IV. 1.04 'EYE OF THE BEHOLDER'
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The catchy symphonic melody of He Loves You Not by underground girl group Dream flowed through the busted Walkman cassette that currently lined Arlee's inner pocket.

Unlike the days before, she'd been left to walk to school by herself due to her not being able to read the time on her alarm clock and not wanting to move fast enough when she had learnt of her severe lateness. Not for school, but for Toby's calculated route that couldn't be disturbed in any means. If she didn't meet him and JT by the sidewalk of her home by 9 AM sharp, then they were going to leave her regardless of how annoyed she was going to get at them once they eventually crossed paths during homeroom.

Which is exactly what they did.

It didn't help that the flushed crisp-cold of Toronto's ever changing weather was attacking her head on at each step. A convulsion of wind mixed with what looked to be early signs of rainfall even though they were still in the tail end of August.

An assortment of kids were bundled in light coats to suit the flagrant weather as Arlee finally made her way onto the footpath towards Degrassi's entryway, all except for one.

Spinner freaking Mason.

He was at the top of the stairs chatting away to a girl who Arlee recognised, but couldn't really put a name to in an instant. Tessie something? It was going to come to her eventually. All she knew was that she was friends with Federico, and a somewhat confidant to Paige Michealchck. So, that most likely put her line with one of the close knit 'popular kids' who had an unspoken hierarchy over a mass of people in their grade, and arguably, people in her's too. He'd stopped mid taunting of some poor smaller Grade 7 kid to grab her attention, posture straightening and demeanour taking a drastic edge.

Arlee plucked off her buds when she started to descend up the school steps, and distilled chatter remerged back into her foreground instead of the repeated lyrics of Dream's harmonies ringing in her ears.

Doesn't matter what you do, he's not going to be into you.

Give it your all girl, give it all ya got.

You can take your chance at a second hand shot

If she were some love-bound puppy, that would have a sense of sentimentalistic value to her ever so vicarious life.

"Actually, I can't. It's my dad, he's kind of old school."

Arlee hit the pause button on what she was listening to, her bag sagging atop of her shoulder, pace slowing.

Spinner tried to save face, a hand running over his jaw. "Uh, ok." He slipped the sea-foam green binder into his half-open backpack. "Thanks again for these, Terri."

Terri. There it was. A small voice in a pack of people with personalities too big for their own good. That didn't exclude her brother. She also was extremely pretty too, Arlee wasn't blind.

Terri gave Spinner on last wavering smile before pacing away to catch up with Ashley Kerwin, newly appointed president of Degrassi and the main driving force towards all the promotional material for this evening's first school dance. Another somewhat new anomaly that she was facing.

Emma had talked her into it with a great pitch about creating new memories, and being out till an 8PM curfew. However, Manny was still on the fence because she had to get her nortiously known strict parent's second opinion.

Spinner caught Arlee's gaze when her feet planted at the top of the staircase and through an unnecessary means to deflect from his attempt to ask Terri out, he immediately scowled at her in discernment without any instigation. "What're you staring at?"

Her brow shot up, eyes scaling up to partially meet his own, gleaming in fully probity like usual. If she didn't know him beyond his purposeful intimidation tactics, she would've stopped whilst she was ahead. But this was Spinner, and besides phallic jokes from the 'net and pining for people's loose quarters who he deemed nerdy in society, the only way to match his energy was by having a worser bite back.

Well at least, if you had the gall to try or were a family-friend. Which luckily through the many years he'd spent over at their home along with his mother and sister for Christmas traditions right up until her own mother's sudden passing, he came close to that. "The scene of a tragic rejection. What're you staring at?"

He let her have that one, for now. "That wasn't a rejection, her dad wouldn't let her go. Thought you would've heard that whilst you were eavesdropping like some total creep."

"I wasn't...." Arlee had to choose her next words wisely. "I'm waiting for Manny and Emma."

Or play right into his annoying hands to create some weird narrative in his mind. "Really? Because I saw them walk past ages ago."

Not wanting to further go into a wry spiel with him, Arlee crossed her arms to her chest and started to make her way inside the school. Though that didn't deter Spinner from choosing to walk along side with her. "Didn't know that."

"You know, stalking's a crime." Spinner jokingly goaded. "Think I'll have to file a restraining order against you now Federina. 500 feet away from me at all times."

Arlee kept moving, luckily the early morning traffic jam of kids that normally made navigation impossible hadn't picked up yet. "Like I'd ever stalk you."

"No?"

