Red - Part One, Chapter One

New year, new teachers, new students. What could possibly go wrong?

You Do Not Talk About Fight Club

 

            Lee stood outside of the school gates and admired for possibly the millionth time their beauty, grandeur, splendor, and sheer size. He could honestly say that he didn’t think he had seen so much iron welded together in one place, or at the very least, in such a magnificent manner. For as long as he had gone to Deighton Academy, the great iron gates that separated the school from the tiny Pennsylvania town of Deighton would never cease to fascinate him. Neither would the gargoyles atop many of the school scaffolds or the impending rumor that the Hunchback had left Paris in favor of their own bell towers, but this was a different matter entirely.

            “Wishing there would come a day when all men are created equal?” said a voice behind him.

            “When this day comes, my friend, the world should surely be in chaos.” Lee responded, not moving his gaze from the great iron gates. The red head next to him laughed.

            “Every year, I find you staring at these gates like they were the most beautiful woman in the world and all you want to do is figure her out.” 

            “Because to me, they are.” Lee mused quietly.

            “Dude, we really need to get you a lady to replace your Iron Maiden.”

            “What do you have against Iron Maiden?” Lee asked, facing the other boy.

            “Nothing. Iron Maiden is awesome. But nothing is comparable to the real thing.”

Lee looked at him through narrowed eyes. He had known Peter since fourth grade, but often failed to understand what was, in Lee’s view, a rather warped sense of logic. 

            “Good luck with that.” Lee said morosely, shifting his bag from his right to his left hand and passing through the great gates. Peter followed him.

            “Looking forward to this year?”

            “Eh. It’s our last year. What else is there to say?”

            “One last chance for romance before college, my friend.” Peter laughed.

Lee glared at him.

            “You say that every year and every year, you manage to not find any romance at all.”

            “This year will be different. I just know it. There is something in the air. Something…”

            “‘That whispers of true love’? You say that every year too.” Lee ran a hand though his own red hair, resting it on top of his head.

            “I’ll tell you this then: I heard a rumor that there are going to be girls here this year.”

Lee looked at him through the gap in his arm from where it rested on his head and let his arm drop to his side.

            “A rumor, eh? And just how much truth is there to this rumor of yours?”

Peter was only half listening to him, but managed to give a satisfactory answer.

            “Feast your eyes my friend, on the beauty of the human race and the generosity of the faculty.”

            “Are you….okay….?” Lee trailed off. Indeed, there in front of them trailing out of the administration building were, unmistakably, females. Both boys’ jaws dropped slightly. It was not that they hadn’t seen girls, there was just so many of them, and at what was a boys-only academy until now.

            “God bless the board.” said another boy joining Lee and Peter. He had spiked blond hair, slight build, broad shoulders, and bright green eyes.

            “I second that, Nick.” said Peter. Lee shook his head dismissively. They were just girls. There was nothing really that special about them. On the other hand, Deighton Academy had been all boys until now and the most action the guys ever got was, presumably, at the winter banquet when the school invited the girls from Wiedler Preparatory School to visit the campus. He himself had never gotten so much as a glance from a girl, unless you counted his sister, but she wasn’t a girl, she was a sister. He sighed deeply.

            “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t intend to skip morning classes to stare at the opposite gender.”

            “Still stuck on Iron Maiden, eh?” Nick laughed.

            “Shut up, jerk. I’m going to lecture. See you guys there.”        

There was no response from either Nick or Peter. Lee sighed and made his way down the tree-lined path towards the lecture hall. The trees had begun to turn a kaleidoscope of colors, telltale signs that fall was almost here. Fall on the East Coast was one of the plusses of coming here – it was one of his favorite times of the year. He heard running behind him, and turned to see a pretty girl with short red hair that brushed her shoulders in a khaki skirt, white collared shirt, and an orange jacket with white lining along the bottom and down the front, and a black handkerchief tie coming towards him. She stopped, slightly out of breath and smiled at him weakly.

            “Do you know where the lecture hall is, by any chance?”

            “I’m heading there now, actually. You can come with me.”

            “Really? Cool. I’d appreciate that.” she panted, straightening herself upright. 

            “No problem.” Lee laughed as they resumed their walk down the path. He looked sideways at her as they walked. She had very pretty red hair, orange with slight hints of blond and mesmerizing blue eyes and…. Lee looked down at her chest.

