Dash & Laila
Chapter 1
You don’t shoot a girl’s ear off without consequences. Especially when the ear
belongs to Laila, the hottest girl in the universe. While that hasn’t actually
happened yet, I am admittedly shaking at the prospect.
She came to detention today not wearing a bra. How is anyone supposed to
study in these conditions? It’s torture, if you think about it. In a contest between Mr. Mulch’s English Lit lecture and Laila? Sorry, it isn’t even close.
Not even girls speak to Laila, like ever. She is just too much. Too lithe with
coppery skin and green eyes. Even the hottest girls are intimidated. Today she is wearing black ear pods, which is so unfair because Mr. Mulch can’t see them under her luxuriant dark hair which waterfalls down her back, tied into some exotic silk scarf.
Worse is her scent, which isn’t from some commercial. It has weight, it is
profound, it makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Detention. A Saturday. It is cruel, and whatever Laila did to deserve this I have no idea. It’s not like we talk much. Maybe that’s just as well. Half a dozen sinners.
Not bad enough to call the parents, or the cops, but enough to make us suffer.
In class Mr. Mulch was still droning on about some dead writer from some place
where you can swim in the Mediterranean just like whenever. Maybe Mr. Mulch
was making it sound worse than it was, which was typical. I owe him a paper about it. Except that I’ve been distracted and distraught by hormones and dark forces.
Again.
The blank page sneers at me. Okay, it isn’t exactly blank. So far I’ve drawn a
tiny camel, a bear, a snake and several scorpions. I diligently make more scorpions who shoot fire out of their butts at the tiny humans who run away screaming and on fire. I’d be willing to run out of this class screaming and on fire, trust me.
But the main guy in the book we are reading hasn’t even shot anybody yet, but
you can tell he is thinking about it. So right now I am drawing a small passenger plane, maybe six or eight seats. It’s belching smoke like the girls’ bathroom between classes, and careening over the
Sahara desert. Should I let it land nicely and everyone goes to a pleasant lunch? Or should I crash it into some huge sand dune and then see what happens next? Maybe some people will survive. Humans are annoying that way. And Laila is definitely on this plane. Maybe I can rescue her.