Math Class

“Best thing about dragons,” Milo thought—observing the copper drool dripping down between the chalkboard and a hermetically sealed tapestry of the Times Table—“They eat people.”

Milo wrote this down: “Dragons rule.” He sipped champagne from his Snapple Apple juice bottle. He drew a crude picture of Bob The Dreadful, his dragon, and a boy—that was him—trying to wrestle Bob’s head into a wading pool. He choked a little.

“What am I five?” he thought, and scribbled over the picture, and flipped to the next page in his notebook, and chewed a thread of skin off his upper lip

He took another sip of champagne. It stung in his lip. It tickled in his ears.

“Like a bubble bath,” he thought. “No wonder mom drinks this stuff.”

At the head of the classroom, Mr. Metzger bounced along the chalkboard in a blizzard of polynomials, sequences, sums and inequalities. The edge of his comb over began detaching, rebelling against the plaster that attached it to the top of his bald head.

“I wonder if it’ll go all the way today,” Milo thought.

A ceiling tile above the chalkboard boosted slightly, and Milo watched a pair of gossamer eyes peep in from the darkness above the drool stain on wall of the classroom. Milo kept sipping the champagne.

“You’re never going to make friends like this,” Milo’s dad said when he took away Milo’s sword and breastplate. “Everyone thinks you’re retarded. Go to the park.”

Milo took a golf club and hit rocks at the play equipment with Bob the Dreadful.

“Happy birthday,” said the dragon in the ceiling. “You look terrible . . . Your eyes look . . . like you’ve been jousting.”

“I’m fine,” Milo thought. “There’s nothing special about me.” He pushed his aviators up again on the bridge of his face.

“I don’t mind that you’ve been crying all weekend,” said the dragon. “It’s not your fault that your dad was a junkie.”

Mr. Metzger’s hair flapped up like a ‘C.’ It bounced like Pacman, chomping on his pink scalp.

“Why doesn’t he just cut it off?” Milo thought. “We already know he’s bald.”

A full tile disappeared, and the shadow of a dragonhead stood out before the florescent light reflecting on the air ducts. Bob the Dreadful waved his head to the rhythm of Mr. Metzger’s lesson. Milo’s neck tingled. He almost felt like sleeping.

“Maybe he doesn’t care if you know.” Bob the Dreadful said. He poked his scaly head into the chamber. “Maybe he wants to see if you’re scared to tell him.”

The classroom was all scribbles, and sniffs, and whitewashed concrete. The test would be tomorrow.

“Dis vay ve determine de margins,” Mr. Metzger faced the class for the first time in almost an hour, standing still, abruptly. His hair sprung further toward his shoulder. “Yes? All is klar?”

Nobody spoke.

“Goot.”

Mr. Metzger began marking a new equation on the board. The chalk squeaked.

“I’m hungry,” said Bob the Dreadful. “Do you have any Chiclets?”

“I hate people,” Milo thought. He swallowed half of his champagne. “I want to die.”

“I feel you,” Bob the Dreadful said. “But there’s a large gap between your first statement and the solution you’re proposing . . . Your mom would be devastated . . . as if she’s not devastated enough already . . . let it be about Dad for now . . . one less person, anyway.”

“Dad’s an asshole.”

“True,” Said Bob the Dreadful. “Dad was an asshole . . . he could have picked a better friend than Judas . . . but you can’t cry on your birthday . . . it just shouldn’t happen.”

“What if somebody asks how I’m doing?” Milo thought.

Bob the Dreadful flipped back ten, fifteen ceiling tiles, broke through the aluminum supports, and hopped down. He bent his head a bit, and pretended to barely fit in the room. Then he waddled around Mr. Metzger, letting out a few greasy hiccups.

“I bet Metzger would listen,” He said. “He’s the kind of guy that’d keep stuff to himself.”

“At times like this I wish I had friends,” Thought Milo.

“I’m not your friend?” said Bob the Dreadful.

“It’s not so bad to be alone,” Milo thought.

Bob the Dreadful belched a fiery ribbon, blazing on the face of every student, but they looked right past him. The florescent light above Milo went out, and a charred stain grew out from the other end of the room, flames flickering and dying along its edges.

The buzzer sounded and students filed out of math class. Milo remained, unbudged, and he finished the last of his champagne.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Bob the Dreadful said and lumbered out into the hall with the rest of the 9th grade.

Milo reached under his seat for his backpack and accidentally jabbed his face against the desk in front of him. His aviators fell off.

“Vat is zis?” Mr. Metzger said. “Are you hurt?” He trotted toward where Milo sat near the back of the room. His comb over twitched violently toward the ground, flapping out and back in place as he jabbed his way past the desks.

Tears poured down Milo’s face, soaking his collar. His throat made a soft clucking sound, and he snuffled too. He couldn’t stop snuffling.

When Mr. Metzger stopped by Milo, his hair bounced over like the top of a treasure chest, a perfect mold of his dome.

“Leave off the sunglasses. Let me see you.”

Bob the Dreadful sat in the hallway in one of the chairs outside of the administrative office reading a copy of Dungeon Magazine, looking rather small and pale. Milo grabbed him by the neck, kissing the flubbery fan on his head.

“I thought you were ignoring me,” Bob the Dreadful said. “Did you tell them?”

“I told them that I’ve been having a hard time sleeping,” Milo said. “They suggested Benadryl.”