The New Kid

"So you are from California?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Cedarville must be a bit of a culture shock for you then?"

"It's...different."

Mrs. Wright laughed. "Okay, today, we are working on our creative writing projects. I am going to need you to pair up with someone-"

"He can be my partner," said Mark, his hand raised.

A few giggles and a couple laughs came from the other 30 students in the room.

"What?" Mark looked around the room, grinning. "Just because I'll die for my art?" He shrugged.

"All right, Mark," sighed Mrs. Wright, laughing. She looked to her new student. "Mark is your partner. He will show you what we are doing. We just started this project a month ago and they are not due for another 8 and a half weeks, so you will have enough time. Especially with Mr. Dennison's guidance-"

The class' giggling was replaced by the scratching of desks and sneakers on the hardwood floor. Mark watched as the skinniest kid he'd ever seen approached him, 3 or 4 books gathered in one arm, his other hand brushing a thick swath of shaggy blackened hair out of eyes so green they looked as if someone had soaked them in a melted crayon. He put out his hand.

"I'm Danny."

"I'm Mark. Poet, provocateur, superstar-"

"I can tell." Danny laughed, flashing a set of perfect white teeth, the canines the same length as the rest, and a pair of dimples so deep they seemed to meet somewhere in the middle of his mouth. "Mrs. Wright seems nice-"

"She is. Very nice." Mark brought his voice down to a whisper and locked his eyes on to Danny's, whose didn't waver. "Be nice to her. Her son committed suicide-"

"Oh, shit-"

"Yeah, and what's worse is he killed his little brother first-"

"Holy fuck-"

"I know. And some people say he raped his dead body-"

"What the-"

"Shhh." Mark looked around. "Just be careful what you say around her. And me too. Maury was my best friend." Mark forced his eyes to swell with impending tears that would never come.

"Dude, I'm sorry-"

Mark shook his head. "It's okay. It's just that we never saw it coming, you know-"

"I understand-"

"Cool." Mark sucked in a gigantic portion of the room's air and let it out in a sigh. "So, we've got a project here-"

"Creative writing?"

"Well-" Mark stopped, staring into Danny's eyes for another 15 seconds. "You know what? You look so much like this friend of mine that I used to have, I feel like I'm talking to him from beyond the grave-"

"Maury?"

"No. Daniel. He was my best friend-"

"How'd he die?"

"He fell asleep smoking a cigarette, with his girlfriend beside him-"

"Wow-"

"Yeah, I know." Mark put up a hand. "Okay, enough morbidity. Here's the project: submit a rough draft of a short story or a novel in progress up to ten thousand words in length by the end of April. You can work on it as much as you want, of course, but we meet twice a week here in school to go over our work with each other to get feedback and criticism and whatnot. Mrs. Wright is going to submit the five best to agents and publishers in New York and see what happens. Also, she is putting together a literary mag for the school that will feature the 20 best entries in all her classes."

"That's cool. So what are you doing, a short story or a novel?"

"Neither. I'm working on a poetry collection-"

"Huh?"

"Dude," Mark grinned as he continued looking into Danny's eyes, which hadn't moved from his or blinked in the last 30 minutes, "I don't ever fucking do what I'm told."

Danny smiled, his dimples kissing his tongue. "I like you-"

"I like you too-"