She didn't get what he was trying to get out of her with this. A reaction? The reconecssance of an actual normal conversation? Federico wasn't around so he didn't have a reason to ignore her entire existence. "In your dreams."

"No, worst nightmares." Spinner retorted, she rolled her eyes. But what he uttered next was not what she'd expected in the slightest bit. "Have you asked someone?"

That query beckon Arlee to stop dead in her tracks near the reception desk within the foyer, her immediate reaction was to feign confusion, even though she was all too aware about what thing she was supposed to be asking someone about. "For what?"

Spinner blankly stared over at her, hands disappearing into his pockets. "Dance."

If she knew any of other guys besides JT or Toby who were nice enough then probably, was what was recoiling on the tip of Arlee's tongue. Although truth be told, even if she did, the confidence she would've needed to act on her inner inhibitions would've practically been next to none. "Oh, um, no, I don't need to."

"You're going by yourself?" He guffawed lightly. "That's just sad."

Arlee adjusted the wearing strap of her backpack. "I'm not going to be on my own, I'm probably going with Emma and Manny."

"That's even sadder." He sputtered a laugh. Apparently, going to a social events with your friends was lame. Or at this place, anyway. She evidently had a lot to learn. "Why don't you ask those two nobody losers you always hang around with."

Arlee's eyes narrowed playfully, patience profusely dwindling. "Toby and JT are my friends as well."

"Guess you're out of luck." Spinner's random teasing seemed to have no peripheral end. But why he was choosing her as some destressor over Terri amicably rejecting his invite for the dance was still the million dollar question for Arlee. "Sucks for you."

A smirk cracked her glossier coated lips, match the banter and you have an upper hand. And he obviously needed someone to riff off of in the moment. "Not as much as you. Do you want me to give you a play by play of your not-so recent—"

Spinner took a step forward, closing the gap, but not in a menacing way. She hadn't realised it till then, but he'd grown a substantial amount since the summer when he'd been round at her place. Double piercing all too noticeable. "Say that last line, I dare you."

"Rejection." Arlee chewed out ever so lowly, her hand now slipping to her hip.

What culminated next was a light few seconds of rough housing. As in, Spinner wrapping his arm around her shoulder and trying to give her a blistering noogie on top of her head in public. People passed by and if it weren't for the small tumultuous amount of laughter that spurted when she pushed him back with her hand, anyone would've thought that she was just another one of his underclassmen targets.

This had happened before, when they were younger. When they used to be friends and Federico didn't care because, in a not so oblique world, her being acquaintances with a boy let alone his nearest and dearest didn't matter. Cooties were nothing more than some whimsical playground myth.

But then adolescence struck a cord, and wrapped its ferocious talons around any semblance that was left of a future friendship. He went to Junior High, and one year later, the script had completely flipped.

"—Just the man I was looking for."

It was Paige Michealchck's sudden presence that made Spinner snap out of his conversation with Arlee.

Decked out in the latest threads from the front of some high street trendy shop and misted to the fullest with a distilled smell of strawberries and watermelon perfume, she clomped her way to them both in her high point wedges and placed herself dead in the centre, prompting Arlee to take an awkward step back. If she had any sense she would've booked it on the spot.

"Hey Paige." He greeted, eyes drifting to the younger of the two. "Oh, uhm, this is Arlee...Federico's sister, you know her right?"

Paige slowly averted her frame to face Arlee like she hadn't noticed her at all. Like she was some micro fly on the wall in her chrisilit, polished palace. God, maybe she was. Her air of confidence made it seem so. "The girl with the camera, how could I forget." A thin smile danced circles across her face. "Funny though, because she said she didn't have a brother who went here."

Obviously her feelings about being cut off infront of the camera were still riddled in sourness, or at least enough for Paige to bring up Arlee's unnecessary attempt to dissociate herself with her own brother for the sake of carving an identity that didn't extend to being someone's little sister. "Must've, uhm, misheard you. My bad."

"Right." was all Paige could flatly respond with, briskly careening her sights back to the one person who she'd actually come to talk to in the first place. "So, you ready to get down?"

Spinner's features morphed into a look of pure puzzlement. "Huh?"

"The dance, you are going?"

Sensing that as her untimely cue to exit, Arlee, trying to stomach the razoring blister of butterflies that were fighting to the death in the pit of her stomach, let out a shallow breath. "I'll just...leave."

She pivoted on the sole of her mangled boots and was already kicking herself over handling every single millisecond of that situation.

In the small triviral window that still remained before the start of her homeroom, Arlee had made a straight beeline to the bathroom, dumped out her Walkman and a couple of her other belongings when the wires to her earbuds had begun to tangle around them, and bore her gaze into the chipped mirror that rested against tiled slabs of the girl's toilets.

In all honesty, she had no idea what had happened back there. Why she felt like this, felt embarrassed? perturbed? Both? No. This was weird and so was she.

The song Arlee had been blasting earlier was still playing at low volume, the battery definitely hanging by a hypothetical lifeline. She laid her Walkman on top of the basin and ejected the CD out, which was now scuffed and hot to touch. Great.

Five minutes came and went and before she knew it, Arlee was back in the partially deserted quarters of the hallway. Her aptitude to going through another 7 hours of MI jargon and the start of Mr Armstrong's BEDMAS unit already falling. Who knew that two and a half weeks of Junior High could turn a person into a slight pessimist with growing insecurities.

"Yeah, nice one! Thanks for that man!"

An assortment of books went splattering below Arlee's feet when she turned the bend on lieu to Mr.Simpson's class. And at the end of it, or rather glowering at the edge of it, was a boy in a washed out jean jacket. Dimmed blonde hair trimmed to around the cusp of his ears, accompanied with thinly trimmed eyebrows.

The other kid who'd bumped into him kept walking along, and Arlee, not wanting to be rude and do the same, approached the stuff he'd dropped on the floor and bent to collect it all. Then, she sprung back to her feet, softly returning his belongings to his awaiting hands. "Here."

He mumbled a small thanks in appreciation, stuffing the crumbled sheets into the ether of his bag. "Is everyone in this place directionally challenged ?"

Arlee shrugged her shoulders a bit stiffly. "Couldn't really answer that, I only started 2 weeks ago. And I'm gonna guess you're new here too?"

She was only assuming, there were a lot of kids at this school even if it was just a Junior High. But, from the way he was looking around dimly, he obviously hadn't been in Degrassi very long. "Not really."

"Transferred?"

"Something like that." He responded with a parted sigh. "Uh, Simpson, do you know where his room might be by any chance? All I got was a schedule and some phony map of the school, and I have his class first."

Well that answered Arlee's first line of inner inquires. He was in her Grade, which she most certainly hadn't expected considering how much older he looked than the average boys who existed in her class already. Especially in comparison to JT or Toby. His face was more defined, breakout already underway, voice gravel and partially deep. "I'm actually going there now, kind of hoping that the clock is wrong so I'm not late."

They began their voyage down the hall side by side, his demeanour relaxing slightly. He seemed nice. A little bit stern at first. But nice all the same. "Is he gonna flip if you are?"

Arlee was quick to shake her head in reassurance. "No, Mr Simpson's really nice, he's a lot funner than the other teacher's I've had before."

His brow quirked up slightly from her enthusiastic outlook. "Teachers and fun aren't a thing."

And apparently, he also had a sense of humour too. Subdued by a couple probable personal sentiments.

"Depends on the person really. Like this one teacher, he teaches history here, I think his names Mr Perino? and he's like, really scary. Don't think I've ever seen him smile. It kind of puts me off wanting to answer when he calls on me." Arlee had completely gotten lost in her own overly packed ramble by the time they'd gotten to the front of Mr.Simpson's classroom door. In hindsight, giving him room to actually respond or show any sign of engagement would've been a good idea. "Here's 104."

The boy, rendered sullen and apprehensive about what waited for him in there, leaned against the flush of the wall right beside the door. "Thanks—-"

"Oh, Arlee." She stuck out her hand first, the bangles on her wrist clanging upon impact. "Probably should've started with that, my bad."

"Sean." He took her hand and firmed it, a forced grin emerging from the woodworks. He looked like a Sean. Which was a bizzarly odd thing to note off the bat, but he embodied every essence of that name to an extent.

However, for some reason, Arlee felt like she'd heard that name crop up before in a conversation that Federico was having with her dad once about someone who'd been in his grade for a couple months before leaving randomly. Nobody knew why and nobody bothered to ask.

But whether or not that 'Sean' and the Sean that stood before her were the same guy was up for debate as some unexplained coincidence. Sean was also a pretty common name.

"Sean, nice." acknowledged Arlee, opening the door and leaving it ajar for him. Sean didn't budge though. "Are you not—"

"I'm supposed to wait out here for him for some reason." He was quick to explain, tone wry.

"See you in about 15 minutes then." joked Arlee serenely, a glint of a smile prodding at the corner of her mouth.

