you've been here how many times...? {matt}

[MELISSA HEWITT]

Matthew Peterson was well-known in the Counselor’s Office. He was infamous for his ditching and, if not that, then his complete and utter disregard for any class he actually attended. Melissa was the lucky counselor to get landed with him when he first showed up in the office his freshman year. Honestly, it had surprised her that a freshman had no care in the world for his lessons. She had been so sure that freshman year was the year they did everything as they were supposed to. It wasn’t until junior year that she expected students to stray. Matthew had taken the road less travelled early on. Rumor was it, he was even getting a friend of his to ditch with him. That was the last thing Melissa wanted but it was, after all, just a rumor.

So, when Matthew showed up in her office today, Melissa was hardly surprised. (Well, she hadn’t been surprised to see him on her list). She expected the usual. For her counseling to go in one ear and out the other. For him to eat most, if not all, of her cookies and insult each and every one of them. If Melissa were to be entirely honest with herself, having Matthew in her office was always something different. Never mind that he acted the same. It was his stories that interested her. It was perfectly reasonable for her to wonder what he did while ditching. Sometimes he told her, and sometimes he didn’t. When he did, though, she listened with rapt attention. Part of her insisted this was for the sake of his guidance lectures.

“Matthew,” Melissa said, setting the plate of cookies out. “Long time no see.” Melissa has no problem with the informality between them; he’d been in here so often, they could practically be friends. If she weren’t an adult, of course. “I suppose it’s the same as usual,” she mused, crossing her leg over the other. Melissa sometimes felt like a child again, when Matthew was in her office. He still acted so young himself; it was practically contagious. It had crossed her mind before and she still considered it now; that Matthew could be Peter Pan. She did get the feeling around him and it was much stronger than most; Melissa wondered if he knew and if he didn’t… well, how? They were quite the same in every way.

[MATTHEW PETERSON]

Rules were stupid. So were teachers. And good-for-nothing-tattle-tales. Those were stupid, too. Matt hated tattle tales; that was why he’d never tattled on anyone ever in his whole entire life—at least, not that he remembered. The reason Matt hated tattle tales so much was that it was because of them he always ended up down here in the first place: the Guidance Office. The way Matt saw it, he had to have been ratted out by some kid, because there was no way on earth any adult he’d ever met would ever be halfway smart enough to figure out just how often he climbed trees instead of class. Kids were stupider, the older they got. There had been a time when he probably could’ve gotten a bunch of them to ditch and climb trees with him, too. Back in second grade it’d worked.

He also hated Melissa. Her name sure sounded an awful lot like Michele, and that put him on edge right from the get-go freshman year; he didn’t like people that sounded like his step-mother. They were always fishy. Plus, there was a fact that she was always giving him cookies, like she knew how much he loved them or something and was just trying to get information out of him with a peace offering. Which, he’d been happy to tell Addison many times, was a trick he’d never fallen for. Not even once. Matt saw right through Mopey Melissa (he couldn’t quite think of a better insult, and flat out refused to call his teachers by their last names—yet another reason why he was so well-known down in the office), and he was sure she didn’t know it yet, because she was still always trying to give him those cookies.

Today, they were M&M. He glared at the tray as he sat down in the chair across from her desk, cursing every last gooey, sweet morsel buried within that delicious dough, trying very hard not to think of just how wonderful they’d taste if he took a—too late. It was all part of the plan, of course, he reminded himself as he snatched a treat off the tray and chomped down. He made a face. “These are gross,” was his usual greeting as he shook his head, scrunching his brows together and pursing his lips. “What’d ya do, use rotten M’s?” still, he swallowed. Being of the belief that the “M”’s in the cookies were two separate things, Matt only referred to them as singular items. He took another bite despite the suspicious look on his face, clearly suggesting he thought her perfectly capable of putting some sort of poison in the deceivingly delicious-looking things.

“ ‘Course it’s the same. I’m great, and I donno why I’m in here. You’re all a bunch’a ninckypoops,” he replied, eager for whatever reason to show off the new vocabulary word he’d learned from Addison the other day, naturally believing it impossible to have pronounced it wrong. He grinned, chocolate stuck to his two front teeth as he swallowed the last of the first cookie and reached for another. “I got a History test today,” he continued out of the blue, perhaps not-so-subtly warning her that he didn’t plan on attending that particular class this afternoon.

