Young Writers Society

Jerica felt like she had no more than sat down when Morri was ordering them to get up. For group work. Ergh. That was always the worst because you either got someone who didn't care at all or someone who cared way too much and she was never sure which was worse. She also wasn't sure which Benji was going to be.

She stood up and stepped into the aisle so Bo could get out, looking around to find where Benji was so they could collaborate. She didn't mind to be the one to move -- she found she could usually pack up and un-pack-up faster than most people, and she didn't have the patience for them to come to her.

And then her eyes locked at him, in the very front row. Right under Morri's nose.

Oh hell no.

She moved a few seats into the row so that Benji wouldn't have to climb over her when she got here. Because he was coming here. She wasn't moving -- not to the front row. She flopped back down and flipped her notebook back open.

Sky... hmmm...

There was only one obvious way to make a poem that rhymed with sky.

High.

She tried to think of another theme that she could take -- something serious and poetic and beautiful. It could never be her. Screw it. She already had the shitposter reputation amongst most of the people in this class, and it seemed like Lordy and Morri knew each other, so she didn't doubt that Lordy had probably already been talking shit about her to Morri.

She smirked a bit and started scratching down her initial ideas. I'll make this meme-tastic.

The conversation with James naturally died out when Evaline noticed that more and more students began to enter the class, and he started to prepare for lecture. She was glad she sat all the way at the end of the row so that no one else (besides James) could sit next to her. It wasn't like she was actually going to actively participate in class, but she pulled out her laptop anyways so she could read through the syllabus for her classes again... and also, maybe, do research on Lordshire, because she was only a little anxious about how much power he had.

She listened to Morrigan enough to be aware that he was listing pairings to write poems. Evaline suddenly found herself glad that she wasn't a student in the class so she didn't have to write poetry, and she was even more relieved when she saw that Morrigan didn't group her with anyone. She watched as James's partner—Clandestine— smiled up at Morrigan then made her way towards him.

Morrigan seemed to give Evaline a thumbs up to figure out how she was handling all this, but she only tightly pressed her lips together in an attempt of a smile at him, and then focused back on her laptop.

It was hard to focus, though. Especially when she heard the name "Rek" being called.



Elias was sitting down in the back when Carter sat next to him with a dude he vaguely recognized from the party yesterday. The two of them chatted, but Elias didn't get his name since Morrigan began to talk. Meh, it was syllabus day, so it wasn't anything important, probably. He said something about sunflowers, and he immediately zoned out his voice.

He took out his phone and started to send a string of texts to Mel about what happened. He also sent a few apologetic texts to Evaline, and then he eventually sent texts to James because he noticed that he was sitting next to her.



Elias then looked up when Morrigan called his name, but he didn't need to hear anything more than "Elias" and "Daniel" and "farms." Ah, perfect, this was like fate. They were going to write a story about farms right after they went on a little field trip yesterday with Nugget. They could practically just write about their day. He was basically an expert.

He gave a goodbye nod to the boys then stood up to scan his eyes around the lecture, but it looked like Daniel was already approaching, so he waved at him and sat back down, figuring there would be an open seat by the time he arrived.

Daniel wasn't sure if he was supposed to be happy or disappointed about the partner poems. On one hand, it sounded fun. On the other hand, he had to change seats so he wasn't sitting next to Benji. Benji hadn't exactly had a full-blown conversation with him earlier, but it had been an improvement from their first night. He felt like they had the very beginnings of a friendship forming.

...If only Morrigan had somehow sensed that.

But even though he wasn't paired with Benji, he was paired with Elias. He had been thinking about their chicken adventure on-and-off since the previous night. Between their actual visit to the farm, his childhood experiences with chickens, and Nugget, this poem was going to be perfect.

He got up, ignoring how Benji had left to go sit with Jerica without even a little head nod as a goodbye. Elias was near the very back of the room - not all the way back, but almost there. Daniel easily slipped into his row and plopped into the seat next to him.

"Hey," Daniel said, grinning.



"Sup, Dan," Elias said with a headnod, then pulled out his laptop. He was starting it up but then gave Daniel another long look. "Where'd you go last night, anyways? You disappeared and I thought I lost you on our way back from getting nuggets."



Daniel gave a little stretch in his seat.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "I ended up going back to my room - I'm not too much of a partier. My roommate and I ended up binging Supernatural all last night instead."

