[ OT ] Sunday Free Write : Flights of Fancy Edition

I guess I'll post what is currently the first chapter of my novel. I'll probably be re-writing it before too long, but it'd be nice to know what people think. It's a little longer than the limit so I'll have to post it in two comments 
 
 **** 
 
 If I stared at her long enough, she had to do something interesting. 
 
 It was third period, more than halfway through the day, and I don ’ t think I ’ d seen her eyes leave the pages of her book once. It felt stupid, but I ’ d even started giving up my study hall to go to this english class, just to see if she took a more active role in subjects that seemed to interest her. She didn ’ t. The class was almost finished and nothing had moved but her eyes, darting across the page at speeds that seemed entirely too fast. But I guess if you read literally all day you pick up a talent for it. 
 
 There was no physical indication, but she seemed to notice the teachers ’ lectures at least a little. I checked tests as a favor to our teacher in first period, and in the whole month since we ’ d started school she hadn ’ t missed a single question. To be honest, it kind of pissed me off. I wasn ’ t stupid but I had to at least pay attention to the lesson in order to get full marks on a quiz. Was she cheating? Was she a genius? Did she study all day at home? 
 
 “ Mr. Ward? ” 
 
 The more I thought about it the more it annoyed me. With the addition of this one, I was in the same classes as her for the entire day. But did I even once see a teacher call her out for reading instead of paying attention to the lesson? No. In fact, they didn ’ t seem to mind at all as long as she did well on the tests. It was infuriating. 
 
 “ Collin Ward, when I agreed to let you become my teacher ’ s assistant for this class, I planned on you actually assisting my teaching, not ogling my students. Besides, I don ’ t think Ms. Faust will find you more interesting than that book no matter how much you stare at her. ” I turned towards the source of the interruption to my thoughts to see Mr. Patterson with a stupid smirk on his face. 
 
 I added a note to Patterson ’ s file in my head. Scott Patterson. 25. Two years at the school. Sophomore English teacher and boys tennis coach. Female students find him attractive. And apparently he now has a tendency to publicly embarrass male students. Namely me. I mentally filled out a request to add him to the the grudge folder. 
 
 “ It… it isn ’ t like that, ” I replied, unconvincingly. The sentence escaped from my lungs before I could hold it down and give myself time to formulate the correct response. It wasn ’ t my fault, really. Name one person that can stay quiet when confronted with the exact wrong diagnosis for their behavior. I didn ’ t want her to be interested in me, I wanted to understand what it was that made me so interested in her. 
 
 A chorus of giggles from the front of the class confirmed the futility of my response. My file on the gigglers was small, and shared between the five of them, who I could never tell apart. The girls that always sit in a pack, hanging on the hot teacher ’ s every word while simultaneously doodling their name from a future where they ’ re married to whatever kid scored the last touchdown? Yeah. That was them. 
 I looked around the room to check the reactions of the other students. We were in room 205, a rather small classroom that barely left any space to maneuver once the desks and students were packed in. It was standard size for Newbrook High School though. It ’ s not like any of the always decreasing budget was going to go to academics. Mr. Patterson stood at one side of the rectangular room, in front of his desk and next to mine, which was placed outside of the regular rows to distinguish me from rest of the students. 
 
 There were 25 or so of them, counting the gigglers, and most of them were too busy filling out the assignment to pay any attention to a conversation between a teacher and his assistant. I guess that was good for my reputation. 
 “ Hey it ’ s not any of my business if you undress her with your eyes, just let me know before you get the urge to step it up a notch ” teased Mr. Patterson. “ Anyway, when they ’ re done finishing up this assignment, go ahead and collect it and let them leave. I have to run an errand before the assembly next period, so just lock up when you ’ re done, okay? ” 
 
 “ Yeah, that ’ s fine, ” I sighed. I had hoped that I wouldn ’ t have many responsibilities in this period, but handing off control of the class on the first day was a sure sign that the position was going to be more trouble than it was worth. 
 
 Patterson exited the classroom to a resounding groan from the gigglers, who then gave me a ‘ Now we have gossip about you ’ look and actually started on their assignment, probably half-assing it so that they ’ d get called in for a one on one conference. They were pretty predictable. 
 
