Fire drives me to school with his blood red Camaro, and I think about things I could say to Alison when she asks. I would like not to say anything, but that�s kind of impossible. I could pretend to be deaf: it worked for Tim last year when we had a cruel sub who wanted him to do an oral report. However, that was Tim, and it was one day, and Alison knows I�m not deaf.
First period is Advanced Placement US History, which is mind-numbing. I copy down notes, though, and answer questions when asked. I am very good at mechanical studenting.
Second period is Gym. I have Gym with Alison. This is a concern.
She looks at the hair, then at me, and then starts to laugh. And then she hugs me. I am profoundly confused. �Trine!� she says. �I love it! It actually works for you�and so much better than that boring old blond. This is so�.edgy. It�s awesome.�
I nod, slowly, and change into my gym pants from these soft warm leather ones. For a moment, I�m freezing, and then I acclimatize. There�s something unusually familiar about this bizarre way Alison is treating me, but I can�t put my finger on it.
Class is pointless. We play volleyball, and I serve a few times and try not to hit people in the face. Alison is put on the other team, and I am slightly relieved. Following the thirty minutes (which move with eerie speed) I shuck the gym pants and replace them with the slick, leg-loving leathers. Alison seems to notice them for the first time and comments enthusiastically. I nod.
And then I realize something�this strange way she is acting is exactly the way she used to talk to people to get them to be friends with her. Silly little comments and reassurances on extreme wardrobe choices�I have seen this routine thousands of times. I just never expected for it to happen to me.
Third period I have English. It�s pointless, and besides, we have a sub. I spend the period talking to Jenna about soccer players and copying the physics homework off of Jason. He�s a very kind boy, and I tell him so, and he blushes. I love boys who blush.
Fourth period I have nothing: I usually walk down to the bakery and get pre-lunch with a few people, but they�re notably absent, so I wander through the halls instead. I peer into classrooms and sit just outside, listening to what people say. I miss Middlebury: the rambling strangeness of it. Here, you come to one wall and you�ve reached the end of the school. There are four staircases and two floors, basic rectangle with a courtyard and an open front. Our school looks like a million others.
And then there it is. Fifth period Law, after which follows lunch with Alison, after which follows French, as deepest night follows bleak evening follows gloomy mid-afternoon. Xerxes does not tweak my nose this time, instead he gets right up and walks over to me. Too close, Xerxes, I warn mentally. He checks me out, sliding his eyes too slowly down the length of me. Finally his gaze reaches mine, and then swings upwards to examine the �do.
�Punkalicious� he declares, with an air of stoned appreciation. The class begins to laugh, and I realize that I have nowhere to flee to. So I sit in the middle-back, behind Xerxes by a few seats and (to my surprise) right next to Carl, of elusive blue-eyed fame. I smile at him timorously and he gives me a friendly grin and a cute (if redundant) little wave. I think he likes the hair.
French takes more than house�it takes years and months and eons of wasted time. I try to write my Quinnipiac essay, but even that isn�t enough to sate this awful, consuming kind of pointlessness. Ennui is what the French would say, but we�re not learning real French. Just miles and miles of bleak, dull verb tenses and memorization of fifty different irregulars and thousands of cases and exceptions. I am cheering on the Revolution, in which all language education will be downloadable; in fact I believe I am willing to be used as a test subject for such research, even if it means that they fry my brain and I�ll have to live like Xerxes for the rest of my life. As long as it means no more thinking.