Jack exited the washroom and stood in the hallway for a moment pondering which direction to head in. If he headed right, there was a chance he might somehow find himself back in front of the office, and that could mean a run in with Mrs. Stone, the vice principal. Bad idea he decided, and headed left to new and uncharted territories.
As Jack reached the end of the hall, he noticed that there was a stair case heading up, and an exit to a court yard. More buildings lined the other side of the school yard. He paused for a moment. For whatever reason, he had the feeling he needed to cross the court yard and get to an old stone building on the other side. He opened the door, and walked out, and began descending a small set of stairs to the ground level.
Walking down the stairs proved to be a much bigger challenge than Jack had anticipated and he nearly fell down twice. He clutched the rail tightly, and descended the remaining few steps cautiously. He began to walk across a paved court yard. There was an area of grass off to the center of the court yard, which had a flower bed and a rock garden along with some picnic tables. In the distance and off to his right were numerous buildings. Some were newer than others, but all them had one thing in common, they were all at least two or three stories in height. There was also an enclosed, above ground, pedway which connected many of the buildings. Jack looked at one of the pedways which was headed in the same direction he was and it suddenly came to him, an image, he knew what the inside of that pedway looked like. He must have been headed in the right direction.
From the distance a camera sat attached to the top corner of a building. It's head adjusted ever so slightly to spy a rather short looking red-headed girl, with her hair clipped up, wearing a black coat, denim skirt, and some black boots making her way across the courtyard.
Somewhere deep inside the school, a woman sat at a desk staring at some paperwork in front of her, she looked up momentarily at the bank of monitors in front of her, and along the back side of her office. Up came the black and white image of this young girl in the center of the courtyard. The woman got up from her desk and walked over to the monitor. She grabbed something that looked like a remote, punched in a few numbers and almost instantly the camera facing the center of the courtyard zoomed in on the red-headed girl slowly making her way across the courtyard. The woman studied the face for a moment. Suddenly, she realized who it was: "Ms. Stevens, I have you now!" she said. The woman grabbed a file from the top of her inbox and quickly left her office.
Jack looked off to the left side of the courtyard and noticed a few older buildings on that side as well. There were far more buildings on the right side of the courtyard than there were on the leftside, but after he passed the last of the buildings on the left side, Jack realized why. Off towards the left was a larger building with basketball courts enclosed by a chain link fence lining the one side of the building. "That had to be the gym," Jack thought to himself. Further off into the distance was a track and in its center there were some goal posts and some bleachers- it was the football field.
Jack continued his long journey across the courtyard and finally came to some steps outside an entrance to the old stone building he had hoped to gain access to. He hopped up the stairs without a snag and noted that climbing stairs in these boots were easier than descending them. Jack motioned for the right most door. The door was stiff, but Jack managed to pull the door open with a little extra effort. At least the door had opened- it was a good sign he thought. He walked straight down the hall a bit and once again noticed how his boots were breaking the peace and quiet of the hallway with a "clacking" sound. He frowned a bit at how much noise he was generating. He kept walking and saw another set of stairs (off to his left) going down a little bit to a bank of doors, at the bottom. There were about eight doors along the bottom. It occurred to Jack that this must have been the main entrance to the building. Near the bottom, by the doors, a few students were standing, and chattering silently. Jack studied each of them briefly, but did not recognize any of them. At that very moment, someone entered the building. From the bottom of the stairs, a tall, young man with a tan complexion began waving at him. Jack stopped and looked behind himself to make sure it was he who was being waved at by this strange guy. Sure enough, no one was behind Jack, it was he who was being waved at.
"Great!" Jack thought to himself. "Another guy who wants to get into my panties," he muttered under his breath.
Suddenly, as the young man got to the top of the stairs, Jack remembered his name: Ronald. But, he preffered being called Ronnie as he recalled. He also suddenly lost the need to be defensive- they must have been friends.
"Hola Jana, como estas?" Ronnie called out.
"Hey Ronnie. Good and you?" Jack offered back. Suddenly, it occurred to Jack that Ronnie was hispanic.
