Chapter 33 - A Fourth Waller Cannot Protect You

Eventually, I had to go. I headed over a few rooms to my Spanish class taught by Mr. Castellanos. I’d had him for my first year of Spanish too. I always found him nice but hadn’t yet been able to reconcile another language in my head.

He had been briefed by Aceves. After brushing thoughtfully at his drooping, black mustache, he resolved, “So, you need to be quarantined because of something. I don't quite get it, but the VP was adamant about taking it seriously. How have you been dealing with it today in your other classes?”

Poorly to horribly? I grimaced and offered, “Well, I was okay in Gym and Biology had a separate room. After that, I got sent out for the period. Then, in math, I was off to the side with a friend. And that’s all so far.”

He squinted with a nod and stroked his chin as he looked around the room and muttered, “There aren’t a lot of open seats. I might have to rearrange the desks. If I had a long, audio study desk open then I could just put chairs around that and have you work there. Is there anything else I should know about this…thing?”

I took a deep breath. Stretching out my arm, I informed him, “Within this far away from me, people start to change. For girls, it’s just like longer nails, hair, and stuff. For guys, it’s…everything…changed.” I guessed that it was about ten to twenty minutes most times to start, but I didn't have a reliable estimate, especially with the issue of multiple exposures seeming to reduce the time.

He jotted down some quick notes and rubbed his forehead. “Is there any kind of doctor’s note that we can go off of?”

I cringed and relayed how inattentive my doctor had been about this. He pointed his pen and advised, “I’d get a second opinion, but we can work with what we’ve got for now.”

Castellanos didn’t really have a plan, but he did work something out. For the beginning of the period, I was assigned various tasks that had me going around the room. I acted as his helper. I did some tidying. I didn’t stay around others for very long. Having groups practicing situations and sentence structures helped. He also had a stopwatch with him, which he clicked every so often.

Mostly, I worked hard on the stuff I’d missed while I was away, which was an inundation of verb forms and conjugations.

The rest of the class appeared none the wiser. The only person I spent much time around was Sebastian. He almost seemed 'attracted' to me, although I knew for certain it wasn’t in the same way Cody had been around me.

Sebastian was unambiguously, flamingly gay. He made exaggerated hand gestures. He had a lisp. He often talked about which boys in other classes were cute. And he brought up fashion choices with abundant compliments and advice.

When I caught his eye, he gave me a sympathetic look and pronounced, “You look like you’ve had a total downer of a day, especially wearing that.”

I’d nearly forgotten about what I was wearing. The lunch group hadn’t batted an eye. I shrugged and responded, “Today was complicated. Mom made me dress up.”

He held his hands up and noted, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with dressing up. But, for you, that combo is dreadful. Something peachy would be much better.”

I didn’t much care about peach, unless it was a peach sherbet I could eat. The fruit cup was decent only by association. I mentioned this to Sebastian and he smiled before asking, “So, what’s brought you to sweet sherbet desperation, if I may ask?”

I didn’t really want him to ask, especially with all the other girls nearby looking half-interested in my words. I opted to go with the version which had placated the security guy.

“I ran into the current girlfriend of a boy I was with for a short time in Freshman year. I got directly involved in some stuff going on with him, and she had words with me…”

He fanned his hands like it was one of those tales as old as time he’d heard from a dozen different weeping faces. He remarked simply, “Ooooh, I know that. Just remember, it’s not because of you. And it’s not on you to do or say anything but what you feel, girl. Alright?”

I answered with a faint smile. I couldn’t really do anything with that advice, but it was still nice that he offered it. He did hold my hand, but it wasn’t long before he’d moved on to talking to someone else. I didn’t mind. It was about time I moved on to another group anyway, before any obvious changes.

And that was the extent of my excitement for Spanish class. I was able to sit for a good time because the clustering of groups led to a bubble where I naturally sat by myself towards the side with no one close enough to be concerned about.

It worked. But I still didn’t like it. I was alone. I was separate from everyone else and the conscious effort it took to be that way wasn’t natural to me. But it passed the time till the bell shrieked, leaving me with just one last class to push through.