Sean jolted slightly from the wall right before she was about to cross the threshold into Mr. Simpson's class. "It was nice meeting you."

Arlee halted in her tracks for a brief moment and turned her head. "Yeah, same."

With one final parting wave goodbye, Arlee pivoted right back around again before disappearing into the room, and Sean slumped back into his original position. Toby spotted her first in the midst of the conversation he, JT and Emma were in.

She softly thumped Toby in passing for not waiting up for her to walk to school like usual. He didn't feel the need to question her overreaction, grazing the area with his palm lightly whilst Arlee sat in her newly designated chair next to JT and across from Emma. "I can't believe you're chickening out."

"We aren't chickening out." Toby insisted in defence, adjusting his glasses back to the bridge of his nose.

JT pushed his chair closer. "We're just not going to the dance," his statement made Emma glower in disbelief.

Realistically, Arlee knew they where probably not gonna show, but she had hoped to use the Dance as an opportunity to steal food with JT,  or break into the computer lab and watch the new DVD she'd rented on Simpson's computer with the both of them. Do anything other than awkwardly stand at the sidelines whilst waiting for the slow music to end with a cheap cup of punch in their hands. "—Because you're chickening out, you bunch of chickens."

"It's gonna be lame anyway." JT rebutted back with a stealth of sheer confidence.

Arlee, immensely unconvinced at his proclamation, raised a brow. "It's free food and a good time, what's lame about that?"

"Besides the awkward standing around, the small sweaty gym and the slow music that should've died out with the early 90s? A lot"

"What're you two gonna do instead?"

At that, both boys sheepishly glance to another in a code that knowing JT, Arlee wouldn't want to even begin to surface the full context off. "We have that covered."

"Guess it's just us girls then." Emma huffed and a clear eye-roll. When Manny suddenly fell silent from her proclamation, she didn't waste any time in swivelling her spiny chair in her direction. "You did remember to talk to your parents, didn't you ?"

"Yes.....and No." answered Manny earnestly. "If the dance was during school hours, fine. But it's at night."

"Fine, it's just me and Arlee then," Emma, in an noticeable last attempt effort to hang onto any motivation to go to her first school dance, whipped her head in Arlee's direction whilst she was typing up the last remaining paragraph of her homework about web design. 2 minutes before the start of class. "Right ?"

Arlee could sense the firmness in her friend's voice, so she kept her eyes retained to the screen. "Wouldn't miss it for the world Em," she responded, hitting the space bar in sync with the loud concaving thud that Mr Simpson had made from swinging the door open.

"Morning people." his greeting was ultimately met with the usual low toned mumbles and silence that only exemplified when everyone spotted who was right beside him. "I would like you to meet Sean Cameron. He was here for a few months last year, before moving up north. Uh, why don't you tell the class a little about yourself ?"

So her intuition had been spot on. Sean was the kid in her brother's grade that had suddenly vanished into thin air with no prior explanation. No reason beyond, well apparently, his family wanting a change of scenery for a fortnight.

All eyes were attached to Sean poignantly, as if the concept of a new kid was some big astonishing anomaly, most of all Emma. Sean, who looked like he'd rather be in the middle of Timbucktu then in a room full of people who were a year younger than him, shot a dissipated glance over to Mr Simpson coldly before staring back down at everyone else again. "No."

Well that was a start, right?

Simpson awkwardly nodded in response to his flat and very unenthusiastic answer, covering his lack of knowing what to say next by clearing his throat. He gestured towards the available near Manny. "Hey, why don't you have a seat."

Instead, Sean chose to sit in the chair right behind Emma as she ever so stealthily kept her gaze on his movements till he actually was within her vicinity.

"So, come make history tonight when I host Starlight, Starbright, Degrassi Community School's first ever nighttime dance. Ashley's tenaciously clear voice rung from that loud speaker above.

"Thanks again, Mr. Raditch. And I know I speak for all of us when I say tonight's going to be the best dance ever !"

Federico plucked one of the posters that had been advertising this evening's dance from a wall as he passed the halls on the way to his locker, Spinner aimlessly trailing by his side in a land of his own thoughts.

Weirdly enough, unlike last year, his enthusiasm about wanting to go to the school dance had died out.

Maybe it was age, or a desire to not have to shell out a bunch of cash to virtually do nothing inside their own school gymnasium. But whatever it was, making history at dusk didn't sound as appealing. "Starlight Extravazangza, Degrassi's first Night Time Dance. Are you going to this?"

