Looking For Alaska

ON THE FIRST MORNING of October, I knew something was wrong as soon as I woke up enough to turn off the alarm clock. The bed didn’t smell right. And I didn’t feel right. It took me a groggy minute before I realized: I felt cold. Well, at the very least, the small fan clipped to my bunk seemed suddenly unnecessary. “It’s cold!” I shouted.

“Oh God, what time is it?” I heard above me.

“Eight-oh-four,” I said.

The Colonel, who didn’t have an alarm clock but almost always woke up to take a shower before mine went off, swung his short legs over the side of the bed, jumped down, and dashed to his dresser. “I suppose I missed my window of opportunity to shower,” he said as he put on a green CULVER CREEK BASKETBALL T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “Oh well. There’s always tomorrow. And it’s not cold. It’s probably eighty.”

Grateful to have slept fully dressed, I just put on shoes, and the Colonel and I jogged to the classrooms. I slid into my seat with twenty seconds to spare. Halfway through class, Madame O’Malley turned around to write something in French on the blackboard, and Alaska passed me a note.

Nice bedhead. Study at McDonald’s for lunch?

Our first significant precalc test was only two days away, so Alaska grabbed the six precalc kids she did not consider Weekday Warriors and piled us into her tiny blue two-door. By happy coincidence, a cute sophomore named Lara ended up sitting on my lap. Lara’d been born in Russia or someplace, and she spoke with a slight accent. Since we were only four layers of clothes from doing it, I took the opportunity to introduce myself.

“I know who you are.” She smiled. “You’re Alaska’s freend from FlowReeda.”

“Yup. Get ready for a lot of dumb questions, ’cause I suck at precalc,” I said.

She started to answer, but then she was thrown back against me as Alaska shot out of the parking lot.

“Kids, meet Blue Citrus. So named because she is a lemon,” Alaska said. “Blue Citrus, meet the kids. If you can find them, you might want to fasten your seat belts. Pudge, you might want to serve as a seat belt for Lara.” What the car lacked in speed, Alaska made up for by refusing to move her foot from the accelerator, damn the consequences. Before we even got off campus, Lara was lurching helplessly whenever Alaska took hard turns, so I took Alaska’s advice and wrapped my arms around Lara’s waist.

“Thanks,” she said, almost inaudibly.

After a fast if reckless three miles to McDonald’s, we ordered seven large french fries to share and then went outside and sat on the lawn. We sat in a circle around the trays of fries, and Alaska taught class, smoking while she ate.

Like any good teacher, she tolerated little dissension. She smoked and talked and ate for an hour without stopping, and I scribbled in my notebook as the muddy waters of tangents and cosines began to clarify. But not everyone was so fortunate.

As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, “Wait, wait. I don’t get it.”

“That’s because you have eight functioning brain cells.”

“Studies show that marijuana is better for your health than those cigarettes,” Hank said.

Alaska swallowed a mouthful of french fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew smoke at Hank. “I may die young,” she said. “But at least I’ll die smart. Now, back to tangents.”