Surrendering
Chapter
4: Attending School
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January 19th
The first day at my new school. I hate school. There are too many demands and I’m too lazy to care about homework. But I’m good at complaining later, when I get bad grades.
I was still sleeping at eight. We didn’t start school until 8.30, so I had plenty of time to get ready on. Back in Sweden I drove my parents crazy, not leaving bed until ten minutes before school started. I skipped breakfast, dressed in three minutes, brushed my teeth and left. I’m drowsy in the morning. I hate mornings.
And now I hate Fred too. He was banging on my door at 8.02. I cursed into my pillow and tried to wish him away. It didn’t work. Not so surprising, my wishes never come true.
“Are you awake, Cecilia?”
“No!” I shouted loudly. “It’s too early. Come back in an hour.”
“You’ll be late for school,” he told me in his best ‘mother’ voice.
I got up and wrapped the cover around me before I padded over to the door. I unlocked it and opened up for Fred. He was leaning up against the doorframe, looking very amused and content.
“Good morning, honey,” he teased. “You look bright and shiny today. Wanna tag along to breakfast?”
Just the thought of breakfast made me sick. I hate eating breakfast.
“No, I wanna sleep,” I told him.
Fred wiggled his eyebrow at me. “Need any help with that?”
I gave him a tired look. “Very clever, Fred. Last time I checked, you were the one bailing when that subject was brought up.” (1)
“Well, there’s not a law against changing ones mind, is there? Anyway, I’m heading down to get some food. See ya later.”
He left and I slammed the door closed. What the hell did he mean by that? He’d changed his mind? About what?
I’m not stupid. I know perfectly well what he’d been referring to. But, he’d only been kidding, right? His bad sense of humor makes me nervous. What if he’d been serious, and he’s actually changed his mind about sleeping together?
That was mean. Waking me up far too early in the morning with the intense of freaking me out. Giving me hints about having sex and then leave me here alone, while he was down stuffing himself with food. That was such a typical guy thing to do.
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I yawned.
I was sitting behind my desk, trying to listen to the teacher. I wasn’t even sure what subject it was. If I kept this up, I’d fail this class before I could blink.
I care about my grades. I want to be successful. I just don’t have the patience to work for it. Like I said before, I’m too lazy.
Next lesson was an easy one for me. English. I love English. Well, mostly because I’m good at it. I have no problem with language. It’s the rest of the subjects that throw me off.
“Can I sit with you?”
My, my, wasn’t it Captain Duck? He must’ve gotten over my bitchy attitude from yesterday, because he was actually smiling at me. I smiled back.
“Wow, was that a smile coming from you?” he asked.
“Yeah, don’t get used to it,” I told him.
“I won’t. I just haven’t seen you smile at all since I met you.”
That was a lie. I’d been giving him at least one smile. I should know, every smile I give away is fairly noted in brain, because I don’t smile that often.
“You can sit with me,” I answered.
“Sure? You won’t bite me or anything?”
“Not anywhere important, I promise.” God, what is it with this guy? Why does he give me the urge to bitch with him?
Charlie sat down next to me. Why was he bonding with me anyway? It must be because I’d been selected co-captain. We have to get along.
“What do you now about English?” he asked me. He was clearly just trying to start a conversation with me. All my bitchy comments were used. I had none left.
“It’s the same as French, but the language is different.”
“Very funny. Have you ever been to the States before?”
“Yeah, I spent my summers in New York,” I answered. Great, now he’d definitely ask me questions about that. And I was definitely not going to say anything about my life in New York. What was I to say? ‘My life got ruined in New York by a drug-addict’? Way to overexaggerate, Cecilia.
“You did? Where?” Charlie asked.
“Uhm, in the western parts,” I stuttered.
“I’ve never been to New York,” Charlie told me. “I’m born and raised in Minneapolis. Been there?”
“Nope. It’s snow and stuff there, right?” God, I’m such an idiot. Of course I’ve been there, I was there just before the Junior Goodwill Games, when the others met up with the rest of the team. But Charlie didn’t seem to notice this. That’s right, he doesn’t know I was there.
“Yeah, right now anyway. My Mom told me that it’d been below ten degrees yesterday.”
I had to convert his degrees to my own degrees. I will probably fail math this year... (2)
An hour later I was about to doze off on my desk. Damn Fred to wake me up so early! I was just about to close my eyes and take my wanted nap when a piece of paper came floating down on my desk. I looked at it for a moment. The last time someone passed a note to me in class was back in fourth grade. Not counting Nish and Fred’s notes at our French-classes back in Tamarack.
I read the message that had been scratched down with a slovenly handwriting.
<><><><><><>
Are
ya sleeping?
Get
up, you’ll get detention.
-
The annoying guy behind you -
<><><><><><>
I smiled to myself. It couldn’t have been Charlie; he was busy writing on his notepad. At least he was pretending to be. The note came from someone behind me to the right. It couldn’t have been Nish either, I know his handwriting, and I didn’t recognize this one.
