Dark Chocolate Cherry

DENIGRATION

During free period second hour I stand outside the opportunity doors and smoke a cigarette, then attempt to scale the fence, which doesn't work out too well since I'm not physically fit.

Personal Fitness and AP European History go well, especially since Personal Fitness is just a lot of lecturing and since I've always been strong in history, but I don't think I'll like AP Biology, and that's only because Mr. Godforsaken Martinez assigned Nolan Steinke as my lab partner for the rest of the year, and today we have to dissect frogs. For a few minutes we just sort of sit there unsure what to do.

"Have you ever dissected a frog before?" Nolan asks.

I shrug. I really am not in the mood to slice open a frog today.

"Olay, then," Nolan sighs. "If you're going to act like that, then I'll do it all myself."

He gingerly picks up the scalpel and holds it uncomfortably in the way we were instructed, but instead of cutting it, he just pokes the skin. The poor frog seems to cringe with its whole body and flop around like a piece of frog-shaped Jell-O. When Nolan pokes it again, I can barely stand it. Just cut the dang thing, idiot! Don't you have any guts?

"Here, let me do it." I take the scalpel from out of Nolan's cold, pale hand and cut the frog open at the neck, then make an incision down to just underneath where the lower intestine would be. Blood pours out of the gash and the entrails twirl out of the amphibian like a Russian ballerina.

"Have you done this before?" he asks. I nod, and he seems surprised. "You're way better at this than I am."

"Good for you." I make an incision down one of the back legs and set the scalpel down on the table next to the frog. Nolan looks like he's going to puke at the sight of all the blood, which is extremely pathetic.

"You're not going to be sick, are you?" I ask as sternly as I can.

"I'm fine." So I guess if you look completely green and shaking like a leaf, you're fine.

Mr. Martinez instructs us to find the small intestine, which means we have to search through the entrails of our frog to find the spindly thing that digests food. So just to embarrass Nolan (and get my revenge for this morning), I hand him the scalpel. He looks like he's about to barf as he cautiously and awkwardly picks through the insides of our poor test subject. Finally he finds the lumpy pink muscle and points to it with the sharp end of the scalpel.

"Very good," I compliment. "You're sure you're okay?"

He nods. "I'm fine."

"You're sure? Because sometimes throwing up can be relieving in stressful situations. It lets out all the stress that's built up inside and expels it from your system, out into the magical abyss of a garbage can or, in your case, a lab table. All that food, your whole breakfast, just out in the open. Out of sight and out of mind, don't you think? Ah, the glory of barf. Are you sure you don't have to throw up?"

Nolan gives me a look that's a mixture of hate and warning, but I can tell I'm getting through to him. Oh, Nolan Steinke, if you puked in front of everyone right now, I would be eternally grateful.

Why doesn't he puke? He seems to be listening intently to the teacher right now, so he probably won't puke unless Martinez says something disgusting. There's something about the way he's staring, though, like his mind is partially there and partially somewhere else. His glasses sort of sit in the middle of his nose, like they're lazy, and I wonder for a second if he's looking over them or if he's zoning and doesn't notice.

"...Miss Von Dwyer?"

"What?" I snap to attention.

"What function does the small intestine serve? Surely you must know, this is Advanced Placement."