To my understanding, every child's favorite moment in life is having to indulge in the curricular activities that reside in the second hell. School. Instead of shoving kids into the wall to get to the cafeteria like I did last year, I now had to walk a further distance across the hallways of the North Valley Middle School just to sit near the trashcan and eat stale, moldy, and half cooked pepperoni pizza. But shoving those thoughts aside, I spat on my slice and offered it to Jace Riley, the only kid in the entire 7th grade who could kill more people with his stench than the atomic blasts of a Russian Tsar bomb.
He delights in getting my hands more greasy than they already were as his unkempt teeth gnashed on the stale cardboard. The dumbass can’t even get my name right either, so now either this kid has a crush on me, or he’s just as retarded as an acid eating vampire. I see another kid not too far away, eating a ham sandwich. He looks cool, I guess. Wait a minute, is he emo? He’s got a strange looking navy beanie on, and mostly grey and more navy blue clothes, he also appears to be a bit of a loner. So my dumbass decides to walk up to him and try to befriend him.
“Greetings mortal, I presume the sandwich you feast is supporting your insides well now that teaching has ceased?” I comment as nicely as I can.
He stares at me, and now I can’t tell if he’s infatuated or infuriated.
“Who actually starts a fucking conversation like that?” He says, biting back into his sandwich.
“I’m simply trying to make small talk with you.”
“Alright Edgar Allan Poe sit down why dontcha.” He scooches over and bites into his sandwich again, a piece of the meat falls out and lands on his pants.
“An emo and a klutz.” I can’t help but comment.
“Okay smartass sorry I tried to be nice.” He snaps back, not even looking at me.
“Sorry.” I say, my face boiling a magma red.
He looks up from his pants, I finally see his sapphire blue eyes boring into my own, matches his beanie perfectly.
“Y-Yeah-YES. I am well.” I nervously stammer.
What is wrong with me? I’ve barely known this kid for 5 seconds and I think I like him.
“So…got any favorite bands?” He asks with his mouth full.
Music is in goth’s name, not particularly, but that's what it stems from, what a douchebag.
“Okay…I see it, I see it.”He continues eating his sandwich.
“Well, likewise, you got a name?”
“ ‘Course I got a name, are you trippin’ or sumthin '?”
I watched his face go from smug to burnt. Pfft, what an idiot. Like my name is the last thing he’s gonna want to hear, it’s the only thing I hate my mom for-
“Come again? You sound like a racoon.”
“You look like a racoon. And my name’s Harleen.”
He stares at me blankly for a good 5 seconds before he bursts into another fit of laughter. For the many times I’ve seen emos at the goth readings in Minneapolis, never have they laughed once.
“Aha!” He coughs. “Mine’s Martin. Or Marty, I don’t care.”
“Hell no, Marty? Like Marty McFly?” I ask, a non-emotional look creeps across my face.
His face turns probably about the brightest shade of rose red I’ve ever seen.
“Y-yeah, like Marty McFly. ‘Cept no one’s ever called me that before…”
Only figures this kid’s never seen time travel, I certainly haven’t, but when I’m occupying myself by spray painting the TV trays in Папа’s private jet, then time definitely travels.
“So your name's Harleen? Where you from? England?” He asks, crinkling a bag of potato chips
It’s funny, I really only get called Harleen by my Папа, but he’s got such a thick accent that it’s hard to tell.
“No I’m not. And you know, you ask a lot of personal questions.” I mumble, taking a chip as he offers it.
“That’s a bad thing? I can’t try to be social?”
“I just presumed- never mind.”
He rolls his eyes and keeps yapping anyways, I hope he doesn’t have a girlfriend.
“Well in case you haven’t noticed, I’m from Kentucky.”
Why doesn’t he look like a deep fried chicken leg?
“Uhm yeah like that, so I was born in Kentucky, we moved to Indiana when I was three, and then moved here after I turned six, I don’t actually know why.”
I hate when people talk to me just on a day to day basis, but this Marty kid could talk to me for as long as he wanted without stopping.
