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“Dude, you should ask her,” James Kittling elbowed Cody in the ribs, as he watched his best friend's head swivel to follow Rogue through the homeroom crowds.

Cody shook his head mutely. “Girls like that don't date guys like me.”

James rolled his eyes, as he stuck his hands into his varsity jacket, and continued down the hall. “Yeah, lonely little unpopular Goth chicks think game winning Left Tackles are beneath them.”

“You forgot to mention she's beautiful, is quite popular with her own crowd, and is, you know, three times more intelligent than me,” Cody pointed out. “I bet she still remembers being my tutor for English last year. It's not like I'm worth much on the intellectual level. Look at who she hangs around with. They say she's dating that Allerdyce kid from the special school. You know, one of the really smart kids.”

“Actually, we're not,” John said from behind the two football players, feeling very brave.

He'd over heard the chatter, and loved nothing better than the story of unrequited love. Something about the fact that it was Rogue under discussion made him feel a little, well, strange, but that was because he'd never had any female friends before.

James pumped his fist. “Score, man, c'mon,” he shoved Cody towards Marie through the crowd.
Cody nearly collided with Rogue, and stopped short, blushing, seemingly unaware that the crowd of freshman and sophomores was parting around his bulk. “Uh. Hi?”

Rogue turned away from the window, perplexed. “Hi? Do I--,”

“It's me, Cody,” the football player shifted his weight from foot to foot, thinking that this was an incredibly bad idea. In fact he should probably leave.

“Oh, do you need more help in English?”

Cody shook his head again, and behind him, James smacked his face with his palm.

“Actually, there's this dance Friday, and I know -- actually, what I was thinking was, maybe, well, actually. Um, will you be there?”

Rogue tried not to grind her teeth. The one week she was grounded, and someone actually wanted to hang out in a significant manner. “Sorry, I'm grounded,” Rogue finally admitted. “I would, but, y'know, my mom's really strict.”

“Oh. Well. Bye. Nice talking to you, really, but I wanted just to, well, bye?” Cody quickly stumbled backwards, and walked away quickly with James. John came up to Rogue, grinning.

“Y'wouldn't like the dance anyway,” he told his friend. “It's supposed to be a mosh pit type thing. Y'know, you'd have to touch someone. What's your deal with that, anyway, my Roguery-Mogery Rogue?”

“First, don't call me that,” Rogue demanded instantly. “Second, you can't just open the book of my life to any page you want, and just jump in. I don't like being touched, end of story.”

“Ah, but it's just the beginning,” St. John grinned brightly. “You know what the Rogue's super power is?”

“I don't touch people?” Marie asked darkly, seeing where this was going.

“You do and you absorb who they are through your skin,” John crowed. “I haven't worked out the mechanics, like whether or not you can control it--,”

“I'd better be able to control it, you kangaroo,” Rogue threatened, as she began making her way to English class. “I wouldn't be able to do anything, otherwise.”

“But it adds pathos,” John wheedled.

“It adds a ton of psychological issues,” Rogue replied. “People who can't touch other people are usually considered to have something wrong with them developmentally for a reason.”

“So you just break out, then,” John suggested. “That's my chapter. You're at this movie, making out--,”

“No kissing, I refuse,” Marie told him, outraged, and gaining a few confused looks from passers by.

“Okay, you're in the mosh pit of the school dance, and you accidentally--,”

“Could you stop using the word “you” in this context, please?” Rogue asked, looking around, as they entered the English classroom.

“Fine,” Johnny shrugged. “R is at a rave, constantly touching and brushing up against people, steadily getting more disoriented, and confused, but keeps on going, because it's a mosh pit, and R is getting clear memories of enjoying the pit from everyone else.”

“My mother would kill me if I went to a rave,” Rogue pointed out, sitting down, and placing her chin on a fist.

“We could include her then,” John replied, enthusiastically.