That was Mr. Tassinari’s World History. I’d had him for US History as well. And I’d accidentally had him for an AP History class for one confused day before I freaked out and realized I was in way over my head and hadn’t received the summer reading list either. His wall by the door had tiny versions of all the state flags in order from Delaware to Puerto Rico. Pretty much the only help you got during his state quizzes.

They were still a struggle, because sometimes he threw in territories you didn’t expect. I always forgot about Alaska. But I was solid on the central contiguous forty-eight…after going over the last test we took on them. I didn’t look forward to all the nations I would have to know, but I hoped I would figure them out before the end of the year at least. Those were pre-mana leak problems though.

Before heading to my seat, I walked up to Tassinari. He was very busy with several volleyball teams, so he was always selling stuff for fundraisers or dressed in sports polos instead of normal teacher clothes. Today was such a day and it was even more hectic than usual.

He acknowledged that he’d talked to Aceves but, like others, he hadn’t understood what the problem was. However, he asked me if I was fine with one of the many island desks he’d set up around the room. They weren’t exactly separated but they dangled off the edge of each of the main clusters. Typically, they were reserved for punishment, but TAs and “station” group activities often used them. At this point, I’d depleted all my energy for protest.

He gave me a list of stuff I’d missed and I began flipping through my textbook, after I’d settled the homework I had which I could turn in. I noticed Ben walked in soon after, but he was seated on the other side of the room from where I was.

My mind was pushing its limit. I wanted more Sebastian moments. I wanted more normal and silly moments. So, while I sorted through the pages on the list, I soon let myself wander. I flipped to the late parts of the book which we wouldn’t even touch upon till spring rolled around, at best. Post-World War II often got lost or ignored in World History classes. I flipped past the founding of the Israeli state as a partition of Alaskan and Yukon territories. I mulled on that a bit.

One of the boxes on the corner talked about FDR’s unexpected support for the Slattery Report’s recommendations. I tried to hold onto details and names and dates and all that, but my mind kept wandering. A little sentence mentioned those who were pushing for the establishment of a Palestinian Jewish state due to rising minority immigration to the “Holy Land”. It was enough to feed my random speculations.

How would the world be different, if there was a new country in Palestine? Impossible to comprehend. All I knew (vaguely) was that the Middle East was constantly in conflict over that territory. Could it possibly be worse? Maybe I could write a story about it.

I’d had an idea to make fake newspaper articles. based on a project from a class last year. It was fun. None of them ever turned out accurate. At least I didn’t need to worry about predicting the future as one of my powers. One less thing.

Still, it was fun to think about it. A story. An actual, good story. I’d had some ideas. I always did. Maybe turn one of those stuffed-animal crewed light-years-long ships into an actual science fiction tale with a plot and all that jazz. Or turn an animal into a human. I dunno…

And I liked having fun with names, even though Dr. Mitten Hands was pretty much the pinnacle of my creative efforts. With the comfort and ache of distance from anyone interested in hanging around me, I pondered a name. A name to give some character who…lived in a world where…there was a Jewish country in the Middle East and all sorts of stuff happened and there were giant golden space orbs from the future or…I should stop.

But I still played with names a little bit as Tassinari started to settle the class down for the first task, which was reading the introduction to something which I’d probably already skimmed through. There were after-reading questions, but they were fortunately simple. So, I had time to ponder. I wrote my name on the top left corner of some paper and then filled in the numbers as a promise to do the questions next.

Kenzie Waller. Wenzie Kaller…no. Kenzie…I’d kinda written the E a little weird so it looked more like an A and the N was a little short that it looked like an R. Kerzia…turn the Z and change some…

Kerina? Hmm…Kerina. I’d never heard that name before. Maybe ones similar, but never that exact one. Nice name. Kinda pretty.

What to do with Waller though…Flip that a bit? Maller…Rellam…That would be majorly dumb….hmm. Major? Was Major a last name? Catch-22, one of my now-recalled Reading for Pleasure picks, had told me it could be all and every name.

Major Kerina? Nah, that was stupid.

Who would ever have or use a name like that?

Art by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist