CALVIN

ten: the newspaper

"Elias. Want to join the newspaper?"

I looked behind me to see Ms Vecoli, tying her long sheen of curly black hair back behind her head. "I wasn't really... I'm terrible at writing..." I said.

"Yeah, but, my problem is that only two eleventh graders are in the newspaper. And it's only two because I ripped Calvin a new asshole for trying to drop out."

I laughed nervously. She continued. 

"We have so much to write tonight, because of the elections. The twelfth graders won't pull their shit together, that I know. So it's only on Calvin and Maddy. And you."

"I think... Denis wouldn't mind joining - Okay, I'll do it."

"For good, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure."

"It counts as your CAS project, you know."

"Really? Okay."

Ms Vecoli smiled. "Yes! We're meeting tonight to write critiques on the candidates' speeches this morning. Be in room 7 at ten."

"Ten?"

"I'm extended your wing time till whenever we're finished writing, which might not be until 1 AM. Bring snacks and your laptop. I'm bringing the French press."

"Oh. Uh... sure."

We started walking out of class together, into the cold, white hallway, the glass wall on one side all fogged up. 

"How is everything?" she asked. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's... fine." I dragged my fingers through the condensation on the glass as we walked. "Just normal."

"I just noticed something was off during class. I want to make sure everything is okay."

"Here?"

"Yeah."

"Fine," I said. I squinted my eyes. "But people are lame. Don't you ever get tired of them?"

"Elias," she said affirmatively. "I live and work with teenagers. And not only teenagers. These teenagers. I'm tired of them."

"How do you do it?" I asked. 

"I pull my panties up and take my medication, that's how." she held the door open for me and we walked outside. It was cold. "You could try that."

"I don't wear panties."

"I mean... the other thing."

"Oh. I don't think medication's going to help."

"Might not. But you could always try."

"I could."

"Okay."

"Bye?"

"Yeah. And - uh - bring Kokoro tomorrow. We're starting that."

"Okay. I don't think I have a copy."

"You don't?"

"Yeah, I think I was sick when you handed them out. But - "

"You - "

" - but my roommate has an extra - "

"Okay. I'll get you a copy next week."

"Okay."

"Bye, Elias."

"Bye."

I walked back to house 19 with my hands in my pockets. 

...

"Hey, Elias." I looked up to see Maddy leaning over the desk I had occupied. "Schneider still likes me, right?"

"To the best of my knowledge, yes, Madison."

She squinted her eyes. "Do you think it's... weird?"

"Why would it be weird?"

"I don't know. He's not... I don't know. I just never saw myself..."

"Here's a crazy idea," I said, noticing Ms Vecoli's look, "why don't you ask Schneider what  he thinks about you."

"Ew, what? Who are you?"

I made eye contact with Calvin. Maddy felt it proper to continue. 

"I can't just ask Schneider what he thinks about me, Elias.  Then he's going to think I want something with him and he'll get all attached and then I'll break his heart."

"Do it the other way around," Calvin suggested, reaching over to take my notebook. "Break his heart, then get him attached, and then make him think you want something with him." his eyes scanned my scribbles and then he said to me, "Is this line for Roman?" I nodded. 

"Guys, that's exactly the track I'm on now. I just don't want to reverse the track, you know? Look, Schneider is the hottest boy I've ever seen in my life, but I would never date him."

"Then whyyy do you talk so much?" I asked in a low voice, my head collapsing into my hands. Calvin snorted. 

"Because, Elias, it just doesn't work like that. We're from two different worlds. Schneider is from Stuttgart, I'm from Dusseldorf. Schneider's mother is a famous actress. My mother is in real estate."

"God, the difference is uncanny," I exclaimed. 

"All I want to know is if he still likes me or not."

"Okay, Maddy, he likes you. He masturbates to a picture of you every night. He has a shrine of you beside his bed. We're supposed to be critiquing the candidates, here."

"Thank you, Elias," Ms. Vecoli said from the front of the room. She was cutting up a carrot.

Calvin leaned over my notebook with a pen. "Roman began his speech with 'Good afternoon, fellow teachers and students'. The speeches were in the morning."

"Here's the opening line," I said, my fingers hopping across the keyboard, "'We're sure it's afternoon somewhere, Roman.'"

"I like that," Calvin said. "Maybe then put, 'if you weren't passed out in the forest the night before, telling the time of day might come easier to you.'"

I looked at him. "What do you mean?"

I could tell a sudden uncertainty overcame Calvin. "Because of that one time - "

"What one time?"

"At the beginning of the year, when the teachers couldn't find him past wing-time because he passed out in the forest. Drunk. It's just a very... Roman thing to d... We don't have to put that one. It's dumb. Not funny."

"No, it's funny. I just thought... about something else. But it's..." I typed down what he said. 

"Does Schneider really masturbate to a picture of me?" Maddy asked. 

"Yes, every morning," I said, my eyes trained on my screen. I looked at Calvin in thought. "Or did I say every night?"

Maddy rolled her eyes and walked back to her spot in the classroom. I saw Calvin laughing and I smiled to myself. 

"Oh, now, this is too much, innit?" I said, looking at what Calvin had written under Roman's section on my laptop. "'You want to shorten the amount of activities we have each day? Why don't you try shortening the amount of tequila shots you have each night and then we'll talk.'"

"We can't put that!" Ms Vecoli said. "We're supposed to be journalists, not Joseph Goebbel's chief editors."