#senioritis

“Hurry up, everyone,” Evelyn, our English teacher, says as Abigail and I just make it to our desks when the bell for last period finally rings. We always sit in the front row at Abigail’s request, I guess so she can pay attention or something. For the most part I watch the water stain on the ceiling develop into something that looks like a piece of toast with Jesus on it.

“Speaking of sex,” Evelyn starts, even though no one was speaking of sex. She’s interrupted by a bright red tutu that squeezes through the door and nearly knocks her over. It’s attached to Brendan, the guy who always dances around like it’s Swan Lake up in the Gill School.

“Pardon meeeee,” he sings as he bounces in and takes his seat in the back, the tutu standing out over his uniform like a mighty plea for fun in this penal institution called school.

“Try to be on time.” Evelyn grimaces, closing the door with a loud click. Her hair is freshly buzzed, and her bright yellow pantsuit makes her look like that guy Curious George is always running from. “As I was saying, sex.” She pauses dramatically with her hands on her hips. “Drugs,” she adds with a devious eyebrow wiggle. “And rock and roll. Can anyone tell me what’s missing there?”

“Sounds like everything to me,” Abigail says, and people laugh.

“PHILOSOPHY!” Evelyn exclaims, then grins maniacally. The thing to know about Evelyn is that she’s actually a thirty-year-old piece of quinoa who thinks students and teachers are “equals.” This is why she lets us swear and call her by her first name and talk about things like sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

“But, Evelyn,” Evelyn says, with mock wonder, “what do risky business and illicit substances have to do with pondering the meaning of life?” She whips a piece of chalk out of her breast pocket and faces the moldy olive chalkboard, a relic of the Gill School’s early days that Evelyn couldn’t part with when it made its way to the dumpster. Twice. “Contrary to public opinion, philosophy did not expire in ancient Greece. If you get philosophy down to one of its basic definitions—” She takes out another piece of chalk and scrawls: study of knowledge, reality and existence. “We’re just thinking about thinking and living: how we know what we know, what human experience really is, the birth of an existential crisis, the death of God, et cetera.”

“Rest in peace, God,” Brendan sings from the back corner.

“Shut up, loser,” someone mutters from the side of the room.

“Who said that?” Evelyn’s eyes dart around. We all look at one another, knowing no one is going to own up to it. “If I hear anything else, everyone will have a detention,” Evelyn warns. We shift in our seats and she lets it go. It’s not that Brendan’s a bad singer—I actually secretly like his voice, from the falsetto to the husky low notes—but it’s annoying that he’s not more self-conscious. Play by the rules of social convention, dammit.