"It's a what?!" I aggressively slump my head forward since the exclamation in my voice seems a little low to display my surprise.

"Practically, yeah. But it's also something else. I mean. . . you can get almost anything here mostly. Debate, plays, writing." The boy with the dislocated teeth again coughs up the definition. He has double jointed eyebrows which forms a hairy bridge under his forehead.

He introduced himself at first and I'm pretty sure his name starts with T or F, but to be honest, the whole knowledge of the present has taken a swan dive out of the window as soon as he started talking.

"So, you're saying. ."
"Yeah. Exactly. It's not bad. . . if you think about it. ." He perks up a smile and then looks away at an angle to lock eyes with someone else.

I don't track his gaze. Mainly because I'm questioning his mental stability because of his choice.

My mum seems to admit me into a psychological help center for children with special needs and the special needs is just a sugar coated euphemism for handicapped, God gifted idiots.

"Alright, class." The voice beckons and without looking, the woman's speech seeps a little tired tone as the shoes click into class.

I spot a laughing image of my mother from the gap in the closing door.

If I run and beg her to punish me like every other parents do to their children, she might still say yes and save me from whatever this place is.

The door shuts to a solid click.

"Wasn't today Edits?" The boy in front slinks back from his seat and throws the question to the girl in the middle.

The inquiry bounces off of her Levis jacket and skinny leggings before the boy in the mid row nooks his head forward and confirms the confusion.

"I thought so too."
"Then what's 'Free hand' doing here?"
"She's from 'Free hand'? How do you know?"
"Duh, I went for a class."
"Any good?"
"Well. . uhm. ."

The conversation sparked the fire of my interest but it ends without any conclusive decision whether if 'Free hand' was good or worse.

"Everyone. Everyone." The voice prompts, rising a pitch then losing the grip of it's boom. I hear the last thud of a briefcase kissing the floor when the head of the front boy, Phylis moves and her image comes into play.

"I know it's supposed to be 'Edits and Grammar' this afternoon but I'm sorry to say Mrs. Gideon is away at a conference, another last minute one and I'll have to stand in for this class."

There's a shimmering row of saddening 'oh's and disapproving grunts which bounces through the somewhat empty classroom walls and lands on her feet.

She inhales a puff of air and holds it in her throat before it passes through her half brown sweater.

I can spot that she isn't particularly thrilled for being a stand in.

I ditch the comfort of the boy's healthy, bulk of a build and crack a peak at the woman as she paces around the desk for a few seconds and then subsides to the comfort of the right hand side window.

Breathing in a packet of runaway sunshine, deflected and finally resting on the spot of her face.

She looks incredibly young with a soft, short bundle of hair tucked away underneath the edge of her beige brown sweater where the towers of a off white shirt collar are prodding to seek sunlight.

For a moment, I think she may be one of the students but she drives that thought away as she sits down onto the teacher's chair.

I'm reasonably more worried than before.

I cast another look as to make sure it isn't Dolorous, a scary glimpse of my imagination who is still persisting to poke me around whenever I commit the sin of thinking of her.

But the second look concretes the absence of Dolorous because Dolorous doesn't have mellow brown hair, tired slumped cheeks, jaded exhaustion in her look and anxious gestures of her hand.

Dolorous always wears the optimism on her skin, but she doesn't seem to be too familiar with fake happiness as another preliminary sigh shoots out of her lips.

Besides, she is prettier than Dolorous; a compliment which I am going to hand it to her straightway without going through the indecency of thinking.

I think juvenile hatred towards Dolorous, among the knowledge that she had abandoned Jackie from her high horse are clouding my judgement.

I am not too troubled by her anymore and it has seem to do something with her presence.

I have already proved to the invisible Gods of commitment and power that I am far more superior than Dolorous in the fields of being a good friend and pathfinder, of sorts.

"Okay, but we are going to continue Mrs. Gideon's Edits and Grammar since she faxed me some of the exercises she prepared beforehand so that you guys can try them out."

The enthusiastic simper slaps on her face for a few seconds before she realizes that no on is really interested in exercises and Mrs. Gideon seems to be the main attraction and steam of Grammar class.

The exhaustion in her face rises and dies off in a hurry.