He glanced over at Elias's screen. When he saw it was only just starting up, he decided to play it smart and pull out a piece of lined paper from one of his incredibly thin folders. He spun a pen around his fingers as he tried to figure out how to start their poem.

"Speaking of nuggets," he said, an idea hitting him, "we should write this poem about Nugget and the farm she came from."



The laptop screen whirrled to life, and if Daniel was looking, he'd see that his desktop was littered with files, and the wallpaper was of Elias and his group friends from high school. Such an old pic, but it was timeless. At least he was still friends with Mel and Evaline.

"Oooooh, that's a great idea. Lemme Google that right quick," Elias said, pulling up Chrome and googling "where do chickens come from."



Daniel put his hand on the laptop and pushed it down. It wasn't enough to make the screen go black, but it was enough to hide it from Elias's view.

"Googling takes the fun away," Daniel pointed out. "We don't need to know where Nugget is actually from - we can make it up. And I know how to raise chickens, so we have that part covered, too."



"You know how--" Elias began, first staring at his hand pushing his laptop screen down, but then looking at him with wonder in his eyes. "You know how to raise chickens?! Why didn't you tell me that yesterday? You're basically Nugget's godfather now."



Daniel leaned back in his seat.

"I was too busy following your directions," he said. He couldn't help but grin at the thought of being Nugget's godfather. Taking care of a single, random chicken was easier than taking care of an entire coop full of them. He didn't even have to clean a coop this time. It was a win no matter how he looked at it.

He glanced down at his own paper and tapped his pen against his chin.

"And I'm not a chicken master," he admitted. "I just had to take care of my family's coop because my siblings were always busy and left me to do it - so I picked up a few things here and there."



"Dude, you're basically an expert," Elias said with a grin, leaning back against his chair. "Okay, so why don't you start the story, then? I'll add a sentence. Maybe two. A little flare here and there. We'll see."



Daniel nodded.

"Sounds like a plan to me," he agreed.

He put his pen to the paper and wrote the first thing that came to mind.



His first line done, he put the pen down and slid both it and the paper over to Elias.

"There you go," he said. "As long as we kept up the rhyme, we should be good."



Elias set the paper down and then clicked the pen several times to think, making an incessant annoying noise for several long drawn-out seconds. Then he nodded to himself with a smile, beginning to write with, pun absolytely intended, chicken-scratch handwriting.

He had no idea why Daniel wanted to rhyme the story, but hey, whatever he wanted.



"Aaaand done," Elias said, passing the paper and pen back. "Man, you're really doing this line-by-line, huh?"



Daniel stared at the paper in front of him.

...He wasn't sure what he had expected, but it definitely hadn't been that.

Still, he approved of the rhyme. It was a good way to have some creative liberties - and something told him Morrigan would probably approve of the creativity, too.

"Line-by-line is the easiest way to write a poem together," Daniel replied. He gave the pen a click of his own.



He pushed the paper and pen back to Elias.



Ohhhhhh.

This was a poem. That was why Daniel wanted to rhyme. Well, at least his first contribution fit. Kind of. It was a good thing he noticed when he did, because he was straight up about to write a paragraph since he thought Daniel was insane for only wanting to write a story line-by-line.

He clicked the pen again and wordlessly began to write, thinking reeeeal hard.



He passed the paper back to Daniel with a smug grin.



He studied what Elias had written.

"'Thang' is a little hard to rhyme in the context of this poem," Daniel said, tapping his chin with his pen again as he glanced over at Elias, "but I think I can make it work."

After a moment of mulling it over, he turned back to the paper.



Daniel looked back up at Elias.

"Here," he said, holding the paper out to him. "One chicken-centric farm poem."

Benji's worse nightmare was coming true.

It was the very first day of this class, and he already was given a partner assignment. It wasn't graded. He knew that. But he still hated having to work with something else in general; writing with someone else was even worse. He remembered Jerica from dinner two nights ago and the class they had together the day before. He scanned the front of the room for her, but he didn't see her anywhere.

He gulped.

He turned in his seat and scanned the rows behind him. Jerica was all the way in the back. His mind flickered back to the conversation that had happened at dinner - and how Dr. Lordshire had overheard her making comments about him and his class. This was thankfully a different professor, but Benji wasn't all that excited.

