Miss Taken (2 page)

I keep reminding myself that it is only for
ninety days out of my entire high school career, but seeing as it’s
only the first week, this semester is starting to feel interminable
already.

The art teacher, Mrs. Dipsy isn’t much
better. I should have known as soon as I saw her name printed on my
schedule, but I figured it was a typo. She is a true artist, in the
sense that she is incredibly spaced out all the time. I think she
had a little too much fun in the Sixties.

Dippy Dipsy talked a lot about letting
“creativity flow” and “seeing where your mood takes you.” She also
used a lot of hand motions to demonstrate these and other artistic
thoughts. That was the only part that held my interest. When she
lit the incense and invited us to meditate for the remainder of the
period to “open our channels,” I start to get a little bored. And a
little clogged up about the nasal passages. I don’t know what’s in
that stuff, but it stinks.

I say if we’re just going to sit around
having visions, my time would be more productively spent in
detention where at least I occasionally picked up juicy gossip.

Strange but true: Old-time sailors wore a
gold earring because they believed it improved their eyesight. They
also used it to buy themselves a proper burial.

I don’t know if I was a sailor in a previous
life but I am considering it as a future career option since
foreign travel is one of my interests, and becoming a stronger
interest each day.

And although my earrings have never improved
my eyesight to any noticeable extent, they still might come in
handy in case I need to cover my own burial costs. This event may
be coming up sooner than previously expected.

The only tiny tidbits of interest in the new
semester were two new students in my math class. Really just one
and a half. The girl is so runty, she doesn’t count as a whole
person.

The boy was slightly more interesting in that
1) he swaggered in the door wearing his coat which is against
school rules, 2) had on sunglasses even though it was cloudy and 3)
was popping gum which is also against school rules. Mr. Hiro called
him on the last one. The boy opened his mouth to show he did not in
fact have any illegal substances hiding in there. His single stud
earring twinkled at us along with his smile at having gotten one
over on the teacher. Then he went back to chewing his invisible
gum.

Since Mr Hiro never makes a big deal about
anything, I didn’t even catch their names. The girl was something
like “Sofa” and the boy sounded like “Kale.” Of course neither of
these could possibly be correct but Mr. Hiro thought it was more
important to get on with trinomials than waste time on
introductions so the names stuck.

I dismissed Sofagirl immediately. Not only
did she have the personality and presence of a mouse but she was
dressed like she was in training to become a nun. All that black is
much too harsh for someone as pale as she is. Also, she’s thin
enough without accentuating the fact that her thighs are the same
width as a chair leg.

I didn’t give Kale much thought either, other
than to snidely wonder what season he thought it was with those
sunglasses and his shirt open halfway down his chest. He was
certainly not tanned enough to carry it off. And I may be wrong,
but I believe that having one single chest hair is worse than
having none at all.

I also noted that with his flame red hair, he
was actually the inverse of the vegetable he was named for.

At the end of class, Vegetableboy asked Mr.
Hiro how to find Mr. Garrone’s biology class. Since I was going
there anyway, I cordially offered to escort him. Diana must have
been listening too because she answered almost - but not quite - as
fast as I did. I couldn’t believe the look she gave me.

I say that if she was so gungho to play tour
guide, why didn’t she speak up right away? The new boy had been
seated right near her. I was halfway across the room and heard the
question loud and clear.

I shrugged her off. I was just trying to be
helpful.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been
so quick on the draw because Ned also had a glance for me that said
he wasn’t too pleased with my rapid offer of assistance.

I shrugged at him too. I consider myself to
be like Robin Hood, helper to the helpless. Except I call myself
Robin Jane because hoods aren’t particularly flattering on someone
with my head shape. It would have to be an extremely bad hair day
for me to think about wearing one of those.

And not only is it my duty as Robin Jane to
help the wayward, but it was just a few months ago that I was the
new kid at this school.

I gave Ned a reassuring smile and pat on the
arm, and went to perform my duty as Ambassadress to this new
student who just happened to be a boy.

It turned out Sofagirl was headed to Mr.
Garrone’s class too, which was perfect. Diana could escort her. I
would have invited both of them to join us, but there really wasn’t
room for so many to walk abreast in these narrow, crowded halls. I
turned around to make sure there were no hard feelings about the
way things turned out but Diana developed a sudden interest in the
banks of lockers. Sofagirl had evaporated completely. She’s so
thin, she probably slipped between the cracks in the linoleum
floor.

I pretended not to notice all the looks I was
getting accompanying the new boy who had donned his sunglasses as
soon as class was over. Apparently the three-watt florescent bulbs
are overpowering to his blue-green eyes. Funny, I have noticed that
my eyes have been more sensitive to light since getting contacts.
Perhaps I should start carrying sunglasses as a precautionary
measure.

The kid - whose name turned out to be Kyle -
(much cooler than the vegetable) seemed to know an awful lot of
people for its being his first day. He did not ignore me however as
he shot hellos with his finger pistols at every third person we
passed. Between clicks of his fake gum and rubbing my arm more than
once with his letterman bomber jacket as he shot out his greetings,
we determined that we had not only math and biology together but
gym as well. I would be seeing a lot of this Kyle, so it was good
that I liked him, in a totally platonic way.

I also learned that he had moved to a house
only a few blocks from mine, so we were also neighbors of a sort.
Kyle was funny and engaging and he had a little accent sometimes
that made him seem exotic too. It’s a good thing that I don’t go
for freckles.

Garrulous Garrone started off the class with
Q&A. If you answer enough questions right, he will add points
to your grade, so I’m all for that part. But he always uses it as
an excuse to go off on totally unrelated topics, which is a
drag.

Diana and I are both pretty good at the bio
trivia, but today there seemed to be a spirit of competition in the
air as we battled to get the most points. I don’t say it was to
show off in front of the new boy (at least not in my case), but it
was noticeable.

