Ship of Relations

“Ms Lania? Ms Lania? Lexi Lania, will you wake up!” Mrs Quene was shouting at me. “I’m so sorry,” I gushed at her “What were you saying again?” She sighed at me. “It’s almost 8:00. Class starts in 3 minutes.” I leaped up and shoved all of my notebooks and pens and text books into my bag. I ran out of the library shouting “Thank you Mrs Quene!”

I slid into my Biology seat just as the bell rang to signal the start of the period. Mr Hanners, the Bio teacher entered the room and started setting up for the lesson. “Lemme guess, you fell asleep at the library?” asked a voice on my right.

I turned and saw Caspian. He was a tall blonde, muscular and devilishly handsome. He looked at me with those green eyes of his and I swear I fell in love with them a second time. “Yup,” I responded “You know me too well.” He smiled and put his arms around me. “Well, I am your boyfriend right?” 2 sharp claps echoed in the lecture hall and we pulled apart.

“All right class, today we will be going into a deep analysis of the bones and ligaments and muscles of the human ankle.” said Mr.Hanners. “Can anyone tell me what the 5 basic muscles, tendons, arteries, and veins in the human ankles are?” My hand shot up into the air. A quick glance around told me that 1 other person had also raised their hand. Strange. Usually, I was the only one that knew the answers to Mr Hanners’ questions. Stranger yet, I didn’t recognize the student. Mr Hanners pointed to me and I answered “Tom, Dick, And, Nervous, Harry.” He gave a nod and said “Very good, Ms Lania. Now, can anyone tell me what these names stand for?” Again, me and the student raised our hands. This time, Mr Hanners pointed to the new boy.

“Tom stands for Tibialis Posterior, Dick stands for Flexor Digitorum Longus, And stands for Tibial Artery, Nervous stands for Tibial Nerve, and Harry stands for Flexor Hallucis Longus.” he said. Mr. Hanners smiled and said “That’s right, Mr. Wolk. Now here is a diagram…” There was a rustle of paper and clicking of pens as people rushed to take notes. I glanced over at the boy again and saw his dark hair and clean jawline. Then our eyes met and I was startled to find a pair of gleaming blue eyes staring back. I felt a flush of heat and looked back and the board to copy down the picture.

“Scouting out your new competition?” Cas joked. “He seems pretty smart. I would love to study with someone who gets higher than a B- in AP Bio.” I responded. Cas turned to me, mock offended. I smiled and gave him a quick, discreet peck on the hand to cheer him up.

I felt him smile as we both turned back to copy down notes from Mr. Hanners’ lecture. This was my life. Straight A student. Getting over a 100 on every exam in every class. Pretty enough to be a model with lithe, strong legs and curves. Smooth white skin, ash blonde hair with dark roots, blue eyes, complete with dimples. I had a boyfriend. A steady side job. Yet this new student some how caught my attention. For what, I have no idea. Still, I made sure, as I scribbled down a few notes on my IPad, that I made a small side note to ask about new students at the Student Council meeting later.

The lecture ended without much to note, except for the fact that the new student, Alex Wolk was his name, was just as knowledgeable as me when it came to AP Biology. He might prove to be good competition and a study partner. As I packed up my bag I felt someone watching me from across the room. When I looked up, the only person I saw was Cas. I shook off that eerie feeling and slipped my hand in his and walked out of the hall. After I said good bye to Cas, I made my way to Conference Room 9 for the daily Council meeting.

I sat at the seat on the immediate right of the head seat. It was a table that sat exactly 6 people. 4 people were already here. There was me, of course, vice-president of the Student Council. Then there was Eric, who is head of activities. Next to him sat Michael, the official spokesperson. Finally, across from me sat Jazmine, the coordinator of the entire Council. The 2 empty seats were for Layla, president of the Council, and Mr Gohde, the principal. We only saw Mr Gohde on the last Friday of every month so I sat down and pulled up today’s agenda on my IPad as we all waited for Layla. It wasn’t uncommon for Layla to be running late as people tended to dump their concerns onto Layla in the halls instead of emailing them to me like protocol says. There was a loud thud on the door and I went and opened it. I found a huge stack of papers and books in my face. Layla peeked her head around the pile she was holding and said. “Sorry I’m late, my locker door got busted and I couldn’t leave my stuff lying around in there.” she said with a bashful smile. She set down the stack of stuff next to her seat and sat down as I slid the door closed and returned to my seat.

“Alright, what’s on the agenda today, Lexi?” asked Layla. I scrolled through the list of things to get through today. We had daily meetings and only 1~3 topics each day. We all got to miss PE for the meetings so that we could accommodate for the ridiculous amount of work the Council had. The one plus side was that the 5 of use weren’t graded on PE but instead on each of the activities we planned and tasks we went through as the Student Council. Anyway, for today’s meeting… “We need a briefing from you on the new student, I believe his name is Alex Wolk. We also need to finalize plans for Halloween in 2 weeks so that we can save up some money.” I reported. “We can go though those in order then.” Michael said. Layla gave a nod as she brushed something off of her impeccably clean shirt and jeans. “There isn’t much to know about Alex, but he does need a guide for the first week of school. 3 buildings, 16 floors, and over a 100 classes aren’t going to be easy to navigate.” she said. Eric frowned “There wasn’t a tour this weekend so he isn’t going to have any idea where the any of the classes are. Speaking of which, why wasn’t I told about the new student? We all agreed that I would give them a tour over the weekend as the activities coordinator.”

Michael placed his hand on Eric’s back. “Yo, chill man,” he said “Layla probably forgot to forward the email or something. Not your fault, not hers either. You know how Mr Gohde is with last minute emails.” Layla shot a grateful look to Michael and he smiled back. Jaz cleared her throat and swept her long blonde hair behind her back as she announced “Sorry to interrupt but we do need a guide for Mr Wolk. We can assign someone to him for a week and we’ll check back next Monday.” Eric leaned back on his chair and asked ’Are we drawing lots again?” Jaz frowned at the leaning chair and said “No, let’s have either Layla or Lexi do it.”

“Me?” I asked “No, let’s have Layla do it. She is good with new students after all.” Layla smiled deviously. “Well, as President of the Student Council, I assign Lexi to guide Alex around for this week. And Lexi, be a dear and make sure to bring that up on next Monday’s meeting.” I gritted my teeth as Jaz, Eric, and Michael all laughed. I gave a stiff nod and made a few notes on my IPad. “Next on the agenda is to finalize plans for the Halloween festival.” I said “We haven’t started on raising the money but we do have a good plan down. Eric, wanna take over?” Eric gave me a double thumbs up and started to tick things off on his fingers.

“One, we have a plan for a haunted house that we can take volunteers for. The theme for the haunted house is a zombified hospital. We need about 20 or so discreet volunteers to dress-up and grab people’s ankles as they walk by. Two, we need to buy decorations for the main hall where the party itself will take place. We will also need food and drinks for it. We need to get in touch with the technicians and janitors about the bloody disco ball from last year. And finally, we need to set up some games in the gym. I was thinking skeletons in the closet with a random group of people, but with skeleton models jumping out of the dark every few seconds.” Jaz got into planning mode right away. She whipped out her laptop and started asking for how much of what Eric thinks we’ll need. I made a few suggestions and Layla edited some parts of the plan to fit the school rules and regulations and Michael only jumped in a few times to point out some flaws in the plan. Soon, the period ended and we each picked up our stuff. I headed towards the gym to find Alex and get him to his next class. Boy, I sure hoped he wouldn’t make me late to my next class.