            “…Don’t you think?” she asked. Lee didn’t register that she was talking to him for a good minute or so and when he did answer…

            “Oh…My…”

            “Huh?” she asked, and then she saw where he was staring and rolled her eyes. She took him by the shoulders and shook him.

            “Hi!” she exclaimed when he finally looked at her. “My face is up here. The twins aren’t that interesting.”

Lee gawked at her for a moment. Any decent person would have poned him with their book bag or something and then run away crying. She was above that, apparently.

            “Uh, yes. I’m sorry, I just…” He shook his head and smiled at her. “Could you repeat the question?”

            “I asked if you thought it was a good idea for the board to make the campus co-ed,” she said, releasing him and continuing their walk.

            “Yeah, it was a good idea. The school needed to make a change.”

            “I think so too. It will be good to enhance the school’s credibility.”

            “Definitely. We could use it, especially since we are up for review this year.”

            “Review?” the girl asked.

            “Review is when a bunch of old guys from the town and from the Ivy League come and visit for a week and see if the school is meeting all of its standards as an academy and then they give us butt-loads of money to keep the school running for another five years or so.”

            “Ah, I see.” she laughed. They made the rest of the way down to the hall in silence. Lee stole glances at her as they walked along. She was cute and she was cool with his stupidity…as far as he knew. He promised himself that he would never look at another girl’s chest, since most girls probably were not cool with guys checking out their…land. As they reached the lecture hall, she broke off and went down the lower hallway while he took the stair case up.

            “Um…miss?” he called after her. She turned halfway to the stairs and smiled at him.

            “I’m really sorry about looking at your…twins…” he swallowed. She laughed.

            “It’s Hara. You’re forgiven…” She paused.

            “Oh! Uh, Lee. I’m Lee.” he sputtered.

            “Well, thank you…Lee.” She went down the stairs and disappeared. Lee sank down onto the stairs and smiled idiotically. He hadn’t had that much luck with a girl since…well, ever. The bell rang, interrupting his thoughts and he turned and raced up the stairs.

 

            Hara sunk into a seat as close to the front as possible, then changed her mind and moved back a few rows. She didn’t want to stand out too much on the first day. She’d already run into plenty of perverted guys, especially the one who had walked her to the lecture hall. You would think they had never seen a girl before in their entire lives. Then again, the boy who walked her over had apologized to her, even if she wanted to whack him over the head with her book bag. He had been nice to her and their conversation was not composed of her yelling ‘Pervert’ and running away. She smiled quietly to herself. Hopefully things would be different now that she was here. Suddenly, Hara felt a poke in her side. She jumped a good foot and looked to find the culprit next to her, grinning.

            “Jane, you need to be careful. I could have hurt myself.”

Jane brushed her bangs out of her eyes and tossed her long black hair over her shoulder.

            “Just saying ‘hello.’ Besides, you looked preoccupied.”

            “Eh, nothing to be worried about.”       

            “More perverts?” she asked, sliding into the seat next to Hara.

            “No, not a pervert. A Lee.”

            “A Lee? What’s a Lee?”

            “I think he might just be a decent male.”

Jane mocked falling out of her chair.

            “A righteous male? You’re shitting me.”

            “No, I’m not. Caught him looking at me and he apologized for it.”

            “Now you are shitting me.”

            “I wish I was.”

            “I must meet this ‘Lee’ and see if he is a suitable male.”

            “Oh please.”

            “Hey, you need a guy and he sounds like he’d be the perfect one for a test run.”

            “Test run? What do you mean?”

Jane winked at her knowingly and faced forward as the professor came into the room. He looked like he was about twenty-five, wearing a side buttoning high collared black tunic and pants. He set his bag down on the podium at the front of the room and leaned back on the front edge of the table standing next to the podium.

            “Good morning class and welcome to Philosophic Literature. I would first like to extend a welcome to all of the ladies in the room, as well as a welcome back to the gentlemen. My name is Mr. Meda and I will be teaching this class in place of Dr. Meric who is on sabbatical this year. I sincerely hope that we can make this class as fun as possible so that you will have encouragement every morning to get up and come. If you will please sign the seating chart as it comes around, I would be most grateful.”

He turned to the board and wrote: ‘What is Philosophy?’

            “Okay, who can tell me what philosophy is?”

No one moved. The class continued to stare at him blankly. Hara raised her hand.

            “Yes, Miss…”

            “Krausgrill. Philosophy is pointless.”

The class laughed. Mr. Meda smiled at her and folded his arms across his chest.

            “Indeed. Then if it is pointless, why are we studying it?”