"Great!" he said with much enthusiasm. "Are you headed to the locker Jana?" Ronnie asked.
Jack noted the phrasing of the question: "the locker," it stuck out in his mind for a moment. It occurred to him at that moment that they shared a locker. It was Jack's lucky day. "Uhh, yeah," he said. "After you," he motioned with his right arm for Ronnie to lead the way.
They walked to almost the end of the building and Ronnie veered right to a tall locker, third from the corner. Any further away, and it would have been inside one of the pedways. Jack paced back out to the center of the hall, while Ronnie got to work on the lock. He looked down the hall for a moment and noticed that more, shorter lockers lined the pedway which connected this building to the next. Jack glanced up and noticed the time: 8:42am. It occurred to him that he was about to miss first block- in about 8 minutes.
The sound of the lock popping open and Ronnie opening the locker caught Jack's attention and he walked back to the locker and waited for Ronnie to finish up dropping off his coat and switching up his books. Jack watched Ronnie moving around. The first thing that struck Jack was how much taller Ronnie was than him- Ronnie had to have almost a foot on him. Also, he couldn't figure it out, but there was something funny about the way Ronnie moved. It struck Jack that his mannerisms almost seemed to be female. He looked at the locker door. There were two schedules posted on it, one of them had to be his Jack thought, and the rest of the locker door was covered in a few pictures of rather muscular looking attractive men. Jack found himself getting turned on. Then it hit him like a brick. There were no pictures of women. "Oh my God! You're gay!" Jack blurted out in a rather girly voice, the revelation hitting him like a tonne of bricks.
"No shit Jana!" came Ronnie's reply. "I told you when we were first paired up, back in October, that I was gay."
"I know, I know," Jack said trying to act like nothing had happened. "It just occurred to me now, that's all," Jack said trying to sound as natural as possible.
"It just struck you now!?" asked Ronnie incredulously, "in March... that I'm gay."
"Uhh look, never mind, sorry Ronnie, I didn't mean to offend you," Jack said.
"You didn't offend me girlfriend, I know, you know, the whole school knows" he said with a slight lisp, "but, I suddenly realized why you're failing math a second time around," Ronnie added.
"Hey, watch it!" Jack said suddenly defensive about the matter.
Ronnie moved out of the way and Jack stepped into his place at the locker and dropped his coat off inside. The top half of the locker was neat, clean, and organized, while the bottom half looked like it had been hit with a hurricane. Moreover, on one the three hooks on the inside of the locker was hung an awful looking dark purple and yellow colored shirt. It looked almost like a rugby shirt. Jack motioned for it, to inspect it a little better. Was it Ronnie's?
"Do you work tonight?" Ronnie asked.
"Uhh yeah, I think so," replied Jack as he grabbed the shirt, not liking where this conversation was headed. He held the shirt by it's collar and noticed a monogrammed logo on the right side: "Mega Video." "Great, just great!" thought Jack to himself- it was his work shirt. If there was any doubt at that moment, it was dispelled when he noticed the name tag on the shirt: "Hi I'm Janice," it read. Jack winced at the thought of having to wear the hideous looking shirt, but he would deal with it later.
Ronnie was about to walk off when, Jack turned around and said aloud: "Ronnie, wait a minute, I just remembered something..." motioning for Ronnie to come back to the locker.
Ronnie walked back to Jana.
"Ronnie dear," Jack said in the cutest voice he could muster, "I seemed to have fogotten the locker combo, could you write it down for me while I grab my books?" Jack asked.
"You know, if you're head wasn't screwed on tight, you would probably lose that too," Ronnie joked as he grabbed a scrap piece of paper from his binder and began writing down the combo.
"Thank you Ronnie!" Jack said turning back to the task at hand. He looked at the locker door and found his class schedule. In a quick motion, he used his now long and girly nails to find an edge on the schedule, and then he yanked it off of the locker door, and checked which class he had to get to next: Social Studies 11. Luckily, there was even a room number: D 305- wherever that was. He then deposited the schedule into his purse. He dropped his purse to the floor, and hung his jacket up, and started to reach for some books along the top.
