Little Miss Know-it-all

3: Julius Caesar.

Chapter 3: Julius Caesar.

Listen to Human by Christina Perri.

"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you."
- Winnie the Pooh

-

WHEN I GOT HOME, I didn't bother asking where Father was. Natalie asked me how my day was and I said it was fine and even though I looked questionable she just let me go upstairs and told me to freshen up before dinner. That was all I liked about Natalie. She respected my privacy.

I climbed upstairs and into the solitude of my room. I took off my stained and smelly shirt and tie then tossed them into the laundry basket. I stripped, put on my black dressing gown and went lazily to the bathroom. I was applying my avocado hair mask when I looked at my face in the mirror. I looked different. I felt different. Something changed but I had no idea what it was.

After I finished covering my hair in avocado, I wrapped it up in a plastic bag when my phone suddenly beeped. It was a dm from Instagram. I'll open it later. At that moment, I needed a bath.

~

"How was school today Kiara?" Father asked from the other end of the table.

"It was fine," I said curtly and continued eating my steak.

There was no more conversation afterwards. Just the clinking of forks and knives against plates, the occasional lifting and dropping of glasses on the table, Father's tablet beeping with new e-mails and the soft hum of the air conditioner. This time I was actually comfortable with the silence, I didn't struggle to make conversation and I didn't want to. I finished eating and stood up from the table quietly and climbed up the stairs.

I went into my room and got out a clean uniform for tomorrow. The other one smelt like sour yoghurt. Eww. I yawned and I didn't even bother to cover my mouth, I laughed at the thought of yawning like that in one of Father's fancy dinners with his colleagues. He would call me unladylike and drive home with his mouth in a funny frown.

I crawled into the comfort of my soft black duvet, hugged my teddy and somehow drifted off to sleep. I didn't have any nightmares this time. I dreamt of Mom. She looked happy and she told me that she's not gone, that she's still with me and that I shouldn't worry all the time. She said that Father has custody of me, but not my life and I could still be whatever I wanted to be.

~

Gideon dropped me off at school reminding me that he'll be outside at the usual time. I packed my stuff out of my bag and into my locker again. Thankfully today I had Literature first. I picked out my 'Julius Caesar' by William Shakespeare and headed to class. I honestly had no idea why we were reading such ancient novels. This book was written in the early 1600's and were reading it now? That's pretty stupid to me.

I got to the class first today and picked out a nice seat in the middle row. I opened the book and started to read it.

Act one, scene one

Okay...

Rome. A street.

What the fudge?

Enter Flavius, Marullus and certain commoners.

Are we actually reading this in class?

"Yup," I now know that voice anywhere but I didn't reply. Wait, did I say that out loud? Oops.

"Shakespeare is fucked up in so many ways," he continued. I cringed. I don't like it when people curse. Mom said I should never curse no matter how angry I was. But now that I think about it, she used to curse a lot whenever I did anything to annoy her when I was much younger. And now I'm wondering if she really used to curse or it was just a figment of my imagination...

"Hellooo!" I snapped back into reality when someone waved their hand in front of my face. I turned to him with an annoyed look.
"You always look so lost and thoughtful," he said.
No answer.
"What are you always thinking about?" He mused.
"Since it's in my head, then it's clearly none of your business."
"Ooh, feisty," he said laughing.
"It wasn't supposed to be funny," I stated.
"But it is," he said after he stopped laughing.
I rolled my eyes and continued reading my Shakespeare.

Hence! Home you idle creatures get you home.
Is this a holiday? What! Know you not.
Being mechanical, you ought not work...

"And now you will proceed to lie to me that you actually understand what you're reading," he said.
"I wasn't going to talk to you at all," I stated firmly.
"Really?" He sounded excited, "hi, I'm Liam. It's nice to meet you Zuri."

I nearly banged my head on the table. Doesn't this guy understand when someone doesn't want to talk to him?

"Liam, please could you leave me alone," I said putting some emphasis on his name.

He opened his mouth to reply when someone suddenly slammed their hand on the table. I looked at the atrocious being who just had to slam her hand on my table.

It was a girl with icy blue eyes and blonde hair in a ponytail that was so tight, it looked like her eyes were stretched out a bit.
"You're sitting on my seat," she said.

I didn't bother to say anything. I don't have the time to make a lifetime rivalry because of a seat. I stood up from the chair and scanned the classroom until I found a seat at the back in the extreme left end of the class. I picked up my school bag and was about to leave when someone held me back.

I sighed," Liam, let go of my hand."

"You're not even going to say anything to her? You're just going to leave?" He questioned.

"What's it to you?" I asked him back.
I liked to reply questions with questions. It was my way of avoiding things that I didn't want to talk about or had no answer for.

He let go of my hand and I left the seat. I sat down at the back all alone. I tried reading 'Julius Caesar' but I needed to be honest with myself. I didn't understand anything I was reading. I dropped the book in exasperation and leaned back against the chair, closed my eyes and sighed.

"You don't understand Shakespeare very much right?"

Could people I don't know please stop talking to me. It's getting pretty annoying.

"What do you want?" I said without opening my eyes.

"I just came to apologize,"

Apologize?? I opened my eyes to look at whoever. I saw the girl who accidentally spilled my parfait on me yesterday.

"Hi," I said because I honestly didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry about the parfait. It was an accident. I'm honestly so sorry for ruining your first day at school," she apologized.

"It's fine," I smiled, "you didn't ruin anything. You made my day a lot better."

"Really?"

"Yeah." I said laughing.

Little did I know that this was going to be the beginning of an everlasting friendship.
-

Hellooo everyone!
Chapter 3 has officially been posted. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Also, for any personal questions regarding the book, you can message me privately on Wattpad or if you prefer I'll drop my email address later. The picture at the top is how I imagine Zuri to look like. For those confused about the main character it's Kiara but she prefers Zuri because that's the name her Mom gave her. Also, what do you guys think about Liam.

Love,
Diash Quinn