He took a deep breath, glanced back at James, and went to join Jerica in the back row. She had moved a few seats in. He was sure she was expecting him to join her. He didn't have the energy or confidence to fight the decision.

He sat down next to her.

This was a nice distraction from all of her football angst. And she decided to play up the melodramatic side of her, to be sure he wouldn't ask her about the whole Lordy-situation. So she turned towards him with a grin as he sat down next to her. "Benji! My man! How's it going?"



Benji gave a tiny, strained smile of his own.

"It's going good," he managed to get out. Why couldn't have there been a choice in who their partners were? Daniel could be tiring, but at least Benji knew what to expect. And James would have been the perfect partner.

After an awkward pause, he pulled out his notebook for the class and placed it on the desk in front of him. He had already written the date and "Class Notes" at the very top of the first page. Without glancing at Jerica, he wrote down the topic and who he was working with.



Well, this was going to be a struggle, wasn't it? Barely speaking to her, wouldn't look at her. She smirked to herself. He doesn't want to be associated with you. She nearly laughed at the thought. She'd take that reputation -- the chaotic one that the nerds wanted nothing to do with. As long as the profs couldn't get to her to loom directly overhead -- or be like, deans that could expel her -- she didn't particularly care what they thought of her. She was paying to be in the class. May as well make it interesting.

"Okay, so, sky," she said, refusing to be dissuaded. "Your ideas? Shoot."

She would bet money that they weren't having the same ideas just then.



Benji closed his eyes for a moment and thought.

He hadn't written a poem since his tenth grade poetry unit. He wasn't even sure he knew how to write a poem anymore. But when he thought of a sky, his brain immediately went to a very different sky than the one currently outside: a dark one, filled with constellations and clouds slowly drifting across the inky blackness.

He opened his eyes again.

"Stars," he said. He looked over at her. "Stars in a night sky on a slightly cloudy night."

He was afraid to ask what she was thinking of, but this was supposed to be collaborative.

"...What were your ideas?" he finally asked.



She did smirk at him this time. It almost sounded like he was scared of her ideas -- which, fair. Her mind could be a wild place sometimes. Most times. She crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat, trying to think of how they could merge their ideas. Because it was clear that their minds went to very different places, even from the same prompt.

"Stars..." Jerica repeated slowly. Stars... bars... scars... far... They could make this work. Maybe. "Think you can talk about the stars but the rhyme-word be "sky" instead?"



Benji sat a little straighter in his seat. If the entire poem had to rhyme, he wasn't sure he could make it work. But if the rhyming pattern only applied to a few lines at a time, he probably could.

"Stars dance across the night sky..." he started. He paused, stared down at his paper, and tried to come up with another line, "...after the sun says its daily goodbye?"



"Love it," Jerica said, writing the lines down. "What else you got?"



He followed Jerica's lead by writing his two lines down, too.

Then he looked back at her, already having a sinking feeling in his gut. Why did he feel like he'd end up doing all the work for this? This was why he didn't like partner work - he always got stuck doing the work because he hated confronting his partner's about them not doing anything.

Not trusting his rhyming or poetry, he decided it was better to write the lines first.



After looking the poem over, he showed his notebook to Jerica.

"Those are the other rhymes I could think of," he said. Catching a glimpse of Daniel in the row in front of him, he felt a foreign burst of confidence. "What do you have?"



"Love it," Jerica repeated, scratching down the last of his lines. She read them all together and then couldn't help but laugh -- more of a giggle, really. Both proud of herself for her stanza and absolutely delighted at the thought of getting to read this aloud. "One sec."

She scratched down some wording changes to the lines she already had to make it flow better with what Benji had for her.

She read them together and laughed again.

"Okay, so, our brains went to very different places, Benji." She looked up at him with a grin. "So, hear me out, this is what I'm thinking. We merge them. Mine follows yours perfectly."



Benji was starting to get suspicious.

He glanced over at her paper, but the angle made it hard to read what she had written.

"...What's your poem?" he slowly asked. He wasn't sure he wanted an answer.



He wasn't going to like it.

"Okay, so..." she started again, trying to think of how to sell her plan. She kept her notebook angled away from him on purpose. "You probably won't like mine, which is FAIR. I get that people who actually take classes seriously don't like me. And that's fine. Totally fine. So, I'll read this, and make it perfectly clear that we divided and conquered and take all the blame for this one. But..."