 Once their heads were down I snuck a glance out of the corner of my eye. She still hadn ’ t moved, and if I weren ’ t too startled to check at the time I imagined that I wouldn ’ t have even seen her flinch when Mr. Patterson mentioned her name. I guess in this way she could be seen as predictable too, but not in a boring, typical way like the rest of the class. 
 
 See, ever since I can remember I ’ ve been good at figuring out people. When I was 7, I asked a work friend of my father ’ s who had visited our house a few times about how well his anniversary had went the month before. He looked astonished, and later my mother joked that I had a cabinet my head with a file for every person I ’ d ever met. Apparently my brain liked that metaphor because I ’ ve been this way ever since, filing away details about personality, strengths and weaknesses in the cabinet that is now my brain. I guess I don ’ t really hate it though. Knowing a lot about people helps you understand their motivations, which can help me figure out what to say, or what they ’ re going to say. After a while I basically became a human lie detector, although I figured out pretty quickly that pointing out when people are lying can get you into trouble. 
 
 She was weird, though. I ’ d thought about it a lot and I decided I just didn ’ t have enough information to understand her, which was what led to my current situation. It wasn ’ t like I was obsessed or anything. It was like… if my thoughts about people are all files, then Laura Faust ’ s file was the one currently open on my desk. 
 She started attending the school this year, and was in the same grade as me, a junior. As far as I could tell she moved to the area not long before school started, and didn ’ t seem to have friends at the school yet, if she had any friends at all. She was almost definitely much smarter than I was, but she wasn ’ t enrolled in any of the honors course classes that you might expect a possible genius to be interested in. Of course that could be explained. After all I was pretty good at most subjects too, but I wasn ’ t interested in the extra workload of the hard classes. I didn ’ t get the slacker vibe from her though. She just seemed... bored? 
 
 I had tried to ask some people about her, but they all ended up getting the same wrong idea that Mr. Patterson had. I didn ’ t want to date her or anything, in fact I was pretty sure my feelings towards her were leaning more towards the realm of dislike. 
 
 Not that she wasn ’ t pretty. In fact she definitely was. She had hair so black it didn ’ t seem real, and a lightly tanned complexion that I figured came from reading outside. She dressed in a more sophisticated manner than even the rich, popular girls, and the first time I saw her I thought she might have been a visiting princess. 
 That lasted for about three seconds. After that, I was subjected to the aura of intensity that she constantly emitted. I knew I wasn ’ t the only one who felt it, because the teachers and other students were always on their toes around her, as if one false move could tear her intense glare from the pages of her book and incinerate them on the spot. 
 
 She looked naturally athletic as well, the kind of tall, shapely young woman who could look good while kicking your ass into next week. How anyone who spent all day reading could maintain a body like that was a mystery to me, but what was clear to me before too long was that she was no princess. She was an intense warrior queen. 
 
 I marked the last minute or so of Laura-Notes for deletion from my brain. I was kind of understanding how people got the wrong idea about my intentions now. When people have such interesting personality and appearance combinations, I sometimes get a bit carried away. 
 
 I looked up to glance at the clock and wasn ’ t surprised to see that the period was over. I often got caught up in thought. The pile of papers in front of me told me that pretty much everyone had left, and a quick look around the room confirmed that they were all gone. Except for Laura. 
 
 I figured I should let her know she could leave. After all, she was new, so she probably didn ’ t know that the bells didn ’ t ring during the assemblies. I started walking to her desk. 
 
 I realized that this was about to be the first time I ’ d ever actually had a conversation with her in almost a month of attempting to figure her out. I ’ d tried, but it ’ s hard to find an excuse to talk to someone who doesn ’ t really do anything. 
 Normally I ’ d stop and think about the best way to go about telling her she could leave while also maintaining the conversation long enough to learn something new about her, but my stupid legs weren ’ t listening to reason, and before I knew it I was directly in front of her desk, peering over the the top of her raised novel. 
 Today ’ s genre seemed to be sci-fi, but I long since gave up on trying to gain anything from analyzing what book she was reading. She was all over the place. Fiction, nonfiction, once I even swore I saw her reading the instruction manual to an industrial microwave, but I must have looked at it wrong. 
 

