The classroom is large and features state-of-the-art equipment. There are wide windows overlooking the school’s giant football stadium. There’s also a teacher standing by the blackboard with a tie and an unkept white beard. He keeps touching it over and over again with his hands. He seems to be nervous, maybe even slightly anxious.
All of the seats are taken except for the ones in the last row. Lara, Elena, and Evan quickly proceed to seat in them. The rest of the students seem fixated on them.
“Welcome, I think that should be everyone!” The professor announces with a discouraging smile. “I hope you’re all doing well on this fine Monday morning. First, let me start off by saying that my name is Jesus Wheeler and…”
“Jesus, take the Wheel!”
Lara interrupts right through Mr. Wheeler’s introductory greeting with an explosive joke.
The classroom erupts in laughter. The professor puts his arms over his waist in an attempt to reinforce his shrinking command.
“Pardon me, miss?” He says with a polite demeanor. This was his first day at the rodeo, and he didn’t want to cause the wrong impression.
“Lara.” She says with defiance. “Lara Lagowski.”
This was a name Mr. Wheeler wasn’t going to forget any time soon. For Lara, teachers were just another mere annoyance of teenage life. They barely presented her with any problems, and those that did, were usually fired under suspicious circumstances.
“Miss Lagowski.” He says with a perplexed look on his face. She was one of his students yet she seemed mature beyond her years.
“I just forgot to do my morning prayer, sir.” Lara replies while trying to soften her naturally raspy voice.
“Your what?” Mr. Wheeler asks out of genuine curiosity. He would not admit it, but he was utterly fascinated with her larger than life persona.
“Yes.” Lara says while placing both of her hands on top of her desk. “I need to send my blessings to Auntie Jules.” She turns to Elena and frowns. “She’s very sick.”
Before Professor Wheeler can respond, the door opens and a colorful new student enters the room.
“Oh, forgive me for not introducing you to the class.” Mr. Wheeler says with a slightly embarrassed look on his face. “Students, this is Aya Yuki.” He pauses and burrows his thick frowns. “Or is it Yuki Aya?”
The girl doesn’t answer and sits in the last remaining empty seat by the front row. Aya has a slim frame and spectacular fiery red hair. Her presence is downright mysterious.
“She’s joining our class this year." Mr. Wheeler says with affection. He had a soft spot for shy students having been one himself. “Where are you from, honey?”
Aya doesn’t mutter a word and continues to sit in silence. Her eyes are fixated on the blackboard positioned directly in front of her.
“Do you speak English, dear?” Mr. Wheeler inquires with an innocent warmth. “Ogenkidesuka?”
He’s happy to show off the little Japanese he learned while studying abroad in Tokyo. Maybe this will make him cooler in the eyes of his pupils. Well, at least he had hoped that would be the case.
“I’m from LA.”
Aya’s voice cuts through the heavy air like a knife. A deafening silence takes over the classroom. It’s up to Mr. Wheeler to make the next move.
“LA? Alright. Wonderful, wonderful…” He says while nervously scratching his scruffy beard. “Now let’s get started with today’s news report, shall we?”
Mr. Wheeler starts talking up a storm and a wave of yawns swallow up the energy leftover in the room. Nobody can seem to escape it except for those sitting in the back row.
“Who is this freak?!” Lara whispers to Elena.
Elena lifts her head up and stares at the strange new student. “My eyes are bleeding from just looking at her.”
“What a weirdo.” Lara replies back while chewing on the pen sandwiched between her pearly whites.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Evan asks. She had been eavesdropping all along and wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to be missing out on the action.
“Of course.” Lara says while throwing a wink Evan’s way. “There’s nothing quite like messing around with new cattle.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Elena says with a devious smile planted across her tiny face. She wants to let Evan know she’ll be joining in on the fun too.
Before Lara can come up with a clear set of instructions, the new student gets up from her seat and hurriedly leaves the classroom. A wave of intrigue livens up the atmosphere again. Everyone seems to be intrigued by her odd behavior.
“Leaving us already?” Mr. Wheeler asks while trying to remain patient. These students were much more of a handful than he had anticipated.
“Kuso kurae!” Aya shouts right back in Japanese before exiting the class.
A thick drop of sweat falls down Mr. Wheeler’s rugged face. He’s struggling to assert his control over the classroom and nothing seems to be going his way. In the meantime, Lara can’t stop chattering with Elena and Evan in the back of the room.
All of the sudden, Lara lunges forward and also gets up from her seat.
“Excuse me, where do you…” Professor Wheeler mumbles while trying not to cry hysterically.
Lara makes a gesture signaling him to stop. Somehow, he resigns and grabs a notebook from his desk. He seems to be over it at this point. Lara leaves the room with a newfound sense of determination and heads towards a certain destination.