She flipped the notebook around so that he could see it.

Elias took the paper and held it out in front of him, feeling satisfied with how the poem turned out.



He noticed Jerica sitting behind him, and although he only minimally interacted with her at yesterday's party, he figured he could strike a conversation now. Hopefully she wasn't too hungover. (Elias, meanwhile, got rid of his hangover at 6AM after he had one too many coffees.)

"Hey, Jerica," he called, turning around to get her attention. He lifted the paper towards her. "Check out this masterpiece that Dan and I made. Basically Emily Dickinson 'cause we dicked around."

Rek walked himself to class because Jerica was being stubborn. Because, of course, she was. And, she was stalling. She kept making excuses -- she was hungry, she needed to do her makeup, she got makeup on her, changing her shirt screwed her hair up. But that was all they were. Excuses. Jerica was always hungry, and she didn't care about any of the other things she claimed to be the hang up. She also always early, to everything, ever.

She was trying to avoid the football team.

She wouldn't admit it when he confronted her, but it was the only explanation. And, based on what he'd seen yesterday, she should be afraid of the football team. He didn't even need to press her for information about the first night at this point -- that jerk had made it clear what it was that Jerica was facing. And Jerica had made it clear that she was going to be stubborn. Because, again, of course, she was.

Rek got up early this morning and washed Bo's hoodie so he could return it. He tried to cram it into his backpack, but it was much too big for that. So he folded it up and walked to class with it. He froze in the doorway when his eyes locked on Evaline. What was she doing here? She wasn't even a student, so why was she coming back to haunt him now?



He put his head down and rushed past her as fast as he could, never acknowledging her. He almost felt about it. But. No. He usually sat closer to the front of the classroom, but she was at the front so he sat in the middle part of the back, a row ahead of Carter and Elias. It was perfect anyway because he was just in front of Bo, so he twisted around to return the hoodie and thank him again.

He was a bit concerned when Jerica still wasn't there at the start of class. He'd assumed she would time it perfectly to walk in right as class started. But she wasn't here. Which either meant that she'd miss-timed it (which he was sure wasn't what happened), she was planning to walk in a few minutes after the start, or she'd gotten accosted by the football team. He hoped she was just planning to get here late.

And then.

Professor Lordshire showed up.

He was becoming increasingly convinced that Lordshire was insane. And he wouldn't at all be surprised if Jerica ended up making friends with him. She had a penchant for attracting and charming the most chaotic people he'd ever met in his life. It certainly kept things interesting.

As if on cue, Lordshire yanked Jerica into view.

Jerica was cringing. Which almost certainly meant Lordshire had caught her doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing. Or maybe she just ran into him randomly and now he was going to give her a well-deserved roasting for her after the way she'd acted in his class yesterday. He smirked a bit. He'd feel bad later if she was actually in trouble -- but for now, he'd enjoy her misfortune.

A few more minutes passed before Morri started the class. And Jerica walked in. She came in cockily -- which meant either the conversation had gone very well, or it had gone very, very badly. He tried to catch her eye, but she wasn't meeting anyone's gaze. He cringed. Badly, then. Okay, now he felt bad for being so pleased when she got yanked away.

But he didn't have time to dwell on it before Morri started announcing partners. Hopefully he got paired with Jerica so he could check in on her, make sure she was okay.

Okay, Carter. Rek bit back a sigh. He didn't particularly want to deal with Carter again today -- not after the way he'd blubbered in front of him last night. What if he asked questions? Demanded explanations, now that Rek wasn't so flustered? He buried his face in his hands.

After his visit to Lordshire's office, Carter found Chaddeus on the way to class, and they ended up sitting next to Elias, but only for a moment. On the first day of class, Morrigan wanted to pair them up with seemingly-not-so-random student pairings to write collaborative poems based on vague, one-word prompts.

How cute.

And of course he had to write a poem about love with Rek of all people.

This would either be fun or a complete disaster. At least Rek wouldn't be drunk for this, but Carter wished he was. The sip of whiskey hardly gave him a buzz.

With a sigh, he got up from his seat and scanned the room until he spotted Rek's head in the middle of the rows of seats. Part of him wanted to wait for Rek to find him, but it didn't look like Rek saw him yet, so Carter weaved through the mess of people (easily hidden because of his height) and snuck up right behind Rek, leaping over into the seat next to him from the row directly behind.

