#bashlee

Labor:  Barrel stands up for himself against someone.

Barrel’s favorite class was biology. It was maybe his only favorite class. He liked it a lot, because out of all the things he thought he might be able to do wit his life, studying animals was the big one. If he could be a vet, that would be very good, or maybe even a zookeeper because the idea of being a zookeeper sounded very exciting. If he got to make sure big cats were fed and safe! Wow that would be good!

But he knew those things required lots of being good in school, so he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do those things, not because he didn’t want to do school, but because he wasn’t good at English or history. He was okay in math actually. But science was his favorite. It was math, but you did things with the math.

He thought sometimes about maybe working in a pet store which would also be good for him. But today was one of those days where he let himself daydream a bit. In his day dream he was the lionkeeper at a zoo that focused on conservation and he got to see the lions every day and he also did talks at the zoo where he talked to little Barrels around the world about how important it was to save lions. Except, maybe a lionkeeper was too limiting. Maybe he could be a tigerkeeper too. And also jaguar keeper. He liked that idea a lot. Multiple big cats.

See, Barrel had an issue with the show Wade was currently watching which was about a man in Oklahoma who had a lot of big cats in facilities that were definitely not up to standard. Wade had cackled at him and then hit him upside the head when Barrel pointed that out and said how sad he was for the big cats. Wade called him a pussy. They were just lions. They were lucky they weren’t being shot and skinned and stuffed.

Barrel now was feeling kinda sad when he walked into biology, about to take his seat in his designated lab table, when he realized there was someone sitting at his lab table.

If this was any other class, he would just slump to the back. But Barrel specifically picked the front table here because he wanted to pay attention and he also wanted to impress the teacher somewhat. That was definitely a “pussy” thing as Wade would say, but if there was one key to helping Barrel achieve his dreams of being big cat keeper in a zoo focused on conservation, it was getting a good grade in biology and impressing the teacher.

The other problem, though, was that this girl sitting at his lab table was an Ashley.

It was Ashlee T. he knew, because Barrel tried to keep tabs on who they were so he could avoid them. He had Ashley A. for a lab once and he did most of the work. He’d never talked to Ashlee T. He should just go to a table in the back.

But he thought of the poor tigers in the Netflix show. He wanted to be the change.

He took a deep breath and turned on his heel, walking to the front of the class. He kept his eyes on the floor. He reached the table. He tapped it. Ashlee T. didn’t notice. He cleared his throat. He swallowed.

“Hi, Ashlee,” he said. “I think you’re in my regular seat. I need this seat because it helps me pay attention. We can swap maybe. I don’t have a seat  yet but there’s a lot around in the back.”