Natalia: The Silver Bullet

"So, what's up?" I asked curiously.

"You better take a seat, this is going to take some time to explain." she answered.

I grabbed a nearby chair and placed myself in it.

"So, what I am about to tell you is actually supposed to be kinda confidential so keep it on the down low, alright?"

Intriguing. I nodded in agreement.

"First of all, and sorry if this seems a bit too personal of a question, but I need to ask. What's your sexual orientation?"

Huh... I felt like this was headed in an uncomfortable direction. I never really felt like hiding my less than straight orientation, but the secrecy and the confidentiality made me slightly unnerved.

"I'm... I'm gay."

"I had the feeling." she answered.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
"What the heck was that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Just that it takes one to know one." she answered with a bit of a flustered expression.

Definitely intriguing.

"It turns out that this class year has a bit of an abnormally high percentage of lesbian students."

"How high?"

"Well, statistically, we have an average of 41.2 females every year since 1973. Taking some of the latest surveys into account that means that there usually is one maybe two every year."

"Right..."

"This year there is six, well, seven now that you are here."

"Wow, that's high."

"Yeah, but not statistically unlikely. Roll ten dice enough times and it will eventually become statistically likely that you will have rolled all sixes at least once."

"So, I'm just here for your sexual preference survey?"

"No. I don't know how the school board knows all of this as they normally aren't allowed to collect this kind of information, but they do and now for some reason when they rotated all of the students for the budget cuts they made sure that all of the lesbian students are in the same class."

"Why?"

"No idea. But the school board expects results from this experiment."

"Results? What kind of results?"

"They didn't specify. Publicity, I assume. If some of you became a couple, the school could do a photo-op, put your faces and your stories on their pamphlets and brag about how progressive of an institution they run."

"That sounds borderline illegal, and completely skeezy."

"That's because it is. But that's my job right now."

"To make the lesbians fall in love with each other?"

"Well, even the board knows that we can't young women to start homosexual relationships, but I am supposed to facilitate as many possibilities of it as I legally am allowed to."

"That's fucked up." I covered my mouth quickly signalling that I didn't intend to swear in front of her, but she just shook her hand to signal that she didn't mind.

"Yup, it's completely and utterly fucked up." she answered taking me aback a bit: "But that's not the worst part."

"What is?"

"All six of the other homosexual female students are what the board calls: "Problem students"."

"Like vandalization and ?"

"That would make you a problem student, but if you just make a bit of misconduct and if your grades are bit low, they mark you as a problem student as well."

"That's harsh."

"What's more is that the school board basically values "problem students" as a waste of time, and I am not allowed to in any way assist for what is considered beyond regular teacher duty. No planning of after school study sessions, no contact with parents beyond emergency and delinquency reports, no handing out of extra textbooks or resources that could help, even if I pay for it myself, no nothing."

This all seemed so surreal. How the hell was this even allowed? What a broken system all of this was. I felt right in feeling that school sucked, it's just another Kafkaesque machine of bullshit documents and arbitrary conditions whose purpose is to confuse it's victims in a downward spiral that is impossible to break out of.
And here was poor Abigail, trying to make everything work, her confiding of the massive weight on her shoulders with the only female student that's gay, and not marked as a problem student, brought a feeling of empathy and respect out of me that I hadn't felt in a long time. I wanted to help her out. Her trust in a complete stranger should not be in vain. I had a bunch of my own problems and my grades weren't great either, but I had to try to make myself better.

"How can I help?" I asked anxiously. I swore that I saw tears in the eyes of Abbey.

"The problem is two-fold." she starts up: "First of all, I need to make sure that we make an active effort into making these girls fraternize, or I'll get the boot."

"Yeah, I got that."

"More importantly though, this is going to be a huge moral blow to these poor girls. I don't care what the school board thinks of "problem students", placing a bunch of students who have it rough together is not going to make anything better for anybody, and it's not humane damnit! This is what I need your help for. I don't particularly care about my job position, the problem is, if I go, the school board is just going to have some other teacher with lower moral values to do it instead. However, since I'm not allowed to interfere a whole lot..."

"It will be useful to have a student that is allowed."

"Exactly. Since you are not a problem student, I can have as many of these consultations with you as I want to. I can relay some teacher advice, help to plan study sessions, and everything, as long as you make it look like you are doing it alone. Maybe we can even convince the board that some of these students aren't problem students anymore. I don't know if we can save them all, but we have to try, right?"

"Damn straight we do Abbey."

This was life changing. I walked into the school not wanting to get attached to anything, and here I was confiding in saving six, no seven, poor individuals who have all been bent over and fucked by a broken system made by a self-centered school board who apparently didn't have enough love in their heart and enough brain power to truly think of all of the moral, ethical, and logical consequences of the evil they were doing.

"Class is about to start." Abbey said placing a hand on my shoulder and looking at me in a very motherly way: "The school board has asked me to split you into groups of seven to "experiment" with group work, and guess who you are in group with."

"The other six?"

Abbey just nodded.
The school bell rang signaling that everybody should make their way to the next class.

"You'll see who the girls are once class starts. I would appreciate if we could talk about them in detail, after your school day has ended."

"Of course." I answered.

Thinking back to my observations in class, I had a feeling I already knew who the six girls were.