Art Competition

June arrived at Ashcroft Academy with little time to spare. After getting out of her car, she took a series of packaged art media for the day’s lessons out of its trunk. Somehow, she arranged most of the cumbersome packages in her left arm, leaving the other side to only carry a large brown portfolio.

She looked around in search of anyone that could help her. Smiling, she spotted one of her best students running towards her. Unfortunately, the student passed her before she could even ask for assistance.

“Good morning, Miss. Summers,” the blonde girl called out while continuing to run to the school.

Sighing, June made her way to the school building, feeling her left arm already starting to get sore. At least she could use the quickest route via the teacher’s entrance. From there, she would only have to walk along a small corridor and turn right to enter a second corridor. Her classroom would be at its end.

After entering the school, June passed the opened door to the teacher’s lounge and took a peek inside. Her small bit of curiosity had an annoying price to pay because, just as she was about to turn right, she heard one of her colleagues call out to her.

“Morning, June. Why the hurry?”

“Good morning, Coach Conroy,” she replied, turning towards her fellow colleague standing at the lounge door. “I was just going to get my classroom ready. I am a bit late.”

“Nonsense, don’t worry about that, you still got time,” he said and then smiled, showing most of his teeth, as a predator would do to its prey. “Why don’t you come inside? We never finished our talk.”

For any outside observer, her lack of interest and annoyance was evident. The problem was he never took “no” for an answer, a firm believer of persistence. It didn’t help his chances either that he never considered offering her a hand in helping her carry her packages.

“I am sorry, I really must get-” Before she could finish giving her an excuse, he surprised her by blocking her path.

“Here, let me help you with that,” he said as he reached out but, to her utter dread, he took the portfolio from her, not caring about how he handled it.

She had always managed to avoid his advances with one excuse or another. Unfortunately, at this very moment, she couldn’t think of one. In her worried state of mind, she didn’t think of the most obvious one.

John and Amelia found themselves standing outside Mrs. Wentworth’s office. He wanted to learn more from his teacher at the cost of her precious free time, but her patience was having none of it to spare. So, he paid for his insistence with a queasy stomach caused by the sudden dislocation.

“How generous of her, we have plenty of time to get to class,” Amelia said with a hint of sarcasm and not appearing to be suffering from the same effects John was.

“At least she didn’t kick us out to the corridor,” John said after regaining his senses and noticing that they were inside their teacher’s empty classroom.

“She’s a witch, John. Not crazy,” Amelia remarked in a hushed voice just as she opened the door to leave.

The corridor was still buzzing with students as the duo walked to their respective lockers. While navigating through the crowd, John decided to train with his proximity sense managing to avoid getting bumped into. He still needed to get used to it as if it was second nature to him. He almost clashed with a jock when his senses flared up due to a series of sudden subtle movements coming from Amelia.

“Amelia, what are you doing?” he asked her.

“What are you on about?” she asked back.

“Amelia, I can sense the subtle movements coming from your eyes and hands,” he replied, annoyed with her non-answer. “What are you doing?”

“You can sense that, that’s so cool,” she said, sounding surprised and yet still avoiding giving him a direct answer.

“Yeah, it seems that, since I am very close to you, it increases my capacity of noticing the finer movements you’re…” he started explaining and then got more annoyed with her still avoiding to answer him. “Hey, you're still avoiding my question.”

“Shhh, I need to concentrate on this part,” she told him. “It’s hard enough to do this without summoning my control circle, your constant questions are making it worse.”

Choosing to stay quiet, John tried to find out through the means of his observe skill. Unfortunately for him, all he got was an error message.

“You’re blocking my powers?!” John asked bewildered. He suddenly remembered a distant memory from when they were younger. She used to give the same non-answers when she was up to something that usually got them in trouble. So, he cautioned her, “Amelia, you promised to Mrs. Wentworth”

“Och, come on, John,” she exclaimed when she stopped walking to face him. “Grow a fucking pair. You used to be brave, what the fuck happened to you?”

That question hit him hard. He suddenly realized the full meaning of what was revealed to him moments ago. Back in the day, each member of the Trio (the twins and him) had a role, his was that of “The Instigator”. He was always the first to identify if there was any trouble looming and due to it was the first to react, causing the other two to spring into action as his supporters. Of course, having Peter “The Finisher” by his side gave him quite a bit of confidence.

Now, he finally knew how it all ended all those years ago. How in a moment of weakness his bravado was stolen from him and his whole world came crumbling down. Respect was lost… Friendships were lost… His best friend had been lost to him. Even though Vanessa Hawthorne had almost destroyed everything he had held dear, Rita Alexander had been the one who caused it to happen through the use of her suggestion powers.

Rita Alexander, the girl who had also been his rival in art class when it came to competing for June’s attention. It was true that she was a self-centered bitch - most likely, the biggest reason why she and Vanessa had gotten along all these years - still, he had some level of respect for her due to her ability to draw and her hard work on the assignments. Having been able to best him more than he did her. That had driven him to be better, what other way was there for a then lonely outcast nerd to catch his hot art teacher’s praise and attention. No jock had ever dared to do anything to him while inside her classroom.

