Hush Little Baby (Discontinued)

Ch. 48

Physics class went by with the speed of molasses uphill in winter.

"Okay, so how do we calculate linear acceleration between points A and B?" The teacher, Ms Warren, pointed at Flash, who was holding up his hand with a smirk.

"Flash?"

"It's the product of sine of the angle and gravity divided by the mass." The smirk widened, only to fall when she shook her head.

"Nope."

Peter watched another hand go up out of the corner of his eye, gaze falling back down to the screen in front of him.

"Peter. You still with us?"

He sat straighter, pulling his eyes away from a video of his own alter ego to smile bashful at the teacher. "Uh... yeah, yeah."

Closing the laptop, he scanned over the diagram of the gravity pendulum. "Uh... Mass cancels out, so it's just gravity times sine."

"Right." Ms Warren smiled proudly. "See, Flash, being the fastest isn't always the best if you are wrong."

Laughter spread through the classroom,, and Flash turned to glare balefully in his direction.

"You're dead," he whispered angrily.
Peter stared at the clock wistfully.

11:38 a.m.

"I got a copy of this movie he wanted me to watch, and I wrapped it up with a note that said I Owe You, with a thing of his favorite candy, and I did a card asking him out. Like, Tony has a whole theater room, and I thought we'd watch it with snacks, and blankets and stuff. But I told him if his answer was yes, to be there at seven tomorrow night."

"Wow." Ned stared blank faced at him.

"It's a horrible idea, isn’t it?" Peter dropped his head into his arms. "He's going to hate it. It'll be so weird."

"No, it's not a horrible idea." Ned put an arm around his shoulders. "It's cute. He's gonna like it, Peter."

"You don't think it's creepy?"

"No."

Peter stared at him intently. "You do. You think it's creepy."

"I don't. I just don't know if it was the best idea to drop it in front of his door, and then just leave, right before you go to your aunts house. He'll think you're avoiding him."

"I just- I need to stop overthinking it, before I start making it creepy."

"Too late."

They turned to look at the end of the table, where MJ was sitting immersed in a book.

She hadn't taken her eyes off of the page while addressing them. "You guys are losers."

"Then..." Ned tipped his head to the side. "Why do you sit with us?"

"Because I don’t have any other friends."

12:23 p.m.

Decathlon practice dragged on even slower than the other classes.

Liz stood at the podium, reading over the quiz cards. "Let’s move to the next question. What is the heaviest naturally-occurring element?"