The War Between Us : Chapter 4

A/N: Okay - I thought this story so far not humorous much, so I decided to add a little bit of humor. Okay, A LOT of humor. I hope it goes well with the story. I hope.

Chapter 4:

Mark Wilcox glances at me scathingly.

Geez, someone’s in a bad mood today.

I avoid looking at him as we both focus (along with the rest of the class) on what stammering Mr. Simon was saying.

He suddenly ends his speech and swiftly turns to write on the board.
Instructions.
As I read every word, I realize what the instructions were for.

The instructions were for telling us exactly how to dissect a frog and how to separate its inner parts.

I couldn’t believe it.
The first day of school – and I have to hold a frog in my hands?
Not only that – I have to slice it open?
Ew.

No way.
No freaking way.

“Um, Mr. Simon?” I speak hesitantly.

He turns nervously, “Y-yes?”.
The class stared at me again – well, at least the freaking kids who butt their noses backwards to look at me - but I ignored their gazes.

“Aren’t dissecting frogs a little too early to be studying at the start of the term?” I say.
I’m bold, for I new kid, I realize.
No new kid would dare to question the School Board’s teaching methods, like I did just now.

Mr. Simon gazes at me as though I were from another planet.
“Uh, why- Miss-“, he pauses, trying to remember my name.
I fill in for him, “Varde” and he continues, folding his hands, “Miss Varde, we always study dissecting frogs at the beginning of the tenth grade. Always.”

“Oh”, I shrink back into my seat.

I guess they teach you stuff faster here than in Stuyvesant High School.

Mr. Simon’s attention diverts and he picks up some stuff from his desk.
He walks around, passing something – and when he reaches my table (the one I share with the Wilcox boy), he dumps some plastic bags and a box.

I watch as the cardboard box moves a little.
That must be where the frog was kept.

Mr. Simon comes to the front of the class again and he smiles toothily saying, “Well, do your stuff then, students!”

I stare at him.
‘Do my stuff’?
The hell I’m gonna do them.

I turn to Mark Wilcox.
He had blond hair, falling into his eyes, which sort of hid his eyes – so, I couldn’t see what color they were.

But it didn’t matter anyways. What mattered is that we cooperate and dissect the frog properly.

But let’s get to cooperating first.

“Hi – I’m Cindy”, I say, faking a smile.

He looks directly at me and rolls his eyes. I see what color they are now. Blue. A clear, clear blue.
I don’t know where I’ve seen them before, but I know I have, the instant my green ones met them.

“I know, I know – could we just get to dissecting already and quit with the small talk, as much as I know you want to have it with me?”, he shakes his head impatiently as he pulls the box containing the frog from my side of the table to him.

I’m rather taken aback, but I don’t retort, as much as I’d like to.
I scan the instructions on the white board again and I stand and hurry to the cupboard in the back of the class. That’s where they keep the instruments for dissecting the frog, I knew – because many students were standing there and jostling each other too, trying to get at the ‘dissecting instruments’ and gloves.

I push past a blonde as I reach into the cupboard.
I grab two gloves – white and clean – a plastic table-cloth, and a couple of ‘dissecting instruments’.
But they aren’t that special, really, since one was only some sort of carving knife, and the other was an instrument to pick up tiny objects (such as frog insides. Eugh.)

I walk past a few desks, a trail of eyes following me from every corner and I sit down again, next to the-blond-boy-with-the-blue-eyes-that-I’ve-seen-somewhere-before-but-can’t-seem-to-remember-on-whose-face.
I’m not going to call this boy Mark.
He hasn’t showed me any signs of civility so I shouldn’t be on Christian name terms with him, should I?

I spread the table-cloth over our table – this was going to be a messy job, I could tell.

The boy reaches for one pair of gloves in my hands and I pull my pair on, noting that the-blond-boy-with-the-blue-eyes-that-I’ve-seen-somewhere-before-but-can’t-seem-to-remember-on-whose-face doing the same.

Urgh. I’m tired of calling him the-blond-boy-with-the-blue-eyes-that-I’ve-seen-somewhere-before-but-can’t-seem-to-remember-on-whose-face already.
I think I’ll just stick to Wilcox.

As Wilcox picks up the box (other kids have already begun cutting open their frogs already since I can hear squelchy noises. Urgh. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck.) Mr. Simon says, “S-students, if you’re w-wondering, these frogs are all injected with a depressant and that’s why they are incapable of much movement!”

Oh. Good to let us know, Mr. Stammers. As if it really matters.
What matters is that we’re supposed to slice open a poor, defenseless frog!!!

Wilcox opens the brown, papery box finally and he grimaces as he grabs hold of the wiggling animal inside.
I can’t help grimacing, too.

He looks up at me as he places the frog on the table, squeezing it down so it couldn’t hop away.
I felt sorry for the poor thing, but before I could tell Mark Wilcox to hold him a little looser, Wilcox himself says, “Get the knife – you do it”.

I am completely taken aback.
Me?
Never! I wouldn’t hurt a flea – I could never do it!
I glare at him, “No way!”

“What, you want me to do it?”, he asks rather annoyed.

Yeah, well, Mr. Wilcox, it’s not only you who can get annoyed; I can, too.

“Obviously!” I retort, getting fiery.

And it’s never good when I get fiery. Trouble occurs – with a capital ‘T’.

“Well – I won’t. You do it – you’re the new kid, you’re supposed to be expulsing your talents!”, he barks at me. Unfortunately, I’m not aware that most kids – mostly the ones unable to stand the sight of blood leaking from their cut-open frogs – were staring at us. In fact, I think Mr. Simon was staring, too.

I do a double take.
“Talents? Talents? You call cutting up some poor, helpless frog a talent?”

He does something I’m totally incapable of doing right now.
He smirks.
“As a matter of fact, I do”.
His tone creates a finality in the air, and that was it.

The last drop makes the cup run over.

I take hold of the green frog squelched between the top of the wooden table and Mark Wilcox’s hand and I raise it in level to our faces, which were merely inches from each other.

He backs away immediately – and in the background, I could hear students whispering. Mr. Simon was making his way over, too.

Before he could reach our table, I say coolly, “You know what? I think we’re done here.”

And guess what I did?
I let go of the frog.

This produced instant reaction:
Girls screamed, boys yelled, Mr. Simon let out a high-pitched shriek and
Mark Wilcox’s eyes widened – and I think mine did, too. I half-believed what I had done.

The frog fell on to my lap – several girls screamed again; Mr. Simon, too – and it jumps on to the table behind us, which was occupied by a spaghetti-top-wearing blonde and a skinny, red-haired boy.

Obviously, this frog wasn’t injected much depressant since its leaps were humongous.
First, you saw where it was – and the next second you see it somewhere else.

And that’s what happened.
First, the whole class saw it lying on the table behind Mark Wilcox’s and mine.

And the next second, we saw it wriggling down the front of the blond girl.
The same blond girl I had shoved past to get at the items in the cupboard.

But hey, she should stop screaming her head off - it could hardly be my fault could it – that she was wearing something so hideously revealing that any poor frog that I let free must have thought his old burrow at home?