1/23/06

Izumi’s third-block class dragged on for Bono, who had left his book at home and couldn’t seem to render himself unconscious. Thus he laid there, sprawled across his desk, half-coherent, staring out the door into the empty hallway. Between him and the door sat Isaac Macdonwal: the massive Scotsman who had failed the class twice already. He was over six-feet-tall and with a very sturdy frame. He was laid out over the top of his desk, with his head resting on his right arm. He was snoring and every so often Miss Izumi would look up at him with a scornful gaze, but she didn’t say anything. After a while it finally occurred to Bono that he had been staring at this guy for a good half-hour, which led him to wonder if the psychological effects of being surrounded by nothing but men were already taking hold. The all-boys school mentality was something he was only familiar with through novels by American authors that had bored him senseless, but he had gathered enough to know what goes on in this kind of setting. He thought it best to turn away and focus his attention on something less animate, like the Formica desktop he was resting on.

Unfortunately, the moment he decided to turn his head, the quasi-seedy fellow in front of him decided to scratch his groin and in the process, his elbow collided with Bono’s nose.

“Ah! Fuckin’ hell!” Bono exclaimed.

“Shut the hell up.” Izumi barked, not looking up from the tawdry, supermarket-brand romance novel she was reading.

“Sorry ‘bout that ol’ chap—oh, bloody hell! You’re leakin’!” The guy who had elbowed him pointed out, though, for the life of him, Bono couldn’t tell what it was he meant until he noticed the blood dripping from his nose onto his desktop.

“Aw, shit.” Bono grumbled.

“MISS IZUMI! HE’S BLEEDING!” Jonathan—who had a crippling phobia of blood—exclaimed.

“Shut the hell up!” She repeated, still unable to tear herself away from her smut novel long enough to glance up at the situation.

“No, seriously, he’s drippin’ pretty bad!” The fellow in front of Bono said.

“What have I said about ‘shut the hell up’?!” Izumi exclaimed, throwing her trashy, romance novel on the floor and standing up. The class looked at her blankly, not sure weather to pay their attention to her or the bloody kid in the back of the class.

“But Miss Izumi, he’s—” Jonathan began, before being cut off.

“That was a serious question! I want an answer!” Izumi clarified. “What have I said about ‘shut the hell up’?!”

The class was silent for a long moment.

“Umm… do it?” Jonathan finally spoke up, being that he was an insufferable teachers’ pet—even to teacher like Miss Izumi, who clearly didn’t like him very much—and couldn’t stand to leave a question unanswered.

“Bingo! You get a cookie!” Izumi hollered, throwing her hands up in the air and waving them… not unlike she just didn’t care.

“Oh that’s alright; I don’t eat stuff like that.” Jonathan said.

“Well good, ‘cause there is no cookie.” She replied, smiling at him condescendingly.

“But you said—”

“It’s a fucking figure of speech, you dink!” Exclaimed Bono, who was relatively drenched at this point and thoroughly aggravated with the anarchy of the class. Then the fellow that elbowed him and a number of others (including Miss Izumi, of course) had a nice chuckle at Jonathan’s expense.

“You seem like a smart kid; what you’re name?” Izumi inquired of him, smiling genuinely for the first time that day.

Bono wasn’t amused. In fact, he was dumbstruck by this woman’s lack of insight. “I’m bleeding all over the fucking floor!” He exclaimed.

“Hmm… that you are.” She said, looking him up and down. “Well, I’ll tell ya what, kid; since I’ve decided that I like you, I’m gonna let you go to the nurse’s office.”

“… Thanks?” Bono said, not sure how to react.

“You’re certainly welcome.” She replied, having a mood swing, apparently. “Who wants to take the bleeding kid to the nurse?”

“I’ll do it!” Bono’s accidental assailant exclaimed, shooting up his hand.

“Fine. It’ll get you out of my hair for a while.”

The faux-attacker put his arm around Bono’s shoulders, all chummy-like—which made Bono a little uncomfortable—and led him out of the room.

With the subjects of the spectacle now gone, the room fell silent again, until Isaac Macdonwal—who had woken up in all the commotion—spoke up.

“Uhh… shouldn’t you page the janitor or something?” He asked Izumi, in reference to all the blood.

“Nah,” she said. “I’ll just make Jonathan clean it up.”

(end)