"Hey, what are you doing chica?" said Ronnie from behind him.
"Just grabbing my textbooks," Jack responded.
"Remember our deal..." Ronnie stated, "you get the bottom half of the locker and I get the top half!"
"Oh right!" Jack tried to cover his error rather nonchalantly, and lowered his hand from the upper shelf.
Ronnie handed Jack the locker combo on a scrap piece of paper, and then left so that he could get to his next class. Jack took the combo, knelt down, added the locker number (1857) to it with a loose pen he found in the upper part of the locker, and once again deposited the vital slip of paper into his purse.
As he looked up and away from the purse he came to face-to-face with the mess that was his end of the locker. Jack winced a little at the sight. "How did this girl operate?" he thought to himself. Binders were piled on top of and mixed in with textbooks. Papers hung halfway out of many of the binders, and of course, very few of the binders or books had a spine facing out so he could figure out which book was for which class.
Jack began sorting through the pile. He turned books around to check which classes they were likely for. He picked through binders looking for any indication if a class name was listed on it somewhere. The exercise was futile though, and Jack realized he was going to have to pull out each binder and check it for a syllabus of some sort. He pulled out binder after binder and was creating a mess on the floor when he heard a buzzer go off. "Class change," he said to himself. Suddenly, students poured out of all the previously closed class room doors. The halls filled with kids as they ran to their lockers and next classes.
The sight stunned Jack for a moment, and then he realized that he had better hurry up, and find his Social Studies binder. There were 5 binders, as far as Jack could tell, and it wasn't until he opened up the fifth one that he realized it was his 'Socials' binder. "Figures," he muttered silently to himself. He set it aside for the moment and set about finding the textbook listed on the syllabus. It didn't seem to be present in his locker. "Shit!" he cursed silently. "Oh well, today he would have to go to class without his book," he thought to himself. He promptly piled everything back into his locker, organizing it would have to come later. He stood up grasping his purse and slinging it over his shoulder. He was about to return the pen to Ronnie's end of the locker when he suddenly realized he may need it for his next class as he didn't seem to have one of his own. He closed the locker door, and had to force it a bit to close it all the way. He moved his right knee up to hold the door, and suddenly he could feel his skirt spread open along the bottom to as far as it would allow. He locked the lock and bent over to pick up his binder. It shouldn't have surprised him, but a bunch of papers fell out of it and created a mess on the ground.
"Would anything go right for him?" thought Jack to himself. He knelt down again and picked up the loose sheets as best as he could. Jack hugged the binder to his bosom and stood up again only to see a woman- dressed in a smart looking above the knee gray skirt, black hose, and a white blouse, all of which looked like it was part of a woman's business suit- standing directly in front of him. During all the commotion of class change she must have snuck up on him. When his eyes met with hers, a chill ran down his spine.
"Mrs. Stone," Jack said almost breathlessly.
The buzzer sounded again. Class change was over and few last stragglers ran for it to make it to their next class.
Jack instinctively took a step back from Mrs. Stone who was so close he could make out almost every last detail on the pendant she wore around her neck.
"Well, well," spoke the woman, "Ms. Stevens, you decided to grace this school with your presence today- be it a little late. What's the ocassion?" Stone added sarcastically.
Her voice sounded almost masculine Jack thought- it definitely lacked softness.
Jack felt the need to lie- "I was feeling a little sick this morning..." Jack offerred. "I think my period just started today," Jack lied. He knew it was a lie, but he remembered back to when he was in high school as a guy. There was this girl in his class who got away with murder and the excuse she had always used that she was "starting her period." Jack thought he might have out foxed Mrs. Stone, but he was more optimistic than he should have been considering the circumstances.
"You should really consider rotating your excuses Ms. Stevens- you used that one last week," Stone added.
"Shit!" Jack thought to himself.
"You're coming with me young lady, to the main office," Stone said in an intimidating voice.
Jack just sighed and resigned himself to his fate- he was busted.
