Class ended without Vic even realizing. Lost somewhere in the ringing of his ears was the class bell, and then all of a sudden Marcia had wheeled around in her seat and was facing him, bringing him back to a reality where both her and Mrs. Laramie were fully clothed.

“Hey do you have a cold or something?” Marcia asked.

“Uh, no, why do you say that?” he asked, finding his tongue dry.

“Oh, it’s just that you’ve been sniffling all class.”

Shit, is that how obvious I was about smelling her hair? “Oh, I think I have allergies.” That was good thinking, quick, solid and smooth. Now to get up and get out quickly – a strategy made impossible by what was going on in his pants. He needed to make sure she didn’t see because somehow despite everything that went on in the Academy, she made no secret of finding those things particularly hilarious. And so he sat, awkwardly shuffling things down into his backpack, which actually made things much worse, because she got up, and now her butt was much closer to his eye level than it was before.

“Hey, we were all planning on heading down to Aphrodite’s Landing right now. Want to come?”

“Yes, sure, that’d be great,” he said, trying to look anywhere but her so that he could calm down and actually get out. Aphrodite’s Landing was a town, if you could even call it that – several streets of three-story brownstones and few scattered houses around – about the only other place on their island that had people, and so was the chosen destination for hanging out outside of school.

“Oh good. Looks like it’s going to be rain on the weekend so they said it might be our last chance to enjoy it for a few days.”

“Hey is Agnes coming?” He didn’t really care one way or another if Agnes was coming, but it meant diverting attention from the fact that he said he was going and yet was still sitting at his desk. One thing he at least appreciated about Marcia is that she kept the buttons of her shirt buttoned all the way up, unlike some others … like Kit and Laine.

“Agnes? Are you kidding? She’s the one that wanted to go the most. Even if it was storming I don’t think you could’ve kept her back.”

“Really I didn’t take Agnes for one to –”

“The girl has needs.”

“Right, right.”

She let him sit in silence for another moment, and then finally prompted him. “So? Are you ready to go or not?”

He discovered that mercifully, yes, he was ready to go. And so he got up and slung his backpack over the shoulder, but didn’t get much further than that.

“Vic?” It was Mrs. Laramie’s voice. Most of the students had piled out already but the few that were still there gave knowing smiles and made themselves scarce. “Could you stay behind for a moment?”

Vic swallowed hard.

“Ooh, exciting,” Marcia said with a wink and a cute little shrug of her shoulders.

“No, I don’t think so,” Vic said under his breath.

“Oh relax. See you soon … maybe.”

It was hard watching Marcia go. Not because she left him alone in the room with Mrs. Laramie, but because of the way her hips moved side to side underneath that skirt, and he again started to wonder if he was pitching a tent when his entire attention should have been on his teacher.