Chapter 12: Math Class
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So this is Willow’s best friend?
Buffy took another look at Xander, who still had his head down on the desk, and hadn’t noticed her. She suddenly remembered her many mornings in history class, slumping down in her own seat after a rough night. Buffy had grown up attuned to other people’s expressions and feelings, particularly her parents, and had been good at knowing when to stick around and offer some support, or when to run away and wait out a doomed argument.
With this thought, she could tell by the way Xander held himself that he had just lost some kind of battle this morning, and his emotions were stormy and broken at best. She felt some sympathy toward him, and immediately recalled Willow’s worried expression, wondering if this happened often.
Buffy’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted by Mr. Prinsley’s now irritated tone as class began. She turned her attention to the teacher, refocusing.
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Halfway through class, Xander woke up, not realizing he had drifted off. Blinking, he looked up and saw Prinsley glaring at him yet again. “Mr. Harris, answer the question.”
Xander squinted at the blackboard for some clue of what he was supposed to have been paying attention to.
Slowly, he met Prinsley’s gaze, and tried a smooth “Um…Huh?”
Mentally cursing himself for his own lame response, and also for falling asleep, Xander straightened up and honestly tried to focus as Prinsley began to repeat the question.
…Except that he wasn’t; it seemed that Prinsley had finally cracked.
Practically hissing, Prinsley pinned him down with a piercing gaze. “Mr. Harris, if you can’t be bothered to come to class on time, do any of the work, or even simply stay awake during my class, soon you will find that being banned from a freshman algebra class could lead to missing a very crucial graduation credit. For the sole reason of my not wanting you in this school for more years than absolutely, critically necessary, I am giving you one last choice. You can leave right now and tell Principal Flutie you can no longer continue this class, risking delayed graduation, or you can promise to do every last assignment in this class to the very end, and come here on time every single morning. If you mess up even once, I will simply put in a request to have you expelled.”
Xander sat in his seat, staring numbly as the teacher threatened him Oh shit, I knew today was a doomed day. Expelled?! Holy crap…. Xander didn’t get up, obviously indicating that he wouldn’t be taking the first option.
Instead, he resisted the urge to put his head down again and replied with a slightly strained game show voice, “My final choice would be option B, complete with a promise to do everything and anything, hoping to eliminate clause E, of expellation. Thank you. Mr. Prinsley, back to you.”
Oh. Did I just say that. No way. Oh crap. I must bereallytired. Crossing his fingers and hoping Prinsley wouldn’t completely snap and kick him out, Xander avoided eye contact with everyone, some who had stared at him in disbelief, and some who were rolling their eyes, waiting for Prinsley to grill him out again.
Mr. Prinsley, however, did the unexpected and simply acted as if the whole conversation hadn’t happened. He switched back to his emotionless teaching voice, finally repeating the math question he had originally asked Xander to the class.
~
Buffy blinked. Huh? That teacher had just completely dropped his argument. She was relieved for Xander, thinking the teacher had been way too hard on him, but so far Buffy was having some serious doubts about the Sunnydale High staff.
Buffy watched Mr. Prinsley’s face carefully, trying to figure out why he would act like that, and realized that the teacher was dealing with some issues of his own, and was clearly in no mood to follow through on anything that required more mental effort on his part.
~
After the most attentive ten minutes of math class he had ever had, Xander let himself relax a little. He felt a headache coming on even as he did so, but valiantly continued trying not to think about the events of the past 24 hours, knowing it would not be a helpful thing to have on his mind during class.
He glanced around and noticed for the first time that there was a small blonde girl he’d never seen sitting in the seat next to him. How did I not notice that? I must’ve been really out of it…. So, a new girl. Xander winced a little, realizing his first impression on her must have been horrible. Then he wondered why he cared, since he usually tried to ignore his classmates and chose instead to be a “free spirit,” as he had once jokingly described to Willow.
