I saunter into detention ten minutes late. I would have been later, except that I had an appointment with Jenna. I nod at her as I walk past, heading straight for Landmine's desk. Landmine barely even notices me, she's so engrossed in her book. It's probably some cheap romance novel that features a steroid-chugging body builder on the cover with a skimpily-clad anorexic swooning over him. Landmine is breathing irregularly as her eyes dart over the page. I shudder to think of what might be going through her mind.
From across the room, Jenna chucks a paper ball at me. That girl has uncanny aim. It hits my arm and bounces off. "Owwwww," I exclaim, drawing it out nice and long, like so. I start breathing heavily. "Oooooh," I moan. Landmine's breath catches as she realises that she has an observer. She doesn't even have the decency to blush and instead primly readjusts her reading glasses and fixes me with an accusing stare. Oppressive b***h.
"So, Ms. Montez, glad you decided to show up for detention today. Let's see," she shuffles through the thin sheaf of paper on her desks, presumably to report to me my latest crimes, probably in the hopes that I may sit there for an hour and work up some good, healthy remorse.
"No need," I cut in pleasantly. "I replaced the chalk in the classroom with itching powder, improved the decor of the third-floor girl's bathroom, and stole a junior's lunch. Some lunch." I fish into my pocket and pull the apple out with some difficulty, before placing it on her desk. "For you."
She glances at the blood-red apple uneasily. "Muhahaha," I want to cackle like that witch in Snow White, because that was such a fairytale moment. But I restrain myself. When Landmine makes no move to take the perfectly fresh albeit warm apple, I shrug carelessly. "I can handle rejection, lady, just break it to me easy." I start to reach for the apple.
As sudden as a spring, her hand snaps out to take it. "I'll return this to Marc Jacobs," she sniffs.
"With my best wishes," I add.
"Take a seat," she orders, pointing to a desk at the opposite end of where Jenna is sitting.
I take the seat right beside Jenna. We move our chairs as close together as humanely possible with loud screeches to emphasise our complete disregard for Landmine's orders. She, too, is practicing complete disregard as her head is once again buried in her book. Jenna's shoulders are shaking as she laughs silently. "That was so funny!" she mouths at me.
I grin at her and kick my chair back, placing both feet on the desk to settle into a more comfortable position. I pull out another apple from my pocket and take a bite out of it with a satisfying crunch.
What? The kid brought two apples for lunch.
Jenna and I are busy when the door swings open again. The person walking in looks supremely unsure of himself. His eyes glance over at me before widening a little and flickering away again. "What was that about?" I mouth to Jenna. She shrugs.
"Did I grow a nose ring and/or some other weird piercings on my face? Please inform me if I have."
She smirks and shrugs at me, turning back to the piece of paper we are working on. I continue to watch the guy, who has headed straight for Landmine's table.
Definitely a new kid. They often mistake their enemies for allies.
The new kid and Landmine are engaged in hushed conversation. For some reason I am inclined to eavesdrop.
"Excuse me," I inform Jenna, before grabbing my math homework from my bag and crumpling it into a ball in my hand as I walk to Landmine's desk.
"...not my fault...correcting...honest mistake...made it..."
"...listen here...wrote you up...young man...respect...teaching here for ten years...now sit down and be-"
I just happened to chuck the paper ball into the basket with a little too much force, thus overturning it and all its contents. Now how did some tin cans get in there? They crash onto the floor, making a din and rolling about everywhere. Oops.
"-QUIET!" Landmine shouts the last word. My, that was loud.
I make a face and shush her, like "Shhhhhhh! The boogey man might hear you."
This is a game I play every detention: how far can I push Landmine before she does like her nickname and explodes.
It's magnificent, an explosion of fireworks, of fiery words and spittle flying everywhere. Be sure to duck.
While Landmine is shooting her mouth off, I catch the new kid's eye and wink at him. I ought to thank him, he acted like a catalyst in this exothermic reaction.
He gulps. I take the opportunity to study him.
He's my height, he's kinda cute, and he looks terrified.
"Beware; the monster is in heat." I mouth at him, jerking my chin toward Landmine. She doesn't even notice that we're barely looking at her as she rants at us about discipline and respect and the six core values of the school. Our moral souls are in danger, she reckons.