I feel empathy.

Our religion teacher has similar reviews during his class. Every time he brings a book dedicated to the atheist to portray the hypocracy of their lack of belief in God, everyone mutters among themselves and lets of long exhaustion during the duration of his lecture on the said book.

He is generally disheartened by the performance of his students and their nonacceptance to his interested subjects and his upset is literally seen because he goes to the Movie Theater on Thursdays when they show depressive films and features such as "The Second World War : Mankind's Finest Hour in Slaughter", "Love and Unhappiness" and other ill titled, capsized, confused flicks.

Nonchalantly, he is a sadistic because you can see a large grin on his face, displaying the 32 cleanly brushed teeth as he walks out of the theater, establishing his belief that without God all of us are doomed just like the cruel, sad films.

"Oh." The teacher smiles as she returns to her straight position from her leaned state and waves to the class of students.

A black little hair band is wrapped around her wrist.

"Before we begin, I'm going to introduce myself." She pauses, glancing at the crowd to see a sign of eagerness and attention.

"I'm Ms. Eden. Especially, I'm at Free hand writing and Literature, right next door." She points off to her left where nothing interesting than a brick, dry wall is standing and the chortle of her laughter dies away.

"Some of you might know me." She adds as her gaze falls to the farthest row.

I quickly follow through to see who's the receiver of her attention but all I can spot is just the backside of a strawberry blonde head performing a nod.

"And, even though I'm not going to be taking this class, I'm looking forward to seeing some of you in Literature if you are interested."

She lets the silence take the floor for a hiatus to see if anyone is performing any hoots or enthusiastic gestures for joining Literature. I close my eyes and wait for hearing someones's voice of approval and interest.

The air is rushing and silent.

"Hmph." The inaudible quirk comes from the girl in leggings and Ms. Eden doesn't look practically satisfied with the response as her mouth falls ajar in quick succession and without further hope, she coaxes the blunt looking exercise papers in her arms and start in the dismayed tone.

"Okay. Firstly, punctuation."

I am thinking of Jackie, then the attention is spared to Clay. Then back to Jackie. After that, Dolorous claims a share.

I lied earlier on the car when I thought to myself that I wasn't upset.

I'm discovering that thoughts can lie to you as well as words.

I don't know what to do with this information.

A call would be enough. If that is so impossible, a stroll on the bike to the edge of my house isn't too hard. Nor too much to ask.

My mother is currently swimming on bursting bubbles of serotonin since Jan from "News House" called earlier to see if she was free. Mum lingered around the kitchen counter, uselessly and aimlessly to make her sound busy but in reality she had done nothing all day than go through the reject pile of the last month.

I was waiting for the red phone on the wall to vibrate with an immensely annoying tone but nothing happened in the last 3 days, especially not for me.

I felt like my mother who sits with her eyes fixated on the phone as her hands tap an anxious song on the counter, waiting for dad to call with the news of his 100th homecoming plans.

I felt pathetic.

"Are you finished? You seem to be." My startle hand knocks over the pencil from my grasp and it rolls away but decides to stay on the table.

The pencil doesn't understand sudden break in contemplation, nor drama. It could easily fall down on the floor and create an aura of climax.

"Hmph?" I mouth like a simpleton.

Every animal in the world is born with a defense mechanism, to save them in unforeseen bouts of danger.

I think I must have missed my shot of that gene during birth.

"Are you done with the paper?" She asks and her eyebrows quicken to a sensitive pose, as if she's talking to a terminally ill man, breaking the news to him that he only has 7 weeks to live.

I'm quite familiar with the expression since it was my father's idea to take me to his workplace on my 11th birthday as a present. I didn't mind the smell of bleach and heavy cleaning agents in the nurse room but the terminally ill quarters which is a business word for "Old people who are destined to die, not of old age but some type of cancer which is too hard to pronounce and explain" seemed a bit too much.

I blame the early childhood trauma on my father's misguided action of showing me the death beds.

"Oh, yeah. Um. . . only the punctuation, yes?"

Yes." She pauses to stare at the other side of the class room where the faceless blonde is sitting down. "That's what I told everyone to do."

