Like Aphrodite on Steroids

Shut up." I laughed, closing my locker.

"No, really," Lend continued. "Dead serious. Dude's a leprechaun."

"Your technical writing professor is not a leprechaun."

"How do you know? This is why you need to ditch next week and come to class with me. You can confirm. Right now all I know is that he has red hair, red skin, is about four feet tall, and wears nothing but green."

I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn't see it through my shiny, pink cell phone. "And why would a leprechaun have a PhD?"

"I don't know. Hanging out at the bottom of rainbows got boring, he was tired of clovers, pots of gold lost their sparkle for him-take your pick. But I'm right. In fact, did I tell you that my lab assistant may or may not be a dryad?"

"Wait-aren't they notoriously lusty?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line.

"Oh, you are not going to that lab again."

Lend laughed and I closed my eyes, picturing how he would look in front of me. "Trust me, there's only one paranormal I'd like to be notoriously lusty for me."

I sighed. "Okay, but I don't think I can find a hag on such short notice."

He laughed again, almost covering the sound of the bell. I looked around, panicked. A stray paper drifted across the now forsaken hallways.

"Crap, I'm gonna be late! I'll talk to you later, okay?" Flipping my phone shut, I ran for the locker room. At least it was gym and there was a little wiggle room.

Or so I thought. Miss Lynn, that hideous creature, was waiting outside the door, marking off girls as they came in. She looked up and smiled, pleased to have caught me in an obvious infraction. "That's half your participation points for the day, Green. Another tardy and I believe you'll qualify for in-school suspension."

Where was Tasey when I needed her? It took all my willpower to suppress an eye roll as I skulked into the locker room. The faint aroma of sweat and mildew greeted me, and I passed girls in various states of undress to get to my locker. I wasn't nearly as fond of this one.

Carlee pulled on her tennis shoes, already good to go. Honestly, how her boobs could be so perky in a sports bra I'd never understand. Or stop envying.

She shook her head. "You should be more careful. Miss Lynn really doesn't like you."

I sighed, pulling out my gym clothes. What school chooses yellow and brown for their colors? Gross. Just, gross. "The feeling's mutual."

"So how was your weekend?"

"Sucktastic. Lend had to go back to school."

"Lame. I'm sorry."

"How was yours?"

Her face lit up. "Great! So John and I got back together, right? And at first I was all like, awesome! But then Friday night he was supposed to call, and he totally didn't, so then I was like-" My eyes glazed over as I tried to pay attention. I liked Carlee, and appreciated having a friend that wasn't undead, but sometimes the effort it took to keep up girl relationships felt like too much.

"-and then he was like, 'If you don't want to'-"

A scream erupted from another aisle. I didn't know whether to be grateful for the interruption or scared of what could be happening. Carlee and I both darted around the corner and found girls covering themselves and shrieking. "What is it?" I shouted, vowing to never again leave Tasey at home.

One of the girls pointed to the next row and I crept toward it, every muscle tense and my back to the wall. The aisle opened in front of me and I shouted, ready to spring at-

Jack.

Stupid, stupid Jack, standing up on one of the wooden benches that lined the middle of the aisle, hands on hips as he surveyed the empty row like some sort of bizarre conqueror.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, horrified.

He looked down at me. "Oh, there you are. I'm supposed to give you something."

"And you couldn't have given it to me somewhere else?" I looked around, exasperated and anxious. Girls were starting to trickle over, past their first shock and now curious.

"What's wrong with here? Here seems plenty nice to me." He patted his pockets, finally muttering, "Aha!" before pulling out a familiar white phone-like device. An IPCA communicator. I'd forgotten how boring they were compared to my supercute cell. He smiled and let it slip through his fingers. I gasped and lunged forward, but he bounced it up off his foot and snatched it out of the air. Grinning, he handed it to me with a flourish.

"Raquel wants you to call so she'll know a good time to talk again, since she doesn't want to disrupt your life."

"And what the bleep do you think you're doing right now?"

A throat cleared next to me and I noticed Carlee standing there. Her shoulders were thrown back and she was giving Jack a weird look. No, not a weird look . . . a hey, baby, fancy meeting you here look. "Who's your friend?" she asked, a giggle following her question.

"Not my friend! So not my friend."