Chapter 12
Restroom Encounter
In the sterile environment of the restroom, Aya is rinsing her baby face with freezing cold water. It feels like a ton of ice cubes are hitting her face at once but she doesn’t mind it. On the contrary, she embraces the razor sharp burn.
The restroom’s door turns open in a violent fashion and Lara rushes inside with a sweet smile drawn across her face. However, her eyes can’t conceal the look of someone who’s finally captured her prey.
She pulls out her phone, checks herself in the panoramic screen, and proceeds to speak out loud. “Hi there, creep. Is that clown hair your own creation or were you raised in a traveling circus?”
Aya remains static and an awkward silence invades the room. Lara looks perplexed, she’s accustomed to having her answers met with some sort of visceral reaction. At the very least.
“Hello?” she asks with a slightly less defiant tone.
Aya’s brows lift up her face. A look of heartfelt anger threatens to destroy her calm and collected demeanor.
“Yes?” Aya replies back with a solemn expression. “What do you want?”
Lara seems to be taken aback.
“I’m the one who asks questions around here. You stick to answering them.” Her voice seems to lightly tremble, as if it were to collapse on itself. Who did this girl think she was?
Before Aya can respond, the door swings open yet again. Evan is surprised to find Lara directly staring at Aya. She never looked at anyone except for her own reflection.
Evan looks curiously at the new girl in school and gasps. “Why is her face wet?!” She turns around and looks at Lara in disbelief.
“I don’t know.” Lara says while looking pensive. “She must belong to some sort of tribal cult.”
Evan doesn’t seem to be listening but reminds herself of an unwritten rule that comes with being Lara’s friend. You must always answer back whenever she talks. Unless she specifies you not to.
“It’s so bizarre.” Evan says without acknowledging Aya’s presence. It was never a bad time to assert your dominance over others. Especially with Lara always hovering around.
“Tell me about it.” Lara says with pride. She knew Evan was always there to back her up. “So, where do you live, Pippi?”
Aya twists her upper lip. The primal instinct in her was struggling to find a reason to not slap Lara. However, the other and more civilized part of her was amused by the blond’s over the top theatrics.
“I moved from LA.” Aya s
ays with reluctance. “I already…”
Lara cuts her off before she can finish her sentence. “No.” She demands with a threatening tone. “Where do you live NOW?”
“Cielo Heights.” Aya pauses, clears her throat, and asks another question. “Why?”
“That’s such a nice area!” Evan screams without being able to help herself. “Some would it even call it exclusive.”
Evan turns to Lara for her stamp of approval but Lara still seems hesitant.
“Well, at least it’s not Chinatown.” She says trying to sound unimpressed. “What do your parents do? Do they work for Apple?”
“Nah.” Aya replies with an unflappable coolness. Lara’s aggressive tactics didn’t seem to work on her.
“What do they do for a living then?” Lara asks trying to feign a genuine curiosity.
Aya remains quiet. She wants to intrigue them, to make them work hard for the answer.
Lara, seemingly running out of questions to ask, opts for an intentionally snarky reply. They always got others to spill the truth.
“What are Asians good at besides making sushi and running bazaars?”
“Medicine, science, math, business, the arts. Literally anything.” Evan replies with clarity. It was rare for her to ever try to dissuade Lara’s opinion on something or someone.
Aya seems startled by Evan’s reply. Moments ago she was looking at her as if she were the freakiest thing in the world.
“Both of my parents are doctors. My dad’s a plastic surgeon.” Aya says without batting an eye. She knows she’s about to get on Lara’s good side.
“Ding! Ding! Ding!” Lara exclaims while frenetically grinning her teeth. She had dreamed of having a plastic surgeon on call ever since she was a little girl. “That’ll suffice!”
“Nikki’s going to die!” Evan says with delight. She looks at Lara and both assent in an agreeing nod.
“Listen, we’re two members down and in need of a new recruit.” Lara declares while applying some mascara in the restroom’s tarnished mirror. “Meet us after class and we’ll show you everything you need to know about this stinking school.”
Aya carefully thinks Lara’s offer over as a memory of her past emerges back to haunt her. She had previously dropped out of her last school after being bullied and had hoped for a fresh start at Vista High. Could this be it?
“That is, unless you don’t want to…” Lara says with a poignant smile. “Which in that case…”
“I’ll go.” Aya interrupts Lara and accepts the offer. “I’ll join you guys.” She tries to force a weak smile but it fails to light up her sunken face.
“Great!” Lara exclaims with satisfaction. “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do!”
“You are SO lucky to have found us!” Evan chimes in.
They both walk alway leaving Aya alone in the restroom. She stands in silence for a second and looks at her reflection in the mirror. Her face seems to have been struck by an expression of panic.
