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I looked across the room as the girl, Skye, raised her hand. Mr. Jackson sighed heavily and ran his hand through his hair.
“Yes, Skye, what is it?” he asked.
“How hard do you think you would have to throw a ballpoint pen to get it lodged in someone’s eye?” she asked.
“Skye, this is beginner’s French,” he said.
“All right. Comment dur pensez-vous que vous auriez à jeter un stylo à bille pour l'obtenir introduite dans l'œil de quelqu’un?” she asked, with out batting an eye.
“Like, super hard, or something, Skye, four chair legs on a ground at a time. Now, today we’re going to— Skye, stop tapping your fingers on the desk— we’re going to be working on— Skye, what could you possibly need this time?” he asked.
“Okay, but, why are there four legs on every chair? Why are they called legs? Like, they’re obviously not legs, they don’t have feet at the end. So why would you call them legs?” she asked.
“Because they keep the chair up. Like legs for humans do,” he said, giving in.
“Yeah, but what makes a leg a leg, really?” she asked.
“I don’t know, consult a dictionary,” he said.
“Do you have a dictionary, Mr. Jackson?” she asked.
“Just, take this one and go crazy,” he said, handing her the book. She flipped through the pages.
“Now— Yes, Skye, what is it?” he asked, sighing heavily.
“Sir, this book says 'each of the limbs on which a person or animal walks and stands’ which totally doesn’t include chairs.” she said.
“A chair stands on legs,” he said.
“Yeah, but it says walks and stands. A chair can’t walk,” she said.
“Skye, just,” he sighed, “Everyone, do your reading.”
Skye seemed to smile contently, and we all read until the bell rang.
Our class got up, and filed out of the classroom. I went to math, next. The teacher began with roll call. After a while, she got to my name.
“Jemma Simmons?” she called.
“Here,” I said.
She soon got to the bottom of the page, though.
“Skye?” she called.
“Well, that depends. Is that my name, really? It’s just a title made up to be put on another person so other people know what to call them,” Skye said.
“I see you’re up bright and early this morning,” the teacher said.
“Is anything really bright? What makes us who we are?” she asked.
“Great. Who put her on identity crisis mode?” the teacher asked.
“Guess this class just brings it out of me,” Skye said, grinning.
After a while of learning about quadratic formulas, or whatever it was, we all filed out of class again. But this time, I was getting peeved. Skye interrupted too many lessons, and we never got anything done.
I got into the hallway, and waited. She got out of class, and seemed to grin at me, but I just poked her in the chest.
“I take my grades very seriously, and you getting the teachers off topic is not helping that! I may be several inches shorter than you, but I will fight you, Skye No-Last-Name-Because-I’m-A-Macho-Badass!” I insisted quietly. At the last part, her smile faltered a little, and I felt a little bad. A little. My grades could be at stake.
“It took you long enough!” she said.
“I— What?” I asked, confused.
“Gosh, I do a little pestering, drop weird notes in your locker about your cat being a satanic cult leader—“ she began.
“That was you?” I asked.
“— Try and distract the teachers so you’d get pissed, and every time I walk past you in the lunch room I steal your cookie—“ she continued.
“I thought that was Fitz!” I interrupted.
“— What does a girl have to do to get noticed around here, Jemma, jeez!” she said, still grinning.
“You— What? What are you trying to accomplish?” I asked.
“A date. This Saturday? The movies. I was thinking an action film?” she said.
Somehow, we’d walked to her locker, and she was now pushing books inside.
“What?” I asked, perplexed.
“Or, you know, a comedy. That’s always good, too.” she said, pushing more books in.
“I— You thought it’d be good to express this by telling me that my cat liked to summon demons in his spare time?” I asked.
“Your cat looks like a satanic cult leader, what’s a girl to do?” she asked.
“How do you even know what my cat looks like?” I asked.
“Ouch, Jems. You’ve said some hurtful things this past minute, but that one really stung,” she said, laughing.
“What?” I asked. What even is this girl?
“I live right next door to you. Have for the past month. Our windows are literally parallel. I could stick my foot out the window and fall right into your bedroom,” she said.
“Oh, my god. You’re ‘kinda-hot-but-also-won’t-stop-blasting-Metallica-at-unholy-times-of-the-night’?” I asked.
“That seems to ring a bell, yeah,” she said, laughing.
I could feel the blush grow on my cheeks.
“So, Saturday?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, my head still spinning.
“Great! I’ll tell your cat he can stop summoning Satan now. Catch ya later,” she said with a wink.
And then she was gone, down the hallway, and into the crowd. What had I gotten myself into?