Chapter Seven #2
However, I expected it from August, having always been the first to raise his hand when any opportunity presented itself.
Spotting Rain Atlas Jett’s raven black hair only a few seats ahead, down Wolf’s row, made me tap the pencil in my hands against my desk. She looked apathetic, listening to Mr Browne.
I began taking note of everyone else I knew in this class. The sparkling pin on Paris Vega’s uniform caught my attention, but she seemed lost in her notebook, writing it appears, at the speed of light.
The big, burly body of Ajax Vesper was across the room as he sat with his back to the wall and his cheek against his fist, almost falling asleep.
“So why do these things exist? Are they inherent? Taught–and if so, why?”
I’d tuned back into the lecture and found myself lost, having missed the first part.
Feeling the heat of a stare to the side of my face, I turned and did a double take when Wolf’s eyes widened once he’d seemed to have gotten my attention. Sitting back, I sent him a weird look that he rolled his eyes at.
“Relax, princess,” he whispered. “Are you still not going?”
I ignored the nickname and looked ahead, finding Mr Browne writing on the board, before turning back to hiss out, “Yeah, and I suggest you do the same. Or we’ll hear about your insides getting scraped off a tree in the school paper.”
He glared but smoothed out his features when the girl sitting in front of me turned to both of us with a questioning stare.
Where Wolf went for shrugging her attention off, I stared her down until she decided to cut her losses and faced the front again.
“Do you people have no sense of self-preservation?”
Wolf rolled his lips between his teeth, seeming to think of his words before speaking, “Listen, I got a feeling about this. This is important, and I’d rather go in with an ally.”
“We… are not allies.” I jabbed my finger between us to emphasize my point.
His eyebrows flattened. “Don’t be a wanker.”
“You’re not even British!” I breathed out with a look of exasperating frustration.
He pointed a finger at me, and maybe that was the movement that caught Mr Browne’s attention. “Listen–you need me more than you care to admit, alright?”
I was glad for the interruption, in a way, because I hadn’t known how to respond to his words. Except, it was an interruption made by Mr Browne, and his attention was the last thing I wanted.
“Mr. Kingsley. Mr. Miroslav. I hope your conversation isn’t as important as my lecture.” He tilted his head towards us and raised a single brow, as if chastising children.
I turned my glare on him, unashamed as if by deeply buried instinct, but didn’t say a word; it was Wolf who spoke for both of us, “Of course not, sir. We apologize for the interruption.”
Ever the well-mannered boy.
Feeling the eyes of the entire class on me, I lowered my gaze to my desk and kept it there until Mr Browne recaptured their attention.
Finding myself failing to understand what he was going on about, I looked at the board and began writing down what was written. Maybe later, I’d make sense of the words.
I didn’t make it past the second line when a crumpled paper landed on my desk. In a slow movement, I turned to Wolf, who appeared to be quite focused on Mr Browne’s words.
Appeared being the keyword.
Unfolding the paper, I read through its contents with a grit of my teeth.
I’ll see you this evening. Don’t be late.
Already in a foul mood, I crumpled the paper before holding my pencil in a vice grip and continued in an attempt to follow the lecture.
It didn't take long before Mr Browne had asked the class to divide into pairs to work on a vendor contract, something I had no idea about, after stating, “Clause nine contains a trap, let’s hope you find it before a real lawyer does. But remember, this is merely an exercise to jog your memory about what you learned last year. No need to hand it in.”
When the class volume had increased significantly, I turned to Wolf and found him facing me already. “Come around, wanker?”
“I will gut you like a pig.”
“Gentlemen.” None of us had noticed the old bat creeping up on us, and none of us had noticed him standing over our desks with his arms crossed.
I looked up to the intrusion and was satisfied enough when Wolf had flinched. “Sir, again–”
Mr Browne held up his hand. “Save it. Since you two can’t keep your hands to yourselves, metaphorically of course, you’ve just earned yourselves after-school detention.”
“Thanks for your big mouth, dimwit. You’re even worse than August.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“Well, I guess this solves our dilemma, anyway.”
“... What do you mean?”
“Are you being thick on purpose?”
“Are you being thick on purpose?” Wolf mimicked in a voice that sounded nothing like my own. "Detention doesn’t last for six hours. You can uncurl your fists, Rocky.”