            “We’re not. You’re teaching it to us. By teaching it to us, you are hoping that we absorb at least some of the information, which entails learning the subject.”

            “Let me rephrase: Why am I bothering to teach you something pointless?”

            “Besides that it is required by the school, you hope to instill in out young minds some system of values, if you will, that will be important for us to use in our later academic years as we go off to college. By giving us the tools to form the aforementioned system, you hope to give us a starting platform on which to base our opinions and the logic to be able to defend our platform.”

Mr. Meda stared at her for a moment and then smiled.

            “Why would it be important for you to have a platform of beliefs?”

            “Without a platform for our beliefs we have no way to share and defend them. We share and defend our beliefs because we want to be able to influence change and encourage growth in the world around us. We need change and growth to help run our country and find solutions to global problems.” she smiled.

Mr. Meda chuckled as he turned back to the board and began writing again, this time he wrote the word ‘Literacy.’

            “When I say the word ‘literacy,’ what does that mean to you?”

Another hand rose slowly into the air.

            “Yes, Miss….”

            “Claire. Literacy refers to the ability to read and understand language. Without literacy, people are unable to comprehend beliefs and values in the world around them and are unable to accurately relay them to others.”

            “Very good, Miss Claire. Now, who can summarize Miss Krausgrill and Miss Claire’s statements?”

A boy in the back of the hall raised his hand.

            “Yes, Mister…”

            “Sloane. We need philosophy and literacy to help shape and defend our beliefs. It is no use trying to communicate something we know nothing about.”

            “Excellent. Now, can anyone tell me how this could relate to Orwell’s 1984?”

 

            Marla was bored. There was simply no other explanation for her current state of wellness. She swapped chin rests from her left to her right hand and began curling a strand of her unruly brown-black hair on her finger while staring decidedly at the back of the head of the person in front of her. Student announcement periods had to be the biggest waste of time ever conceived. 

“In other, more interesting areas of the world, there will be a….”

Marla let out a long sigh. Nothing the student president was presenting to them was remotely new to her in any way, shape or form. If they had announced that rooms were now co-ed as well as the school, she might have been inclined to listen; as such, this was not so, so she sat and amused herself by not paying attention. Taking her chin off of its rest, she folded her arms and set them on the desk in front of her and took a look around the room when her eyes fell on a decidedly handsome red head at the front of the room with the student council members. He wore the same khaki pants, white collared shirt, and orange jacket with the white lining as every other male in the room, yet he seemed to look the best. He was broad shouldered with a thin-but-not-too-thin build, probably around six feet, and he shared her same bored look.

“…And now for clubs news.”   The president stood aside and let the red head she had been admiring take the podium.

“Welcome back, everyone. Hopefully you all had a relaxing summer and are ready to get back to all the fun activities we have to offer this year, in the way of clubs anyway. Uh, let’s see…Coming up soon is the Scrabble® Club tournament. Anyone interested should come and see me to sign up, but if you can’t find me, there is a sign-up sheet on the board outside the door in the hall. The Ski Club has been disbanded due to lack of members, funds, and general lack of interest, but if you are willing to try to reform, again, see me. Kendo Club meets after school today in the training hall south of Centennial Hall. Anyone interested should attend today’s informational meeting. Woodshop and Smithing Clubs are combining this year so that they have enough members to keep their respective existing clubs. They are having a meeting after school in the woodshop in the base of Wheaton Hall, if anyone is so inclined to join us. All other club schedules, activities and events will be posted on the activities board in the hall, so be sure and take a peek at it.”

He was about to step away from the podium when the president whispered something in his ear. 

“Ah, I almost forgot. We are in need of an activities commissioner for the student board. Anyone interested should come and find one of the many lovely people up here and we will be happy to consider you. This concludes today’s announcements. Please rise for the pledge.”

There was a scraping of chairs as those who had managed to grab desks stood and the people along the edge of the classroom righted themselves and assumed the pledge position of right hand over heart.

