I knew.
"Sir, there were six other people in that room. Five of them were looking at the sixth, and that one was looking at the counselor. I ran six feet. By the time anyone could have looked at me, I'd stopped moving. But I never thought about it, and I didn’t plan it; I was concerned that my friend was going to get hurt, and I was the only one who could possibly keep it from happening."
I learned early on not to lie to dad; I lose all privileges on that one, and for a very long time. So I always tell him the absolute truth, and I've done it for years.
And because they compare notes, I never lie to mom, either.
Dad doesn't like me to ascribe reasons to the actions of school officials, so I don't do that either. But the things I heard and faithfully reported Reyes saying to him have exactly one simple interpretation, and I leave that to him to decide for himself.
Okay, if I've made a mistake and I admit it, dad can handle that, and if I've done something I’m forbidden to do, knowing and accepting the consequences, then I get punished and it’s over. And if, seldom as it happens, I do something that's pure reaction to a situation, we wind up going in circles about whether it was too risky with no good answer. This is shaping up to be one of those times. Then mom speaks up, and she hardly ever gets directly involved in this kind of thing.
"There's more to hear, more facts that make this a side issue at best. I personally don't consider it an issue at all." Her voice is quiet and calm, pulling both of us back from the dogfight we're both getting ready for. Dad looks at mom, then at me, and I nod.
He takes a drink from his water glass, sits back in his chair, clears his throat, and nods for me to go on. So I do.
By the time I finish telling about confusing the brui(lo)ser at the lobby bench his eyes are twinkling, and his face is creased in a grin. He even laughs a little at our two second performance as a singing trio.
"I'd like to meet these new friends of yours. They sound interesting." Dad likes anyone who likes the Coyote and Bugs. It's from his years in the Navy. And I know, even without mom's nod, that this is the time.
"I was hoping, sir, that I could invite them to stay over Friday night." Simple, straightforward, and to-the-point, just the way dad likes it.

Breakfast today was a replay of yesterday, with all of it's different things, even the coffee, even dad driving me to school. It’s like yesterday evening hadn’t happened. He was a little quieter, maybe, but with dad that’s a close thing. Just as I was about to get out of the truck he spoke up.
"Son, you did the right thing yesterday, all down the line. I shouldn't have grumped at you, and I'm sorry. Please, just don't ... run ... any time you don't have to?"
That kind of admission came hard to him. I looked him in the eye.
"I'm hoping I don't have to any time soon, dad." I opened the truck door, and turned to get out. I felt his hand on my arm.
"Go ahead and invite your friends for Friday." He told me in a quiet voice. I turned back and found him smiling, so I grinned back.
"Thank you, and thanks for the ride, too." He nodded, and I got out of the truck, shut the door, and went up the walk to the school doors.
You have to understand that my dad isn't demonstrative to us kids, feeling-wise. He doesn't often tell us things, either. I'm not sure about with mom, but he isn't in front of us kids. He's a do-er, not a show-er.
So him talking so much this morning, telling me I'd done right, apologizing for giving me a hard time about it, using 'please' and asking me not to show off, actually touching me and smiling, this is all really ... I don't even know how to say how big this is.
My teachers at Southside aren’t used to the split schedule yet, but it doesn’t really matter; I’m already done with the second week’s exercises, and ready to begin the third week’s tonight.
Unfortunately, the few friends I’d made last year had pretty much stopped talking to me today. I guessed they didn’t like the new me, or maybe they’d found out I was the cause of the change in the way the teacher’s taught. Oh, well, they hadn’t been that good of friends anyway.
Dani Boatman

1:14 pm. Wednesday, August 16th, 1995

Sophomore English, English Wing, Springville High School, Emmons St., Springville, AR
Today I'm ready for Teri, casually standing a few seconds before the bell rings at the end of English class, and I'm out the door right in front of her.
"Hey!" She gripes at me as I delay her on her dash for the stairs.
"The guy doesn't belong to you, sis. And we all wanta find out what's going down. Be cool, okay?" She does get a grip, and we all hurry out to the lobby without quite seeming to be in a hurry. I'm more than just a little happy that things have turned around (for me especially!) since Monday morning.

Following Teri and her friends along the hall, I barely pay any attention to what they’re saying. I’m so down. They swore to me that there would be tons of cute guys in high school, and some of them would go for short little girls like me. So far, no good. Not a single look all day.
Oh well, it isn’t like I’m not used to it. I’m the shortest girl here, just like in junior high. At seventy-five pounds and six inches less than five feet, I’m the size of some of elementary school girls. I don’t have boobs or butt to look at, so of course the guys don’t look, at them or at me.
We go down the steps from the English wing, along the hall next to the attendance office, and around the corner into the lobby. And that’s where I run into Julie because I’m not looking where I’m going, and she stops suddenly. Around her shoulder I see my sister stumble back a little, and then she steps back toward the wall.
Lynn is tall enough that I can see her face over my cousin’s shoulder. You would think that something terrible had happened, like she’d just stepped on something alive.
