Page 57 of Riot Act
22
PAX
She doesn’t show up.
And there I was, so sure she would, too.
“You had a choice. When you decided to live down the hill and not here, you gave up your rights to wander the academy after hours, Mr. Davis. I don’t know what to tell you. You have to go.”
I look at Jarvis Reid very closely. There’s no two ways about it: the new English teacher is hot as fuck. I wanted to screw the shit out of her the first day she showed up at Wolf Hall, but she turned out to be even more unstable than the last one. She has cats. Seven of them. She thinks she can communicate with them. Or she thinks they’re telepathic? Something like that. I’m not sure of the specifics. All I know is that a healthy dose of crazy can quickly turn a ten into a one, and Ms. Reid is bordering on negative numbers right now. She’s only been here five minutes but she’s already memorized Wolf Hall’s code of conduct and student rule book and she lives by the damn thing.
I bounce on the balls of my feet, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Chill, okay. It isn’t even seven yet. I just want to see a friend.”
She lets out an exasperated breath. “I’ve decided that you can’t call me Jarvis.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you make my name sound like a dirty word, Pax. At the end of the day, I’m your teacher. We don’t have a personal relationship—”
“Damn right we don’t.”
She huffs. “I was too quick to tell you guys you could use my first name. It’s been shown that students who refer to their teachers by their first names do not hold them in high regard, and often do not respect their author—”
“I don’t conform to hierarchical ideology, Jarvis. I’m a human being. You’re a human being. We’re equals. I’m not going to bow in deference to you just because you’ve been a human being longer than I have, and you chose to pursue a path in life whereby you’re financially rewarded for sharing knowledge with me. That doesn’t make you any better than me. Respect is earned. Me calling you by your first name has nothing to do with that in any way.”
She opens her mouth, staring up at me. Closes it. Opens it again. I think she’s having a hard time figuring out what to say. After a beat, she frowns, shaking her head. “You know your problem?”
Oh, this should be good. “I wasn’t aware that I had one.”
“You’re smart. Too smart for your own good. And you waste your intellect, because you’re too busy rebelling against a system that’s trying to help you learn.”
I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it would be to realize that the system that’s ‘trying to help me’ is actually trying to brainwash me with behaviors and thought processes that eliminate free thought or choice, so that when they tell me to jump, I won’t question the command. I’ll just do it. No point explaining this to Jarvis, though. It’s too late for her. Her synapses are already hardwired in place. She’s stuck. “There is nothing you can teach me that I can’t learn out of a book or from the internet,” I tell her. “I don’t have to comply with a system or mold myself into any particular kind of shape to please someone if I want to learn that way. I’ll be damned if I do it here, either.”
She sighs wearily, throwing her hands up. “I haven’t had enough coffee to deal with you right now. Tonight’s my night to play chaperone to you guys. I’m responsible for what goes on here, and I’m not gonna let you traipse around, doing whatever the hell you like—”
“I’m not trying to instigate an orgy. I just wanna go up to the fourth floor and say hi to a friend.”
Her face pales, apart from two small patches of crimson that blossom right over her cheekbones. Her pupils are twin giant black holes. “That’s…not an appropriate…thing to…” She shakes her head again. “Look. Who do you want to see? I’ll go and get her, and the two of you can sit down here with me. I can’t let you up these stairs, though. Boys aren’t allowed up into the girls’ wing, regardless of the time. This isn’t a co-ed living arrangement.”
I heave out a sigh, rolling my eyes. “Presley. Maria. Witton. Chase.” Each word is like a bullet striking me right between the eyes.Whenwill I get to stop saying that interminable name?
“The redhead?”
“Yeah. The redhead.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “Youmade friends with the redhead?”
I give her a tight-lipped smile. “I just said so, didn’t I?”
“Forgive me if I’m having a hard time believing you. You’ve never shown an interest in being friendly with anyone outside of your roommates. Anyway. Presley’s on the second floor now, in the old storage room. She isn’t even on the fourth floor. Wait here. I’ll go find her and ask her if she wants to hang out with y—”
“Hell’s teeth, woman! Forget it. Talking to you is like voluntarily smashing my own face into a wall!” I turn and head for the exit. Behind me, the English teacher makes a cute little growly noise that I think is supposed to represent frustration.
“Damn it, Pax! You know you’re not allowed to curse in front of me. I’m supposed to write you up now. And donotcall me woman!”
“Fine. I’ll stick to Jarvis.”
She squawks, extra angry now. I chuckle under my breath as I shove the door open and head out into the budding dusk. My work here is done. I got the information I came for, and poor Ms. Reid doesn’t even realize that she’s the one who gave it to me.