He frowns at me. I'm taken aback, although I don't show it. No guy has ever frowned at me without good reason before.
I'm starting to think he may have been German in a past life, since I fancy I used to be President Wilson and he's looking at me the way the defeated Germans of World War One might have looked at the American who decided their fate after the war. "I'm sorry I forced you to sign the treaty," I mouth at him. He's got green eyes, striking against his gravel-black hair. They remind me of streetlights in the dark of night, the way I whiz past them when I'm racing. Sometimes they're green, but most of the time they're red.
He c***s his head to the side and considers me for a few seconds, probably deciding whether I am either deeply enlightened or a complete lunatic.
"What treaty?" he finally mouths back.
I can't resist a grin. "The Treaty of Versailles."
"The what?"
'Versailles' is a hard word to mouth. You sort of skip over the last two 'l's, which makes it look like you're saying, "Fur sai," which makes no sense at all, except maybe in chinese.
"Have I made myself clear?" Landmine finally wraps up her speech. I resist the urge to applaud her.
"Crystal," I tell her.
"Yes ma'am," he nods politely at her. "I'm sorry to have interrupted you from your-" His eyes dart over to the book on her desk. "-riveting read."
I laugh out loud at that, which I manage to disguise somewhat effectively as a coughing fit.
Just then, Jenna and her compulsion for throwing paper balls at animate objects strikes again. This time the guy is the target and as always, Jenna hits a bullseye.
He winces as it bounces cheerily off his head. Usually I ignore such violent messages from Jenna, but the guy bends down to pick it up. He's wearing frayed Levi's. I love frayed Levi's. I mean, check mine out.
The guy--I must find out his name!--shoots me a look before smoothening the piece of paper out, as if somehow I had had a part to play in him being assaulted by lethal paper balls in detention. I know I'm talented, but I ain't telepathic.
He reads it, then looks up at me. "Alex?" he asks.
Argh. I hate it when people know my name before I find out theirs.
"Who's Alex?" I feign innocence.
He chuckles, a low, rumbly kind of laugh. I decide I like it. "She told me you'd say that, Alexandra." he says.
I make a face at him. "Fine, it's Alex. What's your curse?"
"I like my name. It's Brian."
"Figures."
He raises an eyebrow at me. "How so?"
"A letter switch short of 'brain'." I shrug.
He smiles at me with just a tinge of bitterness. "That's me figured out right there, I guess."
I decide to be nicer. "Come sit with us."
"Oh, but Mrs. Langmire told me to sit over there..." He points to the other end of the classroom.
"Ah," I nod understandingly. "Perfectly within range of hurtling paper balls."
He gets the point and follows me like a little puppy dog back to my seat. I love little puppy dogs. All we have at home are bloodthirsty rottweilers. Not a nice change from the equally bloodthirsty bodyguards, mind you.
"Anywho," I say, "Want an apple? I could steal one for you."
"Uh.. no thanks."
Man, he's even polite in the face of blatant criminalism. I just made that word up.
"So what's a guy like you doing in here with people like us?" Jenna asks. I'm curious as well but I stare out the window and start to whistle 'my fair lady'.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Jenna give him a knowing look. "She does that whenever she really wants to know something but doesn't want anyone to know that she really wants to know something which thus tells me that she really wants to know something."
"Phew, that was one hell of a run-on sentence." I comment, before resuming my whistling.
Brian clears his throat. "It's quite silly, actually."
"Silly is my middle name. That's me, Alex Silly Montez. Got a nice ring to it? Yeah?"
S**t, I'm starting to blabber. Shut up, Montez! Shut your trap!
Jenna rolls her eyes at me. I'm not even looking at her but I see it due to my epic peripheral vision, and what's worse is that she knows I see it.
"Brian Montreal Lake. I'd take 'silly' over that any day."
"Montreal Lake? I think I've been there." Jenna laughs.
Brian shrugs. "Don't ask."
"Is that why they landed you in detention? Because of your crappy middle name?" I admire the view outside the window. I do believe that apple tree grew a new leaf overnight, from NOWHERE! This only proves my theory that cell division makes the world go 'round. What's that you say? Love? I have yet to see the evidence and I am predisposed to thinking none exists.
