Limelight

Chapter Ten

~~Teacher's Pet~~

The next Monday, Aaliyah burst in late to her English Literature class.

It wasn't necessarily all her fault, she had been victim to the terrors of student traffic in the hallways of Buchanan High after her first period and the only reason why she had to travel so far was that she skipped her algebra class to go to study hall, which was in the block behind the main campus, and finish off her book report on The Lord of the Flies.

Though she supposed the fact that she was in a rush to finish her book report the lesson before it was due was her fault. The report was set a week before it was due but between her private lessons with Mrs. Brodeur twice a week and spending most of her free time stuck in the studio working on her feature, she didn't have much time for anything in between. And now her school work was suffering and that hadn't ever happened before.

The suddenness of her entrance stunned her teacher, Miss Munroe, into silence and also gained the attention of the whole class. A wave of snickers ran through the room and Aaliyah couldn't hide her flush. "Sorry, Miss Munroe," She murmured ducking her head, stalking over to the tall thin woman in a pencil skirt and a suspecting brow raised. She leaned against her desk at the front of the room, watching as Aaliyah dropped her report on the pile on her desk. She barely glanced in Munroe's direction before hurrying over to her seat in the room, trying to hide her fluster. Trying to avoid Munroe's eyebrow in her direction before she continued speaking like she hadn't been interrupted.

Solana who sat beside her leaned across her seat, surprising Aaliyah, as she took her copy of The Lord of the Flies out. "Just a word of advice, being late to Munroe's class more than once is a one-way ticket onto her bad side," She said in a low voice. Aaliyah gnawed anxiously on her bottom lip as she glanced at Munroe, whose permanent sneer seemed to make her more unnerved than usual, "And at Buchanan, that's the hell equivalent."

"Well, I guess you could say that about most of the teachers here," Aaliyah replied with a snort opening up her book to the page they were left at. 

"It doesn't look like you're asking for the page we're at, Aaliyah," Miss Munroe observed in a chilling voice. Aaliyah snapped her head up to meet her gaze focused on her. The class had their eyes on her again, and Aaliyah couldn't fight her sheepish smile, "I wouldn't say we're off to a great start this week."

"Sorry Miss Munroe," Aaliyah replied in a rushed voice, "I was just asking about the assignment."

The smile on Munroe's expression was not a pleasant one. "Well the time to ask that would have been five minutes ago," She said in a cool voice, "Before the bell rang."

Aaliyah pressed her lips together, nodding firmly as the class responded with a chorus of "oohs" and laughs. "Right," She said.

Miss Munroe held her stare for a moment longer before returning her focus to the rest of the class. "Now as I was saying, last lesson we were discussing the relationship between Jack and Ralph—"

"Late and caught talking," Solana said beneath her breath, though just loud enough for Aaliyah to catch it, "You are definitely on her bad side."

Aaliyah snorted softly, rolling her eyes, though she chose not to say anything, looking into her book. Aaliyah tried to play it cool when she interacted with Solana. She rarely tried to make small talk with Aaliyah outside of classes let alone when they were in class, and they were in a few classes together. But she did like her. Solana was interesting. She always had charcoal smudges on her hands, and at lunch, she spent more time with her sketchpad than she did with the actual people on her table or her food. She was aloof, and not in the way Xavier was, well a little like Xavier, but at least Solana wasn't entirely cold towards Aaliyah.