“I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” the room chorused monotonously. There was then a general shuffling of feet as people began to move towards the exits and to their next classes. Marla bent down and retrieved her bag from under the desk at which she had been sitting and followed the herd of people out into the hall. She fought the urge to make cattle noises as the crowd moved steadily down the stairs and down the hall. She had wanted to find the red head and ask him about Scrabble®, but she figured she could find him later. She parted from the crowd and went down another corridor towards British Literature. The door was open, so she found a seat in the middle of the front of the room, made herself comfortable, and waited for the other students and the professor to arrive. After sitting there for a minute twiddling her thumbs, she dug into her book bag and took out a notebook and the required text for the class and flipped through it. She made the note that it was mostly old English and was contented to start reading some of the material when a rather large man with brown hair wearing a suit and glasses entered the room. He set the stack of books he was carrying on the desk and proceeded to write his name and the title of the course on the board. While he was doing this, what Marla presumed to be the rest of the class filed in solemnly and took seats in Marla’s vicinity at the center of the room. A bell rang, echoing in the hallway as the last students entered and took seats. The teacher turned to face the class and waited until the general chatter had died before he began to speak.

“Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to British Literature. I am Dr. Charles Wrong and I will be your instructor. If anyone is not in British Literature, then come see me and I will write you a pass to your real class for this period.”

No one moved, which seemed to Marla that it most likely meant that they were all supposed to be here in this room with this rather imposing looking man. He gave a non-distinct nod and pulled a stack of clipped papers from his stack on the desk. Unclipping them, he counted students in each of the rows and gave a stack to each student and the start of the row, who, in turn took a copy of the paper and passed the stack back to the next person.

“This syllabus is like your bible for this class. This way, you know what we are doing every week, what is expected of you, and how to contact me if you have any questions about the course.”

Dr. Wrong then proceeded to read the syllabus to the class. It was filled with sophisticated language, big words, and run-on sentences. Clearly, Marla thought, this man does not favor the use of periods. I wonder if he is a fan of Capote…. Her thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of the red headed clubs director from the announcement period into the room.

            “Ah, Mr. Anderholt. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Pardon for interrupting, Dr. Wrong. The president wanted to pass this on to you.” He handed the professor a folded note. He opened it and read it carefully.

“Tell Miss Walker that I will meet with her after classes today and we will discuss the matter thoroughly.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.” He inclined his head slightly and exited the room.

“Sorry, before we were interrupted…Ah, yes. You are required to write two papers to assess your knowledge of the material we are learning….”

Marla watched the boy exit the room and then went back to following as the teacher read the syllabus. He was of much interest to her and required further examination. But this would have to wait until the opportune time, and then she could spring.

 

Peter was many things: master manipulator, champion of hearts, and if he did say so, one of the smartest people to grace the halls of Deighton Academy. He was, however, not the most coordinated of beings, as he demonstrated when entering the science lab his sophomore year and ended up owing the school a pretty good chunk of change for the cart he upturned. This year, though, he was determined not to break anything or cause any other sort of destruction to school property when entering a classroom. There were ladies to impress this year, after all. As he entered the classroom, in the most graceful manner possible, he noticed a group of girls chattering animatedly on the side of the room. Smiling to himself, he walked past the group on his way to find a seat near the back of the room. He caught bits of their conversation as he passed; unfortunately, none of it was about him.

“I’d want to join Scrabble® Club just to get close to him.”

“That is sinful.”

“I know, but I can’t help it. He’s just so cute!”

“What if he has a girlfriend?”

“I’ll steal him away from her.”

“Really?”

“No, but it’s nice to think I could have that power over guys.”

“He seems really nice though. I’d hate to manipulate him like that.”

He laughed quietly as he took his seat. So they were talking about Lee, the least experienced lady-catcher between himself, Lee, and Nick. In fact, he doubted that Lee would know what to do if he was around a girl, much less what to do with her. Not to say that Lee wasn’t a gentleman, because he was, but the most interaction he got with the female gender was with his sister and his mother. Peter gave him silent props though; after all, it wasn’t everyday that girls went around in groups gossiping about you, unless it was him, but that was a different story entirely. He decided not to tell Lee of the gossip and let him handle it, mostly for Peter’s own personal amusement. His thought process was interrupted with the arrival of Nick, who greeted him by giving him a rather hard whack on the back of his head. Peter rubbed his head as Nick took the seat next to him.

“That hurt.”

“My a*s it hurt. I hit you there every time I see you and you never tell me it hurts. I would think your head would hurt more when you think.”

“Ha ha ha. You’re an a*s.”

“You’re a pervert.”

“Not so. Whatever would give you that idea my dear Nicholas?”

“I dunno. Just the gleam in your eye. It’s so…hungry looking.”

“Ah, I have a gleam now do I?”

“Yes, especially when looking at the opposite gender. Par example, when I walked in….”

“When you walked in, I was thinking of ways to torture Lee.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it is so.”