“Oh, wow.” Teri says right out loud. There’s something in her voice that wakes me up and gets my interest going; it’s her ‘cute guy’ voice. I look between her and Julie, and see him.
He has gold-streaked strawberry-blonde hair curling down to his wide shoulders, visible muscle lines in his arms and neck, little silver glasses, and an upturned nose. I’m almost behind him, so that’s all I can see. But it’s enough; my day is suddenly looking up. Way, way up! The one thing I can tell from my point of view, and I guess the others can’t see, is that he is almost as short as I am.
He looks up at Lynn as he lifts a tall but neat stack of books and notebooks and pens and stuff, one-handed, and she slowly takes them. Lynn always gets most of the boy attention, followed by Teri and Julie. Me, I get nothing.
“Thanks …” She says faintly, staring at him. His arms and legs and hands and feet are all deep bronze, and there’s a brown leather book bag hanging at his back from a wide matching strap. It has symbols and just a little dark green beadwork on it.
“You’re very welcome.” From behind him I can feel shock waves from his voice on my face, on the back of my neck and in my feet, running up my legs. I’ve never heard a voice that deep that wasn’t coming from some really big man. Lynn’s eyes are slightly crossed, and glancing up, I see that Teri’s are almost glazed over. So, I’m not the only one who feels it.
He stands effortlessly, and at the same time scoops up a cup of kool-aid that’s sitting right behind him, almost leaning against his bag, without even looking around or feeling for it. Oh, the look in Lynn’s eyes when she realizes he’s at least a head shorter than her is so good! She has a definite thing for tall boys, and this time I can see it being a problem for her.
“How-how …” She stops, swallows, and begins again. “How did you do that?” I really don’t think that’s what she started to say.
“I left my higher cerebral functions out of the loop, and connected my hands directly to my eyes through the motor controls in the medulla oblongata.” She stares at him, seriously confused. I know she’s smart enough to be carrying a 3.8 GPA, but something about him has her and Teri (and me too a little bit, for that matter) so focused on him that they don’t really get what he’s said.
“Huh?” someone says behind Lynn, one of the girls I don’t know very well. I think she’s just a hanger-on, following the popular girls around, tolerated but not quite accepted. Her face is a complete blank. He turns to answer her, and I get a good look at his face.
Oh god, I think I’m in lust. On top of all the good things I’ve already noticed, there’s a blonde shock of hair braided to hang down in his face, not quite covering one of his smiling deep green eyes behind his glasses. His smile is so wide and white and friendly that I have trouble looking past it to his strong chin and gorgeous cheekbones. I just want those wide strong hands to touch me, those luscious pink lips to kiss me, those muscled arms to hold me.
“Thinking slows things down, so I didn’t think about it, I just did it.” The look on his face says he can tell that most of the group isn’t tracking well, and I know that I’m one of those who are affected the most. He turns back to Lynn.
“I’m Lynn. Thanks for helping me out with this stuff.” Nodding, he speaks again.
“My name is Jon, but my friends call me Babe.” I find myself nodding along with a handful of the others. It makes perfect sense to me; what else would his nickname be? I can hear him in my mind, his deep whisper in my ear, saying my name as he runs his lips and tongue over my ear and neck.
I’m feeling warm and a little sweaty as my sister slowly pulls me toward the lobby doors and out into the August heat. The rest of the group is walking with us, minus two. Goose bumps run up my arms as I think his name. I stumble after them, across the porch-thingy and down the steps into the sun. And we all stop together and turn to wait for them.
Them is Lynn and Babe, and they’re following quickly, catching up. My mind is clearing some, and so is hers; I can see it in her expression. Oh my god. He’s carrying her books. They’re balanced on his hand, and he walks as if they’re nothing.
“Why?” She asks suddenly, stopping and turning to face him just as they catch up to the rest of us.
“Why what?” He asks quietly. She pulls her stuff away from her chest a bit, and then hugs them tight again.
“Why do it? You show up out of nowhere, and do that … that … do a thing I still think is impossible, just to help me? Why?” He slowly looks up at her, and smiles. If he looked at me, smiled at me, like he’s looking and smiling at her, I’d be all over him.
“I could tell you several reasons, all true. You might even believe one of them.” Oh god, I’d believe anything he told me if he’d just smile at me like that.
“Tell me one.” We’ve basically surrounded the two of them, so everyone can see and hear what they say.
“Okay. I was bored, and I wanted to meet someone nice. I looked around, and saw you having trouble. That kind of stuff almost never happens to someone who isn’t nice. So I helped.” Please God, why can’t he be looking at me?
“So you do impossible things to meet and/or help nice people?” His shoulders lift and drop slightly.
“It breaks the ice. And it wasn’t impossible, just very … unlikely.” He emphasizes the last word, and while I don’t know what he did or how he wound up holding Lynn’s books and kneeling in front of her, I know that he wasn’t surprised in the least.