"Yeah, you?" answered Spinner, crystalline stare attentive at the path ahead.

"I've got time to kill." He shrugged, wadding the paper and tossing it in a nearby trashcan from a perfect angular shot. "Plus I kinda have to 'cause my sister wants to really go, and my dad won't let her unless I'm there too."

    "Well you've got no other alternatives, so, suck it up."

Federico feigned slight offence at Spinner's accusation that he didn't have anything better to do with his time. "I do."

Spinner arched a brow in doubt. "Oh really? Like what?"

"The TV and my Couch." Federico mused whole heartedly. "—they're both fun and I don't have to pay six dollars to sit around."

"Six dollars? Dude, it's five dollars." Spinner amicably reminded him. "Did you not read the sign when you ripped it off the wall?"

Eventually, they got to Federico's locker, and he stepped a front  to messily try and turn in the combination of his locker. It'd been a tedious task previously, having to accumulate all these codes that the teachers wouldn't even remember themselves after handing them out initially. Luckily this year, the one Ms Kwan had given him was 15-11-68.

Non-complex numbers aside, it closely resembled his mom's birthday, just two days off. 17th November 1968. That's why he could always remember it. "Why is the cost high?"

Spinner leant against the locker next to Federico's own. "For the Food Bank, I think."

"I'm out of pocket money for the month."
Fede revealed, perturbed by his circumstances. Those circumstances being his dad and his extreme measures of punishment over the littlest of things. "Didn't do the dishes once and now I'm cut off."

A low tone whistle of mirth fell from Spinner's lips. "Wow, no money and no date. That's rough."

After several tedious try's, Federico managed to finally pry his locker open. A couple of the slips that he'd gotten on the first day of school about subject information slipped out from their crammed location in the undercarriage oh the top shelf, and fell to the floor. He huffed and bent to gather them up. "You're talking like you've got girls queuing up the block for you."

"Not queuing."

Federico sprung back to his feet from that vauge statwment with peak interest. "You're telling me you bagged a date to the dance already?"

"I'm working on it." was all Spinner could say, his hands disappearing into the dark abyss of his washed out trousers.

That still didn't deter Federico from trying to wheedle the truth out of him. "Yeah? Who?"

Paige happened to walk by in the middle of their conversation and, alluringly, gave both of them, but especially Spinner, the once over before she entered into Ms.Kwan's class. Federico put two and two together and made a reasonable conclusion. "No way, Paige?"

Surprisingly, Spinner's expression morphed at his guess. "Uh, no, not Paige."

Federico looked to him in pure confusion. Besides Paige, there weren't many girls he'd ever shown a key interest in prior to today. Or at least, any that he'd bothered telling him about. The only other person it could be, really, was Terri. Or Hazel. She was pretty, and could crack a good joke or two when she wasn't attached to Paige's side. "Then who?"

"Like I said, I'm working on it." repeated Spinner for the second time.

Shaking his head in amusement, Federico slotted his papers back into his locker and pulled out his already indented book for English class. With a firm hand, he shut it behind him and didn't bother spinning the dial to seal it when he spotted the face of a person who he didn't think he'd see again coming out of Mr Simpson's class, and heading over towards the boy's bathroom. "Cameron?"

Sean firmly stopped in place. Almost like he'd just got caught red handed in the middle of an act. Federico watched him reluctantly trail over to them, dull features more prominent. "Hey man, thought you lived up North now? Wasaga something?"

Sean Cameron was an enigma, to put it lightly.  He'd emerged from the ether one day in the middle of September last year with an older brother that had dropped him off up front.

Mr Simpson had appointed Federico to show him the ropes, and they'd talked about little things, sports, specifically the 2000 NBA Finals which he was frankly surprised Sean knew anything about, cars, what arcade games he was into. And that eventually blossomed into Jimmy letting him ocassionaly play a round at the courts with them during lunch, but he always preferred staying at the sidelines once it all wrapped up. He stayed at the sidelines for mostly everything.

And then after 6 months came and went? Sean was gone. Till now, obviously.

"Moved back." He simply stated in reply, lips falling to a flattened line.

A inward chuckled escaped Spinner's mouth at the thought of anyone voluntarily moving back to Degrassi. "Why?"

All of Sean's 30 seconds of patience to keep up with their conversation any longer detonated right there on the spot. "Just did, okay?"

Before either one of them could form another syllable, a start of a sentence, Sean walked away. Beseeched by his cagey-one note attitude, Spinner scoffed. "What's his deal?"

