Feather After // Chapter 34 // Pop Quiz And Manchurian

Aria' POV

Don't ask me how I ended up in my house yesterday or how I pretended that nothing was wrong when my whole life was falling apart. People had sabotaged my life so as to make it better for them. Don't ask me why I fell for the guy who wasn't even a tiny bit interested in me, he rather seemed interested in my first friend I made when I moved to Maple High. Well, now let's not go there because there was no point talking about something which was not in my hand. I wish I was just like a normal teenager who could possibly be as normal as anyone else was, you know loud screaming family, financial problems, bad grades.

Right now, I was walking down the hallway while trying to balance a thick physics book in my hand while trying to balance this thick biology laboratory book on the other hand. I had my white bag pack hung around my back. And I tiptoed through the hall because I didn't want to fall straight flat on my face and break my glasses.

I found Rachael standing next to my locker as if she was trying to distract her self while she was waiting for me. Her back was turned towards me but her long straight black hair was almost the best identity anyone could have of her.

"Boo!" I roared when I reached her, and to my utter surprise, she wasn't a bit scared. Instead, she looked around and smirked at me. She raises her eyebrow at me and leaned against the locker while watching me struggle to open the locker.

"I expected a lot better from you, to be honest. It was very girly and I wasn't even kind of scared. It was very weak, trying howling and growling like a tiger next time, hunters underestimate the cat until it howls like a tiger or a lion, whatever your favorite wild animal is," she flipped her hair and chewed on her bubble gum.

What she said stung. I mean what she said was true. I had been taken granted for my whole life because I let them take me for granted. If only I would have had the guts to say no instead of just meekly crying and mulling for help, I would have done better and I know that I would have been in a better position today.

"Let's move if you don't want to end up in detention like always," she grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the English room. While walking towards the room, people popped in just to say hi to Rachael, they gave me weird looks and then got back to their work. I looked at her, and she just smiled brushed it off by saying, "they are just so obsessed with me."

When we entered the classroom, someone howled. "Rachael scares boys off, that's why she is hitting on girls now."

"Oh shut up, Danny. Don't be jealous just because I have fingered vaginas and you haven't,' she replied and the students present in the class snickered.

We took the seat, my usual the window one and Rachael sat right next to me, with Xavier behind me who was apparently one of the very best friends of Rachael. She was one of the only people I had seen that had gotten so popular so soon. It was more like she knew people before.

I don't know when the English class started and when our English teacher started shooting glares at me. I started to feel uncomfortable but then I tried not to squirm. I sat there pretending then everything was okay and nothing was wrong. English class ended and we moved towards a different room, I promised Rachael that I would sit with her and her friends during lunch and that I wouldn't chicken out like I usually did.

I walked towards the biology lab which was let's say my second favorite place in the school after the library. Our bio lab class was very spacious and big, it was divided into four different parts namely the center part where the students sat, the part just left to the center part where animals like snakes, four different species of frog, a lizard and two-three more animals were kept in different rectangle glass. On the other side, that was the right side of the center part of the classroom, different apparatus were kept to conduct various experiments in the lab, like the microscope and other things like that.

The back side of the classroom was usually empty where the latecomers stood because our biology teacher didn't want them to miss the class just because their stupid heads couldn't conduct themselves to be in class on time.

I sat on the last seat and saw as the class got filled with students, to my surprise Xavier sat next to me, and when I looked at him, as to why he was suddenly so friendly with me he just shrugged and said, "Rachael is my best friend, and any close friend of her is my friend too."

"Thank you but that friend rule of yours don't really work for me, I want you to be friends with me just because you want to, not because of Rachael," I smiled at him and opened my book to the chapter we were currently on.

"I'll tell you what, so here is the deal, no other girl was able to reject this face before, so I'm going to stick with you, and I'm one hundred percentile sure that once you know me, you'll love me."

"I'm good like this only, Mr. Charming so what's the deal huh?"

"So you agree my face is better than that ugly book for yours, anyway, so I'll ask you a few basic questions and if you even answer two of them correctly, I'll leave you, but if you don't, I guess you're stuck with me," he smirked, and one thing was pretty clear, he was one hell of a cocky guy.

"If I answer two, you'll leave me alone, sounds interesting."

"So eager to play with me huh?" he winked and I wanted to smile. He was a cute guy. He was at least honest.

"Shoot!"

