when he finally saw me. "You okay, dude?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be right back. Gonna get some food. Sorry I had to leave you, Jessie. Johnson made me go to the nurse's office. She finally realized nothing was wrong with me and let me go eat."
"That's okay. What happened?"
"I'll tell you when I have something to eat." Leaning over, I planted a kiss on her temple. I half expected her to pull away or giggle, but she just smiled. With a quick glance at my best friend, I saw him frown a little. "Be right back."
I headed over to the full lunch line. The kids ahead of me seemed a little uncomfortable standing next to me. I'm sure the tale of my sudden mathematical genius and allegedly glowing red eyes had travelled around the school six times in the few short hours I spent in Nurse Jane's office. Only one thing travelled faster than light. Gossip.
I grabbed a tray, some Jell-o, a salad, two sub sandwiches, a bowl of pudding, two bowls of tater tots, a tuna sandwich, and three cokes. I slid my tray up to the check out and punched in my lunch number without even so much as a glance at Gladys. I made my way to our table and set the tray down.
"Hungry much?" Jeremy's voice broke my attention from the mountain of food in front of me.
I heard a voice behind me say, "See, I told you he smoked a big fat blunt. That's why his eyes were red!"
I blushed and ate. Ate some more, and by the time I was finished, Jessie let out a little giggle at the small burp that escaped. I smiled at her and she sat there shaking her head.
"You sure you're okay?" She sounded really concerned.
"I'm fine. Just felt dizzy. I'm sure the food will help."
"With as much as you ate, I should sure as hell hope so," Jeremy said in disbelief.
"So what happened in algebra? Everybody's been asking me. I just told them I didn't see anything unusual," Jessie chimed in.
"Did they laugh?"
"No, I think they were embarrassed. Spill it, what happened? I know you solved super-equation number five. It's all Johnson could talk about after you left."
"Honestly, I don't know. I've always sucked at math. It's almost like I knew what I was doing. Maybe I just got lucky??
"I hope some of it rubs off on me," Jeremy said. "I have a trig test next week that I'm going to flunk."
"You wish. You're on your own. I don't think I can even spell trigonometry, let alone know that the word itself has historical origins from both the Greek language as well as Sanskrit. Both of which combined the words triangle and to measure. Did you know that trigonometric functions are used to describe cyclical phenomenon such as waves? It's really cool. I'd trade you for algebra any day??
I wanted to crawl into a small hole. A very small hole. And die. Jeremy looked at me like an alien had burst out of my chest. Or wings. Jessie just looked amused.
"Okay, what did you do with the real Connor, you evil clone?"
I laughed at Jeremy's joke and gave a heartfelt, "Just kidding!" We all shared a laugh, but Jeremy wouldn't stop staring. I was actually grateful when the lunch bell started ringing. I'd take Social Studies over scrutiny any day.
* * *
I stared at the line of jocks across the gym from the group of skinny, pimply, about as athletic as a one legged fat kid, group of kids surrounding me. They could smell our fear. It wasn't bad enough they always pitted the athletes against the mathletes, but what was triple unfair was they ended up with all of the balls anyway. It wasn't dodge ball so much as a firing squad execution. PE ranked right up there with algebra.
Every one of the jocksters smiled as Coach Cobb walked into the middle of the gymnasium, whistle in lips. He held out his hands toward both teams, looked everyone over once, and nodded. He finished crossing the floor, turned, and blew his whistle. The jocks let out primal screams of rage and hurled their bouncy red balls of death like precisely aimed missiles. The group around me screamed like little girls and scampered around in little circles as they got picked off one by one.
Within a few seconds, half of our ranks were decimated. Kids littered the floor, broken and bleeding, as the balls bounced back toward the