WHO: Roland and Cass. WHEN: Friday, August 31st, 2035. (Forward-dated a wee bit.) NPC: Mr. McNichol, English 12 teacher at St. Isidore's. WHERE: St. Isidore's, outside at lunchtime to start. WHAT: Roland is checking out the private school, and for some reason, some teacher thinks Cass is the one that should show him around. RATING: TBA. STATUS: Incomplete.
When she'd first started at St. Isidore, the thing she'd hated most had been the fact that she had to wear a skirt. She'd quickly come to realize how absolutely pointless it was to worry about the opinions of her peers, and stopped caring if she jumped too high while kicking around her soccer ball during lunch and flashed some random idiots her underwear. The odds were pretty slim anyway, and she was well aware no one at this stupid place was trying to look up her skirt. No one gave a shit what kind of underwear she wore.
Obviously.
Manly legs.
Whatever. She played soccer, of course she had muscular legs. And she wasn't... hairy or anything.
Cass just turned her music up and moved away from the mental commentary she could never quite escape. She liked it better when it wasn't about her, even though it was still annoying either way.
Really annoying. For example, Rachel was in some stupid frenzy because Carly was mad at her for flirting with Matt and didn't Rachel know how much Carly liked him, and didn't Carly know that Rachel had liked him forever and anyway, she hadn't meant to flirt, and if CJ had to hear about it any more, she was going to just go tell them all that Matt was way too good for either of them anyway because at least he didn't annoy the shit out of her by obsessing over the two of them. He just thought Rachel's tits were better than Carly's, but otherwise wasn't interested and actually liked Carly, even if she was a bit dramatic and he didn't get it, and then he just started wodnering if they'd have anything good for lunch, so he at least wasn't driving her crazy. CJ knew way more about everyone here than she ever wanted to. Ever.
She wasn't doing a very good job tuning stuff out today, even with the music blaring in her ears, so she knew Mr. McNichol was approaching before he got there. She turned off her music just in time to clearly hear him say -- out loud -- that he knew just the person for the job, and how handy, here she was.
Though she wasn't quite sure why (or maybe she just didn't trust that he was actually as nice as he seemed), Mr. McNichol seemed to really like her. Maybe it was because she wrote awesome papers for him, or because she ate lunch in his classroom sometimes, but that was only because English was her favourite class and because an empty classroom was so much quieter than the packed cafeteria. Whatever the case, he was here now, with some kid she'd never seen before in tow.
She pulled her earbuds out and rolled the cord up as she looked at the two of them, a wary expression on her face. If it was any other teacher, she'd just walk away. But it was Mr. McNichol, so she at least offered, "You can't possibly be punishing me yet. School just started."
"CJ, this is Roland. Roland, please meet CJ Summers, one of our illustrious seniors. He is a prospective student, and I think a tour from a peer would give him a much better perspective than one from a teacher," Mr. McNichol said, and the look he shot CJ was clearly one telling her to be good.
It was refreshing that he actually believed that and wasn't just hungry and felt like dumping the kid off on someone. Cass liked that about Mr. McNichol. He was mostly honest. Plus, he didn't insist on calling her Cassandra like some assholes did. Still, she didn't like him enough to agree. Not that he was giving her a choice.
"But..."
"You kids have fun now. If you're late to class in the interest of thoroughly representing our school, I'll look the other way just this once. I know you've already finished the book anyway," he said with a wink.
CJ just scowled, and told him with a curl of her lip just how unimpressed she was with this little idea. He didn't seem to care, though, and he was walking away without another word, leaving CJ with... some guy named Roland.
She gave him a slightly assessing look, though she wasn't sure why she bothered. She was rarely impressed with anyone, let alone someone who'd just replaced her downtime with babysitting time. She toed the soccer ball into the air and caught it easily, sticking it under her arm and then tucking her hair behind her ear with her free hand and finally addressing the kid.
"I'm not calling you Roland. I'm pretty sure that's everyone's great grandfather's name."
Well, at least she could skip English. What a treat. The only class she really looked forward to. And after that was math. Joyous. She just told herself to count down the hours to the weekend. Not many to go.