Alice

Alice drummed her fingers on the desk before etching her name into the wood – again, its war wounds still bleeding from her last military advancement with her biro and protractor army. A quick glance to the right confirmed no adventures were accumulating in the seat next to hers. He was studiously bent over his notebook; nose almost, but not quite, meeting the soft flesh of his cherished paper. She nudged him causing him to leap back onto the seat of his chair with as much dignity as he could muster. He glared scornfully at her. Alice sighed.

Resigned she picked up her weapon, a fountain pen equipped with midnight blue ink, loaded and ready to go. She suddenly developed a twitch in her fingers letting the venom splay out. He ignored the attack, settling for turning his back to her and shielding his efforts from any further missiles. Alice resisted the sudden childish impulse to stamp her feet. He did not turn back round.

The clock stared back at her, blankly and impassively telling her that yet again no time had passed. Was it only she suffocating in classroom monotony?

The teacher was a kind hearted soul and an endearingly naive man. He was bravely marking essays at his own well used desk. His brow was crinkled in consternation as he read the unfortunate pupil’s ill-written and messily scrawled remarks. The effort of trying to decipher the poor answers showed on his weary face.  Every once in a while he spared the surprisingly diligent pupils a quick glance.

She looked around for a muse but all that caught her attention was his calm breathing beside her.

She noticed the girl to her left scribbling notes to someone two tables behind. Her eyes lit up. She rummaged through her pencil case. A pen came out, pretty pink with gel ink for superior writing flow. She smiled. How to start…

She checked the note over again; it had to be perfect. She decided there was no need to baffle him with her astounding vocabulary and went for simplicity. She’d heard only that morning from a year eleven that the simple things were the best or something like that.

She wrote two letters: h…i.

She slipped the note around the barrier his arm presented and waited with baited breath.
He raised an eyebrow and followed it up with rolling his eyes. He moved as if to throw it away but thought better of it, delicately plucking the pen from her fingers he repeated her greeting. He slid the note back.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

His lips quirked slightly and dutifully took the offered pen and carefully wrote:
“Because you are annoying me”.

She blushed slightly and made to write a reply but he quickly tore it into pieces. She scowled and ripped another page from her note book. He did not read that note either.
She stamped her foot.

The proverbial light flicked on and a sly smile broke out across her face. She carefully folded up the sheet of paper and looked on in satisfaction.

A gleaming white airplane took its first flight across a lone desk in classroom 17a and was forced to take a crash landing. He did not rescue its wreckage. She bit her lip in frustration.
When the bell rang, after a seemingly endless bout of involuntary silence he slowly packed away his things and watched on as she stuffed hers into a bag. He smirked.

“Are you ready Alice?”
She huffed and refused to look at him. He grinned and held the door open for her.
She waited in the corridor and glared at him angrily. “You’re such a bore sometimes!”
“Only sometimes” and he held out his hand to her in a show of peace. She hesitated before taking it as the olive branch it was supposed to be; allowing him to lead her out of the building and onto the fields.

“You know we might be late if we don’t hurry,” he said quietly. Her eyes widened in surprise. He let her race ahead for a few moments knowing she would turn and berate him for tallying, and she did. He gave chase; her laughter leading him on.