And then, there was Amelia, his best friend. The girl who secretly kept an eye on him when she could have moved on instead. Though, on the night before, she confessed the reason for her staying, doubt still lingered. Her sudden outburst made his doubts even worse, it seemed that she still held some grudge towards him. He knew there was one way to move on and remove those doubts.

“Amelia, I-” John started, breaking the long silence between the two.

“I am sorry, John,” she interrupted him, sounding sincere. “I didn’t mean it. I promise we won’t get in trouble. I was just calibrating my sensors, ok?”

“What for?” he asked, still feeling dejected but preferring to let her explain before he would say what he wanted.

“I am not sure exactly,” she answered. “After all this time, I finally have a clue to figure out what happened to you. I am just increasing my sensors’ detection capabilities in hopes of catching the bitch in the act.”

She then took his hand, giving it a squeeze and smiling at him. Her other hand never stopped moving.

“Ok, I am done,” she sighed after a few seconds. “Man, that consumed a lot of my powers. I hope it works. Let’s get to class.” She tried to resume walking but John just stood there, immobile and staring.

All thought of what John wanted to say to her had left him. He took in the scene in front of him: his art teacher clearly annoyed while his PE teacher was hitting on her.

It was at this time that Amelia noticed the scene and got worried. She knew John had a crush on June, but this reaction from him was not brought by jealousy. It was the way he used to act back in the days of The Trio. A role that John used to do so well, especially when he saw someone in need of rescue.

“John, please don’t do anything stupid, he’s a teacher,” she said as she realized what must have been going through his head. Like old times, John had turned the table on Amelia. When he let go of her hand, her heart skipped a beat both in fear of what he would do and from joy of seeing that part of him surge once again after so long. As he started walking towards the teachers, she followed him close behind readying herself to try and stop him at a moment’s notice.

“Come on, June. I guarantee you’ll have the best time of your life,” the duo heard the coach saying to June, way too sure of himself.

“I bet,” she answered way too politely, still worried about the contents in the portfolio he was manhandling.

“Great, how about tonight?” he asked, not losing the chance handed to him.

In a moment of clarity, John observed his female teacher and an idea came to him. He looked back to Amelia and smiled to try and reassure her. She smiled back hoping that that was a good sign.

“Good morning, Miss Summers,” John called out, ignoring the other teacher. “Those must be heavy. Let me help you.”

“Why thank you, John.” June smiled at him as he took the packages from her.

“Beat it, Newman,” Coach Conroy growled at him. “Can’t you see we are having a private conversation?”

“Yes, Coach,” John answered. “I can see that. But my mother taught me to always be a gentleman and help a lady in distress.”

“Get to class, Newman!”

“That’s just it, Coach,” John said, smiling at him. “Art is my next class. Shall we go, Miss Summers?”

June took the opportunity to reclaim her portfolio and headed to her classroom with her students behind her.

“How was that for a coward?” John whispered to his friend low enough that only she could hear it.

“You wanker!” Amelia whispered back. “You nearly scared the shit out of me.”

Amelia then read on her glasses a message that her sensors picked up just before entering the classroom. “You’ll pay for this, Newman.” She put that message away for them to deal with it later.

“Thank you, John. You can put those down on my desk,” June Summers said just after the bell rang for the beginning of class.

“Right, class, let’s get started,” she called out as she opened her brown portfolio revealing three large drawings. She sighed happily, noticing they were all undamaged. “Can anyone tell me what these are?”

“Those look like da Vinci anatomical drawings, Miss June,” Rita Alexander answered before any of the others could.

“Ah, Rita, thank you,” the teacher said with a smile. “It’s good to see that you managed to arrive on time,” she added, letting her annoyance for what her student did earlier melt away.

“These are three replicas of some of Leonardo da Vinci’s finest works, I made them during my undergrad studies.” She continued admiring her work. “I just love his attention to detail.

“Anyway, we are going to have a small competition for today’s assignment. Whoever hands over the closest copy to any of these three drawings by the end of the period, receives one of them as a prize. Everyone ready?” She waited in excitement as her students each got into position. “Begin!”

John didn’t need much time to decide which of the replicas to copy. He chose the one with the anatomic composition of the hand because he knew it presented the biggest challenge. He had confidence in his ability to draw any of them perfectly but that wouldn't be enough, he needed to have an edge when going against Rita. He hoped that drawing the hardest work was going to be it. Almost everyone hates drawing hands and there were quite a few on that replica, each representing various aspects of the hand anatomy.

“That bitch,” John heard Amelia exclaim after 10 minutes of work.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“She’s doing it to Miss Summers. Most likely trying to cheat her way to win.”

He looked towards Rita and saw her talking to their teacher. He could definitely spot that something wasn’t right. But it was with Rita. She looked tired and had barely started working on her assignment.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am sure,” she retorted. “I am going to do something about this.”

John then saw Amelia quickly typing in thin air.

“Miss Rita Alexander, please report to the principal’s office,” the classroom’s PA system suddenly called out and then repeated itself.

John resumed to work on his drawing not wanting to discuss with Amelia what she had done, he preferred not to annoy her anymore, for now. By the end of class, Rita still wasn’t back and Miss Summers called an end to the competition.

“Ok, everyone,” June announced, “I’ve observed everyone’s work. Some of you did really well. But alas, there can be only one winner. And today’s winner is…”