"Suppressed anger probably." reasoned Federico as he started to make his way in the opposite direction towards Ms.Kwan's open door. It seemed like the only logical explanation for his obvious discernment over trading a secluded less dense area for another round of Toronto's colossal climate. "I mean, coming back to this place from a literal beach town, just to repeat again? Must suck."

"I heard it's cause he made a kid deaf, only way out was running." revealed Spinner.

Federico paused. "And they let him back in here?"

"Guess so."

His eyes glossed over to the bench at the end of the hall where Sean had taken up residence, opting out of going to the bathroom evidently. It made sense, sort of. What got to Federico was that he was now in Arlee's Grade, and if what Spinner was saying was true, then he wasn't exactly the most safety prone person to be around. "Nice one Raditch."

Miss Kwan silently stepped past the threshold of her classroom door when she noticed both the boys still idiling on the other side of it.  "Ah, I see you two managed to find the entryway to my classroom."

Federico looked back again to see her serenely smiling at them, a knee jerk reaction to their obvious repetitive habit of never being able to come to class on time. He made his way inside and took up the only available chair left that was three rows away from his normal comfort spot shielded in the back. Spinner chose to place himself in the chair right next to Terri, who he warmly greeted. And Paige glowered at the sight playing before her eyes.

Once everyone was in their seats, Ms Kwan made her way to the front of the class with a book behind her back. "Ok kids, now hold back on your excitement. Because today we're starting a unit on..." she pulled out the lengthy novel. "Ta-da, romantic poetry!"

Federico fought every urge in him to not bolt out of the class at that second. Considering the worksheet that had been waiting for him, the hint had been right in-front of his eyes this whole time.

He didn't have anything against poetry per se, it was more of the thought that they were probably going to have to do an essay styled assignment on sonnets and Shakespeare just like they did last year. He'd come to quickly learn that one of Ms Kwan's specialities were the inns and outs of William Shakespeare's works.

The class dimmed into silence once she started off, pencils tapping against hardwood and minds wandering. Federico, for once, tried to read along. The only trouble was that none of it registered for a good 30 minutes. Words turned into mush, illegible, alphabet jumping around the page to a nauseating degree mush.   This was why he couldn't stand it, English. Because it required him to dephir a language that sure, was technically his second one over Spanish, but he obviously knew.

The worst part was that this wasn't the first time it'd happen. It'd just gotten point where he couldn't easily ignore it anymore.

Federico's efforts ceased when he felt someone tap on his shoulder. Turning slightly, he was handed over a folded piece of lined paper. Pivoting back around, he opened it against the table.

Do you know who Spinner has a crush on?

Paige. There was no doubt in his mind that this was her. But just for safe measure, Federico  looked over his shoulder slyly. And surely enough, she was beadily staring at him across from the person who'd orginally given him the note. Finding a sliver of hilarity in her curiosity, he gave in and wrote Laura Croft as his answer before re-folding the paper and sending it on its merry way.

It didn't take long till it was flying back to his desk again.

Funny. I meant in this school

He couldn't understand she'd come to him of all people for the key to whatever clue she was clearly trying to dig for. But, if it meant appeasing her obvious crush on him, then Federico didn't really mind obliging. With furrowed brows, he scribed down a more earnest response this time and passed the sheet into the hands of the poor girl who'd involuntarily become caught in their back and forth.

With anticipation, Paige opened it, her shoulders collapsing slightly at what he'd given her as a response. Former scowl mellowing out slightly.

Uh, no?

She clicked her pen twice and, and with a prolapsed sigh, gave her guess as to who she suspected it to be. The mystery crush. When she'd finished, Paige slid the paper onto the girl on her left's desk and went back to fillling in the blanks of her worksheet.

However, not wanting to turn into Paige's messenger pigeon, she gave it to some other guy on her left instead of Federico. Which started an anti-clockwise chain reaction that managed to reach him eventually after a couple mishaps along the way.

Is it Terri?

This time, Federico took it upon himself to do a little digging himself. He scoped the room slyly till he spotted Terri and Spinner  in the foreground, his attention fully attentive on her every word. Which was a big anonymity for him when it came to the average human being.

Sparing the girl behind him, he decided to outstretch his hand to Paige's desk himself and drop the piece of paper face down.

Guess so

The bell soon chimed and thankfully, class wrapped for the day in a blink. Federico gathered his belongings and didn't bother waiting up on Spinner seeing as he was still  talking to Terri about god knows what.

