The Ivy League

The Ivy League Part 20

"Mine's better," was Mr. Vector's greeting to me as I walked into next period, scowling. I looked at him and he pretended to curl his own handlebar mustache. Except his was stuck-on, not drawn-on. His was also black, and it clashed horribly with his pale blond hair. I could only imagine the effect my green one had with my thick wavy dark brown hair. 

"Whatever," I said moodily, stalking to my seat. Today was Halloween, so at least I didn't stick out too much. In the short trip from the Principal's office to my math class, I had already run into a banana getting chased by a gorilla, pacman chasing a pair of cherries who were attached at the stem and had tried to run in opposite directions, and a whole army of people in full tight black body suits, faces covered too. Those had scared the living daylights out of me. 

My favorite by far was a Johnny Depp, dressed as Jack Sparrow. My favorite movies of all time are the Pirates of the Caribbean series; I know them by heart. Maybe that's what I'll watch today after school to make me feel better. The class got settled, one person dressed as a box of New York fries squeezing himself into his seat with extreme difficulty. 

The carton of his box read, "This is why I'm hot." He winked at the girls sitting opposite him, whispering "You know you want me," and they giggled. One of them even licked her lips while her friend beside her looked nauseated at that. They were all dressed as typical sluts. Naturally. 

Mr. Vector taught the lesson with minimal elastic-shooting, targeting the guy dressed as Iron Man more than once. He had seriously good aim. Iron Man fought back, whipping out a nerf gun. Not to be outdone, Mr. Vector shot him with a water pistol, making the marker on the cardboard suit to streak. Iron Man grumbled to himself for the rest of the period.  

Mr. Vector cheerfully taught us inverse functions, casually chucking plush balls at us every so often to keep it interesting. Needless to say, I was lost in the course, big surprise - and he beamed at us as we groaned about the functions work, diabolically twirling his handlebar mustache. 

"You young people never enjoy anything," he scolded, "there's no joy in your lives. I mean, you have to appreciate the little things in life. Like sneezes!" he said brightly, "don't you just LOVE sneezes? There's that little moment where you're ah-ah-CHOO and then you have that relieved feeling of 'ahhh,'" he sighed in satisfaction, his expression dreamy and distant. "Y'know?" he asked, looking eagerly at all of us as though actually expecting someone to agree. 

We stared at him blankly and he rolled his eyes. "I know that I'm not the only one who enjoys their sneezes," he muttered stubbornly, turning to the board. After he assigned homework, we all turned to 'work'. 

"You have to what?" Jake whispered happily a few moments later, eyes wide. 

I growled. "You heard me." I had no desire to repeat everything that had happened. 

We paused to watch Mr. Vector absent-mindedly paddle his way through the desk aisles, using his meter stick to stroke on each side, pretending to be in a canoe. He canoed his way over to a group of boys dressed as the Three Musketeers. They were all sitting around one of the boys, watching in fascination as he painstakingly and ever-so-slowly scratched out words onto his page, struggling to write with his cast on. 

"Guys, I realize that it's like watching erosion happen - it's fascinating, but let's try to get some work done, all right?" he asked, and they all reluctantly turned to their own desks. Mr. Vector proceeded to paddle over to a group of girls who were all dressed like prostitutes. Some of them held babies from the Family and Parenting classes. 

Mr. Vector picked one of the babies up, yanking it from one of the girls' arms. He cast and appraising eye on them as he bounced the baby. "No wonder you're all carrying babies, dressed like that," he told them, and then proceeded into a highly-embarrassing lecture about self-respect. He looked gleeful and I had the distinct impression he was making this as humiliating as possible. "...So don't do sex. Cuz' then you'll get pregnant...and die," he finished dramatically, now burping the baby, and one of the girls laughed.