He gracefully plopped his backpack in his lap and leaned back in the chair, looking over to Rek with a little smirk.

"Morning to you, Rek," he said. "For our love poem should it be something traditional and cheesy, or should it be about love lost? Could be about any kind of love really. Love for family. Love for food. Love for music."

Like piano.



Rek's hands were still buried in his face when he felt someone jump over the seat next to him. Suddenly Carter was on his left, smirking and chatting. Of all the people he had to be paired up with for this. Rek sighed. Carter was the worst, aside from being paired with Evaline herself.

"Love for music," Carter finished.

"Oh f*ck you." Rek slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes going wide. He never -- he wasn't like -- Jerica was the one who cursed at people. Not him. "I'm sorry! I didn't..."



Carter's eyebrows shot up just a tad, but other than that, he appeared unfazed. He shrugged, giving Rek a look of understanding.

"Eh, you had a rough night last night. That's fair. I was just throwing out ideas," he said. "What would you want to write about?"



Rek still felt flustered. He rubbed his face. "Literally anything other than this."

He sighed. It seemed like the gods were against him. Last night. Now.

"I don't know," he sighed again. "Just don't make it weird."



Carter nodded slowly. "Okay. We can be chill," he said. He pulled out a little notebook from his backpack and a pen. "Let's go with like, love within a family then. That doesn't have to be weird."

He couldn't really relate, of course, but he could pretend to relate.

He tapped the pen against his chin in thought, flipping to a blank page.

"Do we want it to be structured, or should we just b.s. it?"



"I mean, I think it has to rhyme, so it's not like we'll be able to make it good," Rek answered. "So, bullshit it is, if you're not opposed?"



"Fair, fair," he said. "Ten minute love poems are always going to be shitty. Okay."

He started writing.

the fire burns warm by the hearth

"Fire metaphor. Because love. Like a fire. Super cliche, ya know," he said. "Figure we can just paint a picture of like, a family sitting around a fire. That's all I've got."



"Yeah..." Rek hesitated. "I like it. It's a good line. But what dafuq rhymes that?"



"Earth, mirth, birth, girth," Carter listed quickly, humming as he tapped the pencil against his chin again.



"Earth doesn't rhyme with hearth," Rek interjected. "None of those do."



"The fuck you say it that way for?" Carter asked, turning to him. "It's pronounced hearth like earth."



"The fuck it is," Rek argued, glaring at him. "It's hearth."



Carter blinked slowly at him. He scribbled out his line.

"We will write something else then," he said. "We have eight minutes. I don't want to waste it arguing."

He wrote down a different line instead.



He stopped halfway through the line, humming. Then he slid the notebook over to Rek, offering his pen.

"Something that rhymes with fire," he said. "Building up the imagery of the metaphor."



"And sings together, just like a choir?" Rek shrugged, embarrassed. "I don't know."



Carter wasn't going to argue. Rek clearly was not enthusiastic about their assignment. Neither was Carter, but he wanted to get it done and at least have it be presentable. Especially if they had to read them out loud, which he wouldn't put past Morrigan.



"Here we can put something that maybe they sing to one another. Like, a song of them basically being like 'hey fam, we're in this together, love you,' but you know. More poetic."

He pushed the notebook close to Rek again, offering the pen, expecting him to write something.



"Yeah, that makes sense," Rek said, taking the pen from Carter. He felt bad that he wasn't contributing anything. He was just in such a weird headspace. And all of the romantic in him was... not there.



Rek flushed. It was trash. Complete garbage. He scratched some of the words out and tried again.

Come to my side Find my embrace open to you, my dear
I want you ever near. Papa's strong arms will protect you from all that you fear.

"Great, now I made it weird," Rek sighed, rubbing his face. "Love a hearty side of incest in love poems."



It took all of Carter's self control not to bust out laughing.

Rek was hungover. Sensitive. And clearly, just not having it today.

"We can make it work," Carter said. He had no idea how he was going to make papa's arms work without it sounding awkward.

"Let me try to uh, reword it," he said.



Carter grimaced at his own writing.

"Meh."



"Eh," Rek agreed. "It's better than I could have done. I'm in such a weird headspace today. Sorry for not helping more. I'm fine with this if you are."