“And why, pray tell, would that thought cross your mind?”

“Note the aforementioned females over there.”

“Duly noted.”

“Well, if my ears did not deceive me, they were discussing our Scrabble®-loving fiend and their intentions for obtaining him, if you get my drift.”

Nick blinked in surprise and bit his lip.

“Ah, well…Hmmm…this is interesting indeed.”

“Is it not?”

“Where does the torture come in to play?”

“I don’t tell him about it and watch him trip over himself when he has females hanging all over him. Is the image not priceless?”

“Not really. He does the same thing when he is arguing with his sister.”

“Please. His sister is hardly female and we both know it.”

“Heh, you have a point there.”

“So what do you say?”

“I say we tread carefully. Don’t let him get in too over his head.”

“First rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.”

“And we are going to have to be there to bail him out if he ends up standing there looking all cute and pathetic.”

“Second rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club.”

“Just so we are clear.” Nick said facing forward in his seat.

“As a bell. Just have to hope he doesn’t get into any trouble before we can be there to help out.”

“It’s Lee.  It’s not like he goes looking for trouble. It usually finds him, if you do remember.” Nick shrugged.

“Point made. He’ll be good.”

“We can hope so anyway.”

 

Hara absent-mindedly rattled the soda bottle in her hand as she walked towards her next class. Jane walked next to her, talking, but Hara was hardly paying attention. Jane noticed and stopped talking and elbowed Hara in the side gently to get her attention.

“Where have you been for the last three minutes? I don’t talk just to hear the sound of my own voice, you know.” Jane remarked, eyeing her curiously.

“Huh? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just somewhere else right now.”

“That was apparent. Where are you anyway?” Jane asked as they entered the classroom. Hara didn’t get a chance to answer. She had opened her soda and it fizzed rather merrily and spewed at least a quarter of its contents onto the front of her jacket. She held the soda away from her, but it had stopped fizzing and spraying by the time she did.

“Crap this is not cool.” She wiped her face with her free hand. Jane stifled a grin.

“Here, let’s get your jacket off and take it down to the washers.” she said talking the soda from Hara and setting it on the desk. Hara took off her tie, grabbed the bottom of her jacket and lifted it over her head. Unfortunately, she took the shirt under it with the jacket, giving the next person that entered the room behind her a full view of her bust, which she realized when she heard a gulping noise.

“Oh, s**t. I got my shirt too!”

Jane quickly pulled the shirt down and Hara got the jacket off to apologize to the poor person she had flashed. When her vision was no longer obscured, she was looking right at the guy who had walked her over to the lecture hall that morning. She could feel herself getting flushed; he, in comparison, was quite pale and his eyes wide.

“Lee?” she whispered.   He mumbled something inaudible as blood started running down his nose, his eyes rolled back, and he passed out, falling into the hallway. The girls stood over him in amazement and shock.

“I think I killed him.” Hara covered her mouth.

“Nah. I think you just fulfilled his greatest fantasy.”  Jane laughed.

“That is horrible.”

“You’re telling me. I thought this kind of thing only happened in anime.”

“What? The flashing?”

“No, the nosebleed and passing out.”

“Oh, well. Apparently not.” Jane shrugged. She stood up and went back into the classroom, followed by Hara. As soon as they entered the classroom, there was a voice behind them.

“Could either of you ladies tell me why Mr. Anderholt is passed out with a nosebleed in the hallway?”

The girls turned to see their professor behind them. Hara faltered for a moment.

“We had an accident with a soda.” Jane spoke up.

“Ah, I see. Hence the reason one of you is not in full uniform. This still does not explain to me why Mr. Anderholt is out cold and bleeding in the hallway.”

“Well, uh, he walked in while I was trying to take off my jacket.”

“So you were unbuttoning your jacket when he came in and saw you.”

“Oh yeah, it unbuttons huh? Smart one!!” Jane muttered.

“Well, I wasn’t unbuttoning it…”

“I still am not seeing how the removing of the school uniform would be cause for Mr. Anderholt’s passing out. How did you take off the jacket?”

“I flashed him, okay? That’s why he passed out.” Hara said exasperatedly.

The teacher stood in shock for a moment, but then regained his composure.

“Ah, I see. Well then, might I ask you to please go get another jacket and to accompany Mr. Anderholt to the nurse’s station?”

“Yes, sir.”