“I was born in Russia, but my family already lived in Wisconsin, my papa just wanted me to be born where he was from, and then I moved here when I was eight.” I really don’t like talking about myself all that much, for this particular reason.
“WHOA. An actual Russian?? What are your thoughts on the Cold War? Are you part of some secret Soviet group that’s planning on turning Minnesota into a nuclear Antarctica?????”
Alright so now he’s getting all up in my face and alongside freckles, I can see he doesn’t take care of his pores.
“Get the hell away from me.” I groan.
“Sorry- Uhhh, lemme think…what about full names?” He changes the topic quickly.
I groan,“Harleen Marie Kuznetsov.”
“Your middle name doesn’t sound like it’d be Marie.”
“Well my mom insisted I-”
“Well see it’s just that your middle name-”
“Oh. Shit, okay well my full name is Martin William Thatcher.”
“Strange, “William” makes you sound like a poser.” I point at his emo-like attire.
He laughs again, he doesn’t sound like Darryl Irvies or Logan Peter at all. There’s no tuba sounding vocal cords to his laughter, he just sounds like an elementary schooler.
“I kinda deserved that, hah hah…so, what do ya do in your afternoons? Pray to Stalin?”
“Ah shut the hell up, I just do whatever I can find in my room.”
“Like drawing sigils because Stalin didn’t hear your prayers?”
I could very well beat Marty’s ass right here, right now.
“Stalin has his talking preferences, and besides I have an NES.”
“You know, the new console Nintendo released last June? You can actually hold it with your hands, it’s so cool. But honestly, it’s a bit hard to see the screen when I’m playing on it-”
I guess I’ll just let him ramble on about this new Nintendo, sounds interesting, but my Папа would probably never let me get it until the 21st century. Wait, I'd be twenty by then, so maybe then I’ll be able to purchase it. Once the bell rang for lunch I scampered away from Marty McIWillKickInTheGroin to Miss Tomason’s for my new daily heroin shot of mathematics. The classroom looked like the inside of a diner from the 1950s, all quartz rose pink and that sky blue color, real impressive for a probably mid-20s woman. I sat down near the back of the classroom just to avoid being stared at by the others.
Lets see, Svetlana Tsvesti, my best friend and only other Russian peer, Richard Knight, all the other kids nicknamed him Dick last year, Jayden Tarlson, he deserved Richard’s nickname more than its owner, Savannah Williams, the girl who has the blackened guts to smoke a pack behind the school, Kristine Doux, she’s the only girl who dresses like a hippie, weak. Oh great, in walks Molly Ringwald’s ugly stepsister Angela Cadelle and her cult of the Straight A’s, which consist of herself, Annika Chapman, and Alexia Crawford. All members of the school’s cheerleading squad, and all members of the I Want To Push You Into A Flamepit club which holds meetings inside my inner thoughts on a daily basis. But basically, they all date guys, and all six letter names starting with A, hence the group “Straight A’s”. I feel someone pull a chair up beside me.
“Who’da thought I’d be stuck next to comrade, sulfur head, Harleen Stalingrad.” I hear the ignorant yet childish of emo kid Martin Beryllium Thatcher.
“It’s Leningrad you numbskull.”
“Leningrad, Shemellingrad, they’re all communist cities either way.” Marty drones, pulling out a navy blue notebook with a skull drawn in fine Sharpie on the cover. Before I knew it, Miss Tomason’s pointed heels began clicking down the hallway, stopping as soon as she walked into the room. She had curly dirty blonde hair that was up in a sideways ponytail, a schoolgirl-like dress that perfectly complemented the aesthetic of her classroom. She had a pencil perched meticulously on her right ear, and the glare of her glacier blue eyes was enough to blind someone till their eyes bled out.
“Mr. Tarlson.” Her piercing voice rang with authority.
“Yea ma’am?” The redhead smirked.
“You’re quite aware of the creation in your hands aren’t you?”
“Yes ma’am?” He and Dick snickered as Jayden bent the corner of the paper airplane’s wing, he aimed it at Annika’s feathered hair. Miss Tomason smirked, a look that only the most pure and evil could pull off.
“Let me see that, perhaps I’ll fly it smoother than I can imagine you can.”
