Monstrato

  Chapter 17

  The next day seemed like a regular day. My mom woke me up, hollering at me, wanting to know why I was out so late and why I'd tracked mud into the house. I told her I didn't want to go to school, that I felt sick. She said, "Oh, no. You're going to school today. I don't care how you feel. This'll teach you not to stay out late on school nights. You were hanging out with Lori last night, weren't you? And you smell like liquor. I swear, that girl is nothin' but bad news…" She left my room shaking her head. I rolled over and tried going back to sleep, but my mom was right back in my face yelling at me to get up. We were late getting to school, which was my fault, and then I pretty much slept for the first three periods. It was nice, though, being hung over because for the first time in a long while, I wasn't thinking about anything. It felt like all the worries and concerns that'd been eating away at me for the previous two weeks had disappeared—like my brain was taking a rest. But it only lasted until Algebra 2 because that was the day that Corena decided to come back to class.

  When I got to Ms. Strauss's room, Corena was already in there sitting on a table next to the door. She was making a big show of herself and talking in her normal loud and aggressive voice to Sidney and Latisha. She seemed not to even notice me when I walked in. I saw Hope sitting at the back table flipping through her Algebra book, and I went and sat by her. Hope was acting as if she was off in her own world, pretending like Corena wasn't even in the room. When I said hi to her, she just mumbled something back, like she was distracted by the book she was looking through. Then I heard Corena and Calvin start talking about something that happened at Rally's, something about a burger being smashed on somebody's windshield and a fight breaking out in the drive thru. Calvin was over by the windows and Corena was sitting by the door, and they were talking over the whole room as if they expected everyone to be so interested in their story. Soon other people joined in, talking about shit that happened when they were out cruising around—you know, stories about fights and drag racing and stuff like that. By the time Ms. Strauss came in, the class was pretty wound up.

  Ms. Strauss tried to get everyone to quiet down, but it took her a while, and she had to use the sternest, meanest voice she could muster. She was barking at people, saying, "Quiet!…Trent, sit down!…Cecil, turn around and get your book out. Let's GO people, it's time for class." Eventually, everyone settled down—everyone but Corena, who you could tell wasn't ready to shut up. When Ms. Strauss started her lecture, Corena was still turned around in her chair talking to Sidney Bouchard.

  Ms. Strauss was introducing something called the exponential function, which sounded really complicated. She was talking about inverse functions and writing equations on the board with all these variables. I was trying to pay attention and take notes, but I was distracted by Corena. She kept making comments like, "This is stupid. Who ever heard of exponial functions?"

  I watched her start organizing all her folders and papers, making a big deal out of it like she'd decided that what Ms. Strauss was talking about wasn't even worth listening to. Then, somehow, all her folders fell off the table and papers went all over the floor. Ms. Strauss stopped lecturing and asked Corena, "What are you doing?"

  Corena was out of her chair now, picking up papers and trying to be funny. She snapped, "I'm trying to get organized, can't you see? God, somebody could help me pick these up."

  After Corena got all her papers off the floor and sat back down, she kept creating one distraction after another, and I could see Ms. Strauss was starting to get pissed. Corena kept talking over Ms. Strauss, asking Latisha for a calculator, asking if anyone had a pencil she could borrow. Then, out of nowhere, she blurts out to Ms. Strauss, "I don't even know what you're talking about. What do you mean by functions?" The whole class started laughing, and Corena acted like she was embarrassed. She looked around the room with a big smile on her face and said, "What? I'm just asking a question. I forgot what they are."

  Ms. Strauss glared at Corena for a moment and said, "Well, if you came to class sometime, then maybe you'd know," and that got everybody going.

  All the boys over by the window started saying, "Oooohhh…She just burned you, Corena. You gonna take that?" Corena was trying to look hurt, but she couldn't even stop from smiling. She went back to organizing her papers, but now, the guys over by the window couldn't stop giggling and cracking up. Ms. Strauss started threatening them, saying she was gonna move them to other seats if they didn't settle down. When she finally got back to her lecture, you could tell she was steaming. I looked over at Hope, wondering what she thought of all this. She was staring off into space and twisting her lips together like she was wishing she wasn't even there.

  Ms. Strauss started lecturing again, and this time, she was acting like she was gonna charge right through and not stop for anything. But Corena wasn't finished. She kept turning around, trying to share some joke with Sidney and Latisha. By this time, even Sidney and Latisha were acting like they didn't wanna play along. The boys over by the windows were still giggling, but it seemed like everyone else was trying to ignore Corena because she was acting so stupid. You could feel a lot of tension in the room, which was bad, because tension like that always found a way to work itself out. Next, Corena wrote something on a piece of paper, turned around, and slammed it down on the table in front of Sidney. Sidney didn't even look at it. She just kept her eyes on Ms. Strauss, looking real nervous, like she knew trouble was coming. Then, Corena started talking to Sidney like Ms. Strauss wasn't even in the room, saying, "Hey, I'm thinking of going over to Delilah's after school to get my nails done. You wanna come?"

  I watched Ms. Strauss stop writing on the board and put the cap back on the dry erase marker she was using. She turned to face Corena and said in a real calm voice, "Corena, you can leave if you want to."

  Corena, who was still twisted around in her chair, turned her head towards Ms. Strauss with a big frown on her face, and said, "What? You want me to leave?"

  Ms. Strauss said, "I want you to quit interrupting my class."

  Corena whipped around in her chair looking real indignant and yelled, "What did I do? I didn't do anything!"

  The boys across the room all started cracking up again, and Ms. Strauss turned red with anger. She stood there, holding her lips together and puffing up her cheeks like her mouth was filled with puke. Now, at any other time, this would have been real funny, but only the boys were laughing. I watched Ms. Strauss take a deep breath, then slowly turn around and go back to writing on the board.

  Corena sat there for a moment looking mad and insulted. Then, she yelled, "Fine! If you don't want me here, I'll leave!" She grabbed all her books and stood up, knocking over her chair, and disappeared out the door.

  The boys thought this was hysterical, but Ms. Strauss just ignored them and went on with her lecture. By now, nobody knew what she was talking about. She wrote down some homework problems for us and said, "We're probably gonna have to go over all this again tomorrow." Then she went and sat at her desk and started organizing her own papers. We all sat there waiting for Tammy to come storming down the hall to chew out Ms. Strauss, but it never happened. After a while, everyone started talking again but quieter now, like it was a free period.