Her words seem distinct and vague. Probably because I am more fixated on her rather than what is she intending to say to me.

My imagination drags up a rough sketch of what Dolorous looked like.

Dolorous does't have a plump, round pair of lips that pouts heavily.

Dolorous doesn't have a skinny bridged nose with a little smudged ink on the side.

Dolorous doesn't have a kind, fatigue around the tired circle of her eyes.

Dolorous, certainly doesn't wear cheesecake colored Gabardine pants.

Dolorous always looks happy.

"The parking lot certainly looks interesting, doesn't it?" She slurps a simper as she stands beside me, blocking my view of the rough, grey asphalt where the dingy, impure sunlight of a cloud stricken sky is walking unhappily.

"Uh-yuh." I sound like a foreigner, especially those arrogant Europeans who doesn't have the courtesy to use English whenever they visit other countries.

It doesn't go with my outfit.

I look like a homosexual who is constantly confused by the prospect of who or what turns him on.

Identity crisis is not a good thing to have in the middle of a conversation with an attractive lady.

"Sorry, are you new here?" She asks as a sly smirk materializes on her lips.

My anxiety is telling me that she finds my stuttering ridiculously humorous, not the shy and aloof kind.

"Um . . yeah. My mother. . she--"
"Alright, that's good." She nods her head and the smile withers away before returning back to its original place.

"So." She starts as she leans in with an arched back.

"What are you most interested in? In the creative caravan?"

I'm confused of what she's asking me.

Her breath reeks of cheap, instant coffee.

My callous attention only grabs the word "Caravan".

"Um . ."
"Short stories are easy to get into, don't you think?"
"Yeah. . . sure."
"Yeah? I have some classy Fitzgerald that I'm showing in the class tomorrow."
"That sounds. . ."
"What else are you in?" Her voice is losing the tone of care as it drifts away from my face and lobs to the other side of the room.

I follow her gaze and this time, nails the face of the secret person who turns out to be a blonde with a thin freckled face who seems to smile in a native similarity.

"Arts and crafts? Theater? Hmm, you don't look like the theater kind."
"Um. . . Miss Eden . . I actually don't know what I am supposed to be doing here."

My premature smile doesn't soften the blow to her passionate whispering. Instead of returning the simper, she arches from the rooked crack of her back to the its straight stand.

Her tongue glazes a layer of what could only be a gesture of her loss in interest.

"What would you rather do in a rainy afternoon? Heavy drizzle and muddy puddles?"

I swallow the current answer which is standing on the tip of my tongue, like a gun ready to fire.

But then I stop. This can easily be one of those simple questions which reveals a lot about someone's character without their conscious signaling a hideous alarm that their mind is being infiltrated.

Melissa, the natural redhead with very small hair is annoyingly interested in psychology for unknown reason. Being alone in a room with her means that you have to answer various strange questions.

"What do you see first? A bird of a deer?"

"Would you help out a woman if she claims to have lost her purse in the mall and needs to buy a 20 dollar book containing information of Self Help?

"Would you pick up a hitchhiker?"

Mel acts no less of a stalker because she watches everyone in deep constant gazes and sometimes is seen making notes in class but no one really considers her as a threat or even as a thing to bully because:

1. She is somewhat pretty considering to the other girls so everyone subtly wants to get it on with her.

2. She pulls a helpless face when someone misbehaves with her, a mixture of a doe repeatedly blinking at a pair of bright headlights.

The truth is, she is quite lonely and more sensitive than she acts so Clay took it upon himself to keep Harvey away from her at all cost.

"So, what would you do?" Ms. Eden asks again and the longing witty smile resurfaces like a submarine.

"I would ride my bike all over, everywhere singing "Mr. Blue Sky" because I want to live my adolescence to its full potential and have no regrets during my old age."

It is a straight answer but I lost resolve midway so it comes more as a question than a statement.

"Thanks for playing, Mr. ." Her cheeks slump and the held breath escapes the vacuum of her mouth as she shoots the sigh off.

"Mr. Frey Newell. Interesting name."

I cannot make out if it was a compliment or an insult but it feels closer to the latter as she snatches the paper away.

"Alright, everyone. We'll move to Appropriate prepositions."