[The Meeting]

Boy band, oh boy band.

What now?
    I looked at the clock. It said 8:25. I was overly late! Hurrying, I scrambled to my room, put a Charlie The Unicorn shirt on, dark jeans, and sneakers on. Then, I slammed on my backpack. Knowing I forgot something, I ran back into the room with Laruku and examined them, to make sure they were still here.
    “Okay! You people!” I started, pointing to them all. “You will stay in this house, and touch absolutely nothing! You hear me?”
    They nodded.
    “But, where are you going?” Hyde asked, his voice low and quiet-like. He didn’t seem too happy right now, which made me kind of dejected.
    “School,” I replied. “Everyone my age has to go. Surely, you of all people, must know this…” This made me think about Brett. I was still annoyed at him for calling me slow! “Man, I have to face that guy again…” I was mumbling to myself now.
I started running out of the house, locked it, and headed to school.
    Once again, I was back in Brett’s class. He was teaching about some random science crap that I was too lazy and annoyed to really understand. Or even listen to! I don’t see why I was thrown into advanced science. I suck at it. I’m only good at math and English, actually.
    “So, the force in Newtons is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration…,” he told the class while drawing something on the chalkboard. I fumbled in my seat, trying to get comfortable. It was logically impossible. “So, if the mass is eight hundred kilograms, and the acceleration is five meters per second, what’s the force in Newtons?” Students began raising their hands.
    I wasn’t paying attention.
    Tired as hell, and exhausted from this morning’s awkward surprise, I banged my hand on the desk; not purposefully though. It hurt. Elizabeth, my friend who sat next to me, slapped me and laughed. “What was that for?” she asked, still laughing.
    I shook my head, it still laying on the desk. “So sleepy.”
    She blanked out. “Ohh, why? Had a rough night or morning with a boy?” she asked, teasingly.
    I could feel my face turned absolutely tomato red. Rough morning my a*s! “N, no! You pervert!” I whispered back to her.
    She rolled her eyes. “So, you’re telling me that you just slept bad?”
    “Y, yeah.”
    “So, what’d he do? I mean it couldn’t have been that bad, you know!”
    I shook my head again. “No, it’s just that these really hot guys show up at my house,” I told her. “Oh, damn it! You tricked it out of me!”
    She giggled. “So gullible! And who are these so called hot guys exactly?”
    “D, don’t ask me! I only dreamt about them!”
    “So, you dream and fantasize about good-looking men, then they show up at your door step?”
    “Kind of…Oh, not again! I hate you!” She always leaked information out of me this way. Since we were kindergarteners!
    “Juliette! Shut up,” Brett yelled at me. “Or you will be serving a lunch detention! And I mean it.” The class was laughing at me now. Even my friends. What bullies.
    “Oh, come on! Elizabeth was louder than me, yet I’m the one to get in trouble? You are so unfair, Mr. Cowling,” I said.
    “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Life isn’t fair either.”
    “God, give me a break!” I mumbled under my breathe. This was not the best day ever. Kind of, but Brett totally ruined it!
    “I wonder what they are doing right now…,” I wondered to myself. No one seemed to notice me talking to myself.
    The speaker came on in Brett’s class.
    “Mr. Cowling, do you have Juliette Flowers?” the voice had asked him.
    “Yeah, why?”
    “Well, tell her that she needs to come down to the office. There are…boys calling from her house, asking for her…” Did you have to say that out loud and have the whole class hear? And what the freak are those morons at home doing!? Why call me during school? God!
    “Uhh, okay, then.”
    I got up from my seat and headed towards the door. Some boys, like Elijah and Fred and others had teased me. “Who are those boys, huh? Huh? You can tell us. Lovers?” Then they laughed.
    Annoyed, I told them, “Yeah, at least I have boys that like me. Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to make you jealous. I know how hard it is for you guys to find boyfriends.” I faked pouted and snickered. They were shocked. I didn’t care about Brett right now.
I waved to my friends and winked. “A free ticket out of class. Suckers!”
    Then, I left and went to the office, picked up the phone, and answered.
    “Why the heck are you guys calling?” I asked, kind of ticked off, but also relieved to know that they are still there, and not just illusions or hallucinations of some sort. I sort of missed them. Even if I seen them just this morning.
    The most musical voice answered, “We wanted to check up on you, Juliette.” My heart thumped. I flustered. Why does he always make me so embarrassed?
    “You don’t need to! I’m just at school--nothings going to happen. Besides, it’s already half way over. I’ll be home in a couple of hours…” My voice was depressed sounding, and I knew it. It was because of freaking Brett! He makes me so frustrated!
Hyde was silent on the phone for a moment. Then, I heard a lot of things moving around, then; CLICK! Beep, beep, beep, beep. He had hung up on me! What in the world for? That just makes me all the more anxious!
    I walked over to the secretary. “Is everything alright?” she asked, suspicious of what was going on. I didn’t even know what was going on!
    “Yeah, uh, they were a couple of my neighbors. I had forgotten to lock my door, so they just called to tell me…”
    “Oh, okay. Make sure you lock it next time!”
    “OK.”
    We exchanged smiles, which were both, in my knowledge, fake. Oh, well.
I stalked all the way back upstairs and walked into Brett’s class and sat in my seat.
    “What was that all about?” Elizabeth asked, her eye brows going up and down, in a suspicious manner.