[MELISSA HEWITT]

As expected, he insulted her baking the moment he'd taken a bite of the cookies. They had M&M's baked into them today, making them particularly chocolatey. She'd always liked the idea of putting candy into cookies but there were only so many candies that tasted good in cookies. She was still trying to figure out all of the different combinations worth trying. "Of course I did," she replied, reminding herself that she was an adult when her sarcasm was a bit too biting. "They taste so much better than perfectly fresh M&M's." Sometimes Melissa felt that her sarcasm was her best bet when meeting with Matthew. However, he was hardly unsettled by anything so it never really worked.

Melissa took a cookie for herself and ate it slowly, relishing each bite. Every student that sat across from her always seemed suspicious of the cookies until she'd had one. Then, they seemed to believe that it couldn't possibly be poisoned. She just wished they trusted more easily. Melissa laughed quietly, unable to help it. His confidence was the same as ever. She raised her eyebrows slightly, "it's nincompoops." Correcting was second nature to her and even if he refused to believe her, at least he'd be able to use it correctly if there was a next time. "You really don't know why you're here?" She asked curiously, "despite being in here so often?"

Melissa shifted in her seat, finising her first cookie as well. She didn't reach for another one, instead folding her hands in her lap. "Do you?" She asked, almost uninterested. It wasn't rare for Matthew to tell her something like this. She'd realized soon enough that he never intended to participate in the things he'd mentioned. He wasn't going to take a History test or participate in a group project. He had better things to do. "I don't suppose you'll take it?" It was silly of her to ask when she knew the answer. "Have something else planned, don't you?"

[MATTHEW PETERSON]

“I knew it!” Matt exclaimed, spewing a few tiny flecks of cookie as he gesticulated wildly in Melissa’s direction. “I knew you were trying to poison me! And you thought I wouldn’t notice…” his eyes narrowed as the last sentence escaped his lips, tone becoming more accusatory as he stared down his arch nemesis of the moment. Then he took another bite.

And remained standing—or, well, sitting. Strange. Maybe it was a slow working poison…one designed to attack later on, like during his History test or something. Although Matt supposed that maybe potentially-timed poison was just another perfectly valid excuse to use for climbing trees instead of memorizing Presidents. Nothing would hurt him while he was tree climbing. That was a very well-known fact.

Still…she was eating the cookies. Matt watched suspiciously as Melissa took a bite of her own fodder, contemplating as she chewed whether or not she was the type of person to sacrifice her own life just to be certain the enemy trust them enough to be lured into a trap. He decided not. She didn’t seem smart enough to work all that out. Maybe the cookies were alright, after all. Not that he’d ever tell her that.

“That’s what I said. Duh. Nincompoops,” tone bursting with snark, Matt made a small face at Melissa as she corrected him. Stupid. She didn’t know anything. He shook his head at her question, taking another large bite and swallow of a cookie before responding, mouth covered in a ring of warm, gooey chocolate. “Nu-uh. I think you just forget I’m in here every week, cause you’re stupid, so you keep sending me down even though I’m not supposed ta be here…You’re really dumb,” he mused, smacking his lips after he bit off another chunk of cookie.

Once that treat was finished, Matt reached for another; not once did the idea of saying “thank you” cross his mind. He settled back into his seat to stare straight at her, shifting so as to be in more of a squatting position than a conventional sitting one. It made for a quicker getaway, lest she try to pull some stupid grownup trick on him. Shaking his head vigorously, Matt was actually quite impressed to find that she’d asked whether he’d take the thing right away. Still, though, she was too dumb just to know he wouldn’t. She had to ask.

“Of course not!” he responded brightly, as though discussing something momentously wonderful. “I think I’ll climb a tree instead. And I’ll probably go swimming, too. The park doesn’t like it when I go swimming…” an impish grin spread over his face as the scheme crossed his mind and he became more and more absorbed in exactly what he was going to do while he didn’t take his History test. So much so, in fact, that he let a little something else slip. “Maybe I’ll even take Addie with me…She’d like swimming, I bet. More than tests, anyway.”

