Cat and Mouse | m.c.

chapter 2

The English classroom smelled of warm vanilla, chalkboard dust, and wood shavings. Pens clicked in the silence and pencils scratched against paper as students scrambled to finish their essay benchmark. Mouse sat in the center of the desk arrangements, not too far from the front of the class but not too close. She was finished, having checked any possible grammar mistakes seven times over to the point she could almost memorize every sentence of her essay.

Mouse glanced at the back, noting that Michael Clifford, sitting behind three seats away, was also finished. He slouched in his seat, adorned in a white polo shirt and skin tight black jeans. A black snapback covered his head, little fiery red ringlets peeking out from underneath, doing things to her heart that Mouse couldn’t quite decipher. She must have been staring too long because his green eyes snapped up to meet hers. He grinned.

"Miss Cohen, eyes back up front and on your paper please." Her English teacher, Mrs. Fields, warned, tapping harshly on Mouse’s desk.  

"Sorry." Mouse sheepishly apologized. She heard a light snort of amusement, three seats away.

Mrs. Fields glared at Mouse under her glasses before calling out in her shrill voice, “Times up! Pass in your tests!” The immediate cue of the ringing bell and the forward shuffling of paper filled the silence prior in the room. Students scrambled to pack their stuff and rushed out the door, Mouse being one of them. However, a hand shot out to grab hers and she reeled back to meet the face of Michael Clifford.  

"Where are you going Mouse?" He asked, an amused and knowing glint in his eye.  

"Home." Mouse curtly replied, jerking her hand back from his grasp.  

She had a game plan. She was going to run the hell out of sixth period before Michael can come after her, run all five blocks home, and spend the rest of her school night to do History homework with the hope that Michael Clifford would come to his own terms that she wasn’t worth his time in the end and ignore her in school like he always did. Obviously, seeing the situation now, it wasn’t really working.  

"Didn’t I tell you that we’re going to my house to watch the Fault in Our Stars?" He folds his arms over his chest and sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. Mouse was taken aback because firstly, Michael Clifford does not pout and secondly, he wasn’t supposed to be allowed to be this adorable when he did it. He resembled a kitten and Mouse, albeit ironically with her name and all, especially loved the little furballs.

Even if she wanted to go, Mouse was firmly not allowed to, special thanks to her mother.  

"I can’t go today, I have to go somewhere today with my parents." She lied between her teeth. He chuckled a little, studying her face almost fondly. His green eyes searched hers before saying, "I know you’re lying." He grabbed her wrist again, his grip forceful but not hard enough to be painful. "So, let’s go." He proceeded to drag her down the main hallway and Mouse stumbled over forced steps.  

"Wait, wait, wait!" Mouse exclaims, patting frantically at the arm that held her other hand captive as he dragged her out of the main gates.

“Let me call my parents first?”  

He pauses and contemplates for a moment. The spring wind batted gently against their faces.  

"Fine." He decided. "You can do it as we walk." They were outside of school property by now and the school building had started to clear out of sight.

"Mom," Mouse spoke into her phone. "I have to stay after school to work on a school project." She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Mouse was always the filial child, more so than others normally were, the most she ever rebelled was when she bought two boxes of cereal instead of one.