    “Oh, I’m not exactly sure myself, anymore.”
    I sighed and lied my head down on the desk again. “My life is so exhausting.”
    “Yeah--loving boy bands sure must get a girl tired.”
    “I guess.”
    “Lazy.”
    “You know it.”
    Stupid boys. Why must they call me--checking up on me isn’t a good enough answer either.
    We still had half of class left. Man, is time going slow or what? God!
    “So, the test will be worth fifty points…,” someone said. I looked up. A test, oh my lord.
    Mr. Cowling seems to be really good at getting on my nerves twenty four seven.
    He passed out the papers. When he came to me, I didn’t even glance up at him. That was how mad I was at him.
    Jus’ so you know, I guessed on half the questions. Yeah--paying attention is helpful. Not paying attention, is well, not helpful.
    “Lizz! What’s number two?” I mumbled to her. She wrote the answer, in eraser, on the table. I hurriedly wrote it down. Look, it’s not that I cheat, or am extremely stupid. I earned my way in. I have straight A’s. I do perfect on tests--that I study and pay full attention too. I got an IQ of one hundred and thirty five, which is more than any of you, so I don’t want to hear no complaining!
    I finished the test, and turned it in. Only fifteen minutes of class left.
There was a lot of noise outside of the hall. Mr. Cowling opened the door to see what it was. And, as soon as he did this, a boy ran inside, followed by three other ones. I about fainted at this. Morons!
    The boy who came in first steadily stumbled over desks, until he was near me. He then smiled. Him and his friends were covered in dirt and dust. Where the hell did they go, exactly?
    “Juliette…You’re okay, right?” His voice was clouded with concern, while his face was in pain. This made my heart go; thump! Thump! Bee---p!
    “Wait, who the heck are you guys?” Mr. Cowling yelled, annoyed by their random appearance. Girls awed, and swoon, while the boys, pouted and cursed under their breathes. They were pretty jealous.
    “O, of course! Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not sick and or dying or anything in between.” Well, maybe I am. Or annoyance. This checking up on me thing is really weird; but I kind of like it.
    He looked at me, puzzled as hell. “But, on the phone, you sounded depressed.”
    Oh, that. “Well, when ya go to school, teachers,” I began, as I gestured towards Brett. “Get on your nerves. That’s really all. Nothing else is wrong.”
    Ken shook his head and blew a puff of smoke, then threw the cigarette on the ground, stomped on it, then laughed. “And, see here, Hyde got all seriously worried for nothing!” Then, Yukihiro, “At least we got to see Juliette, right?” He smiled an angelic like look. Tetsuya just stood there, leaning against the wall, quiet-like. I always wondered what was going on in his mind. Guess I’ll never know, huh.
    I forgot that no one in my class knew Japanese, so, they didn’t know what we’re talking about. All they know is that; there is a bunch of seriously good-looking foreign students talking to me. I couldn’t help but laugh from this fact.
    “What’s funny?”
    “Nothing, nothing.” I shrugged my shoulders.
    Brett interrupted us with a book in between me and them(Laruku). “If you boys don’t mind leaving, we’ll like to get back to class,” he said, in English of course, so they didn’t understand.
    Brett tapped my shoulders and commanded me to sit down. I had gotten up when the boys arrived.
    Reluctantly, I sat down. I was about to tell Hyde and them to ‘shush away’, but I stopped when I had noticed Hyde’s facial expression. It was killer. And, no, literally. He was all tensed up, while his fists were clenched. His gaze was towards Mr. Cowling. Uh oh, but why?
    “Hyde. Can you please go home? I told you that I’ll be back soon.” I sighed, although I was extremely happy that they were here.
    He stared at me, not quite angry, but instead, rejected. Hyde seemed to want to same something, but stayed silent.
    “Uh, Tetsuya, I know that you’re the more mature one, so, could you please watch them? I’ll return the favor…”
     He nodded. I think. “Hyde, let’s go back. You can see that she’s busy, right? Do you want to bother her even more?” They weren’t bothering me--just everyone else, is who they are bothering!
    Hyde looked at me, his eyes large, creased. “Will you truly be alright?”
    “I assure you…,” I say, looking away. His face was about an inch away from my face. My heart right now was kind of like this: weee-wooo, weee-wooo, bee-p! Er, er, er er. Then silence.
    “OK.”
    And, then they left. I felt kind of sad.
    “Juliette! Thanks to this disturbance, you will be having lunch detention with me.”
    I gasped. Today, the café was serving mint choco-chip! Oh God, why today of all days?
    “My life is ruined…”

    Staring at other people eating ice-cream, I mumble to myself, “It’s all Hyde’s fault…!”
“Who, exactly, were they anyways?” Mr. Cowling asks. He was sitting at the same table as me.
    “That’s restricted information.”
    “Ohh, really? Weren’t they the ones who called the school, just for you? And even came here?”
    “Yeah--but I told them to stay at home! For all I know, they might not have gotten back!”
    He raises his eyebrow.
    “Jesus! Do people like leaking stuff from me…?”
    “Where do they live?”
    “…Somewhere.”
    “15th St. 2205 N.E.?”
    “Yeah…Wait, how’d you know where I live?!”
    “I’m a teacher. Duh.”
    “Stalker.”
    “What?!”
    “Nothing…stalker.”
    “Shut up.”
    “Pedobear.”
    “What?!”
    “You have no idea what I’m talking about. Pedobear…Pedophile. Get the picture?”
    “I’m not a pedophile. No way would I go for little girls like you. Immature brats. Tch.”
    “What? I’ll have you know that I can be extremely mature if I want to be!” He was starting to piss me off, much more.
    “Yeah, yeah. Say what you want.”