90s Queen Bee #Wattys2016

Chapter 10 - Rivals

1998

I stared at the back of Blair Bradley's sandy blonde head as Mr. Fenton droned on about the structure of a leaf.

I'd always thought Blair had broad shoulders and a muscly chest in high school. What a joke! And what a Jesse Spencer try-hard.

Before the class had started, I'd sauntered past him on my way to sit next to Bec, looked him in the eyes and smiled. He'd looked confused. Robin had made a scoffing noise from the other side of the room. She and Teagan had then whispered something to each other and giggled. I was sure this was setting the scene for some sort of showdown at lunch.

'Does anyone know the name of the layer where most of the photosynthesis takes place?' asked Mr. Fenton. He pointed his chalk at Bec. 'Rebecca, photosynthesis mostly takes place in which layer?'

She focused her eyes on the chalk like it was the barrel of a gun.

'I don't know,' she said quietly.

'This is why you need to read your textbooks, people,' he said, exasperated. 'You'll never get anywhere in life if you don't study these things.'

A short, sharp, very loud 'Ha!' escaped my mouth. I couldn't help it. Not for the first time today, 30 sets of 90s hair styles turned in my direction.

'Excuse me, Samantha? Is something funny?'

'That's not really true,' I said. 'No one in real life cares if you don't know about leaves.'

30 mouths gasped. Mr. Fenton's chalk hovered in the air. He cleared his throat and went to say something, but I cut him off.

'Well, maybe they do if you want to be a biologist or something, but all this stuff,' I shook my biology text book in the air, 'doesn't matter to 99.9% of the population. I know it's not your fault Mr. Fenton. You're paid to teach us a curriculum that other people have set for us, but why doesn't the school actually teach us something that's useful, like how to pay a bill or apply for a loan or do our tax return?'

Mr. Fenton's face flushed a bright, purple-y red.

Mudsey started a slow clap. 'Yeah, go Sammy!' he bellowed. Blair, Jason and half the room started clapping.

'Finally, the dormant volcano erupts!' shouted Dimitri Christopolous from the back of the room. Trust the school's top English student to come up with a sophisticated insult for me.

I looked over at Robin. Her mouth hung open and her fingers were poised in the air, like she was about to click them. Props to the girl for pulling off the 'Oh no she didn't' look before we even knew what it was.

What did she do for a living now, anyway? She definitely wasn't working in the finance sector in Sydney – I'd know about her. Maybe she was an unreasonable and demanding marketing exec at some fashion house. That would have been about right. Perhaps I would stalk her on Facebook when I woke up from all this.

I almost felt sorry for Mr Fenton, who was trying to get everyone to settle down by banging his biology book on his desk. He was only doing his job and now here was this brat telling him that what he did for a living was pretty much pointless to everyone but .01% of the population – and that's if he was lucky enough to actually get a budding biologist in his class.

But this wasn't real - this was my drug-fuelled fantasy and Mr. Fenton was an imaginary casualty. I had to admit, if this was a drug-fuelled fantasy, shouldn't my mind have taken me back to a cloud of shoes or that weekend I'd spent in Ibiza with a tanned Adonis named Antonio? What the hell was I doing in Mr. Fenton's year 12 biology class?