Great, I thought, slinging my backpack over my shoulder as I exited the classroom. Time for my next class, sex ed. Such a snooze fest. I rolled my eyes as I thought of our teacher, old Ms. York.
Ms. York was probably the oldest teacher in the school, and it showed in hir teaching style. Shi would drone on and on and wouldn’t take any nonsense from any of hir students. Shi was in hir late 60s and was approaching retirement, which, in the opinion of most of hir students, couldn’t come soon enough.
On my way to class, I passed Nathen in the hallway. Shi looked a little embarrassed and had hir head down, having just come from the bois section of the school but I waved at hir and got hir attention.
“Oh, hey,” shi greeted me sheepishly.
“How did it go?” I asked, genuinely concerned. Shi looked around and sighed.
“Oh, Zane... it was awful. You know Ramona?” I nodded as I pictured the boi that shi was referring to. “Well, unfortunately I got paired with hym instead of Julianna and along with hys brothers, hei was a nightmare. Hei gave me a bois’ name and everything.”
I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. I put my hand up to my mouth as Nathen glared at me.
“Sorry, but you gotta admit... It is pretty funny.” Nathen shook hir head.
“Zane, it’s awful! On top of that because hei wouldn’t leave me alone I almost failed our first presentation. Please make a wish tonight so that I don’t have to go through with this.”
I nodded slowly.
“Alright, I’ll try and come up with something.”
Nathen brightened up a bit.
“Thanks. What class do you have next?”
“Sex ed,” I replied.
“Oh yeah, with the old fart Ms. York?”
I nodded. “You’re so lucky. At least with Mss. Durant, you have something to look at. All I have is an old woman with greying hair.”
Nathen laughed but shrugged hir shoulders.
“Luck of the draw I guess. But hey, at least you don’t have to do home ec and put up with the Birch brothers.”
The bell rang indicating that the next period was about to start. Nathen and I said our goodbyes and headed off to our respective classrooms.
“Well,” I thought as I reached sex ed, “Here goes.”
I was one of the last students to arrive, having been held up by my conversation with Nathen, so I quickly stammered an apology to Ms. York and quickly made my way to my seat. The old woman didn’t even look up from the papers that shi was grading. I shrugged my shoulders and sat down.
If having Ms. York for a teacher was bad enough, I had to share this class with two people that seemed to hate me: Cherry and Minn Quinn.
“Zane,” Minn muttered, glaring at me with hir arms crossed as I sat down next to hir. I returned the greeting in a similar fashion as I placed my bag on the floor. Ever since mom’s law firm became successful, the Quinn family has had it in for us. Minn’s parents seemed to think that we were encroaching on their standing in Lake Point, and similarly, Cherry and Minn seemed to think that I wanted to best them in the social hierarchy at school. Like I actually wanted to be popular? I was just happy hanging out with my friends and trying to make it through school.
Ms. York seemed to be finished with grading hir papers and, having put them away, shi stood up and coughed, getting our attention. “Now, class, we will be continuing our discussion on the differences between women and menne.” Shi clicked a button on the controller in hir hand and a projector started up, displaying on the white board a diagram of a woman and a manne.
With hir pointer, shi pointed at the chest of the manne.
“Now, we’ve already discussed why menne have flat chests and the differences between a vagina and a penis…”
A few of the immature students chuckled at that. Ms. York frowned at them but carried on regardless.
“What we haven’t discussed is the difference between women and menne’s feet and why menne’s feet are far more suited to high heels than women.”
The lesson dragged on like this for another hour. Even I was having a hard time staying awake through Ms. York’s boring presentation. Minn, sitting next to me, already had hir arms folded across hir desk and was fast asleep.