"It's good enough. He gave us ten minutes. If he expects something great then he's just signing up for disappointment. This is at least... passable, I guess," Carter said with a shrug.

He flipped to clean page and tore it off, writing down the completed poem.



"There," he said. "We have something."



"Works for me," Rek muttered. He heard commotion behind him, and realized that Elias and Jerica were being ridiculous. Something told him that the two of them hadn't been anywhere near as serious as he and Carter had been.

He looked back to the front of the room, eyes landing on Evaline for a moment, before they snapped away. He sighed again. She was the one who was making him feel bad, not Carter. It hadn't been fair. Any of how he was acting.

"Sorry again," he murmured. "I'm in a pissy mood -- shouldn't have taken it out on you."



Carter looked over to Rek and smiled a little.

"It's ok, man," he said. "Don't worry about it."

He would let it slide under the rug this time.



Rek forced a smile in return, grateful that Carter seemed not to mind. "How are you feeling? I'm hung over as literal fuck."



"Oh, I feel like shit," Carter said with a sigh and a shake of his head. "I have a headache. Right here."

He put his hands on the crown of his head, where he could feel a small bump. It was tender, like a bruise. He didn't remember hitting his head though. He massaged his skull with his fingers and stared out into the room.

"And I'm hungry."



"Same," Rek agreed. "I didn't wake up early enough for breakfast." He gave a little smirk. "You know how it goes."



"I see you're catching on pretty quick," Carter said, returning the smirk and looking at Rek out of the corner of his eyes.



"Yeahhhh..." Rek sighed. "I'm usually not... like..." He rubbed his face. "Yeah... but yeah, Jer's the one who goes hard. I'm usually just along for a few drinks and to make sure her drunk ass gets home safe."



Carter hummed, still rubbing his head.

"You're the responsible one," he concluded.



"No arguments," Rek laughed. "We'd be doomed if we both acted like her..." He hesitated, realizing he was making Jerica sound bad. "Not that it's a bad thing. She's a good friend. She'd take on a grizzly bear to protect a friend, once you have her loyalty... but holy hell, that girl can drink."



"I remember that from last night," Carter said with a little laugh. He was pretty sure Rek said something similar, but the memory was blurry.



Rek laughed too. "Don't even want to know what she did after I left." He shook his head a bit. "But, hey, it seems like it'll be nice living next door to each other." He hesitated, laughing again before he winked at Carter. "Less work to get her home."



Carter looked over at Rek with his chin in his hand, and he was almost tempted to wink back, but Rek seemed in a fragile enough state. Something like that would probably make him flustered again, and Carter didn't feel like dealing with that again. It seemed like he was finally starting to calm down.

But maybe Rek was right. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad that they lived next door to one another.

"True," Carter said with a grin. "I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other, then. If you ever want to come over and game or something, just knock."



"Same to you," Rek said, returning the smile. "I mean... your place is far more interesting than mine. But sometimes it's nice to get out of your own space to study, and library, meh."



"Yeah," Carter agreed. "I'll take you up on that."

"Sounds like a poem I want to see," Jerica said, grabbing the paper from him.

She grinned when she read the first line -- of course, he brought Nugget into it. It was beautiful, really, him of all people being assigned the farm prompt. She read on, her smile growing with each word that she read.


"OH MY F*CKING GOD--" She realized she was being far, far too loud for the volume of the classroom, even though the other groups were still talking amongst themselves. She leaned closer to him, lowering her voice, but not her enthusiasm. "You- hahahah- wow this is!"

She blew a chef's kiss. Then sat back into her seat again and read the rest, giggling the rest of the way through the poem. She looked at him in admiration. "And I thought ours was good."

Elias beamed proudly at Jerica, pleased that she enjoyed it. He basically evolved from Dickinson to Shakespeare.

"Thought you'd like it!" he piped back, maybe a little too loud as well, but he was simply mimicking the noise level from her. "Well, now I have to read yours."

He didn't even wait to receive her permission since he reached over and snatched her paper on her desk. His eyes quickly scanned each line, looking bored at first, but then a grin suddenly tugged at his lips when he read the last two lines, and he started laughing.

"Yo, this is a sick ass poem," he said, looking up at Jerica with his own approval. "Wanna be sky high after class? I got some Snoop Dogg on me."

