The Manga

Certainly there is no "wrong way" to do art; I know that now. It's all a matter of personal perspective. Pablo Picasso proved that. But in Mr. Salimander's class, every piece of art we made had to look as though we took a picture with a camera. What made it worse, was in our 9th grade class, I was the only one who couldn't draw a proper straight line. I had never really taken an interest in art before. But when the semester started and this class became available, I gladly took it over of sex ed. The last thing I wanted to think about was the opposite sex's genital regions. In any case, Mr. Salimander's criticisms made me wish I had taken sex ed instead.

"Make the trunk more straight! There are branches in trees, not hot dogs! Look outside; how many colors do you see? Many! Many, many, many!" He would pace back and forth, watching us.

The girls thought he was hot, it was the only reason they were here. There were no other boys in the class except one, but he was that "special kid" that you felt sorry for when he'd get picked on for being able to name the capital of every country. Or memorizing the phone book. It didn't help that he spoke with a lisp. And he naturally showed no interest in sex at this point; he was happy drawing velociraptors from memory (did I mention he also had a photographic memory? Lucky bastard). He got straight A's.

The girls on the other hand, drew themselves in the popular "anime" style; large colorful eyes, skinny toothpick bodies with large breasts, and always in the heroine pose. They all passed with B's. I think Mr. Salimander had a fetish.

I was lucky if he didn't scoff at my crude drawings of fish and vases. "Look twice, draw once!" He screeched at me one day, while tapping my paper. "If it doesn't LOOK like a vase, it isn't a vase!" (He pronounced "vase" as "vahz"; I had to force myself not to snicker).

"Yes, Mr. Salimander." I sighed in response as I erased. His hand was still on the paper, so when I went to erase, my hand brushed his. He jerked his hand away and stormed off to his desk. It seemed some of the girls noticed this incident and gasped, muttering amongst themselves. I pretended not to notice, trying to press away the mistake I'd made.

Later when I was gathering things from my locker, the girls from class approached me. "Hey!" Sarah, the "leader" per say, called out to me in front of her horde of followers.

"What's up?" I asked nonchalantly.

"Uhm- in class today, we-" She stuttered, and I notice her head turned as her cheeks went slightly pink.

"We wanted to say that we approve of you and Mr. Salimander!" The short one, Melinda was her name, piped up.

"What?" I blinked at them. No thoughts entered my mind. What were they going on about?

Sarah looked back at me and exhaled slowly. "We think you and Mr. Salimander would- uhm. Could-be-a-couple." She ran that last sentence together, it was hard to understand.

All of a sudden the five girls started muttering and squealing about how cute he and I were, especially how nervous he seemed after I touched him; my mind still wasn't comprehending. Then, they stopped.

"Hello, Mr. Salimander~!" They chimed at once.

"Hmph." I heard behind me.

"Ah!" I jumped, turning quickly. "M-Mr. Salimander?"

"I came to give you this."

It was my assignment papers. "Th-thanks.." I whispered as I took them from him.

"I see you're co-operating the other students. You can all work on the ideas for the final project." With that, he walked away.

The second he was out of sight, the girls squealed with excitement as they huddled around me. "That was so sweet!" , "He was thinking of you~!" , "You'd be so good together!"

"GET THE HELL OFF ME!" I waved my arms around, pushing them away. "Get away from me, and get those sick ideas out of your head! You're all delusional; all of you! Get a life!" I threw the papers at them and ran off. What was the big idea? I'd never try to get with my teacher! Especially someone like him!

That night, Sarah came to my door, followed by Melinda. My mother answered the door, and invited them in quickly. She seemed so happy that I "had friends my age over". We sat in my room and they talked at me in their high-pitched fangirl voices while I sat in my chair quietly. "Why are you here?"

"Oh! We picked up the assignment papers. Look, Mr. Salimander put his number on there for you!"

I took the papers and looked over the assignment. Sure enough, in his handwriting, he noted that if I had any questions to call him. "So? Any

teacher would do that."

"He didn't do it for ours." Sarah retorted.

"Because you're gunna pass anyway! Now please leave!" I stood and ushered them out, just when my mother was walking up the stairs.

"Leaving so soon? What about drinks?"

"No! They're leaving!" I pushed them out of my room and slammed the door shut. I heard my mother apologizing to them for my behavior. Whatever, they'll get over it. I convinced myself.



The next month was mid-term finals. I spent most of my time with the girls and their theme; comics. Naturally the girls came up with a manga (japanese style comic book) idea and Henry (the 'special' kid) insisted on drawing out the panels. I was to be the model. On weekends the girls had me do different facial expressions and stand weird ways until they were happy with the outcome. When the weekend before mid-term finals came along, we were tired, and glad to have it finished. Friday was art class, and the unveiling of our masterpiece. When we handed it to the teacher, we all stood around his desk quietly, watching him open the first page slowly.

He picked up our thirty-five page, ink covered beauty and flipped through the pages. I heard Sarah inhale sharply. One picture seemed to catch his eye as he flipped back a page. His eyebrows went up, then he began to cough and stutter, pushing the book away.

"What is this!?" He stood up quickly. "Who's idea was this!?"

Everyone looked up at once. "What do you mean?" Asked Sarah.

"This!" He reached for the book and opened to the page in question. The picture on it made my jaw drop and my eyes go wide. To be honest, I hadn't read the book. Nor asked what it was about. It was a drawing of two men kissing; one who looked like me, and another who looked like Mr. Salimader.

"It's just a story, that's all!" Melinda defended her friend.

"You were apart of this too, why didn't you stop them!" Mr. Salimander turned to me.

"I- I didn't even know! They had me model, that's all!"

"So it IS based off you and I! AND you didn't participate in the assignment!" He stormed out, book in hand.

"He'sh off to the princhipal'sh offiche!" Henry called out.

"Crap!" Sarah ran out the door after him. We all followed.

Mr. Salimander threw open the principal's door and stormed in, us in tow. She had been looking over some papers when he so

rudely interrupted.

"Look at this!" He demanded, throwing the book down to the open page.

She complied, then looked up to him. "And?"

I felt my heart lighten.

"What do you say about this?"

"I say you're fired."

Mr. Salimander stared blankly. "What?"

"You're a fraud. You're under arrest." She motioned at the door, and a police officer walked in, cuffing the middle aged man.

"What is the meaning of this?! Why?"

"You know why, Mr. Pedophile."

All the girls backed away, making an "Ewwww!" noise. The policeman escorted Mr. Salimander away. I felt almost bad for him. Almost.

She waited for them to leave before looking at the seven of us. "Unfortunately your art class was a fraud as well. It was a trap to catch Mr. Salimander. You seven will have to take sexual education for the rest of the school year."

I was the only one to say, "Noo!"

"As for this." The principal flipped through our comic. "It should give you enough credit to pass you through the rest of the year."

"So no sex ed?" I asked hopefully.

"For you? Yes." She raised a brow at me as she closed the manga in her drawer. "Now go home. Class is dismissed for the day for you."

"Yes!" All the girls hissed and skipped out.

I followed slowly, watching her office. Once we were out, she closed the door and shut the blinds. I think she may have had a fetish as well.

We never saw our manga again.