"If I'm traveling in a plane and I have one fifty bricks, and I throw one of them, how many are left?" he asked.

"Well I certainly expected them to be a little difficult than this, one forty none bricks are left," I smiled and raised my eyebrow at him, "is this what you have got, second-grade maths questions?"

"Well I just wanted to see if you were just as stupid as you look, but no, its actually third-grade math book, just stole it from my brother's book, I mean the question."

"At least I don't look like trash like you," I pretended to flip my hair and,

"Next question please, I can't wait to get over this."

"How will you squeeze an elephant into a refrigerator?" he asked and now he pretended to slip his hair which was very blond and kind of hot, I mean it matched with his light blue-purplish eyes.

"I don't know, how?"

"By emptying the refrigerator and squeezing it in, it's simple. You just have to think out of the box."

"What the hell? What did I get myself into?"

"Anyways the next question is, how will you put a giraffe into the refrigerator?"

"What? Can you ask something which actually makes sense for a second, like what?"

"It's too late to opt out now. There is no harm in trying although I know you'll not be able to answer them."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, anyways, you can put the giraffe into the refrigerator by emptying the refrigerator and thrusting it in."

"No, remember what I said? Think out of the box, be creative."

"If this is what you call creativity then trust me, you have got the wrong definition of it."

"I have pharmacology as my subject, and the definition even includes lies, as in the quicker one can lie and more creative he or she is. Anyway since you don't know the answer, like always so, you'll open the refrigerator pull the elephant out and then thrust the giraffe in."

I swear to god, I wanted to bang my head on the wall. Here I was wasting my time of the stupid viva with the stupid boy, while I knew our biology teacher was trying her best to ignore the fact that we were not listening to her and were bust taking the bloody oral pop quiz.

"Next question, in the jungle the tiger was getting married to a turtle, then tell me who couldn't attend the wedding."

I looked at him, and I was trying my best to not throw a punch at him. This time I wanted to bang his head on the wall instead. "I'll tell you what, we are biology students well, a lion can not get married to a turtle."

"Aria, please, it was a tiger for god's sake, and remember what I said, think-"

"Out of the box, I remember, I don't know, tell me?"

"Well, the giraffe couldn't attend the wedding of the un-biological tiger and turtle."

I didn't want to argue with him, "next question please."

"An old lady was trying to cross the bridge which had crocodiles living in it, then how did she cross the river?"

"Because she hit on the crocodile which came in her way, you know she had a wooden stick."

"Well, it was a nice try, but she was able to cross the river because all the crocodile had gone to the wedding of tiger and turtle."

"Next question?"

"Well let me remind you, Miss. Aria this is the very last questions of these series, so you only have one last try to get rid of my awesome company okay?"

"I'm aware of it, now. So yeah, please continue."

"While the old lady was trying to cross the river she died why?"

"Heart attack?"

"No."

"Anxiety?"

"No."

"Panic attack?"

"No."

"She slipped?"

"No."

"Her brain stopped working?"

"No."

I didn't care by then, I said whatever I could think of, I tried to remember every disease I had ever studied in the biology class till now.

"Then?"

"By saying that you mean you're giving up, that means that you'll enjoy my awesome company now, whether you like it or not."

"Oh, god."

"Well remember the one brick I threw from the plane I was traveling in? It fell on her head."

Well at that particular time, I really wanted to hit him with our thick biology book. I smiled at him while mentally I stabbed him with thousands of dagger. What the hell had just happened? Did I really take the terrible, not to mention idiotic quiz which had no meaning what so ever with anything?

The bell suddenly rang, and he stood up from his seat, "see you at lunchtime, my new friend." he winked at me, for I don't know the fifth time or something like that and left the class.

I followed suit. I emerged into the crowd and for my next class. I walked to my locker to take my physics book. I had heard that our physics teacher was back. He was fully recovered and for the first time, I had the feeling that things were about to get crystal clear. The whole school would know if Ignatius did things to him or whether it was just a crazy rumor.

A part of me wanted to believe that Ignatius was not responsible for this. He was just an eighteen-year-old boy who had a lot of tattoos and maybe he was a little sexually frustrated that he kept kissing Misty but somewhere in my heart I knew what Ignatius was capable to of, he was a predator who got what he wanted, whatever the thing maybe.

I walked towards the locker and saw a familiar figure standing there, he was there!

"Manchurian!" I screamed and ran towards him.