Chapter 10: Who Are You Again?

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I said no chapters during weekends, but consider it a thank you for all comments and reviews.

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Friday morning had me grilled by the biology teacher, Miss Capstick. Since it was a core subject and Peter had all of his books since junior high, I was actually well read in it now. It fell somewhere between Math and Chemistry for me, which was near the top of my knowledge assimilation curve.

The teacher was impressed with my answers and didn't penalize me for not knowing what the class was doing as a project, which was great for me. It meant I wasn't going to be held back in most of my courses and I was near or at the same level as the rest of my classmates.

Thankfully, we were working in pairs for the double lab after the classroom period and I was paired with a plump but pretty girl named Sally Avril. I was glad of that until the lab started and she spoke.

"I'm surprised Liz even talks to you after you quit the team." Sally said after the teacher passed out the specimen containers.

"Which team?" I asked and didn't miss her eye roll.

"The only one that matters in a science and tech school."

"Home Economics?" I asked and did my best to not laugh at the look on her face.

"The academic decathlon!" Sally almost spat, clearly angry.

"Oh, that. I had to quit on Peter's behalf and not my own, since I never joined." I said and shrugged. "It's not like I can fake knowing the things Peter used to know, so just being on the team as dead weight wasn't going to do the team any favors."

"You could have stayed on as an alternate." Sally said and gave me a bit of a glare. "Now we're stuck with that arrogant ass Eugene as an actual team member!"

"Who's Eugene?" I asked. I really had no idea who she was talking about.

"Flash! That's Flash's real name!"

I blinked my eyes at her several times before I spoke. "Wait, wait, wait." I said and held a hand up to stop her from talking. "That brown-skinned boy is named Eugene? Are you serious? It's really Eugene?"

"Yes." Sally said and looked a little angrier than before.

I couldn't hold back my laugh and then had to cough several times to not draw too much attention from the teacher or the other students. "No wonder he'd rather be known as a flashing pervert!"

Sally took a breath and let it out. "We're stuck with him because of you."

"I'd ask you when the next meeting is, except Mr. Harrison runs it and he thinks I'm a liar."

"Yes, and he also thinks you're not fooling everyone with this act you've got going." Sally said.

"An act." I said and she nodded. "Ask me something about you that only Peter would know."

Sally gave me a disbelieving look. "You'd just say you don't know, even if you knew it."

I chuckled. "I meant something embarrassing, so my reaction would be real. If I don't know about it, you'll see that. If I react wrong, you'll know I'm really a liar and my amnesia is a sham."

Sally gave me a calculating look for several moments before she smiled a little and leaned in to whisper. "Peter let me jerk him off in the equipment room of the gym."

I was shocked to hear that Peter would do something like that and my eyes widened as my mouth dropped open. "You... you're kidding. You have to be kidding." I whispered. "There's no way... Peter was a goody-two-shoes. He would never... not even with a pretty girl like you."

Sally looked surprised now, probably because of my pretty comment. She might be overweight and out of shape; but, she still had a female figure and a pretty face. "I... you... you're right. We didn't do that."

"Whew, thank god." I said and sighed with relief. "I was starting to worry that you were like a secret girlfriend or something and I totally blew you off all week by not remembering you."

"Wh-wh-what?" Sally stammered before her surprised look changed to a frown. "Why didn't I think of doing that?"

"I thought you did and you were testing me." I chuckled and put a hand over my heart. "You damn near gave me a heart attack with that jerking comment!"

Sally couldn't stop her smile. "That was a good shock reaction, too. There's no way to fake that."

I shook my head and glanced around to see that no one seemed to be listening, so I leaned forward. "You know, we have gym all afternoon."

Sally's face went bright red as she blushed. "B-B-Ben!"

"That's a genuine reaction, too." I whispered and glanced around again. My spider-sense didn't go off, either. "I'm going to ask Liz to be my girlfriend pretty soon, so even if we did have a secret love affair that no one would ever know about, we would have to secretly break up this weekend anyway."

The expression on her face was pretty difficult to decipher.

"We better get to work before the teacher notices." I said and Sally nodded.

We set everything up and performed the dissection to the teacher's specifications, wrote down all of the parts of the guinea pig on the provided chart, and cleaned up before the end of the double lab.