He dropped his work, or lack thereof, atop of Ms Kwan's desktop, then exited and sauntered over to his locker across the way. Paige was rapidly quick to catch him up. "Guess so? What did you mean by guess so?"

    Federico peered over the metal face of his locker at her, exchanging his English book of elongated romantic poems for a his World History folder. "What more did you want me to say?"

Paige stepped forward and practically shoved the now waded up piece of lined paper back into his hand. "I don't know, a clear answer perhaps?"

"Look, it's not really common for us to sit around and talk about those kind of things." Federico explained away, shutting his locker and keeping his gaze attached to his combination lock whilst he spun the dial. "So I don't know what he's feeling about Terri, alright? But if I didn't know Spinner...and I do, then him making an effort with all the first moves is clearly a sign that he likes a person."

Paige fell into silence with his swathe confirmation, her feelings towards any of that still rendering on unreadable.

He couldn't lie that he wasn't suspicious of Paige's sudden attempts to figure out so much about Spinner, considering that not only a week ago she'd barely felt a thing for him. Barely really ever looked his way.

Did she have a further agenda? Maybe. She was Paige Michealchck after all. And Federico had bore witness to her assassinating one to many people's personalities in the past with a simple passive statement. Turning from sweet to a deadly nightshade flippantly. "Did that help?"

"To some extent." She replied dimly with a stiffened shoulder shrug.

They both started walking together in the same path, and Paige could tell that there was something else burning at the tip of Federico's tongue opinion wise. "What?"

A teasing smirk consumed his face. "I didn't know you have a thing for Spin."

"A crush?" Paige scoffed, not bothering to give him a second glance. "Oh please, that's so Elementary."

"Right."

Wanting to not entertain the weird amusement he was finding in her obvious denial and clear motives as to why she was so adamant on finding out whether or not Spinner had a crush on Terri, Paige decided to flip the scenario on its head to her advantage. "If you're still keen on anyone, I hear Heather's really into your new look. She thinks you've grown alot since summer. But, take it with a grain of salt, the intel from the girl's bathroom isn't always the most reliable."

Federico's eyes widened immeasurably, glance shooting to the honey blonde who was shielded by the face of her locker. "Heather Sinclair?"

Paige moved closer to his shoulder one last time, gaze aligning with his own. "Hon, there aren't any other notable insufferable Heather's in this school." She stated with surety, before parting ways with Federico, her fake heels clicking against the linoleum.

Once Media Immersion had fully wrapped for the morning, Arlee, Emma and Manny made their way to English. Luckily for her, this class didn't come with an assignment attached to the end of it. But she was certain that they were probably going to be made to read over the last few chapters of the new novel study book that they'd been handed last Friday. When they entered, the trio walked past Sean and Ms Kwan. "Welcome, Why don't you take that seat."

"Do you have my pencil?" Arlee questioned from behind Emma's shoulder when she realised her mechanical pencil wasn't in her pocket, just as Sean coincidentally happened to be migrating over to the chair he'd chosen in the corner right across from her.

Emma still looked smitten. And dare she say, swooned. But not completely head over heels. Or quite possibly, she was trying to figure out who Sean was as an individual without actually having to start a one-on-one conversation with him yet. "Huh?"

"My pencil." She repeated again, sliding into the seat oopsite Emma.

Absentimendly, Emma plucked the opal coloured pencil she'd borrowed earlier from her out of her pencil case once she had settled her stuff atop her desk and passed it back to Arlee. "Oh, right, here."

Arlee and  Manny gave one another a knowing look before the former stating the obvious. "Falling for the new guy already?"

That was enough to reel Emma back into reality from whatever intrigued dreamscape she'd previously been stuck in. "I was looking at the board."

"Last time I checked the board was at the front of the class, not on the back of Sean Cameron's head." Arlee teased in rebuttal to her brazen statement, Manny withheld her laughter by shielding her mouth with her hand.

Before Emma could get the opportunity to deny her feelings for a guy she barely even knew, Toby approached. "Emma..."

She gave him the once over, still disgruntled over his choice to leave her and Arlee in the dust in favour of doing God knows what with his spare time, and turned her back completely. JT tisked with a small head-shake, taking his place at his own seat directly behind Arlee. "Those girls are not happy."

Once all of the class was situated and in their chairs, Ms Kwan approached the front of her classroom. "Ok, guys, quiet down." As per request, the distilled chatter that had once been running rampid defend at the sound of her voice. "I want you to open up your books and we're gonna read chapter 4, in silence."

Just like Arlee had predicted. Another day spent cycling  through text, sentences, that she would just end up accidentally repeating in her head over and over and over till it stuck for an hour tops.

