Why would this Asian kid look at me like that?

I mean, when your name is Erasmus, you must have a little self-irony.

I know something about it, being Charming.

But apparently this kid took his name very seriously and I couldn't joke about it.

It's like whenever I tried not to act awkward, I would be even more weird. It was a vicious cycle I couldn't escape.

"So, hello everyone," the teacher called everyone's attention, as I had to lean to the right in order to actually see her, for my view was obstructed by a tall, black haired guy, "I'm Ms. Wyatt, your English teacher."

From back there, she was looking like a pixel, like when a camera doesn't focus and everything's blurry, so I realized it was time for me to wear glasses.

I took them out of my pocket and put them on smoothly yet clumsily, and while I did, I felt Erasmus's eyes on me.

What are you looking at, I said in my head, getting frustrated as the judgement began, you've never seen a man wear glasses before?

When I looked up, it almost felt like the room had more light. I could finally see everything in a more clear way.

I realized that the teacher didn't look as young as I thought, she actually had wrinkles all over her cheeks.

Unfortunately, being where I was, I couldn't look at anyone's face. All I could see was the back of their heads.

I looked at Erasmus, though. Without moving my head, I only turned my eyes on him.

Unlike Ms. Wyatt, he had no wrinkles. His skin looked perfect.

"This year," Ms. Wyatt went on, "We're going to take a look at narrative writing, epic and myth, and also some literature basics. We will read something from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but even something from Orwell's Animal Farm."

I didn't know much about Animal Farm, but I loved Romeo and Juliet. I sure as hell, though, wasn't going to say that out loud. Way to kill your reputation in ten seconds.

"To start off today," said Ms. Wyatt, "I'm going to tell you about reading and writing skills."

I don't know if it was Ms. Wyatt that was interesting, but the hour flew by really fast.

"For tomorrow," Ms. Wyatt concluded, "I want you to write about your summer holiday, so you'll read it out loud to the class."

Aw, come on.

I walked by everyone to get to Andrew. Apparently, except for Erasmus and another guy, they were all taller than me.

"Jesus,"  I reached Andrew, who still looked obsessed with that girl, "First day and we already have homework to do?"

Andrew looked at me like he was saying Go away with his eyes, but the girl with the curly hair turned to me and said "I know right!"

I forgot to take off my glasses, so I was afraid I would look dumb to her, but that wasn't entirely bad, since it allowed me to get a pretty good idea of how that girl looked.

She was really short next to Andrew. Her skin was kind of tanned, or maybe naturally dark. Her crazy jet black hair was clearly rendered like that by some product, as the curls looked thick and kind of wet. She was wearing a lot of makeup, but not in a ridiculous way, that made her eyes look really dark. Her eyes, though, were as brown as mine when I looked at the sun, and her plump lips were covered by a black lipstick. She looked pretty, but not really friendly.

"Besides," she kept talking to me, "she didn't even get to know us all. I'm Amber Kafka," she reached for my hand.

"Oh. Hi," I said, clumsily nodding and shaking her cold hand, trying so hard to make a good impression with a firm yet not very steady hold, "I'm Peter--"

"Peter Charming!" she cut me off, "Hard to forget a name like that."

She must have remembered my last name from when I said it to Ms. Wyatt in front of everybody.

"Yours ain't kidding either, Kafka!" I said with an awkward smile on my face.

"We're a couple of weirdos," she smiled back. My first impression of her being unfriendly was completely wrong.

Later on, as we walked to our next class, Andrew and I let her walk ahead of us.

Andrew, who had looked irritated through out the whole small conversation between me and Amber, said to me, "I call dibs on her, by the way."

"What?" I asked, unsure of what his point was supposed to be.

"You were clearly hitting on her," he said looking at me from top to bottom, obviously trying to intimidate me, "So I called dibs."

I clicked my tongue and said, "Listen, I don't know what goes through your mind, but I wasn't hitting on anybody. If anything, she was the one hitting on me."

"Yeah, sure," he laughed way too hard.

I looked at him with disdain, whilst losing a bit of my already non-existing self-esteem.

• — • — • — • — • — • — • — •

The next class we three had was Math. Once again, they sat together in the first rows, so I had to go on and sit next to Erasmus again.

"In this school," said Mrs. Misura, Math's teacher, an old lady who looked just like any cliché strict teacher, "Math is the most important subject. And the most demanding too."

Perfect, I thought. I was a disaster in Math.

Who liked Math, anyway? Even when I managed to solve its problems, it still wasn't appealing to me. I guess it was a subject only for a few selected people. Like, you had to be born good at Math. You couldn't just become it. Like drawing. It's a skill you're born with, not one you acquire in your life.

And I wasn't born good at Math. I don't think I was born good at anything.

I mean, I liked English, and literature, but my grades were never excellent in any subject. And I did not know what I wanted to do after high school.

But I guess it was too early for these thoughts, so I limited myself to listen to Mrs. Misura bragging about how great and important Math was.

Meanwhile, next to me, Erasmus had his head down on his copybook the whole time.

I stole a glance at what he was doing and realized he was drawing dragons. And he was really good at it too.