The class snickered, Marty and I watched intently.
She walked over to her desk, pulled a lighter out, and lit Jayden’s plane on fire, eventually dousing it in the faucet that was almost placed conveniently for times like that.
“I’d say that flew quite a distance, didn’t it Mr. Tarlson? You should invest in becoming a flight technician if you get the chance.” Miss Thomason smiled warmly, dried her hands and walked past Jayden, whose mouth was agape in astonishment.
“Now. Class question for today, who can tell me the mathematical equation for heat?”
The class went dead silent, even I didn’t know this.
“Hmm.” The teacher mumbled. “Didn’t Mr. Anderson teach you kids anything?”
Miss Tomason’s heels clacked across the room to the blackboard, and she wrote one of the most confusing equations I had ever seen.
“Damn…” Marty wrote on a note and snuck it to me.
“Alright, this one you might want to pay close attention to. q= mcΔT, can anybody describe the variables in this equation, and or what they mean?”
Jayden of course spoke up about what Miss Tomason was trying to teach, I actually found this new teacher to be intriguing.
“Miss, I thought this was a math class, not a college chemistry course.” Jayden sneered, his reddish locks bouncing as he and Dick snickered.
I peered at the teacher, and slipped the note back to Marty.
“Jayden Tarlson is a douche.”
Miss Tomason eyed the ginger again.
“Mr. Tarlson. If you were to use whatever is left in your head to pay attention instead of jabbering off to Mr. Knight, you would understand the connection being made.”
“Ah, ah, we do not use “but” as an excuse.”
“End of discussion, pay attention please.”
Marty slipped the note back to me.
Miss Tomason began to teach us about variables, and how the demonstration of burning Jayden’s paper airplane was a great start to our first unit, meaning Pre-Algebra. Perfectly lovely. I passed the note back to Marty.
“At least she got the class jaybird to shut its beak.” I had written.
Once the screech of the bell scrambled my hearing, Marty passed the note back to me before he noogied my arm and left.
“Meet me at the bike rack behind the school.” He wrote.
Miss Tomason’s heels clacked towards me.
She smiled, mostly in shock at how I acknowledged her presence.
“You have one of the easiest surnames that I’ve ever needed to memorize.”
I cocked my head to the side in confusion. No one ever says my last name correctly at the first shot.
“I don’t know if I’d say easy-”
She laughed, that was new. She sounded like a pro too.
“Of course I’ve had the rare opportunity to meet your father, when he came to collect my taxes anyways.”
Taxes? The only time Папа ever went directly to someone's house was- holy shit she’s the resident that left Sovsem Odin last winter.
She showed me a beaded bracelet, one that said..
“Ameliya..Ameliya Tomason…I made that for you when I was nine.”
“Indeed you did, I had just begun getting my bachelors in teaching when I was asked by your father if I could teach you with the limited skills I knew.”
“My papa did that?” I was amazed, I actually forgot there was something somewhat good about my father.
“S-so you’re from Russia?”
“Not entirely, I was born in America but to Russian immigrants.”
“You’re just good at hiding your accent…”
“Da. Why do you think you were put in my class specifically?”
“I just assumed 'cause Svetlana was in here.”
She chuckled, for a strict teacher, she shockingly showed some interesting compassion.
“Don’t always assume things Miss Kuznetsov, it might lead you down a path you’ll never return from. Now you should get going, if your next period teacher asks why you are late, tell them I spilled tea.” She winks.
I turned to the door, thrusting my bag over my shoulder.
“До свидания. (Goodbye)” I mumbled.
She tucked a different pencil behind her left ear.
I strolled to my next class, and as I did I pondered. In this school, some teachers could teach and were respected because they gave chewing gum and Tootsie Pops out if you got an answer correct on the first try, but teachers like Miss Tomason were ridiculed upon by those who had her because she taught and didn’t reward any good or bad behavior. Her words stuck with me, if I had kept up with everyone else and hated her because I wasn’t given free food in class, then I would be just about the same as them. This for some reason also led to my other thought, how did the smoke alarms not go off when she lit Jayden and Dick’s paper airplane to ashes?