Our steps echoed as we neared our prison for the next hour. “I’ll be mentally drained by the end of it. Can’t make it.”
I shrugged and watched, in delight, as he bristled but didn’t retort with anything else.
Mr Browne, it appears, had forgotten about the detention he’d served us with only this morning. Having found him with his feet propped atop his desk and a newspaper open on his lap.
I lingered in the doorway before sending a look to Wolf. He shook his head in question, and I tilted my head down the hall.
He lifted his head in understanding and smiled. Though, we didn’t make it two steps before Mr Browne’s voice sounded out into the hall, “Don’t even think about it.”
Both of us froze, and Wolf turned to me with wide eyes. “You think he has eyes hidden behind that hair?”
I grumbled and pushed past him. “Shut up. Always getting us caught.” I mumbled the last part but made sure he heard me.
Mr Browne didn’t look up from his paper when we shuffled in. “Take your seats.”
When we did, both in the first row as Wolf slid into the seat next to mine, to my dismay, Mr Browne folded his newspaper and threw it atop his desk with a careless flick of his wrist.
He straightened and stood, coming around his desk to lean back against it and face us.
I would have taken the act as a threat, but something about Wolf’s presence calmed me.
Reminded me that I wasn’t going into the wolf’s den alone.
“Now, I would have you serve your detentions quietly, and maybe the silence will stick and follow you into our next class.”
Wolf’s shoulders slumped in relief before hiking up at Mr Browne’s next words, “Normally, I would. However, something tells me that won’t work with you two. So, I’ve decided that labour will do you both some good.”
I snorted and turned to Wolf; he did the same, as we spoke over each other.
“I can define labour for you, if you’d like.”
“This should be a stroll down memory lane for you.”
By the end of it, Wolf’s expression soured from the smug expression he had not moments ago, but I only smirked.
If running was considered labour, then I would be a top employee, but unlike August’s family of blue-collar workers, mine wouldn’t know an honest day’s work if it flushed their drugs down the toilet.
“Charming,” Mr Browne didn’t look the least bit impressed, a pursed smile pressing against his lips at what he might’ve gotten himself into. “As much as I’d love to sit and watch you two quarrel for close to no reward, I do have affairs to get to, and this classroom won’t clean itself.”
“Isn’t there staff for that?” Wolf asked dumbly, a bit snidely, might I add.
“Yes, indeed, there is, but it would make their day to know that there are still kids out there who appreciate their work.” Mr Browne shrugged with a faint, almost amused smile as he raised his brows before returning to his newspaper and plopping down onto his chair, right back into the same position we found him.
When none of us moved, he eyed us from the edge of his paper. “Well… the class won’t clean itself.”
I looked around and spoke directly to Mr Browne, for the first time since walking in, “What exactly are we meant to do?”
From where I sat, the class looked more than tidy. Save for the words on the chalkboard, but that would take less than a few minutes to wipe away.
I apparently said the wrong thing because that turned his attention to me. He didn’t speak for what felt like minutes, but realistically it’d only been barely a few seconds.
He didn’t share the same smile he’d sent Wolf, no, for me, he narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly, “Put all the chairs on top of the desks, clean the board, organize those shelves over there.”
He gestured with a tilt of his head to a series of shelves with buckets of stationery and books. I had to admit, upon further inspection, the classroom did need some work. Many, if not all desks were at least, to some small degree, skewed.
Outside of their eerily perfect order.
He eyed me for a moment longer, and with his gaze too heavy to hold, I turned away until, in the corner of my eye, I watched him slowly lift the newspaper over his face once again.
I needed to get out of here.
If every word out of my mouth was punished with an expression like that, I needed to find something to occupy Mr Browne.
Shuffling out of my seat and going to stand, I headed for the back of the class, choosing to straighten each desk before placing their respective chairs on top.
Wolf, on the other hand, watched for a few moments longer, like a fish out of water, before following along. However, he went for the board.
I wanted to laugh, to alert him of his stupidity, but a glance at Mr Bowne made me think better of it.
I watched Mr Browne as I worked, wondering, as I lifted each chair, how he had changed over the years.
In the way he read over his paper and leaned back against his chair, it didn’t seem as though he had.
There were still his usual quirks of biting the inside of his cheek when he was concentrating hard on something or scratching the sensitive skin of his wrist because his watch bothered him.