Finally she spotted Room 354, her American History 1 class. There were only a few other kids in the room, and Tessie looked them over quickly, stopping to give the blond boy sitting near the window a nose-wrinkling smile. He smiled back and Tessie let a maybe register in the back of her mind. She took a seat about halfway down the second aisle and stared blankly at the dusty blackboard.
The day had been pretty disappointing so far, school amounting to nothing more than delaney cards, dress codes and rules – lots and lots of dumb rules: no talking in the hall; go up the steps one at a time, and, of course, on the proper staircase. Tessie figured that you could probably get expelled if you wore the wrong color blouse on the wrong day of the week, and got caught while talking with a friend, going up two steps at a time on a down staircase. The rules alone challenged Tessie to try just that as soon as possible.
'You got a cigarette?'
Tessie was surprised by the girl who had slid into the seat that was attached to the one she was sitting in. She turned to look at the girl and recognized her from another class. She couldn't remember which one though.
'I had to ditch my pack when the Girl's Dean made a search in the Third Floor bathroom.'
'Made a search?' Tessie asked as she reached into her tiny purse for her cigarettes.
'Yeah. I hear she does that for the first few weeks, checks all the bathrooms to catch girls smoking. She comes in and says that she smells smoke and wants to see who has cigarettes on them. All she found was four bowls of floating butts.
Tessie handed the girl a cigarette and remembered her name. 'Sandy? Right? English, this morning.'
'Uh-huh. Prick of a teacher, but this one is okay.'
Tessie glanced at the white card still clutched in her hand. She looked for the name of the teacher who hadn't yet arrived to the class. 'Mr. Sands, you know about him?'
'Yeah. He flusters easily, passes all the girls who wiggle their tits at him, and he's cute.'
'Good afternoon, girls and boys, or.should I say young men and la – I mean, women.' Cute Mr. Sands closed the backdoor of the classroom and angled himself between the textbooks and pocketbooks cluttering the aisle. 'A nice size class, that's good.'
Reaching the front of the room, he turned slowly and faced his students.
'Welcome to my classroom. I'm Mr. Sands, your teacher for the new term.' He sat down behind his desk and spread open a large folder, then began placing little white cards into its neat little rows of slots. 'I'm going to ask you each to tell me your name so that I can get acquainted with all of you, and so that I can write your names on the proper delaney cards. Please do not change your seat or you will not be where your card says you are.'
'Shit,' grumbled the blond boy whose hair glistened from the sun streaming in the window. He looked at Tessie and grinned.
She giggled and enforced the maybe into her thoughts.
Flustered, Mr. Sands just continued slipping cards into slots and wished to himself that he had been an accounting major in college instead. 'Okay, let's start with the first row, first seat. Your name, please.'
It came Tessie's turn, and she sat up straight and tall in her seat, and smiled. 'I'm Tessie,' she said, wiggling her tats at him, 'Tessie Mathesom'
He couldn't help but linger his gaze, just a bit, on the firm breasts that jiggled in front of him. Her red sweater pulled taut on her flesh and her nipples were clearly outlined for him. 'Uh, nice… name. Yes, nice name. Thank you.' He went cat to the next person, and then the neat, in constant awareness of those hard nipples.
Tessie watched his every movement throughout the rest of the period, knowing that he was purposely avoiding her. That was good, she thought, he is a definite contender for my cherry. As he issued books and gave reading assignments, Tessie thought about how she could seduce him She realized she was going to have to be quite bold with this man. He was older than Bob, probably over thirty. Yes, she'd have to be very bold.
At long last, a loud shrill bell rang through the hallways, announcing that there were five minutes left to class. Actually, class ended the moment the bell started to ring. The first sound of it caused a noisy shuffling of books to drown out its ring. By the time the second bell blared, the one that tells you that you may move silently to the next room of indoctrination, all of the classrooms were already emptied of students, and most of the teachers were equally eager to get the first day over with.
Tessie didn't run for the door. Instead, she remained in her seat until the class was empty and she was alone with the very nervous Mr. Sands. She stared at him, one hand playing with a strand of her chestnut hair.
'Aren't you eager to get to your next period, Miss Matheson?'
'I'm not eager to get my feet stepped on again. I thought I'd wait till the halls aren't so crowded.'
'Oh!' He was flustered again, and he looked down at some papers in front of him. 'Very well.'
Tessie took a deep breath and stood up. She pulled at her sweater, and took another deep breath. Courage gathered, she walked slowly up the aisle towards his desk. 'Um, Mr. Sands… um, could you tell me which staircase to take to be on the right side to get to this classroom, this one here.' She thrust the crumpled white card at him and bent over his desk, at just the right angle, the one she practiced in front of her mirror that morning, to show off the top of her breasts and a good amount of cleavage between them.
He didn't look at her, just at the card. 'Uh, the one down the middle hall, the first one you come to.'
She retracted the card and waited.
'Is there something else, Miss Matheson?'
'Yes.''
'What?'
'You are dynamite.'
He turned then, his eyes widely opened by the sight of Tessie's smooth-skinned, round, firm, and very young breasts falling half out of the top of her sweater. They were so close he could have bit them.
Tessie rose, turned, and walked out of the room. Well, she thought, at least that ought to keep him thinking about me.
Her next period was Study Hall; and Tessie decided that she'd cut the first session and thus avoid having a delaney card filled out for her. This way, she figured, she'd never have to show up for it at all. That was her last class before going home, and it made no sense to stay in school an extra period just to sit on a hard seat in the auditorium – only because the school didn't know what else to do with her for the last 45 minutes of the day. Drawing a cigarette out, she pushed her way through the crowded, smoke – filled Third Floor Girl's Room.
'Can you share that?'
'Hi. Sure,' Tessie said, recognizing her friend, Jeanie. 'How'd it go?'
Jeanie inhaled on the cigarette and passed it back to Tessie. 'Boring, how else can the first day of school be?'
The two girls had grown up together, both living on the same block, both going to the same schools since Kindergarten. In the third grade they had become blood sisters after having pierced their fingers with a safety pin, and, holding the fingers together, they had sworn undying friendship to each other. Now, in their junior year of high school, they were still very close friends.
'I'm going to cut out. I'm skipping Study and going across to Nick's. There should be a crowd there by now.'
Jeanie brushed the long strands of her straight, light brown hair from her face. 'There's going to be a party at this guy's house. Jimmy's. He's in my Science Lab, and he's beautiful. Wanna come?'
'I wasn't invited.'
'Yes you were,' Jeanie giggled, 'I just invited you. It'll be all right with Jimmy. I'm sure.'
Tessie didn't need much encouragement. It would be a chance to meet some more people. 'Okay.'
Jeanie decided that her art class was as unimportant as Tessie's study hall, and the two girls left the school through the back of the building, ran across the school yard, through a hole in the black wire fence, and kept naming the three blocks to Jimmy's house.
Jeanie was right, Jimmy didn't mind an extra guest, especially when he saw Tessie. He lived in a small apartment on the first floor of a large apartment house. The apartment was crowded with kids, most of the teenagers holding beer cans, but a few were smoking grass. Some sat in clusters, talking and laughing. Many had paired into couples and were trying to make or were making each other. Boys and girls petted openly, under and over clothing.
Tessie followed Jeanie to the kitchen where they found the beer, about twenty cans of it, chilling in a sink full