"Huh. I'm finished with a class well before the bell rang. Cool." I said and Sally gave me an odd look. "I'm usually writing like crazy to copy down everything the teacher said and what we did in class. I can't remember a lot of stuff and I don't know what could jog my memory or what I'll need later."

"Ben, I... I'm sorry I doubted you." Sally said with a soft voice.

"It's okay, Sally. Don't worry about it." I said and slung my backpack over my shoulder. "I've got music class after lunch and then I'll see you in gym."

"About that." Sally said and looked down at herself and then at my face. "I've been excused from gym class because of health concerns."

I looked down at her body and it was quite large for a teenager. I gave her a good look, though. She wore black tights, as if jeans wouldn't cut it, and they showed off all of her curves. Like, all of them. She also wore a semi-tight short sleeved blue t-shirt. When my roaming eyes made it back to her face, she was blushing pretty hard.

"I guess that means we won't be recreating how we met." I said with a smirk and Sally looked shocked. I stepped close and kissed her on the cheek, then put my lips by her ear as I whispered. "You might be surprised at the number of guys that like a girl with some meat on her bones."

Sally's breath came out in quick huffs, so I knew I had made my point.

I stepped back from her and the look on her face was priceless. "See you next week."

"S-s-see y-you." Sally spoke barely above a whisper.

I waved and left the lab with plenty of time to try and track Isabelle down. It only took me two minutes of running down the main part of the hallways, out of sight of the other Hall Monitors, to glance down the wings of the building to see if she was in one of them. I found her on the second floor where my computer lab was.

"Thank god!" Isabelle exclaimed when she saw me approaching at a jog. She hopped up and grabbed my hand and we ran to the closest bathroom. She was moaning loudly only a minute later, so I had to stuff my hand into her mouth to keep her quiet. She didn't mind the rough treatment at all.

*

I had a great lunch with Liz, Sarah, and Kelly. I paid Liz back for lunch yesterday and then I was begged to share the container of brownies I had brought. I only teased the girls for several seconds before I admitted I had brought the brownies for them and not myself. I did not complain about the two chocolate covered cheek kisses I received afterwards or the chocolate flavored one that Liz gave me on the lips.

I walked into music class and almost everyone turned to glare at me. I sighed loudly. "Let me guess. Peter was in the music club."

"The school marching band, actually." A quite pretty dark-skinned girl said from a desk at the front of the room. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I never signed up for band practice." I said and they all gave me disbelieving looks. "That was Peter. I'm Ben, his nearly identical body double and an exchange student."

"You really are going with that story?" One of the guys asked with a scoff.

"It's the truth as far as you're concerned." I said and he looked angry at that. "The real situation would be too complicated for you to understand."

"Perhaps you can explain it to me instead." The music teacher asked as she entered the music room.

"No, thank you." I said and she looked surprised. "I have no idea what instrument Peter played, I don't know any songs, I can't read music sheets, and I have no idea how to march."

The entire class stared at me and I stared back.

"You don't even have a class book for me to read and Peter didn't have a scribbler for notes. How was I supposed to study for any of this?" I asked them as I waved at the room. I looked at the teacher and tried to not be angry at the judgment on her face. "I assume I stored my instrument here, so I wouldn't damage it during transit and it would always be near and never be forgotten when there was band practice?"

"Yes. It's in your locker at the side of the room." The woman said and pointed.

I walked over to the thing and saw a combination lock on it. I held in my sigh, because it was a personal lock and not a school issued one. I stood in front of it and blocked as much of it from sight as I could while I pretended to enter the combination. I yanked on it to break it and put the broken lock in my pocket before I opened the locker and saw a nice black case.

"Of course it's a clarinet." I whispered as I opened the case to see the instrument and locked it with the metal clasps. I also found several dozen music sheets, a book on the clarinet, and a scribbler with music notes in it. I did a quick flip through it and sighed at the gibberish.

"Are you remembering anything?" The teacher asked.

"I think this is the music club Sarah and Kelly go to several times a week, assuming Peter was in the same band as them."

"It's different sections, so technically yes." The teacher said and looked at the things in my hands. "Nothing at all coming to you?"

"It's just gibberish right now." I said with a shrug. "I'm sure I'll figure it out after hunting down some books and things on my own."

"You know we can't wait that long for you to be as good as you were before." The same dark-skinned girl commented.