"Pff, yeah!" She grinned at him. "Is that even a question?"

The day had started awful but was quickly redeeming itself. An absurd poem that she could use to garner a chuckle from the class. And now a bud with bud.

She pulled her phone out, unlocked it, and opened a new contact then held it out to him. "I think me an' you need to be friends, homeboy. Talent clearly recognizes talent here."

Bo got up out of his seat, looking for the Ned guy he didn't know too well personally, but knew because Ned was usually pretty vocal in class. But Bo had only gotten a few seats over when Ned appeared beside him.

"Oh! Hey, Ned," Bo said with a smile. He glanced back the empty spots behind him. "Wanna sit here?"

Ned looked pretty irritated, maybe because he had to travel all the way to the front-and-center seat to sit next to him. "Yeah, yeah, sure," he said with his nasaly voice, getting out a paper. "I'm thinking we write about sunflowers. I think we can get full credit for writing about sunflowers. Morrigan already talked about them today."

Bo sat down and nodded. "Sure, that's cool. Do you want to take turns, writing line by line?"

Ned seemed to give Bo his own paper and pen, acting as if Bo was unable to provide those supplies himself. "Poems flow better by stanzas, not by lines. Especially if they both come from two people with different interpretations. Let's write our own stanzas instead."

Bo looked at the pen and paper. He had some in his backpack, he just hadn't taken it out just yet, but he appreciated Ned offering him some, even if the gesture seemed a little condescending.

"Okay," Bo said with a small smile. "Should we just both write them and then... figure out how to put 'em together?"

"No," Ned said slowly, visibly annoyed that Bo didn't seem to be able to read his mind. "Morrigan compared sunflowers to the direction of the sun it faces. So obviously we write about that. I'll take the first half."

He began to scribble away on the paper.

"Okay."

Bo nodded, deciding it would be best to just let Ned write a stanza and then build off of it when he was done. That did seem best. Ned did seem a little annoyed though, but Bo could understand. Group projects were always a little stressful, and Bo just wanted to do his best to make it not-stressful. He wondered if Ned was having a bad day... but Ned always seemed a little high-strung. Oh, well.

After a few minutes, Ned handed him his paper. "I'm done," he announced. "Let me know what you want to add before you write it."



Bo blinked slowly.

There was uh. A lot to unpack, there.

"Wow, okay," Bo said with a nod. "Tough act to follow."

How was he supposed to make this poem not cringey? He didn't know how to tell Ned that it was bad. Like, really bad. They had less than five minutes left, and the clock was ticking away. He would spare Ned's feelings for the sake of just finishing the poem. He didn't think Ned would respond well to criticism, and Bo decided if he got a bad grade for it, it wasn't the end of the world. This was only one assignment.

"Alright, uh, I think better when writing stuff down, so I'll write my idea on my paper if that's ok, and then you can add it to yours. Okay?"

Ned seemed to shrug, but still looked wary. Bo picked up the pen Ned offered and started writing.



Bo took a few quick seconds to doodle a little sunflower underneath his poem and then handed it to Ned.

"Here ya go," he said with a little smile.

Ned snatched the paper and looked at it with a scowl, his eyes quickly scanning each line.

"Hmmm," he said, clearly in thought. "Could use more sophisticated language. But I suppose this is okay since the time is up."

Bo nodded. "Okay," he said, deciding to leave it at that.

"Hell yeah," Elias said with a grin and a nod, taking Jerica's phone and quickly adding his name and number. He deliberately put a chicken emoji next to his name so that she wouldn't forget to associate him with Nugget.

"Text me your name so I have your number," he said afterwards, handing her phone back. He then glanced back at the front of the room, remembering: oh, right, Evaline.

"Also, got anywhere to be after this?" he asked her. "I got an hour break, but I gotta drop my friend off at my apartment first."

James hadn't even moved to get out of his seat. He watched as Clandestine hurried over to meet him, taking the spot that Benji formerly sat in and sliding into it with a cheerful smile. She bounced in the seat for a moment with an innocent, giddy sort of grin and then turned to him, extending her hand.

"Clandestine," she said with a big smile. "But you can call me Clanny. Nice to meet you!"

James returned the smile and took her hand and shook it. They both gave each other a firm handshake.

"James," he said, pulling his hand away. "Likewise."

