Nice To Meet You (Hope I Get Your Name)

Who: Sammy and Skye
Where: English class
When: After lunch

If there was one class that Sammy always looked forward to out of the school day, it was English. There were never any numbers in English, or formulas, unless they were a word count or they turned up in a short-story respectively. Those were good places for them, since he never had anything to solve and get wrong in those cases, and that helped his dignity - and his patience - a little. There were never any times when he felt like crumpling up his English homework, or the book they used, and burning it on top of his desk, though countless times he felt like doing such to his science-related homework. Sammy smiled at the thought of burning the thick mathbook in his locker as he sat down in one of the free seats and began sorting his stuff out.

Skye wanted a lighter. She didn't smoke, so didn't carry one with her, but she wanted a lighter so she could burn the English textbook. When, exact, in her life, was the difference between a simile and a metaphor going to come up? Her mother had tried to teach her this kind of thing at home, too - it was required, after all - but Skye just didn't get it. Oh, she could read just fine - a little over her grade level in terms of comprehension and vocabulary - but neither of those had anything to do with this... ugh! Maybe if she ignored it long enough it'd go away on it's own.

When Sammy looked up from lining his notebook and pencil up – though they wouldn’t stay that way for long – he caught the glare Skye was sending her book and had to laugh slightly. He was feeling much better than he had last night, and this morning even, and so he could find amusement in the death glare she was aiming at her book like she wanted it to burst into flames or, better yet, explode. Sammy leaned back in his seat, writing a quick note then pushing his notebook towards Skye. “Are you trying to make the textbook cry?” the note asked.

Skye, not feeling like she wanted to use the language she was currently being taught to use, drew a little (and terribly drawn) picture of a textbook, a little stick grim-reaper, and a little textbook ghost floating above the 'real' one. Feeling slightly better, she wrote - beside her little diagram - the words "If only it had feelings..." and handed the note back. Maybe she should ask the teacher exactly what use this was going to have later in life...

The little drawing nearly had Sammy choking as he looked at it, but he managed to curb the sound and turn it into a cough. The teacher – who he really thought hated him – still aimed a glare his way but he ducked over his textbook in pretense of studying even as he wrote back. “What did it do to you?” He asked next, patting his own book gently as he turned the page along with everyone else despite having read them already. “It’s a book full of words, I’m sure it didn’t mean anything.”

"I hate this subject." Skye wrote back. Then she expressed exactly what she'd been thinking earlier. "When are we ever going to use the difference between a metaphor and a simile in real life?"

“You’re not,” Sammy answered honestly as he slouched down in his seat and pulled his notebook closer to himself. “Unless you’re an English teacher and want others to learn about metaphors and similes, in which case you might use it every day, you never know, right?” Yeah, no one was going to go around spouting off the differences between the two literary tools, not that he knew of.

"Then why," Skye looked vaguely pained, "do I need to know? It's not going to serve me in any great capacity in life. It's not going to help me get a job, or do my laundry, or whatever."

Sammy patted her hand lightly before shrugging, the corner of his mouth quirked upwards giving him a half-smile. “Maybe it’s so that you can sound smart when you’re talking? English professors will probably love you for it if you go to college. They’ll be all “oh, she knows the difference between a metaphor and a simile. Let’s give her an A!”

"I suppose that'd be a good a reason as any." Skye laughed quietly, and hushed when she got a curious look from the teacher.

“Am I being a corrupting influence?” Sammy asked, ducking down further as the teacher turned a not-so-curious, more-disapproving look on him. If he ducked any lower he would probably wind up on the floor, he decided. “Because I would hate it if I got you in trouble…”

"A horrible influence."  Skye agreed, much more softly this time. "I can feel myself being corrupted. It's like being absolutely normal, except with mild glaring from someone else. If you can live with it, I can."

That had him grinning as he turned to look at her, his head dipping as he nodded in answer before scrawling another note across his paper. “I can live with it. It isn’t even that scary a look, so it’s very survivable, like an itch or something, right?” If someone glared at you long enough that was definitely how it felt to Sammy, and the English teacher definitely glared enough.

Skye grinned at Sammy. "Absolutely. Well, not even really an itch. But whatever." She scribbled down a note in her notebook. "As unfortunate as it is, though, I kind of do have to pay attention. I'm not very good at English."

“Oooh, I’ll be quiet then. Sorry.” English was his best subject, so he didn’t get how someone couldn’t be good at it, but he was respectful of their need to pay attention if that was the case. He smiled at Skye once more, leaving one last note. “I’m Sammy, by the way. It was nice talking to you.” 

She scribbled on the note quickly and handed it back. "Skye. Same." And she'd even drawn a little happy face on the bottom.

Sammy leaned over long enough to draw a happy little smiley face as well then looked back up at the teacher at last. It was probably for the best, anyhow, maybe he’d be able to make her dislike him a little less if he was actually noticeably listening to her this time.