Chapter 2 - the pencil

It was hard to concentrate in the lecture a few days later. Chelsea was sitting right in front of him and Jimmy’s attentions were being swallowed up. Even from behind this girl was gorgeous; her perfect hair and sweet smelling perfume. Now her perky, fun-loving tone as she chatted to the girls sitting next to her was giving Jimmy a hard time down below. He chewed on his pencil, trying to listen to the professor at the front. He imagined all of the ways he could introduce himself to her and try get her interest. In that time, he started playing out scenarios in his head; drifting off into a world of fantasy.

All of a sudden, people was starting to get up. Was the lecture over? How had missed that? He picked up his bag and put it on his knee, but as he did so, his chewed up little pencil rolled down and underneath Chelsea’s seat in front.

Embarrassingly, the girl noticed and bent down to pick it up, holding it up and looking at the chewed up end. She turned and leaned over to see Jimmy sat behind her. “This yours?” she asked, with a little disgust.

“Um…” Jimmy mumbled back, his eyes feeling wide, as if he had suddenly been placed under a very bright spot light. He wanted to disown the pencil and claim it was someone else’s, but there was no one sat to the side of him, or even behind. “Yeah…thanks,” he grinned awkwardly, taking the pencil back.

“I see you’re a pencil-chewer,” Chelsea laughed.

Jimmy flushed and tried to laugh back, but the embarrassment was taking over and making him even more awkward than usual. “Not usually. I guess I was just hungry today.”

“Oh, I understand that problem!” Chelsea nodded. “My stomach is constantly rumbling through these classes!” she laughed, putting a hand to her flat stomach.

At that moment, Jimmy could see what Paul had meant; that strange excitement Chelsea seemed to have as she talked about her hunger.

“Yeah,” Jimmy nodded absent-mindedly. Even with these tiered seats, it was as if the tall girl was staring down at him from below; suddenly making him feel like he had to say something else to keep their conversation going. “Um, I bet you have to eat quite a lot more than most girls,” he mumbled, regretting the words as soon as they rolled out of his mouth. “Because you’re so tall!” he corrected himself, feeling his heart beating faster with how badly he was screwing this up. “Tall girls always have to eat more, don’t they?” he fumbled; the blood rushing to his face.

Chelsea laughed and nodded slowly. “Yeah, we definitely do,” she smiled, letting the other girls she was sat by slink away, leaving her with just Jimmy. “Not many people understand that,” she explained. “I can eat so much food after one of these classes!”

“You’ve got an impressive appetite, huh?” Jimmy nodded, pleased that the conversation had somehow recovered. The girl was still here after all.

Chelsea nodded, seeming to consider Jimmy’s words carefully. “Impressive,” she repeated, smiling as if she liked the word a lot. “Yeah, I’d say my appetite was impressive!”

The beautiful girl seemed momentarily content to stare into his eyes, but then a loud, obnoxious ringtone started blasting out from Jimmy’s pocket. He could have sworn he’d put it on silent. “Sorry!” he blurted out, fishing it out of his pocket; the word ‘Mom’ written across the screen making him cringe that Chelsea was there to see how obsessively his mother kept tabs on him.

“No worries,” Chelsea smiled, slinging her bag over her shoulder and brushing her long, dark hair out of her face. “I’ll see you around…”