Chapter 13
Lunch Break
Lara, Elena, and Evan are hanging out by the school’s Olympic-sized football stadium. They’re lying on the field’s green lawn with a blue and white striped blanket in order to avoid unwanted ant bites. The three of them keep trading their smartphones with a desperate look on their faces.
“Pass!” Evan exclaims while handing Elena’s phone over to Lara. The photo of a muscular guy in his early 20s can be seen across the phone’s screen.
“Ew, ditto!” Lara says before having a sip from a giant plastic cup. The liquid emanating from it appears to be green and viscous. “I’m getting bored. Let’s play a game!”
Elena and Evan straighten up their backs as if they were soldiers about to be sent off to battle. Lara liked to keep them on their toes and impromptu games were a perfect way to do so.
“What do you’ve got in mind?” Elena inquires without trying to sound nervous. She knew she was about to go through another humiliating experience.
“Something I played at a college frat party over the summer.” Lara announces while removing her favorite pair of pink Bvlgari sunglasses. She wanted to see the spectacle that was about to unfold in HD. “It’s called Chug or Carbs!”
“I’ve never heard of that game before.” Evan says with skepticism.
“That’s because you’re in high school, dummy!” Lara remarks with the authority proper of a ruthless dictator.
“How do you play it?” Elena asks in an attempt to kick the fear out of her system. She had been close friends with Lara for over a decade now and had played many of her twisted games along the way. Some of them were legitimate, but most of them were made up and designed to torture whoever participated in them.
“It’s very simple.” Lara explains while turning on the camera on her phone. “You just grab your smoothies and start chugging them down. The loser gets a consolation prize.”
“Shouldn’t the winner be the one receiving the prize?” Evan asks in a monotone voice. She couldn’t believe she was willing to play such a ridiculous game. But that’s what came with belonging to the it clique in school, and nothing worth fighting for came for free.
“You’ll see!” Lara exclaims with a combination of boredom and exasperation. “Stop asking me questions and start chugging, come on!”
Evan and Elena take a deep breath, pick up their respective green smoothies, and start gulping them down. They seem to be moving in slow motion.
Lara flashes a smile of deep satisfaction and starts recording them. “Chug! Chug! Chug!” Lara yells with a derisive tone. Sometimes she was surprised at her own power, at her own way of getting others to do the unthinkable.
Evan and Elena keep drinking the smoothies in huge gulps. Their faces seem to be focused. Each one of them is determined to claim the victory. The only thing worse than playing this game would be losing it.
Before a winner can be declared, a rush of liquid comes pouring out of Evan’s mouth. She drenches her face and part of her neck in a pool of green dye.
“Do me a favor and clean yourself up!” Lara orders with a look of nausea on her face. She couldn’t stand to be embarrassed.
Elena catches the sight of Evan’s vomit and keeps chugging so she can finish the smoothie first. She does so in an incredibly short amount of time.
“We have a winner…!” Lara announces. She gets up from the blanket and goes over to Elena’s side to lift her arm up. She swings it in the air several times before lowering it back down.
As she does so, Evan manages to sneak in a question to Elena. “How did you do that?!” She was absolutely blown away by what had just transpired. Evan could barely keep the sour flavor of the smoothie out of her mouth.
“It’s called having a no gag reflex.” Elena answers with a playful charm. “It comes in handy, especially when…”
“Evan!” Lara interrupts while shutting down their conversation with ease. “You’re the loser. Yet again.”
Evan had a knack for placing last in many of Lara’s schemes. Even though she was her most devoted friend, Lara was usually annoyed by her predisposition to go along with virtually anything she threw at her. At least Elena had some common sense and put up a front at times.
“I love how you guys turned this into a hardcore competition.” Lara says while holding her hands together. She was proud of how her devious little plan had worked out.
Elena looks at Lara in disdain. “Give her the loser’s prize.” She says with a conviction that seems out of character. Elena was often the victim of many of Lara’s harshest critiques. Evan, however, always seemed to go unscathed.
“Oh, right!” Lara says. She had been caught off guard. “I almost forgot!”
Lara digs deep into her handbag and scrambles to find what she’s after. Did she forget to pack it this morning? She continues to rummage through the bag’s contents until she pulls out a small square of something that’s wrapped in tin foil. Lara looks at it closely with uncertainty before drawing it close to he
r nose.
“This is it!” She announces while smelling the suspicious item. “Bon appetit!”
Lara hands the small square over to Evan and proceeds to clean her hands with some sanitizer.
“What is this?” Evan asks with a mortified look on her face.
“It’s a special treat.” Lara answers with an angelic smile. She could be so persuasive when she wanted to.
The Beehive Book One Page 3