Snark and Circumstance (Novella) - By Stephanie Wardrop Page 0,18
like chipping away at a brick wall with a plastic spoon. At the end of a day, you think you’ve made progress. But when you look at it later, the wall seems thicker than ever.
I should just forget it. Forget about him. Leave him to his stupid smelly frog cadavers. Because he is impossible to work with. For instance, our English project group doesn’t get together the way other groups do. Shondra and I work together after school one day, and compare notes over lunch, but Michael never joins us and never suggests that we confer on anything.
But when the time comes to present our Chaucer stuff to the class, Ms. Ehrman says our work was “informative and eclectic.” That feels really good, and I have to admit that Michael’s part of the presentation packs a lot of information into a short and clear talk. He doesn’t read from a print-out or index cards, like lots of people do, in a dull monotone that would put a Jack Russell on meth to sleep. He speaks instead just as if he were having a conversation with you, like you happened to have asked him what he knows about the role of the clergy in the fifteenth century. He doesn’t need PowerPoints or to dress up, like some kids did. He just says what he has to say in this rich voice that, when it’s not sodden with sarcasm, makes you want to listen to it. It makes you want to climb into it, actually. Anyway, he did a great job.
So I catch up to him after class as we’re both navigating the hallways. It’s extra hard today because the cheerleaders are taking up way too much room decorating the football players’ lockers and hanging up spirited signs, a frightening portion of which contain spelling mistakes.
I tell him, “Hey, your stuff about the clergy was really good.” Then I joke, “I don’t know why you had to be so hard on the Prioress, though. She doesn’t seem so bad to me.”
He rolls his eyes and jostles past Cassie, who is affixing black and white crepe paper streamers to a drinking fountain, and makes a face at me.
“Of course you like the Prioress!” he sniggers. “Because she treats animals better than she treats people! Maybe you should make her the subject of your next vegan crusade in the Alt.”
“Look,” I say as I take a breath. “I’m complimenting you on a job well done. I’m not picking a fight.”
He smiles then, slightly, and takes a breath. As I’m turning to walk away, he says, “I just meant that the Prioress is a woman of the church so she is supposed to be interested in charity. Being charitable to people, but Chaucer makes it clear that she only cares about her little dog.”
I turn back to him. “I know. And I just meant that maybe it’s easier for her to get along with animals than with people. Because people can be jerks sometimes, right?”
He smiles for real then. It might be the first time I’ve seen him do that. We just look at each other for a moment like we’ve seen each other for the first time. And I smile back.
“Okay,” he says at last. “And a ‘job well done’ to you, too . . . Are you going this way?” he asks, indicating the related arts hallway with his black binder.
I shake my head.
“Nope. I have Spanish.”
He waves slightly then and takes off past two guys who are attempting to play lacrosse between the banks of lockers. Longbourne High needs to invest in a traffic cop. When he gets to the end of the hallway and is about to turn the corner, he looks back. I wave a little. He smiles, and then he’s gone. I stand there, letting people push past me, rethinking again my plan to wave goodbye to Michael forever as a lab partner. Now I’m not so sure I want to.
Maybe there’s a way we can salvage this partnership after all. Today’s work split was a pretty good start.
Things are definitely looking up. One sign of this is the fact that lunch is actually a bright spot in my day. And at lunch today, while I’m watching Gary try to sneak the chocolate coconut cookies I have just baked before Dave can, I sit back for a second and remind myself that as forlorn as I felt days before, things could be much worse—and were much worse last year. I am so grateful that I have Shondra and Dave and Gary now to eat lunch with. It feels good to sit with someone and not have to will myself to be invisible while I focus on a book, or worse—watch everyone else laughing and taunting and yelling, or whatever it is they are doing in the circus-slash-fashion show that is lunch at Longbourne High. Years ago, at other schools, if I were sitting alone, I would think that everyone was watching me, thinking I was a loser. Last year I could even feel their eyes on my back; I could practically hear what I imagined they were saying about me. But now I know better. Nobody was staring at me then. Nobody cared enough about me to do that.
As I count my blessings, as my mom would say, Shondra pokes me and asks, “So have you and Michael declared a ceasefire? I saw you two in the hallway after class.”
Dave looks up from his meatball sub, curious, and I shrug.
“I just thought he did a good job and I told him so. We all rocked it, I thought.”
“We did,” Shondra agrees, then grins wickedly and almost sings out, “Remember what Maggie said about you two? ‘Perfect for each other?’”
“I don’t think we’re destined to be together just because for the first time in weeks I don’t want to throttle him with a two by four.” I laugh, but I remember the smile he gave me right before he turned the corner and I feel my face grow warmer. Dave laughs until Gary goes in for the vegan thin mint cookies I had brought in my lunch bag. Gary always gets to the baked goods before Dave, who is usually too busy talking to snatch his share in time.
Right now I am unlike Chaucer’s Prioress, because I am feeling so generous toward humanity I wish I had brought more cookies for everyone. Including Michael Endicott.
Stephanie Wardrop
Stephanie Wardrop grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania where she started writing stories when she ran out of books to read. She’s always wanted to be a writer, except during the brief period of her childhood in which piracy seemed like the most enticing career option—and if she had known then that there actually were “girl” pirates way back when, things might have turned out very differently. She currently teaches writing and literature at Western New England University and lives in a town not unlike the setting of Snark and Circumstance with her husband, two kids, and five cats. With a book out—finally—she might be hitting the high seas any day now.
Visit http://www.facebook.com/StephanieWardropYaAuthor
Look for CHARM AND CONSEQUENCE, book two in the Snark and Circumstance series, coming from Swoon Romance on May 14, 2013.
Table of Contents
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
Chapter 1: The Devil Wears Polo
Chapter 2: Never Bargain with Your Mother
Chapter 3: Epic Party Fail
Chapter 4: Nobody Likes the Wife of Bath
Chapter 5: Is That a D-bag I See Before Me?
Stephanie Wardrop
Table of Contents
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
Chapter 1: The Devil Wears Polo
Chapter 2: Never Bargain with Your Mother
Chapter 3: Epic Party Fail
Chapter 4: Nobody Likes the Wife of Bath
Chapter 5: Is That a D-bag I See Before Me?
Stephanie Wardrop
Table of Contents
SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE SNARK AND CIRCUMSTANCE
Chapter 1: The Devil Wears Polo
Chapter 2: Never Bargain with Your Mother
Chapter 3: Epic Party Fail
Chapter 4: Nobody Likes the Wife of Bath
Chapter 5: Is That a D-bag I See Before Me?
Stephanie Wardrop