Chapter three
First to reach the lab behind Mr Telling, Oscar opened the door and walked in calmly. Looking around the room and pretending that he hadn’t seen everything before, he analysed the space. The far wall held the row of benches they used for experiments, the taps dripping unevenly every few seconds. He walked to wards one of the sets of desks, placed appropriately in the middle of the room. Selecting his regular seat, second row-far right, he sat placing his books on the scratched laminated tabletop. From this place, he was close enough to the front to appear interested, yet not overly close so as to have the jerk types in the class on his back about his ability to answer questions correctly.
It had taken him two weeks to select this spot, moving around each day from the beginning of term, weighing up the pros and cons of every seat selection. Oscar knew that by this point in his school life he should have gotten over caring about what his peers thought of him, but he just could not do it. Every time he would put his hand up, he always checked around the room for anyone who would make a snide remark about his answer, before handing up his assignments, he would always check the wording to see if it would be appropriate for both the teacher, and any students that Mr telling would show it too. Simply put, one could say that Oscar Anders over thought everything.
While he was in the process of over thinking, the room began to fill up, and after taking the roll Mr Telling began to lecture them on the reproduction and transmission cycle of Filarial Worms. Zoning out a little, excitement beginning to well in his stomach, Oscar had to remind himself that he had hours to go and that he might as well spend it learning. If this all went to plan, which as he continually relayed all of the possible outcomes in his head, he believed it would than learning may not be his main priority soon. Considering this, he looked back up at the tubby, moustached man writing with a squeaky marker on the white board. Taking down the notes in his messy, barely legible scrawl he listened to the whispers of his classmates. Two of the girls sitting behind him were talking about a party they were heading off to that Friday,
“Suze, what if I wear the fishnets?”
“Under the black or red?”
“Black”
“Go for it!”
Finding this conversation of little importance to him, or to anyone else really, he continued listening in around him, like a truck driver with an 8 hour haul ahead of him flipping from station to station. Five minutes of uninteresting chatter and one muttered argument later, he concluded that of the entire class, he was the only intelligent being and that included ol’tubbster at the front.
By the time all the notes had been copied down and the homework of completing the diagram of transmission assigned, class was dismissed. Picking up his books, and clumsily standing from his chair, knocking it backwards in the process, Oscar left the room with a hushed thank you to the teacher and a backwards glance around the lab.
Returning to his locker, finding himself annoyed at its untied state although he was completely to blame. If he was honest with himself, he would accept the untidiness and spend the fifteen minutes of break time reordering his books and sifting through the pile of sheets and notes for relevant pieces of paper disposing of the rest but why on earth would he waste his time with that? Instead he closed the door, having enough patience to put back on the lock and headed out into the courtyard to his regular table. With little more than an apple and some crackers to eat, he sat down across from the lovebirds. Oscar chattered pointlessly about bands Lil while Reg winded strands of her black hair around his index finger.
To most outsiders, Oscar appeared to be a constant third wheel to Lil’s relationships, the general consensus being that he liked her but couldn’t pluck up the courage to ask her out. Although he did occasionally find these kinds of romantic gestures annoying, it was little to do with Lil boyfriends and more the fact that she could have one with her all the time. The only time Oscar had ever had any kind of romantic thought when it came to Lil was when she curled her then long hair for the year 8 social. In the dull lights of the hall, under the shimmer of a half decapitated disco ball, he could almost imagine that instead of being black, her hair was a glistening auburn.
As soon as they began to slow dance, Lil then being between boyfriends and their relationship close enough that it was acceptable without any awkwardness, the novelty wore off. Lilly was far to shore, her eyes to aware and her smile, though amazing, not quite as mysterious and precious as Torahs. Later that week Oscar had told this to Lil, receiving a consoling hug and understanding nods as he poured out his hopes and dreams of love onto her tiny shoulders. Ever since that day, she had been a continual player in the plot they like to call GTO or Get Torah Out and although the two girls had never met, their importance in Oscars lives made them friends by default.
As the hours slowly trickled by, the tick of each and every second burning his mind into a continual fire of boredom, the time finally came for final period. Oscars one class with Lil had arrived, and so together they walked, gangly teen with wind ravaged hair side by side with the small capsule of utter calm, sleek bob untouched, into room 201. It was time for English with the infamous Ms. Carol.
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