Oisin10

To move on to the eleventh entry, please click here.

To return to the ninth entry please click here.

To return to Oisin's Renjyi's main page, please click here.

To return to the Character Introductions page please click here.

To return to the main Bikes and Kites page please click here.

Entry 10 -- Rolling with Royalty
I got to bed late because my stepmother made me turn out the light. That is a hell of a way to begin an entry, but unfortunately, it was true. The next day I got ready for school and since still had a jar of roast peppers in the fridge, I fixed myself a toast, pepper, and mayonaise sandwich for breakfast.

My dad asked me if I was eating peppers for breakfast. Sometimes adults are so dumb it is not funny. I think by the way that they act dumb on purpose. I mean couldn't dad see the sandwich going in to my mouth?

"Oisin, some day the way you eat is going to give you indigestion," sighed my dad.

"Well peppers aren't as bad as coffee," I answered. Several girls in my class liked coffee with lots of sugar and milk sold at fancy coffee houses. It was still coffee though.

After breakfast I put my books on my back and got Stasch balanced on my handlebars and peddaled off to school. I dropped Stasch at the elementary school and headed over to the high school. I locked up the bike though a couple of rich kids have told me taht no one would want to steal a piece of shit like my bicycle. My bike is better condition than most. All the parts are good and some of the work on it is custom. It's a great bike and one I can really use to get me to school each day so I don't have to ride the bus. For those of you adults who have forgotten what a school bus is like, you don't want to know.

I made it in to Honors English just in time. The teacher asked us all to put our books on our desks. She approved the Fountainhead and asked me how I liked it. It was pretty good, but Robert Roark was and is too much a loaner. Still I sympathized with him. Smart people always have to take a load of crap.

Atalaya, the little girl who could do geometry axioms like lightening and aws also good in English, was reading Solomon's Song by Toni Morrison. Joshua Goldfarb was reading the First Circle by a Russian author, and Koli Jameson from Myrtle Hollow had Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. Lenny had picked out 1984 by George Orwell. "At least it's sci-fi," he explained as we drifted down the hall to get dressed for gym.

They made us run around the track which left me tired and hungry and off balance and unready for economics which is my social studies this marking period. I forgot about the nasty kids at my table. Atalaya remembered though. She saved me a seat...at a table where two huge hulking football players sat. I'd just seen those boys have a towel whipping contest in the showers.

Now though they looked bored. Their eyes were positively glassed over. I wanted to tell Atalaya what I'd found out about the missing algebra, but class got started and the teacher rambled on about prices and supplies. What was supposed to happen if the supply of something increased.

Atalaya bravely raised her hands. "Sometimes nothing happens," she said.

"I see. That's not quite the answer I'm looking for," he said.

"What about diamonds?" asked Atalaya.

"Please can somebody else answer?"

"Can't you answer me please?" asked Atalaya. The whole class was watching the sharp little runt of a girl from Honors English.

"What answer do you want. You just told me supply does not effect price."

"For things like diamonds and rubies it doesn't. They still stay way to expensive for most people to afford."

Several kids in the class laughed. They'd caught on just like I did. "What about manure?" I asked. One may as well make it a double play. "It doesn't matter how cheap it gets because who wants...ex-cre-ment, unless you are a farmer of course so why does a manure dealer lower the price."

The teacher tried to steer the class back on track. He asked about ordinary goods holding up a box of pencils. "What happens if I have more pencils?"

Atalaya raised her hand. He avoided her. The teacher got his right answer, but it wasn't much of a victory. After class one of the football players stopped little Atlaya and me in the hall. "That was cool what you guys did in class. You know more about this subject than the teacher."

"We don't know anything," I said. "Our book doesn't have algebra in it."

"You need fucking algebra for social studies."

"You need it for economics," I said. I opened the book and showed the supply and demand lines. A few of them were curved, but most were straight. "You see the rate at which supply and demand changes are slopes. Slopes come from algebra. They're leaving part of it out."

"Yeah, but I'm just taking algebra and lots of us aren't good in math," said the football player.

"I had algebra last year," answered Atalaya.

The football players were late for class, and girls say things boys can't say. We had geometry to look forward to. Our biggest worry was getting to the board. "How you going to get a book of econ with algebra in it?" Atalaya asked me as we headed to class.

"Make another trip to the library at lunch," I answered.

"You don't have a pass," Josh Goldfarb interrupted me.

"They don't ever check," I reminded him.

categories: Bikes, Kites, and All Good Stuff