Chapter 3

You know what being fast doesn't help with? It doesn't help with tests. Well, it does help some with studying, since I had almost unlimited time to review the material but it doesn't help with taking the test directly. I could stretch time early in the morning or even just before a class and then cram for a few hours subjective time which was kind of nice because...

Stop. Deep breath. Focus.

When I sat down with a test, being fast didn't help a bit. Even if I chanced speeding myself up a hair what good was that going to do? It just meant that any questions I was going to get wrong I just got wrong a little faster. Still, as I think about it if there were any questions I had that I didn't know I could probably speed up fast enough to be invisible to objective eyes – nice phrase, huh, I just thought that up a few nights ago; I'd even made up a song about it: "Objective eyes, they can't see you, they can't see your any move... ' Okay, so I ripped off an oldies song, but it was still pretty good, right? – then rifle through a book or head to the library and look it up and then get back but there was probably a fraction of a second where I'd disappear and that might...

STOP, DAMMIT. FOCUS. As I think I've mentioned before, my mind starts going off on tangents when I'm nervous. Tests make me nervous.

Final exam week was here. Now, I know that Andwynn thought I could just coast through life but the truth is that I studied for major tests like any other student. Finding time to study wasn't a problem; a quick shift into sub-sonic mode and I had almost all the time I needed. Concentrating enough to study, that was another matter.

Mom and Dad were talking to me again but you could cut the tension with a thin, well-sharpened knife. I'd challenged the careful hierarchy of the house (to wit, Mom<-Dad<-Andwynn<-Nevaeh<-Reece though I might just be biased on the whole thing) and I'm not sure they knew how to handle it. Even Andwynn and Nevaeh seemed to be holding their breath to see how the whole thing turned out. I spent a lot of time in my room ... and it seemed my sisters did, too. Well, their rooms, not mine.

Then there was the constant smiles and claps on the shoulder in school. Evidently, my fight with David, Bart and Mark had made the rounds. It turns out that those three are not as universally liked as they might have thought. Either that or students enjoyed congratulating and sometimes cheering for students who win fights. My money was on the former but the latter was giving some good odds as well.

Of course, right when I wanted to fly under the radar anonymously, I would suddenly get recognized. It always seemed to happen that way.

One thing I didn't mind, though, was the bashful smiles and blatant flirting of some of the girls. Heck, even some sophomores and juniors were getting into the act – social suicide but for them but that didn't bother me any and didn't seem to be bothering them much either. Of course I smiled and flirted back – often throwing in a blush or two for good measure. I was a 14-year old freak, not dead.

Not that there was much I could do about it, actually. The standing rule in our house was 'no dating until you're 16' which was slightly better than Dad's attempt when Andwynn was younger: 'no dating until you're 65 or I'm dead'. I think Mom might have had a talk with the big guy.

So, I couldn't date which pretty much meant I couldn't have a girlfriend because Mom and Dad's ideas of what constituted a date were down-right Machiavellian. Talking on the phone? Date. Sitting on the steps after school? Date. Getting a ride home from school by a student with a license – or even the licensed parent of a student? Date. Talking to a girl as I passed her in the hall at school was a gray area – but only because no one had brought it up to Mom and Dad yet. I'm pretty sure what they're ruling would be.

No, it did not stop me from trying. I didn't want to break the rules or anything but come on. Horny, hormonally imbalanced 14 year old here. It's a little known but well documented fact that brains and hormones can't co-exist in the same body. Look it up.

The official dodge began after school. Officially, John Manning, my best friend since 6^th grade, needed help in studying math for our final the following day. That was the story I'd be giving to the parents, at any rate. It even had the benefit of being at least partially true. John really did need help – but nothing I could do was going to help him. Trust me, I'd tried.

The true story was that we were going to have a little study session with John's girlfriend – John's parents were quite avante garde, which I think means they acted like they existed sometime in this century, and allowed John to have a girlfriend; they even thought it was 'cute' – Melanie Adkins and her best friend Tabitha Valden. Melanie had told John who'd told me that Tabitha kind of liked me; convoluted, I know, but that's how things worked in high school. So, even though we were going to be in our math teacher's, Ms. Diltmore's, class we were likely going to be studying anatomy. Or at least health.

Ms. Diltmore was a nice, young lady who happened to be very pretty ... and very gullible. As the newest member of John Martin High School – Go Ravens! – she had the unenviable task of being the detention room monitor. Since she was going to be there, she couldn't be in her room – and she trusted us. All of which meant there were 2 boys and 2 girls that were going to be sans parental supervision.

Honestly, I think Ms. Diltmore knew what was going on. She always had a small smirk on her face when she left and she was very conscientious about telling us what time she'd be back. Now, she didn't close the door or lower the blinds or anything – we did that for ourselves – but she didn't say anything when she returned and the door was closed with the blinds pulled. She even knocked on the door before entering. Coincidence? Doubtful.

"Did you really beat up David, Mark and Bart?" Tabitha asked quietly as we down at the long table. Ms. Diltmore's class was set up so that her desk was off to the right of the currently closed with blinds pulled door. She had a long table with a computer on either side of her desk, one basically in a corner and the other just on the other side of the door. Since John and Melanie were officially boy-friend/girl-friend, they took the table in the corner by silent decree. That left Tabitha and I sitting at the table by the door.

It was either that or sit at desks in the room. Have you ever sat in a high school desk? It was like sitting in prison; no real room to do anything close together. Yes, I'd tried. It wasn't kinky or romantic; it was just plain dumb and unworkable. Describing how this was going down didn't clue you in that this was not my first rodeo??

"We just had a mis-understanding," I replied just as quietly. Yes, I could have bragged ... but I didn't want to. I was still feeling a little guilty about what I'd done. Besides, it was over and there was no sense in stirring the pot.

"That's not what I heard," she replied with a smile. This was not what I wanted to talk about. Truthfully, I didn't want to talk about anything. I'd much rather pick up where we had left off a few weeks ago, with our lips rubbing together, our tongues sword-fighting and my hand on her boob – outside her blouse, of course, but it was definitely boobage – with her pushing against my hand and moaning. Not my first rodeo, remember?