Hara bent and put Lee’s arm around her neck and stood up slowly. She took her jacket from Jane and started slowly down the hall. For being so skinny, Lee certainly wasn’t a lightweight. Then again, he was half-conscious. She reached the stairs and realized that to reach the nurse’s station she would have to go down the stairs. She rolled her eyes and proceeded carefully down the stairs. She stopped on the landing and wiped at some of the blood on Lee’s face. He was still out cold. She sighed and started down the second set of stairs. She got down this set without incident and started down the next hall towards the nurse’s office. Halfway there, he began to stir, so she stopped and set leaned him against the wall. Color was returning to his face and he slowly opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Morning sunshine.” she smiled cheerily.

Lee gaped at her, open mouthed for a minute and covered his nose to try and stem some of the blood flow.

            “Bet that never happened to you before?”

“Heh, no that is for sure.” Lee laughed. “Actually, I hadn’t interacted with girls at all before I met you.” He started standing up slowly. Hara smiled, took the hand that was not covering his nose and helped him up. The two began to walk slowly down the hall.

“No interaction with girls?”

“Well, I’m lying. I interact with my sister, but she’s not a girl, she’s a sister.” he remarked, scratching the back of his neck. Hara laughed.

“You love your sister that much?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“I can’t sympathize myself, since I’m the older sister.”

“Eh, well, hopefully your sibling doesn’t feel about you the way I feel about my sister.”

“Most likely not.”

“Good.” Lee nodded as they reached the door to the nurse’s office. Opening the door, Lee held it and motioned Hara in and then followed. A dark haired woman at the desk across the room looked up as they entered.

“Well, Mr. Anderholt. I hardly expected to see you in here. Been fighting with the girls?”

“No.” Lee laughed. “Just surprised by them, that’s all.”

The nurse got up from the desk and took Lee a box of tissues while Lee took a seat on one of the beds. 

“Lee, you’re covered in blood honey. Let’s put some peroxide on this….”

And with that, Lee was being stripped of his jacket and shirt by the nurse. Hara noticed that he had a little bit of a stomach, but was surprisingly well built nonetheless.

“You too, darling. Off with your shirt.” The nurse held out another shirt for her to put on and motioned for her to go behind a curtain. Hara breathed a sigh of relief and changed out of the bloodied shirt and into the clean one. When she stepped out from behind the curtain, Lee’s face was cleaned of blood, except for the tissue pressed against his nose and the nurse had laid their clothing in a small bucket of what Hara presumed to be hydrogen peroxide.

“Since I have to do your shirts, I can do your jacket too, honey, so you don’t have to worry about it.” said the nurse, handing her another jacket.

“Oh, thank you.” Hara sputtered. Lee grinned at her from behind his latest tissue.

“You going to be okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s all good. It’s almost done anyway.”

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll see you back in class then.”

“Sure thing.” Lee smiled and gave her thumbs up. Hara smiled and exited the nurse’s station and walked back towards class. She laughed to herself, thinking she had the power to give boys nosebleeds. It was scary to think about. She had to give Lee some credit too, not making a big deal out of the whole thing. She smiled, thinking that maybe he really was worth an effort.

Reviews

[Shawn Drake]

Gods above and Demons below, girl. You have a good thing going here. Whatever you do, don't stop. You have a few spelling and usage errors, but nothing that can't be caught in revision. Aside from the quibbles, an absolute pleasure to read. Keep it up!

By the way, I LOVE Dr. Wright's cameo.

[Harish Jackson]

"References to our teachers"? I'm confused...

HOWEVER...this is great. Definitely a very good job. Both the people and the background story are realistic and believable, which is difficult to pull off in a realistic fiction. It seems like something that would make a great anime (if ye're a fan of those, which I am).

I'm off to read the second!

[Beth Elaina]

This is great, Beth! Yes, I do believe Prof. Wrong would be the sort of person to like Capote...*cough* I have to agree with Kate, your dialogue is fabulous, witty, and fun to read. Great job! Keep it up!

[Kaitlyn M.]

This is quite possibly the best thing I have ever read of yours, Beth. I love it. I love the references to our teachers *wink wink*. Your dialogue use is absolutely exceptional, and it doesn't sound at all forced (something wuite rare in this world of ours--I'm even guilty of it sometimes). Hara's speech in class about philosophy was hilarious. It reminded me of something I would so write in an ethics paper (I think I may have something like that somewhere). Good job, and I cannot wait for more.

Mindblowing-ly brilliant. Ebert & Rober say 2 thumbs up! Audiences everywhere agree!!