SENSE: Part One

I write. Most often it goes unread, only a lucky few get to skim. This is a piece I've been working on for some time now--not sure if it will be a short story or much longer. I suppose it could be categorized as adolescent lit. It's a work in progress. Suggestions and constructive criticism are welcome. Working title- Sense



“Kiss him,” I dare her, “French kiss him.”
“Sure, yeah, ok. Find him.” She is nonchalant. No need to play it cool because she is the picture beneath the word in the dictionary.
It’s Wednesday, I am wearing my gray skirt, algebra equations inked on the seam, a white shirt, short sleeves, and the tie, blue and red loose around my neck, hanging like a noose.
She’s got her gray skirt, way above the knee, a white shirt, sleeves rolled up, untucked and that tie, blue and red striped, like a shawl draped over her breasts.
Explain to me why the man of my dreams is kissing her and not me? Or better yet why I dare her to kiss him.
She’s what I want to be.
A few weeks earlier we got in trouble, cutting class, spending time in the bathroom writing poetry on the walls with a sharpie marker and smoking Marlboro reds. I told my teacher I felt sick, which wasn’t a lie. I was sick of her and her bullshit class and all the assholes who threw spitballs through empty bic pens or made irrelevant comments in the middle of her reading directly from the textbook. I said I had menstrual cramps, was feeling sick, and asked to be excused to sit and wallow in my ovarian pain.
My new partner in crime was in another class and asked to use the lavatory. Synchronized Swatch watches.
We met up in the stalls by the canteens, right behind the music classroom. The air behind the class always lingered of dry stale smoke, girls’ perfume, and cheeseburgers. Some nark saw us in the bathroom and told the principal later that period. I’m trying to figure out who it was so I can break her face against the sink. I know it’s a girl because only a girl would be jealous of us. A guy would’ve joined us.
The principal, he calls us in to his office. A real bear of a man, sitting behind his desk, his Greek coffee steaming, resting next to a glass of water, his arms crossed over his papers, he looks stern, a picture of large man with his hands folded over his desk, the founder of the school, hangs over his desk. They look like brothers, or maybe second cousins. He starts shaking his head when the secretary announces us and leaves the room. He looks at us, then at her and points to the armchair closest to the door. She sits. I am still standing when he begins,
“And you, what now? Hmm?” he presumes I will answer? “I expected more from you. You are so smart. Why you need to leave the class and spend time in the bathroom, eh?”
I look at my shoes, they are dark blue instead of black, as is the code. I feel like a rebel, I hope he sees.
“I was sick sir,” I cough out, looking at his hands, a fat gold ring adorns his pinky. He
looks more like a Mafioso than a principal. Someone who has wacked a few poor lost souls in his time. Someone who lays down the law, but for a bowl of really tasty pasta, he’d bend the rules. The crispness of his collar doesn’t move when his head moves.
“Eh, come on you were sick. You were smoking in the bathroom by the canteen. Don’t lie to me,” his pointer finger shakes, I stare at the pinky ring reflecting the light. It plays around on his red tie like fireflies fighting over light. He reminds me of the type of guy who would order a big fatty fat dinner with extra fries and a loaf of bread, and to drink- diet coke.
“You are too smart for that. Why you have to miss valuable class time? The president of your class, what would the class say eh?”
I want to tell him the class can bite my ass, that they don’t give a shit about this dump, that our parents are paying thousands of pounds for some airhead redhead to read out of a textbook for 45 minutes and then complain that we don’t pay attention to what she “is teaching”. I want to yell that the gym teacher grabbed a girl by the arm the other day and pushed her into the wall because she complained that it was too hot to run. I want to talk about the religion teacher’s promise that we would all burn in eternal flames if our families did not abide by the Bible and the 10 commandments. If someone in our family was not married, but living together/having sex, we would pay. My great-grandparents, they were never married. This meant that anyone who came after them would subsequently burn on top of infinite brimstone. I couldn’t sleep for five days after that. I’d close my eyes and envision little horned midgets with flaming pitchforks jabbing the heals of my feet and chanting some awful song in German about how this would last forever, that tomorrow they would eat my brain and dance on my face. My mother was forced to sit by my bedside and feed me soup and chamomile tea. When that didn’t work, she gave me sleeping pills so I could fall asleep.
I want to slam my hand on the desk and tell him he can take his Potatoehead wife vice principal and make mashed potatoes for all I care. I want to tell him that the graffiti on the walls that spells out A.A.N., Assholes Anonymous Nicosia, or A.A.N. not just for dickheads anymore, or Talk Hard, Fight Mr. Potato head with a picture of Mr. Potatohead wearing a thick red tie and a crisp shirt, resembling the principal, all that was my doing. Instead I say,
“Sir, really I was sick.”