Today its the scene where our hero, Neill, meets the new girl in school, and the new teacher, and has an immediate reaction to both. Is he wrong about his sexuality - or is something else afoot?
The first time mom called me a contrarian I had to look it up. I’m proud of that word, it describes me perfectly. Explains why I have French fourth period instead of the Spanish that ninety percent of the students taking a language attend.
Spanish classes are always packed. Most Farrington students have no trouble getting good grades there. The school’s forty percent Hispanic. Like most of the other kids in the who didn’t learn Spanish in their homes, I got my share on the playground tangling with friends who did. I swear as fluently in Spanish as I do in English. Better. Mom never punished me for the Spanish swears she didn’t understand, so I used those most often.
I take French.
Less frantic. Fewer students.
But today there is a new student. Blondie.
She settles into a seat next to mine as we wait for our teacher. Once again I find myself studying her face. Something draws me, and I wonder if I’ve met her before.
She turns. “Where’s your girlfriend?”
It takes a few seconds for me to realize she means Yolanda and I almost burst out laughing. “My friend, not my girlfriend.”
“Her loss.”
It won’t take her long to know how unimaginable that would be. And not just because I’m gay and don’t want or need a girlfriend. The great Yoyo Dare and anyone except David Albacore? Even if I was into girls it’d never happen. The long fist of David Albacore would reach across the state and strangle me, or anyone else, who tried to put a move on his Dare. I’d live longer putting a move on his little sister.
The door opens and a woman walks in. We’re all wondering who the new teacher will be. Mr. Faber unexpectedly retired just before finals. Normally that would mean we’d have to suffer through a string of subs for weeks, maybe even until the end of the semester. There aren’t a lot of spare French teachers in the Chicago Public Schools, and fewer still with so little seniority they can be transferred to an inner-city school at a moment’s notice. But we were told the Principal was lucky enough to find someone willing to take the post.
This woman’s tall, blond, pale skinned, and, except for her eyes being a smoky gray instead of green, she looks enough like Blondie to be her sister.
Or her mother.
I turn my head and see Blondie do an eye roll that would make a sister proud. She looks like she’d disappear if she could, but since she can’t, she stares at the wall and mutters “Welcome to my world.”
The woman in the immaculate and totally out-of-place in this world, anyway, dark velvet suits leaned against the desk and smiled at us. “Je m'appelle Alison Grant. Je serai votre nouveau professeur.”
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