"How did you even get in?" Vicious Redhead Soccer Girl asked. She was eyeing him with a mixture of suspicion and interest. "Do you go here?"

What was wrong with these girls? A psychotic boy appears in the middle of the locker room and they're ready to flirt? Hadn't they watched any high school comedies? We should have been whipping him with wet towels at this point, ferocious in our fury to protect the sanctity of the girls' locker room. Instead, they were concentrating on strategic posture shifts for maximum cleavagization.

Honestly, he wasn't that cute. The curly mop of blond hair and too-big blue eyes got on my nerves. Oh, look at me, I'm so adorable and innocent, I can show up wherever I want and screw with Evie's life!

"Okay," I hissed, nervous at the growing crowd. Miss Lynn would figure out something was going on when no one rushed to start stretching. The more zealous were always out earlier to warm up. "Thanks for the delivery, now go! Away! Now!"

"But I just got here." He stuck out his lower lip in a mock pout.

"Quick, before Miss Lynn-"

"Before I what?" a familiar tenor voice asked behind me. My spine stiffened in terror. This wasn't my fault! Surely I couldn't get in trouble for this. Miss Lynn placed one beefy hand on my shoulder, and it was all I could do to stay standing under the weight.

Jack took his sweet time, looking her up and down, his eyes lingering on her linebacker body.

She growled, "And who is your friend, Green?"

I was dead. I was so, so dead. I was going to be expelled and then I'd never get into Georgetown, and I'd work at the diner for the rest of my life and Lend would marry the dryad lab assistant and they'd have half-tree-and-one-quarter-water-thing babies, and no one would know quite what they were, but they'd be beautiful. And I'd serve them French fries when they came home to visit.

Jack looked at me, exaggerated confusion clouding his face. "I don't know her."

"Oh, really." Miss Lynn was trying not to sound amused, but I could hear the glee in her voice. This was way better than marking me tardy.

"No. I came here to see you. I didn't believe the rumors, but after hearing it on so many continents I had to come and see for myself."

"See what?"

His eyes widened in adulation, his voice taking on a reverent tone. "If it was true that Helen of Troy, nay, Aphrodite herself had been reincarnated in gym teacher form."

The room was utterly silent. Except Vicious Redhead's jaw dropping to the ground with a little plink. Or maybe I imagined that. And then the class did the worst thing possible: They started giggling. Miss Lynn was going to murder me.

Jack fell to his knees on the bench, his eyes rolling back in ecstasy as he clutched both hands to his heart. "Oh, heavens above, to have seen such beauty with my own eyes! It's more than I ever hoped for. But how can I live now, knowing that you're not mine? Please." He crawled forward to the edge of the bench. "Marry me. Nay, marriage will cost us precious moments together. Let us make sweet, passionate love right here. Let me bear your children."

A primal growl signaled Miss Lynn getting over her shock at being thus addressed. She lunged forward; Jack deftly rolled off the bench, jumping up out of her reach.

"Goodness, I didn't expect you to be quite this enthusiastic about my advances. If I don't play hard to get, how will I ever know whether or not you respect me?"

Another growl, this one sounding like "you!" Or perhaps, "eew!" because that's certainly how I felt about this whole exchange. Everyone stopped laughing and watched, wide-eyed with horror, unsure whether to stay or distance themselves from the inevitable outcome, which would quite possibly involve Jack's dismemberment.

I didn't know who to root for.

Dodging another grab, Jack used the bench as a launching point, bouncing off and propelling himself to the top of the row of lockers. If I didn't know for sure he was human, I would have suspected something paranormal behind his acrobatics. He had a future in the Olympics, provided Miss Lynn didn't kill him first.

"How about I call? We'll do lunch." He blew a kiss toward Miss Lynn's increasingly purple face and jumped off onto the next row. I noticed a small flash of light. Panic welled up in my chest, but the entire class had gathered here. No one else saw.

Miss Lynn shoved past me, running to block the exit. "Guard the gym door!" she shouted, eyes blazing as she took up her position and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But Jack was long gone, having eluded both Miss Lynn and any repercussions for his idiotic actions. She fixed her beady black eyes on me, and my stomach sank with the knowledge that I'd have no such luck.

Thanks a lot, Raquel.