“No!” Rogue replied. “Oh, and since I'm grounded, can we work at this at my house? I have to be home by 3:15.”

“Sure,” Johnny replied, excited that he would soon meet Rogue's mother.

There was something sickly fascinating about seeing the kind of woman that would fall for Logan. He bet she was one of those tall, red-headed, breast-y types. Of course, that didn't quite explain Marie's looks. He was almost certain that Rogue's white forelock was a genetic condition. He'd heard about it in Biology sometime. One of those aggressive traits in human beings, or something.

Mr. McCoy set down a pile of books as he arrived at his desk. Their soft thwump attracted the attention of the students, who stopped talking.

“Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate,” his mild eyes looked at the class. “Who told who, and who is held in hate? Anyone?”

No one raised a hand.

Mr. McCoy sighed, his broad shoulders straining against his polo shirt. “Despise me
If I did not. Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,

“Iago says, replying to his friend Roderigo. This is the opening of Othello which I am happy to report will be our first book, I should say play, this year. You've all taken a brush up on grammar structures, which I'm certain pleased your foreign language instructors to no end. Now we get to the meat and drink of English. Literature, Shakespeare, and high art! It is quite possible that before the end of this class, I will have equipped you with the knowledge that will save the world. Shakespeare does that to you, you know,” he coughed. “Anyway, I'll be passing around books and a sign out sheet. While we're at it, gimme some themes. I'll want twenty-five of them.”

Rogue looked at John, before raising her hand. She wasn't certain she could get twenty-five themes out of any book, even if it had been written by Shakespeare. Still, first off the bat, and she looked as though she was pretty on the ball.

“Treachery,” she suggested when McCoy pointed to her.

“Good. Kevin!”

The slouching boy with a sour expression on his face mumbled something about “Women.”

“Feminine discourse,” the English teacher corrected. John glared, as that had been the one thing that he had managed to pull from his suddenly cobwebby brain. Still, he'd taken Shakespeare back home, it couldn't be that hard to come up with something.

“Religion?” some girl from the back suggested in a quiet voice.

“Very good,” Mr. McCoy told her. “Shakespeare lived during one of the most turbulent religious periods in Christian history, the Reformation. In England the Dissolution of the Catholic Church had already occurred under the reign of Henry the Eighth. By Elizabeth's time England had gone from Catholicism to Protestantism to Catholicism to Protestantism again. Elizabeth's successor, James the First was publicly Protestant, but many of the majority-protestant English suspected that he was secretly Catholic, given his Catholic-Scottish heritage, and the laws that he passed.

“Shakespeare wrote for both Elizabeth and James. While he may not have had any particularly devout religious leanings, he had to write to appease his patrons, and in this case, religion following the “safe fashion” is often seen in Shakespeare's plays as an undercurrent. But it is almost never explicit. Can anyone guess why?”

“Because if you're dependent on people who change their religious affiliation at the drop of a hat, you could be in serious trouble if you supported the wrong affiliation,” John pointed out rather cynically.

The class went back to thinking up themes that might occur in Othello, with background notes from their teacher as they were mentioned. Most of the class had at least heard of Othello, and Mr. McCoy did start cheating at the very end of class, by putting themes that he thought had been missed on the board. Finally: “Read Act One for next class, and come in prepared to discuss the theme that I'll assign you. I want five questions that you will pose to the class written down, as well as any notes or observations that you have about your theme. Your theme will be e-mailed to you no later than one today, so check your email.”

Rogue stuffed the soft paper copy into her backpack, and rose to leave. “Prepared for Chemistry, Johnny?” she asked.

“Are we making ice cream?” he asked eagerly, having heard that their teacher was planning to teach them about state changes and crystalline structures all at once with yumminess involved.

“Not yet,” Rogue replied, heading out the door. “We've still got Gas Laws to get through.”

“But we get to play with Bunsen burners for the gas laws, don't we?” St. John pointed out with palpable enthusiasm.

“Sometimes I just don't get you.”