CHAPTER 11

At lunch time, Nicole texted me to meet her in the main hallway. As soon as I showed up, she burst out of the crowd and gave me a huge hug.

"There's my little crybaby!" she said as she pulled me against her, pushing her tits against me in the process.

I chuckled. "Thanks."

"I'm so proud of you, ya little sap." she continued as she broke the hug, only to kiss me on the cheek. Several passersby raised their eyebrows at that.

"I still can't believe that I did it. I'm in." I said almost breathily.

"You did it, you're in, you're one of the council." She repeated giddily. "Now you know that this means you'll be staying after school for one of their meetings, right?"

Crap. I forgot to clean it. I guess this meant texting my mom when she was done working… at 5. Hopefully these meetings go on for long, because I had the feeling I was going to be very bored after the meeting was over.

"How is it that you could remember when council has meetings and not me?" I asked aloud, damning my own memory.

"Grade 11, freshman." she winked.

"Is 'grade 11' code for 'psychic'?" I winked back.

"I do what I can." She grinned and hugged me again. "Anyway, I've got to get going but I just really wanted to congratulate you. Just don't cry on me."

"Thanks. That means a lot." I said genuinely. She waved to me as she skipped down the hallways, leaving me behind, staring at her ass. Great, I thought to myself. A great ass too. As if I didn't have enough of a problem with staring at her.

***

Despite May's earlier cheerful point, English class went by uneventfully and the only encounter I had with her was a cheerful wave when she sat down at her desk. Otherwise, it was back to To Kill a Mockingbird.

It was drama class which excited me. After the speech, I actually felt a little bit more comfortable in the classroom, even with such a presence as Mr. Salvador looming over us. Today, of course, was no exception to that looming power.

"Hello." he said simply, yet powerfully. "We have a lot to do today, or more specifically, you have a lot to go over today." he snickered. It wasn't uncommon for him to do that at his own jokes. "I have ten very different s. I want you all to find a partner. This will be a long-term project, so find a partner you think you'll work well with." He let us go about our business. Being… Well, being me, I remained completely still, afraid to make the first step as other people claimed partners.

I heard a familiar "Hey." beside me and turned to face May.

"Hey!" I said cheerfully, and she took a seat next to me.

"Mr. Salvador told us to find someone we work well with, and I haven't worked with many people."

"Oh yeah?" I asked. I was too scared to ask her if she would be my partner.

"Yeah." she softly replied and looked down. "Well, anyways…" she said as she got up and started to walk off.

God dammit, this was about finding drama partners, why was there this tension? I felt like the moment was romantic. I bet she didn't, though. I bet that's why she was walking away. I needed to make it clear to her that I didn't mean any offense.

"Hey, May." I called out, she stopped where she was and pivoted to look at me, nothing but innocence on her face.

"Yes, Adam?" She asked me sweetly.

"Will you be my partner?" Were the words that exited my mouth before I thought about them.

"Sure!" She said, as if the whole scene before hadn't happened.

" time." Mr. Salvador called out, clearly not amused. "Hanna, how long did that take us?"

"Four minutes, thirty-two seconds." Hanna, clearly an over-enthused drama student, piped up.

"Four minutes, thirty-two seconds." Mr. Salvador repeated. "That took way too long. In this class, I expect you to take initiative, and I expect you to act quickly, on impulse." Rub it in, why don't you. "Next time you'll have your partners by two minutes. Understood?"

A chorus of 'yes' filled the auditorium. "Good." Mr. Salvador said. "Now, label yourselves A and B."

May was A. We went through this before. No words even had to be said.

"B's, come up and collect yours ." He reached beside him, and retrieved an upside-down bowler hat.

"Uh, Salvador… that's a hat." A boy with very short brown hair and a goatee piped up.

"Thank you, Callum." Mr. Salvador thanked him. "Your s are in the hat. Come and get them."

I, like everyone else, shrugged and went forward to collect our . I reached into the hat and pulled out a piece of paper that said, "A tree gets chopped down."

Everyone else questioned whether these were s, but I knew Mr. Salvador's game by now.