I grabbed my pen to write back. I love writing messages. I can always make them how crazy as I want. My sarcasm shines through in my writing.
<><><><><><>
I’m
thinking very hard, thank you very much.
I’m
trying to pay attention here.
-
The annoyed girl you threw a paper at -
<><><><><><>
I tossed the paper up at the desk behind me without turning around. I had no idea who the messenger was, but I was bored and needed something to do. I was still a bit surprised that someone had contacted me at all. It was like they were actually trying to get to know me...
When our teacher turned her back towards us again, the next piece of paper came tumbling down next to my hand.
<><><><><><>
I
saw that.
You
were napping during class.
Want
us to get in trouble?
Where
were you at breakfast?
You
were the only one who didn’t show up.
-
The guy behind the annoyed girl -
<><><><><><>
I chuckled quietly. I had to come up with a sniffy comment to write back. Charlie was still writing something on his notepad. I leaned closer to see what it was.
“Hey, keep your nose out of other people’s business,” he said with a fake annoyance. “What’s that?”
He was pointing at my secret message. Well, not so secret as I wanted it to be, but I’m good at exaggerating. “Is that a nasty note? Lemme read it!”
“No!” I hissed at him. “It’s my message. Get your own.”
I jammed my pen into his hand and he squealed with pain. I never meant to hurt him; I just didn’t realize how hard I had thrusted that pen, before it was too late. “Sorry.” That was all I could say.
“Do we have a problem, Mr. Conway?” Our teacher was standing in front of us, having an irritated look on her face. I was so close to burst out laughing.
“No,” Charlie answered, trying his best to sound normal. There were some scaddered laughs coming from the rest of the class. I tried to keep a straight face.
Charlie gave me a painfilled look, and I mouthed ‘sorry’ to him. He rolled his eyes and shoved my shoulder. I almost fell off the chair, but I managed to avoid that. That would’ve been embarrassing.
“You’re violent,” he whispered to me. I smiled.
“Why, thank you, Captain Duck,” I said gratefully. “Any time.”
Charlie grinned at me. I knew that face. He was planning on some vicious payback.
I wrote an answer to my message while Charlie was busy nursing his hand.
<><><><><><>
Look
what you did!
You
got me in trouble with the teacher!
And
you made me hurt Captain Duck.
I
blame this entirely on you.
-
Me -
<><><><><><>
Charlie saw me throw the note behind my back. He gazed at me with a surprised look on his face. I thought he was going to say something, but instead he wrote it down and passed the notepad to me.
I read the message. It was only one little sentence. ‘I thought good girls like you never passed notes in the classroom.’
Well, screw him.
“Guess you were wrong,” I mumbled to him. He smiled at me again.
“Guess I was,” he answered quietly.
“About what?” I continued with my challenging.
“About you sending notes.”
“I was thinking more in the line that I’m not a good girl.”
I was still in the middle of my conversation with Charlie when the next note fell down on my desk. Charlie grabbed it before I had the chance to react. I threw myself over him to get my note back. It was a stupid move, because Charlie leaned back and I fell down from the chair. Crap.
“What’s so important that you feel the need to disturb my class?”
Ooops.
Charlie was still laughing when I crawled back up onto my chair. “Nothing.”
“Well, if that little piece of paper is important enough for you, maybe you should share the information with the whole class.”
I sighed. I’m always the one who gets into trouble in class, even though I very rarely do anything. Okay, this might’ve been a bit disturbing for the teacher. I’m usually not as troublesome as I was being at that point.
“It’s too much of a secret,” Charlie said. “It just says the usual stuff.”
I closed my eyes when he unfolded the message. I could’ve killed him right there on the spot. He gave up a snorting sound.
I grabbed the note from him and crumpled it together in my hand. Charlie whined. “I got a papercut, you mad little girl.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. He was trying to embarrass me, I knew it. Not until our teacher had given us our detention-slips and left to help someone in the back, I decided to read the note. I unfolded it and skimmed it through.
<><><><><><>
I
didn’t mean to get you into trouble.
You’re
even more pig-headed then “Captain Duck”.
That’s
why I don’t think he’ll care so much about you hurting him.
Chill
out, will you? Calm down and stop being so overbearing.
We’re
all human beings now, right?
Why
don’t you just quack yourself out of trouble? It works sometimes.
BTW,
you do know who I am NOW, don’t you?
<><><><><><>
There was a big smiley in the right corner of the paper. I’m not good at taking critic from anyone, so I felt my anger rise. That must’ve been why Charlie had laughed.
Damn him.
Damn myself.
Damn Guy.
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(1) The whole conversation between Cecilia and Fred in the beginning is referring to lots of events, which took place during ‘Searching and Chasing’
(2) Cecilia doesn’t get that Charlie had already converted the degrees to Celsius before he told her. That’s why she’s confused, she thinks he used Fahrenheit.
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