Chapter 7: Philip

Miss Killington wandered amongst the rows of desks placing graded exams face up at each desk.

“Well done, miss,” she said quietly as she placed Sarah’s exam on the desk in front of her. Sarah glanced at the glaring mark in bright red at the top of the page and quickly turned the test over, placing her hand protectively over it. She furtively glanced around the classroom to see who might have noticed. As far as she could tell, nobody had. Miss Killington noted all this, but didn’t remark on it. Sarah relaxed a little and sat back in her chair as Miss Killington moved on to the next student, in this case a struggling student. Sarah heard the teacher murmur, “I know you can do better,” to the girl who sat in front of her as the teacher handed back the exam in question.

After class, Sarah hid the exam in her locker, extracted The Tempest and relocked her locker. She turned to walk to her next class when Philip closed his locker beside hers. Philip’s locker had sat beside hers for the entire semester, a circumstance of surname alphabetical order and a shared Irish heritage. Philip ran with the nerd crowd, but he had always been polite to her. She barely noticed his existence, other than to be aware that he generally held the top marks in any class he attended. Her friends referred to him as Geeky Phil.

“Congratulations,” Philip said as he snapped the lock on his locker and spun the dial.

She looked at him puzzled. Beyond Good morning, she hadn’t spoken to him all semester.

“For?”

Philip smiled. He had a warm smile below the thick glasses he wore.

“I didn’t get the question about perfect numbers,” he said, his smile turning rueful. “You did. It was tricky. So, congratulations.”

“How?”

“I sneaked a look at your mark when Killington handed back the papers,” he admitted.

She didn’t know whether to be terrified or angry.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

Reading her face, he nodded. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Who would I tell? But why wouldn’t you be proud? You’re probably the only person in that class that aced that exam.”

She glanced around. Students passed hurrying to class, but ignored the two of them.

“Shhhh,” she hushed him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him downwards until they both sat on the floor. Surprised, Philip merely followed. They pulled their knees up to avoid trampling by oblivious passing students. After they were seated, she released his hand. Surprised, she realized he had warm fingers; she’d imagined his hand might be cold, clammy and possibly hairy-palmed. “Look,” she said somewhat more fiercely than she’d intended, “I run with a different crowd, okay?” She did. Her clique consisted of academically-challenged students, pretty jocks, dedicated smokers and drinkers who would never accept anyone who ever aced any exam.

Philip nodded, immediately understanding. He was indeed sharp.

“You are going out with Jake, right?” She nodded. “He cheats on you.”

“I know.”

He looked somewhat puzzled for a moment, then nodded.

“You don’t care?”

“I do. But I don’t.”

Philip sighed quietly.

“I wouldn’t treat you like that,” Philip said simply. Philip was not the sort of guy that she’d consider dating, or even taking under the bleachers; in fact, up until this conversation, Philip had remained in the shadows, invisible to her, despite sharing locker space. His words resonated, but she couldn’t change who she was.