Between them and Nash’s guys, there was still one row of seats free. Thankfully, because immediately I noticed the tension in the room reaching a new height.
Nash pulled his horrified gaze from the young men who were looking at him with hostile coldness and looked at the professor.
“Tell me this is a bad joke, Alarik, and throw them out!”
Alarik?
“I’m still Professor Copeland to you as long as we’re sitting here in this seminar.”
“Damn it! Throw them out!” Nash snapped in a rude tone. His jawbone pressed violently against the taut skin of his face.
“Afraid, Copeland?” it came playfully from the guy with the chin-length deep brown hair on the far right, who leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head.
Nash jumped up and clenched his fists.
“Can they keep their gang shit off campus? This is unbearable,” a girl from our row I didn’t know muttered quietly to her friend with an eye roll, yet loud enough to be heard.
Professor Copeland, who didn’t seem to like the conversation much either, walked over to the wall and turned on the whiteboard with a button.
“You’re all here for the same reason: to learn something.”
With that, he had hit the mark.
Nash vigorously grabbed his things and headed for the door. His group, except for Emely, immediately jumped up and did the same. As they passed the DeLoughreys, with the largest possible distance, they gave them aggressive looks, but this left the three DeLoughrey guys unimpressed.
“Where are you going?” Professor Copeland asked warningly.
“I’m going to tell Father what’s going on. And this time, he’s going to do something about it!”
With those words, they disappeared through the open door.
What was so bad about the three men? So far, they hadn’t done anything.
In Sacramento, there had never been such hostilities, much less this strange cliquishness....
But what did I know about the people here? Except that they were all weird, hated each other, and, according to Grace, had some dirty laundry.
Immediately I remembered her assumptions about the drugs. The professor looked like he needed some, but he seemed like one of the sane ones here. More like he was an excessive coffee drinker who had gone to work without it this morning because he had overslept.
I didn’t know if Professor Copeland was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or if he was taking it calmly because, for a brief moment, he stared hard at the door before shaking his head and going back to the desk in front of the blackboard. There, he jotted down something with a green pen, probably from the university merchandise store that Grace had gleefully told me about last night. The people here were all so excited that their town had its own university.
The professor put the pen aside. He then looked back at us to continue with the seminar.
“Now, where did I stop...” he ran his hand thoughtfully through his hair, making it even messier. “Right, yes... So, as I mentioned before, I want you to learn how to express yourself in a carefully chosen way in writing as well as orally, to get a glimpse of world literature, and over time, we’ll cover some of the classics.”
You could immediately see his enthusiasm, because at the word world literature his eyes began to sparkle.
“At the same time, I will intentionally leave out the rest of the nonsense that you know from your school days. For the first topic, I have brought you a few examples here.”
The seminar had been over relatively quickly. We had had to compare some very lousy applications from former Vanderwood students. So much for data protection here in Canada.
“He’s really nice. I didn’t expect that.”
Grace and Julie were just getting into a lively conversation about Professor Copeland.
“Why wouldn’t he be nice?” Larissa asked, amused.
Grace was about to say something, but then looked conspiratorially at Julie. Julie’s look, on the other hand, avoided her gaze.
Were they back to the drug thing again?
“Because he deals drugs?” Larissa laughed, and the group of students walking next to us gave us a dubious look.
“Guys, you should really stop with the prejudices,” I interjected, lowering my voice intentionally. “Just because you heard it somewhere doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“To be honest, I agree.” Larissa joined me, and we both looked at Grace and Julie, who were exchanging conspiratorial glances. I had a feeling there was something else they weren’t telling us.
“And besides, he’s pretty hot for a professor.”
“Larissa!”
I lightly boxed my grinning friend in the side.
Why did she always have thoughts like that?
“What? I’m sure you secretly agree with me!”
I said nothing in response.
