User blog:Addfire/Everyday Life in an Everyday World (4)

Chapter 4 – To Work, We Go

Archie was in a sort of shock. He had walked in, and the teacher didn't even care about attendance, or... or anything? Just, 'go bananas'? He sidled up to Liz– he didn't know anyone else, and while he was sure Kristian would help, Kristian sort of intimidated him.

"Psst," he whispered. She was engrossed in her notebook, getting smudges of ink on her fingertips. Was she writing with a pen? That seemed inefficient... what if she made a mistake? "Hey."

"Yeah?" She asked, in a volume that would technically be called an outside voice. Then she blinked and pulled a pair of earplugs out of her ears. "Sorry, what?"

"Wait," Archie hissed, "Shouldn't we be whispering?"

"I'll hear you either way," Mr. Holden– Jim– said.

"You wanted something?" Liz asked.

"Yeah, uh... just, like, isn't this a bit of a..." Archie trailed off.

"Loose method of teaching?" Kristian suggested from across the room.

"Distracting learning environment?" offered Abe in the back.

"Do we even learn anything?" David joked, elbowing Abe, who broke down snickering.

"The learning bit, well..." Liz thought. "Jim's a bit of a learning-by-doing kinda guy, you know? And then once you do it, Jim reads them aloud anonymous, and we all critique them. So it's weird, but it's fiction, so it makes sense."

"I don't know, I don't really like writing fiction, exactly, I like debates and stuff more if you–"

A noise sounded from the back of the room. David had slammed his hands on his desk. "WELL DO I HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU!"

Abe followed suit. "OUR DEBATE TEAM has the MOST OPPORTUNITIES for ANYONE who wants to go into POLITICS or anything OF THAT SORT!"

"They've got you in their grips," Liz whispered. "No one can save you now."

In a flash, Archie was against a wall and David and Abe were leaning over him. "Joining the debate club is an extremely valuable feather to place in your cap. If you want to be an actor, you need to know how to speak!" Abe said.

"If you want to be president, you need to know how to speak!" David said.

"Prepare for trouble, and make it double..." Edwin muttered.

"If you want to be anybody who is anybody, then you need to know how to speak." David finished. "And the debate club is the perfect place for that."

"Jessie! James!" Kristian declared, thoroughly enjoying himself. The bell rang.

"Wait, the class was that short?" Archie asked a bit incredulously.

"Time flies," Val said, and left.

"What class do you have next?" Kristian asked Archie as Archie snuck out from under the leaders of the debate team.

"Uh... science?" Archie asked, rummaging around and pulling out a crumpled schedule. "Wait, no, math."

"Pity," Kristian said. "Well, don't let me stop you."

As Archie tried to get out, he was accosted by Edwin. "Hey, you have math? So do I, and so does Magu, and believe me, you want to get close to Magu because he is going places. And since I'm with him, I am too! Which means you can go places with us."

"Uh... thank you?"

Archie spent the trip to the math class with Edwin practically attached to his side. "Trust me, the school took one look at Magu's credentials and... stuff... and then they just admitted him! Or something, I don't know how they receive people. Whatever, it doesn't really matter, am I right?"

They arrived at the class, and Archie was treated, finally, to some silence as Edwin went to Magu's side. The teacher had his feet up on the desk and was looking at the class with a bit of scorn. Crysha was at work on some worksheet. Tokumei had a similar worksheet, but he was folding his sheet into some origami shape. Felix seemed to be sleeping, and Josh was unsuccessfully trying to wake him up.

Archie saw the teacher check his watch and then remove his feet from the desk and stand up. Suddenly, everyone except for Archie sat up straight. Archie unsteadily did the same.

"So," the teacher said. "Archibald. Weird name. What, were your parents history buffs or something? Don't answer that. I expect stellar performance on just about everything you do, so make sure not to let me down. You'll be paired with someone who knows what they're doing, so go and chat up Crysha."

Crysha was nice enough to move over to him, and that was the sole reason Archie did not die of embarrassment on the spot.

"So, we're going over functions, a bit basic and easy, I know, but..." she shrugged.

"Functions?" Archie sputtered. "There must be a mistake, I'm a freshman, I never even got through cosine when I changed schools."

"Well, that's how Mr. Ludus teaches. Sink-or-swim."

"I hope you know how to, uh, resuscitate, because I'm going to sink."

Crysha laughed politely. "So, how's your first day going?"

"Uh, alright, Ava's sorta... overbearing, and I feel like there's a weird bit of tension with her friends, but she's doing a good job of showing me around. And Kristian's nice, I guess."

"Kristian is... well, he's quite rude. I would watch him. Stay away from him. He slighted Zachary and me, so that shows you something."

"But people are mean to me all the time, and I don't crush them."

"That's because you have no power, and you don't realize that the only way to keep people liking you is to make it so they can't not like you."

"But what about when people genuinely like you?" Archie asked.

"Oh, come on. Don't be naive. Even Zachary's probably only with me because of my power... I'm not truly likable- wait, why am I unloading, like, everything hidden to you? What am I doing?"

"You're not unlikeable, Ava called you a god... goddess? Although, it might have been sarcastic, although then again everyone has their enemies-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!"

"HEY, KATYDID! KATHERINE! KATHIDISGUSTIS!" Mr. Ludus yelled. "IF YOU'RE STARTING DRAMA INSTEAD OF DOING WORK, THEN YOU SHOULD BE IN THE ENGLISH CLASS!"

...I am in the English class.

"I SHOULDA FIGURED! THE ONLY FRESHMAN WORTH ANYTHING IS MY FANTASTIC SON, WHO..." Here, Mr. Ludus eyed the entire class.

"Gets no benefit from nepotism," chorused the class.

"That seems like a thing that someone benefiting from nepotism would get-" Archie was cut off by Tokumei's paper airplane crashing into his head.

Thank you for reading! Now, if by some bizarre twist of fate, you aren't also reading the Danganronpa story I'm writing on Wattpad, well, the link is in the previous chapter. Plus, you can vote for who Natsue, the protagonist, interacts with here! So, yeah, do that.