"I'm in Mr. Mort's advanced math class. He made a mistake on the board and-"
"-You tried to correct him." I finish, shaking my head. I swivel around to face him. "That, my friend, was a very unwise thing to do, as any other well-meaning student would have told you."
He blinks at me. "Well, they didn't. And that's how I ended up here."
There is an awkward lull in the conversation. Jenna files her nails. Brian looks at his feet. I study him.
He's got messy black hair, the kind that's unstyled and free of hairgel, the kind you can imagine would be soft enough to run your hand through. Probably not as soft as the cashmere I'm wearing now though, but still, I've got to give him credit. At least he doesn't stuff his hair full of gunk like the other guys in this school.
And then I see his shoes.
I squeal. They're beautiful and unique, a multitude of colors that blend into and out of each other, green, purple, orange, pink... there's some sort of design on them, which is understated and at the same time screams 'stylish'.
"Oink," Jenna says, our code for 'you sound like a pig being slaughtered'. We can say so much with so little words.
"Flea," I shoot back.
"Flea bite!" She laughs.
I stick my tongue out at her. "Look!" I point at Brian's shoes. "Those are gorgeous! Where'd you get them?"
"Um. I, uh, I made them. I mean, I bought them plain and drew on them."
"You. Are. A. Closet. Artistic. Genius. Aren't you? Aren't you?" I grin at him, clapping my hands in delight.
He grins back at me, and then his face grows serious. "Wow," he says.
I match his serious look. "I get that alot," I nod.
"Wow," he repeats, still staring at me.
His eyes are amazing this close. If I were to write it in an essay, I would describe them as 'toad-green with flecks of gold shaped like lily pads on an algae-overgrown pond, possibly experiencing euthrophication due to leeched nitrate fertilisers in soil.'
"Dejavu," Jenna looks between the two of us.
I want to go on staring, but to my disappointment he breaks the eye contact and looks away. "I don't think you remember me," he says in a strained voice.
"Sure I do. You were a German in a past life." I say.
"What? No. That's not what I meant." Just like before, he c***s his head to one side and considers me again. "I met you today, in the hallway."
"Considering the size of our school, you met just about everyone today in the hallway." I joke. The mood is becoming somber and I loathe somber moods, except when there's wine, like at a funeral. The first time I went to a funeral, it was my mother's, and I was too young to drink wine anyway. I only stayed for about five minutes. If I don't get no wine, you ain't getting no fake-plastic-smile from me, no sir.
"You looked pissed and elbowed past me, muttering something about 'redecorating' and 'bikini'."
"In the same sentence?" I enquire nonchalantly, trying to ignore the sudden stiffness of Jenna beside me.
"Possibly," Brian says. "Pardon me, but I kinda thought you were a b***h. But now..."
I share a look with Jenna. She and I both know that this interaction between all three of us, this easy flow of ideas that almost feels like friendship, it crumbles the moment you step out of the detention room. Out there, it's a struggle and a fight to survive. In here, we're united against a single entity--Landmine. But she is nothing compared to what's out there. Out there, we are divided against ourselves, sized up, split and organised into specialised cells. If I'm a liver cell, Jenna's a red blood cell, and Brian's a brain neuron. We may come into contact briefly, but there can be no lasting connection between us. We're part of the same entity, but not of the same mind.
"Time's up! You may go now!" Landmine barks from her table.
I get up without looking at either of them, not trying to understand the anger spurting throught my veins, just feeling it. Jenna brushes past me before I reach the door and steps out first. "B***h," I call after her, as is our customary practice.
"S**t," she replies. She is already halfway down the hall.
"Alex, wait," Brian scrambles up from his chair.
I make a show of glancing at my white limited edition Swatch watch. "What is it?" I ask him tetchily. Switching back into normal 'b***h mode' comes so naturally for me, it's almost like breathing.
He takes a deep breath. "I forgive you." He says. My breath catches. I search his eyes for some sign or indication that he understands. I know he's barely been here a day but he's smart, he ought to have figured it out by now. But I still have to ask.
"For what?"
"For the Treaty of Versailles." He chuckles, his eyes searching my face.
I want to laugh. I want to cry. He gets it, he doesn't get it. He gets me, he doesn't get me.
Without a word, I spin on my heels and walk out, leaving him in the detention room, knowing that I have crushed the hopeful look on his face, and with it, the fragile tendrils of our friendship that never existed.
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