[MELISSA HEWITT]

Melissa shook her head, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to keep pretending the cookies were indeed poisoned or if she was tired of that game. Sometimes, pretending was one of the few things that worked with Matthew. That’s why it was probably a good thing that she was his counselor and not somebody else. They would get tired of putting up with him after one session. They didn’t have time for his childish antics. She, on the other hand, was the reincarnate of a kangaroo from a children’s story. Living without imagination was boring and she didn’t want to experience it. “Hmmm, you’re very clever, Matthew.” Okay, she’s keep pretending for now. Hopefully, he’d realize at some point that the cookies were in fact not poisoned when he continued living, whether it be in his next class or when he woke up tomorrow morning.

He acted like any other child when corrected. In fact, she’d come across quite a few teenagers that reacted the same way when they’d been corrected. It was usually denying that they’d been wrong in the first place and then insulting the person who’d corrected them. Melissa didn’t mind it; she was just glad to know that they’d be saying things right from then on. Melissa had long since grown used to being called stupid or dumb, especially when it came from Matthew. He had a few go-to insults. “I’m not one to forget things.” Melissa mused, thinking about how she remembered everything from her story (which probably wasn’t uncommon for other characters but something she prided herself on anyway. “Besides, how could I forget you, hmm?” She grinned, “interesting boy like you? Right.”

He sat strangely, or perhaps it just looked uncomfortable to her. She couldn’t understand the positions some teenagers twisted themselves into. They sat all folded up in her chairs, being defensive and closed-off. There wasn’t much she could do about that besides offer cookies and a reassuring tone. Of course not. “Have you ever considered actually attending school for… I don’t know, at least an entire day?” Melissa tilted her head, wondering what could be so interesting about climbing trees and swimming when there could actually be some pretty fascinating things to learn at school.

He’d said too much though Melissa wasn’t sure if he knew. He’d never mentioned this Addie girl, not that Melissa could remember anyway (which was rather ironic considering her previous comment). Then again, there had been rumors about a friend. Her eyes narrowed a fraction, curiosity setting in. “No, I don’t think the park would like it.” It was probably best to go about this carefully. If she said too much than he wouldn’t say anything else on the matter. “Are you sure about that? Not everybody enjoys ditching as much as you do.” There, that should do it.

[MATTHEW PETERSON]

“Oh, I know,” Matt responded smugly from yet another mouthful of cookie, although mercifully no crumbs spewed from his mouth. “I’m the cleverest there ever was.” He licked his fingers greedily after finishing the last bite of poisoned cookie, determined not to leave a single crumb behind. If he was going to die, he was going to die completely. This logic was more sound than any he’d ever heard before, and bade no reason for argumentation, whether of his own mind or anyone else’s lips.

He watched her warily as she seemed unaffected by his insults, momentarily afraid he’d lost his touch. How horrible would that be? Of course, then he remembered (not that he’d ever forgotten in the first place. He’d just been…thinking of other things) that she’d never been one to go for his name-calling. Which only made her dumber, really. Although…leave it to Melissa, to start making sense the minute he was convinced she couldn’t do it. There she went, calling him interesting like it was some sort of surprise to either of them. Still, he beamed. A big, chocolate-smeared grin wider than a kid on Christmas morning. “I know, I know. Nobody ever forgets me. Not even the stupid people.

At her next question, Matt scowled, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “No! Why would I do that?” he blabbered, becoming steadily more agitated with every word and hardly stopping for breath, “School’s for stupid grown ups and people who don’t know how to have fun, and I’d rather not go at all, thanks, but sometimes Addie makes me because she says she won’t be my friend anymore if I don’t, and I don’t want that to happen, so then I go to some classes, but never all of them in one day! Why would anyone want to do that? And you can’t make me, so don’t even try.” He scowled, arms crossed tight over his chest. She couldn’t. Not no way, no how. Not even Addie could make him go a whole entire day at school unless he lost a bet—and Matt didn’t lose anything ever, so that wasn’t a problem at all.

At suggestion of the fact that not everyone would like ditching as much as he, Matt scoffed. “Sure they do, once they try it. ‘Sides, Addie likes whatever I like. She knows I’m the one with the great ideas,” he whispered the last bit, winking at Melissa as though this was just one big secret between them.