That ablility some people possessed to create picturesque images in their brains about the things they were ingesting through page just didn't come as naturally to Arlee as it would to the average person. It put her off reading.

And that was the exact reason why when everyone else started turning the pages of their novel study books, she propped her at an angle to shield Ms Kwan's beady stare from seeing the masses of doodles she was jotting down in the corner of her notebook. Boxes with More Boxes within them. A multitude of backwards S's...for no particular reason.

"I don't know. Watching Porn on my dad's computer? What if it crashes? What if he walks in when it crashes? Because both of those scenarios can definitely happen."

Toby and JT's whispering were what broke Arlee from her distracted daze. Nose scrunching at the mention of Porn. At least that solved the mystery of what they were planning to do Friday night instead of attending the dance.

JT, undiscouraged by the possiblity, scoffed lightly. "Crashes? Porn doesn't crash Toby, it entertains and marvels the eyes."

That statement alone was enough for Arlee to drop her eavesdropping barrier and swivel right around to face both the boys in her seat. "So let me get this straight, you guys are ditching me and Emma to drool over half-naked girls on the internet?"

"It's a right of passage." defended JT, voice lowering  to an audible whisper. "Which isn't something you can say about the dance."He leaned in closer for a beat. "Hey, if you want, we can try and stretch to three people."

Arlee pointedly stared in his peripheral dead on, before turning back around the face the front of the class and direct her focus onto the notebook again. "Gross."

When her back was fully turnt, JT leant back into his rickety wooden chair again and stared over at Toby, the beginnings of a menacing teasing smirk invading the corner of his lip. "She so wants to"

Arlee forgot about the part where they were supposed to be keeping an inside voice to draw attention away from their current conversation. "You're such a weirdo."

"But you're supposed to love me." JT musingly mocked back, holding out his hand against the desk.

In true fashion, Arlee picked up her mechanical pencil and gestured like she was about to scrape his open palm with it. He jerked back in defence, and Ms Kwan, probably witnessing every last second of their squabble minus what they were actually talking about, peered up from her copy of the novel they were all supposed to be 3 new chapters into. "Boys, Arlee, open your books."

She clicked the steel grey led back into the lining of her baby pink pencil and glowered playfully at JT one last time just for kicks, him returning her staring with an eye roll. And then, soon enough, it was back to gawping at wordy exposition that they were going to have to regurgitate during a group discussion in the non-to distant future.

"Pssst." A new voice suddenly hissed. A light nudge came after it to Arlee shoulder and she craned her head to the side to see Manny gesturing towards Emma so she could probably aid in getting her attention from a front. It didn't take much intricacy to accomplish that, seeing as she was barely in tune with what she was reading either. "Em, Lee...I totally wish I could go tonight."

"Yeah, well, at least you have a real excuse." appreciated Emma, her gaze beaming in the path of JT and Toby. "But those two? They're wusses."

"Pervy wusses." Arlee added on, she felt JT lightly kick the back of her seat without looking up from the book that he was most definitely not reading.

Liberty heavily sighed in dismay at Emma's lingering agitation, and set her novel down on her desk.  "Are you really gonna let a couple of prepubescent boys dictate your amusement ?"

"Yeah, listen to Liberty, Em." agreed Arlee, making Liberty smile in contentment at the acknowledgement. "What do a couple of boys know about having a good time? You've got me."

ronnie speaks ! so...first of all, sorry for the long ass literal 3 month delay lmao. if you didn't see my wall-message thingy I was attempting to write the entirety of season one for this degrassi fic before progressing but I've been so stockpiled with work and life that I just haven't been able to. thankfully I'm back on track kind of, to a degree.

secondlyyy this the next half of this episode, like the last will be in another chapter. the actual dance scene is super duper long and i didn't to put y'all ( or whoever's out there reading this) through that so I'm splitting them up. it'll be out friday most likely, so, think of this as your teaser i guess ;)

and last but not least, what're you thoughts on this so far ? likes? dislikes? floors open 🎤

ooh also, to help w/ visualisation or whatever, I decided to start adding arlee and federico's outfits throughout the course of each chapter for funsies. once I've made them all, I'll make it into a lookbook for every season and put it in the graphics page hehe. the college below is what the both of them were wearing in this first part ♥️!!

hope u enjoyed this chptr !! and plz let me know if you want more, ur comments encourage me to go on, it sparks the little motivational fairy that's being held captive in my heart. she needs validation lmao