NEVER Read The Cucumber Paper
Surprisingly, the rest of the week flew by. There was only one fist fight in the halls that ended up dissolving before any of the teachers could jump in to break it up. Two boys were suspended for drinking beer behind the shop supply shed, and one girl announced her pregnancy, and days later, her new boyfriend. Overall, it was a slow week for Manhattan Public High School. Steve did manage to send sixteen students to the office for using profanity and/or texting in class. Darcy successfully pegged a kid in the back row with a paper ball while sitting at Loki's desk. She was very proud. Natasha and Tony were salivating over their prized student, and Bruce was already starting to offer after school tutoring. Peter shockingly seemed to be grasping Tony's helter skelter teaching method, and had even begun creating his own presentations and lectures for class. Thor was enjoying his classes and football practices. So much so that he had specially requested that his friends come to see the first football game of the season that Friday. That is why they were all sitting in the stands, spread out among three rows in the upper corner, watching the Manhattan Mavericks drive the Brookefield Bears into the ground- literally.
"Oh my god!" Clint yelled. "Oh, Jesus. That ankle is totally broken. Don't touch it, you idiot! What are they doing? That kid is in my second period and he just broke that poor guy's ankle! I can never look at him the same way again."
Natasha patted his shoulder distractedly, watching the injured Bear being loaded onto a stretcher and carted off to a hospital. Tony stretched out on the row above them, fiddling with his phone and leaning against Bruce's side. Steve sat on the other side of Clint, paying more attention than anyone else to the actual game. Darcy sat between Loki and Peter on the bench below theirs, keeping a running commentary on the student section.
"See that girl in the bright blue sports bra?" Darcy nudged Peter. "She's dating the quarterback. Last year, he cheated on her with that guy in the black t-shirt. Apparently, she was cheating on him with the same guy. Now that is what I call a fun mistake. Your boring ass date nights just became an inevitable threeway."
Peter pointed out a girl with shorts the size of a napkin. "She's in my fourth period. She and here friend sit right in front of my desk. They talked about their home cures for yeast infections all hour yesterday. I can never again eat garlic."
Darcy laughed hysterically. "We can't be the only ones who notice these things. Hey, Clint?"
"Yeah?" He looked down at her.
"Peter and I are sharing stories about students that we overhear," she explained. "Do you have any?"
Clint gave her a look. "I'm an English teacher. The shit they find okay to share in an essay is astounding. I had this one guy who, in graphic detail, described the surgical removal of a cucumber from his anal cavity after it slipped just a little out of his reach during sex. It was eight pages long. After the first paragraph, I started doing shots."
"That is horrifying," Darcy giggled.
Natasha spoke up. "I had a student once who was taking Korean, and swore he understood everything I said in Latin, but he couldn't really speak the language, and he had no idea how to write it. I gave him a piece to memorize and told him that if he could learn the piece and recite it for me the way it was supposed to be recited, I would attest to the fact that he was fluent in Russian, and he wouldn't have to take any other foreign language classes. A couple of days later, I had him recite it in front of my Russian students. He did it, too. Everything was said perfectly, his accent was impeccable, and he delivered it beautifully. I failed him, and he begged the counseling office to move him to gym."
Darcy and Peter exchanged a "she's a psycho" look. "Why did you fail him if he did it perfectly?"
"It was porn!" Clint burst out. "She gave him Russian porn and he read it in front of the entire class. I was there! He looked so proud of himself until Nat started translating it."
"I proved that he didn't understand. I gave him a piece that was in the wrong language, which he didn't realize, and didn't bother to translate. So he ended up reading Russian porn to a classroom of students who knew exactly what he was saying when he was clueless," Natasha explained with a wicked grin.
Darcy cackled, covering her mouth with her hand. Peter shook his head, grinning appreciatively.
"Hey, we won!" Clint announced. "That's good. Now I can go home and sleep until Monday morning."
"Amen to that!" Darcy high fived him.
Tony stood. "Hey, Steve, are you still volunteering tomorrow, or is that next weekend?"
"Next weekend," Steve answered. "I thought we were going to that new art exhibit tomorrow?"
Tony clapped his hands together. "That's what it was! Natasha, are you still in?"
She shrugged. "When do I ever say no? Anyone else interested?"
"Hell no," Clint muttered.
Peter scrambled for a reply. "Things...laundry...grading."
Bruce mentioned something about a trip to a lab upstate. Loki declined, rather politely for him. They all looked at Darcy.
"I plan to be half naked and drunk, or half naked and eating ice cream from the carton while watching Netflix. So I'm going to go with no, but thanks for the invite," she decided.