He wanted to ask her what her name was, but realized it wouldn’t help his case with Prinsley, so he looked over at the couple papers on the girl’s desk, and thought he could make out a schedule and some type of generic welcome note. The first line began “Welcome, Buffy S.”.
Xander grinned a little. It was like the school was too lazy to put the full last name, but didn’t want to be friendly enough to just use her first name.
Then, his grin widened. Buffy? Just perfect. The new girl’s name is Buffy. Endless hours of amusement could be had with an Angel and a Buffy, both new to Sunnydale…
He had no doubt that Willow would’ve been the first one at school, and therefore most likely noticed the new girl first thing and showed her around. He envisioned Willow introducing Buffy to Angel. Xander let his mind wander, picking up cheesy punch lines involving buffy angels along the way.
When Prinsley cleared his throat, Xander quickly glanced towards the front of the class again, glad that Prinsley still had his back turned and was writing on the board, not noticing his past few minutes’ inattention. This attention-paying thing was already getting hard to keep up.
~
When Prinsley cleared his throat, Buffy was also shaken out of her own reverie. Buffy’s attention had been on a pair of girls writing notes back and forth, and hadn’t noticed Xander looking at her. From hearing Mr. Prinsley call on them, Buffy found out that the tall, snotty-looking brunette was Cordelia and her ditzy friend with way too much make-up was Harmony. Buffy could already tell she didn’t want anything to do with the two girls, who were obviously self-absorbed and the kind of people who judged you by everything from what shoes you wore to the size of your house.
Now, Buffy looked around the class briefly, and her gaze passed over Xander, who was staring blankly in Prinsley’s direction, towards the clock, which was slowly ticking towards 8:30. Just five more minutes of class left.
Mr. Prinsley took a quick look at his own watch, and finished writing the homework on the board, handing out worksheets to be passed down the rows. There was a loud scraping of chairs and some general yawning and stretching as the students packed up.
His bag already packed, Xander also looked at the clock and realized Prinsley had finished early today; usually he dragged on till the bell. Apparently, Prinsley was usually a stickler for time and hated wasting even a minute. Xander spent a brief moment wondering if something was wrong with Prinsley, and the happy thought that the teacher might be getting sick and take the day off tomorrow brightened his day a little.
Xander finally turned his attention to the new girl sitting to his left.
Almost at the exact same moment, Buffy zipped up her bag and finally turned her attention to Xander.
They both began with a tentative “Hey, I’m…”
Xander and Buffy both paused, waiting for the other to continue, but already knowing each others’ names.
Xander grinned and finished, “I’m Xander, and you must be Buffy.”
Buffy looked at him, a bit surprised. Prinsley hadn’t called on her at all, so how’d he know her name?
Almost as if reading her mind, Xander added, “And before you think I’m creepy and psychic, I kind of saw your name on the paper that was on your desk.”
Buffy grinned. “Oh. Well, I was actually going to start with ‘Hi I’m Buffy, and you must be Xander’, so I guess I should’ve seen it coming.”
It took Xander a half a second to realize Willow must’ve mentioned him, most likely described him, and probably already told Buffy his entire schedule. This also confirmed the fact that Buffy had met Willow already.
“So I’m guessing Willow got to be your unofficial Sunnydale student guide?”, voicing aloud his guess.
Buffy briefly wondered how he’d guessed that, and replied “Yup, except that its official. Actually, the principal kind of forced me on her this morning.”
“Oh.” Flutie must’ve had really good luck or actually noticed Willow would make a good new-student’s guide. Probably the former. Flutie had so far given the impression that a much better school would be one where all the students didn’t exist, and therefore he pretended they weren’t there most of the time.
“So Buffy,” Xander continued, “what’s your next class?”
Buffy had already taken out her schedule and checked it, and answered, “I have physical science, with you, according to Willow.”
Xander smiled at that. Yup, he knew Willow too well.
The bell rang, signaling the end of first period.
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