"All of you have a basic action as yours . By this time next Monday, you will have a full, 5-minute piece that shows this action. You're going to be performing as non-human objects, and I want you to make sure you're not a character, you're not living, and you don't look human. It's a challenge, so don't take this task lightly. I want you to make the entire piece interesting. I want the piece to have its own plot. You can talk to me if you want lighting or music preferences, other than that, it's all up to you. If you want me to view what you have so far, I'll be in the room. Come and find me. Go."

Everyone flew onstage to claim their own piece of the band to work with. May, however, had a different idea. "Follow me." She instructed me. She was really cute when she gave orders.

"Mr. Salvador!" She called out to him.

"You can't show me anything yet. It's too early. Keep working." He told her.

"No, it's not that." she responded. "Could we maybe go outside to look at trees? If we're going to be acting as them, I want to make sure we make it as accurate as possible."

A smile formed on Mr. Salvador's lips. "Absolutely. I'm guessing you got 'a tree gets chopped down'? Just make sure you don't go anywhere other than in front of the school. There are some trees there."

She and I enthusiastically nodded. What a great idea! I marveled at her imagination. I'm glad I was working with May, and not just for the obvious reason.

***

By the end of drama class, May and I actually got a lot done. We looked at the trees from every angle, and tried to mimic them with our bodies. Then we discussed who would be the ax, and planned how that would span five minutes. We figured that was good enough for one day, and sat down on the front steps of the school.

"Are you liking grade nine so far?" she asked me.

I snickered. "If you had asked me a week ago you'd be getting a very different answer." I thought of Nicole, and what we had done in her car only days before.

She grinned. "I don't suppose that had anything to do with me transferring to this class, does it?" she asked with a wink.

I turned pink and looked at my shoes. "Hey." she said after a bit. "It was just a joke! You don't have to answer that."

Feeling the tension, she broke it with "Besides, I'm sure that answer was definitely 'yes.'"

"And what makes you so sure?" I asked her with a smirk.

"Well, what else happened in the last week that made high school so much better?" She challenged me.

For a second, I opened my mouth to give her the answer in my mind, but luckily I remembered that perhaps it would be too crass to mention it like that. I was crushing in May, for goodness sakes. Telling her about my sexual adventures wasn't going to do me any favors.

She took my silence as a victory. "Thought so." She said triumphantly.

"Well, are you?" I asked her.

"Huh?"

"Are you liking grade nine so far?"

"Well…" she started hesitantly. "I've been getting less shy lately, and I actually feel comfortable here now. So I guess that's good."

"Yeah? Have you been making friends?" I asked her.

"A few." she replied, suddenly losing energy. "I guess. I haven't really been connecting with anyone that much since I got here. And we both know how much I suck at showing emotions." she added, referencing last Monday.

"Hey, you were great. I just suck at guessing." I defended her, standing up. "And if you need a friend, I'm right here. If… If you want a friend, that is."

She giggled, which was adorable and brought out her beautiful smile again. She hopped off the steps and hugged me. "Thanks, Adam." she told me. My hands hovered for a second, before embracing her back. Suddenly, I became aware that her breasts were pushing into my chest, and before an awkward situation could pop up, gently pushed her away. Luckily, she just took it as the hug being over.

"Do you have a cell phone?" she asked me. "I might take you up on that offer."

Too happy for words, my heart in my throat, I whipped out my cell phone and we exchanged numbers.

"Great." she said happily. She fell silent, then added with a sly face, "Hopefully your girlfriend won't mind if I text you."

"Girlfriend?" I was genuinely puzzled, until I put the pieces together. "Who, Nicole?"

"The camera girl? Yeah, I've seen her around school a lot. She takes that camera everywhere, it's weird. Anyway, I saw you two during lunch. I thought I saw her kiss you! On the cheek, but still."

Now, I didn't want to lie to her, but this was also my first crush. I didn't want to blow it so soon. "Nah, she's just my neighbor." I said to her with a confident voice. "We've known each other since… I was still using a car seat." It was not technically a lie, since I did sit on her. "But we would never be… No, not like that. She's like a sister to me."

Bleh. Well, I just disgusted myself, but from the look on her face, she bought it. "Oh, okay!" she said in her normal cheerful voice. She played with a lock of her hair, something I never really saw her do before, and slowly started to speak. "So does that mean… Are you…"