“Tell me another.” I can see in her eyes that he’s smiling at her again.
“Okay. I’m a superhero in training, and I can’t resist a challenge. A race with gravity is a pretty good challenge, I think.” Lynn grins and I can tell she doesn’t believe it, even though he’s said all his reasons are true. I … believe him. I still don’t know what he’s done that she thinks is impossible, but even though he sounds like he’s telling a joke, I know he means for it to sound that way, and I believe him in spite of that.
“Tell me one more.” He nods slowly.
“Okay. Forgive my chess analogy. This is the very first opening gambit in a campaign hatched just this morning between me and two others to keep the school administrators in general, and Mr. Frank Jennings vice principal in particular, in check and unable to work effectively when they notice what we are doing as we undo as much as we can of the mental conditioning that every student here has received in public school.
“We’re going to be making as many friends as we can, and doing everything possible to create a positive public image for ourselves, so that when we actually start sabotaging their brainwashing scheme, no one who notices us or what we’re doing will be willing to give us up to the administrators’ so-called authority.
“By the time we’ve done our time here and move on to college, we hope to have broken their brainwashing machine, set free a generation of completely free-thinking teenagers, and caused all the administrators’ hair to have turned gray, been yanked or fallen out entirely.” Everyone stands still, blocking the sidewalk leading to the math wing. We’re all staring at him, waiting. That can’t be all of it. Everything else has been kinda funny, just a little cute. This is so over the top, and yet he sounds completely serious. He goes on after a few seconds of silence, as if it’s a real thing and he’s seriously trying to make us believe in it.
“We call what I just did ‘Random Acts of Kindness and Compassion.’ We’re an underground resistance group, fighting the oppression of the students by the administrators.” I’m completely in awe of that statement. Either this is the best thought-out joke/line I’ve ever heard, or this is exactly what he says it is. Deep in my heart, I want it all to be true; I want him to be kind enough to help someone just because they’re nice, I want him to be a super-hero in training, and I want him to be fighting the school system to free us from their thought programming!
“A teenage freedom fighter, fighting for teenage freedom? That’s sooooo cool! I luv it!” Teri exclaims, and grins real big as he turns toward her, and looks her in the eye. Most of the girls around us giggle or laugh, like it’s a big joke that they just got, but he doesn’t laugh, and neither do I. My sister takes a step forward, her arms reaching toward him, but he must not see her, because he turns away as she does it.
She stops for a second, and looks confused, until her hands drift close to his shoulder, and then she steps closer to him, wraps an arm around his waist, bumps his hip up onto hers, and twirls around with him. And he still doesn’t drop Lynn’s books!
She only goes around once, setting him down quickly, but the look on her face is close to that look she gets when she talks about a boy she’s crushing on. She’s blushing hotly, and grinning, and I know she likes him, likes the way he feels.
“Go Babe! I’m Teri, and I’ve got yer back. See ya later, cutie.” She reaches out and runs her fingers through his hair, and over his ear, turning quickly to run down the walk and across the street, turning once to look back and wave. There’s more than a little extra bounce in her stride that I haven’t seen before. Now I just have to touch him.
“That’s one.” He whispers, grinning as he touches his waist where Teri’s hand had just been with his fingertips. Almost instantly he has everyone else agreeing to keep his secret, and they’re all trying to touch him, trying to make a big impression, so he’ll remember them. That’s what I want to do, too.
Pulling out all the stops, I push my way close, stand on my tiptoes in front of him, and use my Scarlet O’Hara voice.
“Oh, Babe, save me from the cruel oppression!” I spin half around and collapse towards him. He catches me neatly in his arms, and I look up into his down-turned face with a smile. He gently shifts me to one side, his arm strong but gentle across my back and around my waist.
“Upon my honor, fair maid, that very thing swear I to do!” Oh god, I think I’m falling into his deep green eyes. I can still feel my back arching tautly, presenting my barely there cotton covered boobies and uncovered belly to him as he holds me, but I can feel the coolness of the deep green shadowed water in the pools that are his eyes, as it envelopes my body. But at the same time there’s something, some deeply hidden passion that starts me getting hot.
The chill causes my nibs to perk, and the heat starts me to breathing heavily. I can’t take my eye away, can’t really move, until he looks up. I wrap my arms around his neck for a minute, to steady my nerves. I don’t know exactly what happened between us, but I know I want more of it, and whatever comes after, too.
“Whatever it is you’re going to do, you can count on me, Babe.” I tell him quietly, as he lifts me right off the ground, with just the arm around my waist, and sets me softly on my feet. I don’t think he even thinks twice about picking me up like that.
The bell rings, and the others begin hurrying away to their classes, and I follow some of them across the street, looking back at him watch me (or us, I suppose) until I can’t see him anymore around the corner of the building.
(This narrative is unfinished)
(This chapter is unfinished. There will be one more scene, introducing a new character named Clay Carrier.) Keep checking back!
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Youth of Tomorrow, Shaping the Future