They finally arrived to their classroom. Every other student was already sitting down and all eyes were on both of them as they entered. The other students were surprised. Why was Craig coming with Sam? The two were nothing like each other. Some groups of students started whispering among themselves. "Why is the quiet guy hanging with the stoner?" "Are they faggots?". Neither Sam or Craig could hear those words but the small giggles that followed made Craig feel uncomfortable.
Mr. Hastings wasn't nice as well. He accused Sam of dragging his friend to his "questionable activities" and advised Craig to be a good student and stay out of bad influences and that he needed to watch out for his studies. Craig felt ashamed and only answered "Yes, sir" to all that the man said. Curiously enough, he barely spoke to Sam. It was like he didn't care much about him.
Then they both sat down. Each desk was designed for two students yet both Sam and Craig were the only ones who didn't have to share their desks, both at the end of the classroom. As Sam sat down he pointed his finger to the unoccupied chair at his side. However, still a little shaken for being scolded and having been the centre of attention, Craig shook his head, not wanting to make his teacher annoyed or giving more reasons for the other classmates to laugh at him. He just wanted everything to be normal so he did what he always did: sit alone at his desk.
Sam shrugged his shoulders, thinking "Whatever" and opened his bag to take out his notebook and pen.
Craig felt a bit guilty. Here was Sam, actually wanting to spend some time with him and even wanting him to sit by his side and Craig just ignored him because of his fear of what others would think and not of what he wanted. He became annoyed at his own actions.
Class was boring, even more than usual. It seemed to go on for hours and hours. He tried to pay attention but Maths just wasn't his thing and he felt his eyes becoming tired. Meanwhile, Sam kept moving his eyes from the teacher to his mobile phone, under the desk. Despite the distance, Craig saw what Sam was doing: playing tetris. Craig chuckled a bit to himself at the other boy's nerve to play a game in the middle of class.
Still he was bored. Craig couldn't even understand what the man was saying or writing on the blackboard. It was just too uninteresting so why would he even listen to that? He just sunk in his chair without noticing it. His mother had always told him to sit straight and so he did once he noticed his bad posture, but it just seemed stupid to sit that way so he sunk a bit again, instantly feeling better. Still the teacher went on and on with his class but Craig didn't care much. He started playing with his pen and bit the once perfect cap.
The teacher was now writing some equations on the blackboard and told the students to answer them in class and to finish the rest at home. Craig suddenly felt more awake. That meant class was almost over! He felt eager once again. If he resolved those equations here in class he'd have more free time at home! That was usually a bad thing to do, because in his rush to finish everything he made some basic mistakes that he missed completely, believing all he did was correct.
And so he looked at the first equation. "Fuck, this seems tough." he thought. "Hastings was telling something about this earlier, but what was it?" He gave up in frustration and moved on to the next equation, which he also didn't know how to solve. He continued this process but he couldn't do any of those equations. "Crap, if only I had listened to the teacher!"
Craig then looked at his student's book. "At least the information is here." he thought. Indeed there was the subject Mr. Hasting had been teaching. He read the small text and looked at the example the book gave. "Okay, now I can do it!" He thought with a smile. He started solving the exercise, like in the example. It didn't take him too long before he finished it. He was about to start to solve the next equation when he noticed that both his answer and the example in the book had the same answer. He found it weird but then he realized that he had just been copying the entire example! Craig chuckled to himself. "What is it with me today?" he wondered, not really caring for an answer. "I'll just finish this at home."
"Mr. Reynolds..." "Mr. Reynolds!" Craig immediately looked at whoever was calling him: it was the teacher "Yes, sir?"
"What seems to be the problem? You're not doing the exercises." The teacher observed.
"Oh, it's nothing. I was just checking to see if I made a mistake." While it was a lie, Craig observed that it wasn't completely false and chuckled to himself as the man say "Very well, then" and turned his back on him.
He really didn't feel like finishing all those exercises but didn't want his teacher to call him out once again so he just faked that he was writing stuff but he found that too boring, so he scribbled on the margins of his notebook, a habit some of his classmates had but he found just silly. But he figured it wasn't all that bad so he kept doing it.
He tried once again to think about the uniform. He was no closer to finding out whoever took his uniform. Did Sam really not know anything about that Cody guy? It made no sense for him to lie, even if Sam knew the guy. After all this all sounded like a prank so Craig was expecting someone to find him and have some laughs at his expense. If it were a prank it wouldn't get any better than this so the culprit would soon show up but if Cody had stolen his uniform because of its scent of weed then he'd discard his uniform as soon as he didn't need it.
Speaking of scent... Craig pulled his red sweatshirt a bit and inhaled the smell. Oh yes, it still had that scent of smoked weed, though it was becoming fainter. "Fuck, so this is the shit Sam smokes? I can see why." He thought, smiling. He had to smell it again and so he pulled his sweatshirt to inhale the smell. Why had he been shocked when Sam offered him some weed? Sam seemed to like it and the smell... it just felt good. He could see himself try it out and even make a habit out of it. Fuck equations, fuck school. He needed a joint.
Some part of him awoke. "What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck am I thinking?!" His head was aching and feeling heavy. Craig looked around him. Good, no one had noticed him. He closed his eyes and massaged the sides of his head, still feeling dizzy.
As he opened his eyes, he felt better and Craig sighed. Immediately his eyes fell upon his notebook and he almost jumped, feeling shocked. It seemed that while lost in his thoughts he had drawn a marijuana leaf on his notebook.
"Aw man, what the hell is going on with me today?" He mumbled to himself, his voice sounding like he had just awoken.
Finally the bell rang and they were dismissed from calss without further strange events for Craig.
The rest of his classes ran as normal as possible. Craig was still freaked out with himself so he wasn't particularly interested in what was being taught. He tried to pay his full attention, nonetheless since he was now scared where his own thoughts might take him. Craig didn't talk to Sam for the rest of the day. He didn't risk talking to him as he needed his thoughts organized and keep focus on his classes, no matter how boring they were. He just wanted the day to end.
Finally Craig got his wish and the day ended. Although he just wanted to go home and forget everything about school, his thoughts or whatever that day had brought, he still searched the school, looking for his uniform. He once again searched the changing room but found no trace of his clothes, then he searched for waste bins all around but still nothing. He even asked the woman in charge of Lost and Found if they had seen any uniform but nothing.
Feeling defeated, he headed home. As he walked the streets, he noticed that Sam was ahead of him. A part of him wanted to leave him be, feeling that maybe Sam was part of the reason he was having those strange thoughts since he was a bad influence but another part of him felt like going with him. Sam had never done anything bad against him, right?