Morrigan had already said their names, but it wasn't like they knew each other. The introductions felt natural.

"So! Dragons!" Clanny said, pulling out a notebook and a pencil. "I like our prompt. We could do something that tells a story about a dragon. Like, maybe the lost dragon was separated from its family, and it's looking for them?"

James was glad that Clanny was quick with ideas. He had his laptop open with a document, ready to type, but he liked Clanny's idea better. If Morrigan wanted anything physical handed in it'd be easier if it was just written down.

"I like that," he said. He pulled out a pencil of his own, but anticipated they would share a notebook, since it was a collaborative poem. "So we make the dragon a character. Do we want the poem to be written about the dragon or from the dragon's perspective?"

Clanny looked up and bit her lower lip, humming in thought.

"About the dragon," she said.

"Fair enough," James said. "Do you want to write, or shall I? It may be easier if one of us writes down our ideas and then we can compile them together."

"Oh! That sounds good. I'm not too great at poetry, though," Clanny admitted.

"I can help with that," James said. "Just feed me ideas."

"Perfect," Clanny said. She flashed him a smile. "Teamwork. Okay. Dragon... okay. So I'm thinking, this dragon, she's --"

"It's a she," James noted out loud, more for himself. Clandestine kept talking.

"Far away from home," Clanny continued. "Maybe she doesn't even have a home anymore, or she doesn't know where home's supposed to be. She feels lost because she doesn't know where to go, and everyone she's known has left her. It's been a long time. A long, long time, because dragons live for ages, and now, she's alone. Almost like she's been hidden away...but she has a small spark of hope that someday she'll find a place where she belongs."

As Clandestine was talking, James found himself in a deep focus, letting the details of her story sink in while he tried to filter it out into poetry.



By the time Clandestine finished talking, he was writing the last few lines in a hurried burst of inspiration. He had to keep writing before he lost it. She peered over his shoulder to read it as he pulled away, looking down at his rushed handwriting. He hoped she could read it.

"Oh, wow," Clandestine whispered with a little awe in her voice. "That was so fast."

She looked at James, and asked with a gesture of her hands if she could take it. He nodded.

She took the paper, reading over his two little stanzas.

"It's really sad," she said with a small, sad sort of smile. "But it's good. I like it. You said it better than I ever could."

James shyly nodded his head. There was no perfect way to respond to compliments that also included the person putting themselves down, but he decided it was best to default to a succinct: "Thank you."

"Should we add more?" Clandestine asked. "We've still got a few minutes."

James hummed. "If we add more it might lose its punch, and the meaning may be lost. Longer poems typically require more thought. Especially if we want them to rhyme."

Clanny nodded, still holding the paper in front of her. "True. That makes sense."

She paused, looking like she wanted to say something.

"Can I write our names at the top?"

"Oh," James said. "Yeah. For sure."

"Cool," Clanny smiled. She wrote their names at the top of the paper and added a smiley face at the end. Then she added the date, and Professor Morrigan's name.

"What should the title be?" Clanny asked like she was mulling it over herself.

James looked at their poem. "We could just call it The Lost Dragon," he suggested.

"Think that's too on the nose?" Clandestine asked, putting her finger on her nose.

James chuckled. "Maybe. But we only have two minutes."

Clandestine laughed. "Yeah, right. Okay. The Lost Dragon, it is!"

She wrote it down in big letters over James's scrawled cursive. It added character.

"Now we just need one last finishing touch," Clandestine said.

She shielded the paper with her hand and started scribbling something on the paper. When she pulled her hand away, it was a cartoonish drawing of a dragon all curled up, looking sad.

James laughed a little. "Aww," he said.

"She's a sad little dragon, but at least she's cute," Clandestine said.

James laughed through his nose. "She's got that going for her."

"I mean, if I don't get mauled again by a psychopathic dean?" Jerica smirked at him. "Sounds like the only place I have to be is wherever Snoop Dogg gonna be."

She opened up her phone to text chicken boy -- Elias, apparently -- and realized she had a message from an unknown number. She went ahead and sent him the text he requested, complete with a meme for tax.


Then she tabbed out and went over to mystery message.

She grinned when she read through the messages from Mel last night. She'd forgotten all about that. She sent a quick response.


Jerica clicked her phone off and looked back at Elias. "You meet that chick Mel last night? She seemed chill, too."