"I like to look beyond the great feats of a historic person to the little anecdotes that reveal the true person. Caesar, for example, was once captured by pirates. He felt it was safer to wait out dictator Sulla's death in Bithynia. When Sulla died and Caesar returned by boat, he was captured by pirates," lectured the history teacher. He carefully paced along the entire length of the chalkboard. He was a tall, thin, gnarled figure with a sturdy, wiry full beard.
"This is where is character showed. Being a Roman patrician, he was so fantastically arrogant that he laughed at his captors, when he heard the random request: 20 talents. He talked them into demanding at least 50 talents, which were of course paid without question by his family."
"To add on top of that, he was completely fearless. He joked with the pirates. He played their games. He even tried out his latest poetry inventions on the pirates. If they didn't laugh, he called them uncultured bastards and swore that he'd hang them all."
"Now, we all know arrogant people. And they always fall in the end, don't they. The proverbs tell us that arrogance has short legs. However, when Caesar was freed, he recruited war ships with his money. The pirates were still in the same spot. He caught them and crucified them. And he went on to become the most powerful man in the world not only at his time, but of all times!"
"Yes, Sabine, what is it?"
Sabine that was me. The blond high school senior in the first row.
"You have some chalk on your mouth," I said. The teacher quickly touched his mouth. When he had been pacing the chalkboard, his idle hand at caressed the board and accumulated white chalk powder that he had dabbed on his body and face. "Where you trying to make your voice sound softer and sweater?"
"Sabine!" he yelled sternly with his jaw pressed tight. The torso of the thin man was shaking underneath the diamond pattern sweater that was supposed to make him look more dressed than simply in the plain baby-blue shirt. "If you keep running your mouth, you'll one day run into the wrong person."
"Boom, fell on your own sword," was my confident reply. "There you go mocking proverbs on arrogance. I'm going to be the Caesar of sass!"
"TouchΓ©, touchΓ©," mumbled the teacher
I high fived my friend Terri next to me, the red-haired, short girl with a steeled body and dream to become a heroic firefighter. The whole class hollered. A guy called, "Ooh, somebody went to school and got some good schooling."
The school bell buzzed over the door. It was cheap electrical buzzer that sounded quite annoying, despite the salivating reward of being free to stand up at the drop of a hat, shuffle 30 chairs loudly, and storm out, leaving an open mouth gaping teacher behind wishing to have made one more point or powerlessly realized that his homework instructions might as well be whispered into a 120 mph tornado.
And so, we joined the slow as molasses zombie shuffle into the hallway. Make a step left, sway left, wait for the person in front to move, step right, and sway right. There were so many kids crowded together. There were the little stumps of new kids. I and my three friends were like titans. We were seniors, only a month away from graduating. Jen was the tall blond walking next to me. She was skinny and could have been a model, if her blond hair didn't look so dirty and her face didn't look so sad.
A girl in knee high Gucci rain boots strutted in front of us. Her hair was done up high with golden clips. She carried a pink purse over her right shoulder. The purse was open. The butt of her iPhone stuck out and wiggled with each sideways sway shuffle step. Jen's quick finger pinched the rim of the phone case without touching the purse and lifted it up in one smooth motion.
"Stupid kids don't put a password on their phone," exclaimed Jen.
Her fingers started typing and swiping right away. Her dour face had flashes of joy. Nadia, the short girl with the black hair and pageboy haircut poked her nose in between Jen's face and the eye phone. Nadia squeaked a surprise giggle. Jen's face started burning only hotter with her eyes searing feverously, her hands shaking to carry out her evil plan.
Jen held me the phone with the text message, a mass text that went to half the address book: "Dear friends, my parents died yesterday in a horrible car accident. Please, don't mention anything to me, or I'll bawl uncontrollably. I'm barely holding it together. Don't remind me. Though, if you love me, give me a silent hug. I'll let you know about the service date shortly."
Two seconds after send, phones buzzed like an orchestra around us. The class had exited the classroom together. A blond guy, big for his age, turned around and hugged the hapless Gucci girl. She was so dazed that she let it happen. Her body stood stiff like a stick. The boy faced her burning to say something, yet holding his tongue, as he turned away to disappear into the throngs of the crowd.
A little, skinny girl came up to the girl that was being pushed forward by the crowed, yet would have really wanted to stay to figure out what had happened. The little girl flung herself fully bodied with a deathly emotionally hug around the Gucci girl. The little girl clung onto the black girl like tar, slowly squeezing the breath out of her, all the while pressing her face into the Gucci girl's body. The Gucci girl's face was priceless. It was puffy like puffer fish - black coal button eyes and big white cheeks.
"Step number two," said Jen deviously. She wound her skinny tall body through the crowd to catch up with the bobby haired blond guy. With every side sway of his step, Jen pinched the zipper on his backpack to let it slide open a little more. His motion obscured her tucking. The phone slipped in smoothly. Jen made sure to let a little of it stick out.
Gucci girl was surrounded by her classmates. She started fighting against the well-meaning classmates. Her hand flung the face of a sad looking guy. She was screaming at the top of her lungs. And the looks of her classmates looked only more worried. They took her fist strikes with an inner pain of how much the orphan must be struggling on the inside to go that batshit crazy. And the hugs only kept coming. Tears welled up in the eyes of the Gucci girl. With one last look over the shoulder, I felt like Gucci girl was going to meet her end, like a horde of zombies tearing her apart and eating her. It served her well for being dressed like a snob.
My band of friends turned onto the staircase, where already the upper floors pressed down. All personal space was gone. Bodies pressed against bodies. Clothes and limbs brushed. The younger students were the worst, the little snots with their playground sensibility. Everyone wanted to get out into the yard for the break. The air was stale, a hundred hungry lungs were sucking all the oxygen out. Finally the mass pressed us past the school doors. We spilled out into the yard.