There was one slightly embarrassing moment
when Mr. Garrone asked for the technical term for goosebumps. My
hand shot up first. “Piloerection,” I stated loud and clear.

There were a few sniggers. They can laugh all
they want. My overall grade just went up two points.

“You are correct, Miss Grey. Did I ever tell
you about the time I was in college on the crew team and we
overturned our boat into frigid waters? I can tell you, that caused
some piloerection...”

More sniggers.

It finally sank in. I cannot believe I just
said the word “erection” in front of the new boy.

Fortunately, the goosebump embarrassment (GE)
was forgotten (hopefully) by the time we started the lab. Kyle and
I were fated to spend a lot of time together today. My usual
partner was absent, so Mr. Garrone put Kyle with me.

It was pure chance. I had nothing to do with
it. I feel compelled to mention that Diana isn’t going to make many
new friends if she keeps wearing a puss like that on her face.

It was also pure luck that I didn’t also get
saddled with Sofagirl. Mr. Garrone almost put her with us, but I
was able to make him see reason. Putting two new students together
on their first day was not the best way to get them up to speed. He
made a party of three across the room.

If I wasn’t sure about Kyle’s mental powers
from his performance in math class, after bio I didn’t have any
doubts. He was a total whiz at the lab we did. We must have
finished ten minutes before anyone else. I had a disloyal thought
to my old partner Raj. He’s no slouch, but I kind of hoped Mr.
Garrone would let me stay partners with Kyle.

Since we had all this extra time, Kyle and I
chatted some more. He told me the joke about how in biology,
multiplication is the same thing as division, which I found
charming because it included a math reference.

I had a few witty jokes for him in return. I
told him the one about the scientist wearing designer “genes” for
her hot date.

He glanced down at my thigh. I happened to be
wearing my designer jeans today. I hoped I hadn’t been too
suggestive by talking about dates.

Kyle laughed like it was the funniest thing
he had ever heard, so I threw out another one.

“What’s the fastest way to determine the sex
of a chromosome? Pull its genes down!”

I might have gone too far with that one, but
he smiled appreciatively.

It was a good thing we didn’t have gym today
because I would have been obligated to show Kyle the way there too.
I still saw nothing wrong with giving him directions for his next
class and walking with him as far as our paths converged. He asked
where I was headed.

When I told him, he groaned and said he
really wished he could have taken art but his “mum” is all about
being practical. It was remarkably similar to what I was thinking,
which was, “Why didn’t I sign up for computers?”

Sofagirl ended up in my art class. It was an
oddly fitting name for her. Although she was not at all cushy like
a piece of upholstered furniture, she basically sat without moving.
As the rest of the class slept, did homework or got into
“visioning” with Mrs. Dipsey, Sofagirl went into a corner to draw
by herself. I caught a glimpse of her paper on my way out. She had
drawn the courtyard which is right outside the window. It was
pretty accurate, but who wants a picture of a bunch of bare twigs
and rocks?

Ned and I didn’t have lunch together today,
for which I was almost grateful. I just know I would have started
babbling about Kyle and Ned was already unhappy with me for having
walked with him to biology class. He would have been even less
thrilled to hear that Kyle was my lab partner, was also in my gym
class, and he definitely didn’t need to hear that Kyle had moved
into my neighborhood.

Strange but true scientific fact: Each person
in the world has his or her own unique “smellprint.”

After eating a quick bite in the cafeteria, I
hurried off to the library to while away the rest of the
period.

Well, I don’t really ‘while’ it. I do my
homework so I don’t have to waste time on it after school. I went
to Ned’s and my usual hiding place in the stacks.

And there sat Kyle.

This is more amazing than it first sounds. He
is one of the only people I have ever seen in the library during
lunch, besides the librarian and Ned of course.

It was even more surprising that he was
sitting at what I considered to be Ned’s and my table.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
He was always saying quaint things like that. Then, “Is this your
table?”

How totally amazing that he read my mind. Or
maybe not, since I stopped short, was gawking at him and had nearly
dropped my books.

And am I becoming totally paranoid or is he
staring judgmentally at my eyeballs?

“Oh, well,” I said. “It’s not my table, it
belongs to the library. But I do sit here sometimes...” Stop
blathering, Jane.

“Would you care to sit down then?”

To sit or not to sit? I didn’t want to appear
to be cheating on my boyfriend by sitting at our table with another
boy.

But that was silly. I was just sharing a
table in a library with another person who happened to be a boy,
and not even a very cute one at that. Although the more chances I
got to look at him, I decided Kyle’s hair was more of an auburn
than a true red. Clearly a Fall either way, and he knew how to pick
a shirt color to best accentuate his green-blue eyes. They brought
to mind a tropical body of water.

I said, “Sure, thanks.” And then felt stupid
for thanking someone for allowing me to sit at my own table.

Kyle nodded and went back to his book, but
after just a few seconds, he looked up again.

“Hey, Jane? Do you get the math homework?
Hiro’s a little ahead of where we were at my old school.”

Did I understand it? I could have done it in
my sleep. I had to restrain myself from snorting. Just like that,
Robin Jane has a new cause.

But, I will have to tread carefully.

Ned might not appreciate my tutoring someone
else. Hannah the former bully is one thing. After all, she’s a
girl. But I wasn’t so sure about a cute (did I just say that?) new
boy from some exotic location. I was sure he was from somewhere
exciting. I could definitely detect an accent.

But I was here and he was here and there
didn’t seem to be any reason not to help another poor soul who was
struggling with a subject I just happen to do as easily as
breathing.

Kyle got up and moved to the seat next to me,
which was sort of thrilling, if I was being honest. Robin Jane
always strives for honesty.

Well, most of the time anyway.