2.0, Part I

In another outfit she might have looked different. Might have fit in with the other girls. But she wasn’t wearing a shrunken polo shirt and low rise jeans, or a flouncy mini skirt with high heels that matched her convertible. In fact she stood in stark contrast to the tanned goddess-type models that attended Santa Monica high school. She’d just moved there from Bristol, and this school was exactly what she had expected of the posh beach town. She sighed and turned her parked car off, squeezing out of it in the space between her old Coop and the glossy black Mercedes next to her. She straightened, slammed her door and adjusted her black mini skirt and examined her tights. They had a new run in them from catching on the car door. Fuck, she thought. She had really been trying to avoid that. At home she never gave a fuck if her tights ripped, even liked it for that matter, but here she felt the tall blondes looking down their noses at her. She threw back her own blonde hair and her slim shoulders, slung her rucksack over her shoulder and began towards the administrative offices, rolling up the sleeves on her distressed jean jacket as she went. Fuck these girls, she thought. Fuck them and fuck my parents and their fucking new jobs. I’ll bet Aud is fucking sleeping now. Bolloks is that the time?
She casually hurried to the office, got her schedule and then headed to her first class. Art. After struggling to find her way through the maze of statuesque brick buildings, she arrived in a courtyard spotted with drawing horses and tall boards. She smelled the chemical scent of acrylic paints mixed with sawdust, and heard quiet music coming through the backdoor of an adjoining classroom, which was propped open with a wayward brick. Ah. Shit American fake alternative crap music. Wonderful. It was apparent that she had unintentionally stumbled into her first class of the day, only about twenty or so minutes late. She strolled over to the back door, paused for a moment and shook out her hair before wrenching the heavy door open and stepping inside. The class was gathered at the center of the room, some on tall artist’s stools, some in beanbag chairs on the floor, and others simply laying on tables. She had walked straight into a class meeting of some sort, and it was just her luck to enter through the one door that the whole class was facing. At this point the teacher interrupts the student speaking to acknowledge her.
“You must be our newest transfer student.” He said without getting up.
At this moment she remembered all the American television shows she had ever seen, where the quirky art teacher puts the poor new student on the spot in front of the whole class. I’m a bloody fucking cliché, she thought.
“Yes, that’s me. Fresh off the boat.” She said, trying to diffuse the uncomfortable aspect of the situation. He nodded and gave her a slight smile before gesturing to an empty stool.
“Learn by doing, that’s part of my manifesto.” He said before turning back to the student whom he had just interrupted, and gestured, again, for the boy to continue this time.
In an awkward lurch she moved toward the art stool. The boy had begun talking again and as she sat her rucksack down and took the seat, she noticed that he had an accent. Not like hers though, not British. Something else. Phwoar, we’ve got an Aussie. Well isn’t this just the little UN, she thought.
As she listened to him she realized this wasn’t a class meeting, but more of an art critique. And the art the class was collectively critiquing was the Australian boy’s.