Do I have to be a cheerleader? -7/?
||previous||
Lunch is pretty much eventful, with the chance for Patrick to meet friends of friends of other friends.
He eats with Greta and Brendon, who giggle and joke with Trisha whenever they catch someone glance at the newbie. At the same table there are Greta’s friends from music class and Brendon’s best friend Shane, who’s always fiddling with his camera and takes some surprise-photos of Trisha.
As an excuse to greet their friends at the table, some people introduce themselves to the new girl : Brendon’s friend Dallon, Haley’s boyfriend Spencer along with his inseparable best friend Ryan, Greta’s friends Christine and Lauren from the cooking lessons, Hayley’s hook-up Jeremy and his friends Josh and Zack.
Patrick also flushes when The Butcher waves and smiles at Trisha, and almost pisses his pants when Jon fucking Walker comes at their table to kiss Cassie, who turns out to be his girlfriend (Patrick never cared of gossip) but prefers to sit at her friend’s table and not with the popular people.
Patrick approves.
***
Once lunch is over, Patrick heads all alone to the English class, pleased for finally having some friends, or in general people that acknowledge his presence and maybe like him- pardon, her.
He has to thank his new body, but he doesn’t actually mind, he kind of likes it. He giggles inner self when he notices how some guys check Trisha out, apparently not taking in the similarity between her and himself; a couple of freshman actually whistle at her, Alex and Jack, if Patrick is not wrong.
What. The. Fuck. Ever., Patrick thinks, he wants to get the best out of this chance he got, ignoring for how long he’ll remain a girl.
***
When Patrick enters the English room, he finds Mr Beckett smiling kindly at him.
“So, who do we have here?” the teacher asks, flicking his long hair out of the way. Patrick both likes and hates him, because on one side Beckett is nice and sometimes funny, but he’s a hell of a strict English teacher and Patrick has never been able to get more than a C with him, he can count the B’s he got on… three fingers.
“Hi, I’m Trisha Stump,” the kid greets, heading to a free desk under the curious looks of more students.
“Ok, Trisha, your classmates had to write a report of a book of their choice, and I’d like you to do the same and present it in a month, like the others had to do,” Mr Beckett orders with a smile.
‘Fuck, he doesn’t have mercy, not even for the new students,’ Patrick thinks, trying to hide his grimace when replying with a tight ‘okay’.
Beckett picks some random students to read their homework out loud. While listening, Patrick feels a harder stare coming from the right; turning, he catches the Ryan kid of lunch looking at Trisha before he hides under his bangs. Patrick shakes his head amused, earning a cocked eyebrow from the teacher.
“Sorry,” he mutters, before returning to pay attention to Mike Carden’s review of “Lord of the flies”.
“Thank you, Mike,” Beckett says once the guy is done, “now…Ross, tell us what did you read.”
The skinny boy stands up, shaking his bangs away from the eyes with a practiced shake of the head.
“’Haunted’ by Chuck Palahniuk,” Ryan replies with his trademark monotone voice.
Mr Beckett chuckles, “You must love this author very much, uh? It’s already the third book you read for my class.”
Ryan nods, before the teacher gestures him to go on, and he reads of how this group of people ends in a (fake?) retreat for writers-wannabe, but that turns out to be a sort of extreme experiment and yadda yadda. Patrick will never understand neither the weird-ass books of Chuck Palahniuk (he appreciated the cinematographic version of “Fight Club” though, thanks to a sweaty Brad Pitt) nor what the Ryan-kid finds so fascinating in them.
“Ok guys, put your homework on my desk so I’ll mark them,” Beckett says a mere second before the bell rings and the students rush out of the class.
***
The last class of the day is science. Agh, too many names and formulas to remember, in Patrick’s opinion.
Getting asked for the sixth, and hopefully last, time that day who the hell he she is, Patrick introduces himself in Bob Morris’ class and half sleeps, half listens to the enthusiastic tone that the poor teacher uses in an attempt to make the students like his subject.
Today Mr Morris is trying to explain the interesting life of atoms and ions and other microscopic fuckers that Patrick hates with a passion.
He feels sorry for his teacher.
||next||