I smiled and turned to face her. "You had a crush on him, didn't you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You shouldn't be this angry about Peter not being here anymore. Most people I've met had no idea who he was, or cared that I'm not him, and he's been in their classes for three months." I said and she looked a little guilty. "I'm sorry Peter was a bit of a coward. He should have jumped at the chance to be with someone like you."

The girl blushed and shook her head.

"You had a lot in common with him, didn't you? You even have the same instrument and everything." I said and nodded at the same black case by her desk. "I will tell you that he mentioned a pretty dark skinned girl in his journal, so you can be happy that he actually did notice you."

The girl opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind and nodded.

"You really are a different person." The teacher said. "Peter wouldn't have spoken up like that."

"No, he wouldn't. Which is why there is usually a bit of a scene in each class I show up in." I said and she nodded. "I was tempted to try and fake it, to pretend I was still Peter. I knew it wouldn't work, because I'm not him. I'm not even close." I turned to the class. "The woman I live with, my supposed aunt, said I haven't done one single thing that Peter has done before in the last two weeks."

The class was silent as I reached up and rubbed the bare patch on the side of my head.

"This has been a whole new world since I woke up. New people, new sights, and a whole new life to try and live. It's been harder than any of you can imagine to do that." I said and looked back at the teacher. "I won't be back until I can relearn how to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do in this class."

The teacher sighed. "It's supposed to enhance your creativity and give you a non-scientific outlet for your brain to express itself."

I thought about that for several seconds. "Can I just get a girlfriend and let her enhance my creativity?" I asked and a few of the guys chuckled and the girls looked slightly offended, except for the dark-skinned girl in the front row. "I'm sure I can have my brain express itself in a bunch of different ways using her as an outlet."

"Oh, god." The dark-skinned girl whispered and her eyes stared at me without blinking.

The teacher motioned towards me. "I'll need to mark your class excuse card."

I took it out and walked over to her desk. She looked at it and seemed surprised that there were only a few marks on it. She did something with her marker and signed the card.

"You'll need to get another one of these if you ever want to come back to this class." She warned me.

"Understood." I said, because her mark was a permanent one and wouldn't be removed until she allowed it. "Do you have a list of allowable instruments to qualify for the band?"

The teacher nodded and dug into her desk and took out a sheet of paper to hand to me.

I quickly read it and shook my head. "I guess I really am out. I'm not interested in any of these."

"No!" The dark-skinned girl gasped.

"I'm sorry." I said to her and handed the list back to the teacher. "When I find something I like that won't be a disruption for you or the class, I'll come back."

The teacher nodded and put the paper back inside her desk.

I gave a last look towards the dark-skinned girl. "I hope you can find a guy that's right for you."

She gave me a sad look. "I thought I already did."

I nodded and walked out of the class without asking her what her name was, because I didn't want her to think I was still the guy she liked. Dammit, Peter! You had girls pining for you and you had no idea!

I went to the office first and sorted out my schedule, showed Mary Strickland my excuse card, and she looked both pleased and sad. She knew something had to happen for me to use it. I left there and went to the library to visit Gladys. She looked almost as sad as Mary had. I reached into my backpack and took out several pressed flowers that were flat and had a ribbon tied around them.

"What's this?" Gladys asked as I handed her the small bouquet of squished flowers.

"Those are flowers picked from various planters from around my apartment building. I dried them out and compressed between the pages of an outdated atlas." I said and pulled out the large book. "I wasn't sure the book would be enough of a thank you, so I hoped flowers being preserved by the old knowledge of maps would be enough to count as a gift."

Gladys blushed a little and accepted both gifts. "Thank you, Ben. This was very thoughtful."

"You're welcome." I said and took out a small list. "My robotics teacher said I should read these."

Gladys took the list and read the names of the books I needed. She nodded and walked around the counter to lead me over to the right section, then she passed me the right books.

"Thanks, Gladys." I said and carried the books to the table closest to her counter at the front of the library and started reading. I did not miss the significant look she gave me when she sat down and smelled the dried flower bouquet.

I smiled and went back to reading. I only had about an hour before the gym class that most of the student body had to attend as a prerequisite for being a student at Midtown High. That also meant that I would get to see Liz outside of lunch period and that should be an interesting time. If it wasn't, maybe I would make it become one.

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