Although I always imagined Asian people to be on first rows, always listening to the teacher, taking notes and then getting As on their tests.

I guess that was a racist thought of mine.

Erasmus always appeared to be distracted, at times lost in his own thoughts, at times staring out the window. It's like he wasn't even there, at least not with his mind.

He wouldn't even talk to me. Like, never. My first impression of him was that of an anti-social kid. But who was I to judge?

I thought about Evelyn. I thought that, maybe, I missed her.

Even though the last time I talked to her, on that Skype group call, she sounded so weird and kind of shallow, I still thought she was pretty cool.

I wish we would have exchanged phone numbers, so I could text her. Instead, I had to wait for the afternoon to get home, get on Facebook, and chat with her.

If only I could afford one of those iPhones, my life would have been much easier. I don't think I would even need to turn on the computer. I could do everything on the phone.

Recently, Tyler had shown me his brand new iPhone 4. I envied him so much. It looked so cool.

When the bell rang, I realized that I spent the whole hour fangirling over so-called smartphones, that I didn't even listen to one word Mrs. Misura said.

Off to a great start, my subconscious once again sarcastically pointed out to the out of breath me who was desperately trying to reach Amber and Andrew, the latter of which seemed to walk faster on purpose.

Walking as fast as me was Erasmus, who got to me from out of nowhere and actually talked to me.

"Do you have History now?" he asked.

"I do," I said, looking at his grey t-shirt.

"Me too. You know where to sit."

And with that, he walked even faster, so fast that I didn't even see him anymore through the crowd.

What a weird little guy. I guess that was his way of saying "Hey we could be friends, just sit next to me, 'cause I don't even know where to sit myself".

It was nice to know that there were people as awkward as me. Or maybe even more.

• — • — • — • — • — • — • — •

Mr. McBride, our history teacher, was a read-headed man in his forties, with a red beard and big black glasses, almost like mine.

I thought he looked really cool, he kind of reminded me of Van Gogh.

"We have to start from the very beginning of history. We have to start from the first men." He talked sharply and youthful, he was able to get you hooked on what he was saying, "Does any one of you know why Neanderthals didn't survive? Why they became extinct? Let's see... Mr. Andrews?"

Erasmus, once again sitting next to me, raised his head from the copybook and said, "Uh?"

Apparently Mr. McBride didn't get to him as he did to me.

"Pay attention, Mr. Andrews!" said Mr. McBride with a snap of his fingers. He didn't sound mad, he actually looked pretty cool about it, "You, next to him," he pointed at me, and I felt my hands getting sweaty, "Mister...?"

"Charming," I immediately replied trooper-style.

"Mr. Charming," he repeated my name, as I heard some laughter coming from the guys in front of me, "Do you know?"

I hated to be put on the spot. I hated talking in front of the class. And I hated that everyone turned to look at me. All of their eyes were on me. Even though I didn't look at any one of them specifically, I could still feel them.

"Uh..." I cleared my throat, "I guess... um... because everyone and everything around them started to, er, evolve... and they didn't... so they couldn't survive because, uh, there was another species that was... better than them and... they became old news..." i struggled to say, and as I said it I thought that that's pretty much what I was afraid would happen to me if I didn't grow up like everyone else.

I feared everyone would laugh at me for the way I said all that, but they didn't.
Instead they all turned back to Mr. McBride. All I heard was some murmuring in the first rows.

"That's a cool explanation," Mr. McBride said and I felt good with myself as he went on to explain everything in a better and more complex way.

If I were alone in my room, I would jump up and down because I said something cool and I looked cool. But if I did that in front of everyone, the coolness I gained would have disappeared just like that.

I also felt, though, like Erasmus was hating me, and I wanted to avoid that for once, so I said,  "Sorry for that..."

"What?" he asked, raising his head but not looking at me.

"I didn't mean to sound like a smart ass and make you look like a fool or whatever," I whispered.

"Don't worry about that," he tried to whisper, but I think his voice could be heard from the first row, "It was my fault. I wasn't paying attention."

I then looked at his copybook and acted as if it was the first time I'd seen it. "You like dragons?"

"I want to become a cartoonist," he said almost to my ear, "I'm drawing difficult stuff to see how far I can bend this."

"That's pretty cool," I said, looking down at my empty copybook, "Having a talent..."

"Everyone's got one," he didn't sound like he was trying to cheer me up, he was stating it as a fact, "If you don't think you have one, then you just haven't found it yet."

"Easy for you to say," I giggled, "You guys are good at everything."

"It's really not like that," he said and didn't even smile, "That's kind of racist."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling dumb, "I was just joking. I've seen a lot of videos on YouTube of Asian kids playing every kind of instrument like experts so I thought... you know..."

This time he smiled. "I see where you're coming from," he grabbed his pencil and went back to drawing, "But I can assure you... that's a nonsensical stereotype."

"Thanks for telling me..." I grabbed my pencil too, pretending to take notes, "I'm trying to escape stereotypes."

But as much as I wanted to escape them, stereotypes would get to me. In a hard-hitting way. And, unlike in other books, they didn't turn around in my favor.

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Thanks for reading, Robbers! Please consider VOTING and COMMENTING if you liked, as always!

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