Chapter Six: “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo”

Allen was a cynical being. He prided in himself in oversimplifying every situation and his favourite quote was, “I’m just calling a spade a spade”. While the meaning of this quote while lost to the world, it was crystal clear to Allen. He believed that Students in Woodbridge were the perfect consumers as they shopped for themselves and for their vanity. But, it was nothing compared to the expenditure on cards and gifts bought by couples for each other. Allen was sure that the gift shops near the High school were running because of the benevolence the said couples.
To Allen the whole idea of a teenage romance and puppy love seemed too much to digest. He viewed all of the ‘couples’ with much disdain, though he did his best not to show it lest he be outcast. Everyone in Woodbridge had strange notions of relationships, some of which were pretty amusing. A guy in his class fell madly in love with a girl in the class next door. So, in order to spend more time with his muse he decided they should change classes! Now his plan was simple, either of them would approach the school Principal, make up some lame excuse as to why he/she should be shifted to the next class. For the wits that these students had, they had ignored a tiny-tiny detail; the principal of the School Mrs. Yale was not that gullible. Now, she was a lady with a vision- and knew all about her students. As understanding as she was, she knew exactly how to handle the Woodbridge Students. She knew all too well that if she took a stand against them or came out too strong and authoritative it would only enrage and inspire them to unite & rebel. She knew how to delicately handle such situations. So, just as our Juliette was explaining in great detail and reasoning with Mrs. Yale about how if she changed classes it would lead to improvements in her grades and would be in her general wellbeing, Mrs. Yale asked her politely to summon our Romeo. Romeo was dumbstruck and bewildered; he was sweating & shivering at the same time. She had both of them in her office and said, “I know what’s going on. Please do not argue. I was young at a time too, and contrary to what you believe I know exactly what you both are thinking & going through. I believe that both of you should concentrate on your education at the moment and deal with the romance later.” The couple were both turning very dark shades of red in embarrassment. Poor Romeo, he thought he was sly!
To Allen for all the comic relief provided by the young couples it was nothing when compared with the romantic escapades of Rachael and Neal. The couple were so boring that they became interesting! Every cliché about every romance that was ever written was true for them.
Neal was your average good-guy. He loved to stay under the radar, unnoticed, unobserved and uncommented. But, call it fate or ‘kismet’ he always managed to become noticed. So, he found a much simpler way to deal with it; he made his appearance in school sparse and rudimentary. He treated school as an obligation, which if fulfilled would render a few people happy and if not would not hurt anyone the least of which was himself. His sole purpose in life ever since Allen knew him was, to “get out of this god-forsaken place called Earborough.” Now this was not to say a bad thing exactly, but the way he pursued his goal of not being in where he was would even put the people who made Matrix trilogy to shame. He appeared completely aloof as if his high school years had no bearing to his future inhabitancy on the planet Earth! But all this was a part of his charm, he very irreverence towards the attendance register seemed to enrage and fascinate Allen. Allen would wonder, “How could someone just decide not to attend school regularly?!!” Allen was bewildered; and he sought answers. As he got to know Neal, Allen learned that Neal actually did have a problem; it was called ‘getting up in the morning’. It was revealed to Allen that his ‘New Best Friend’ was nocturnal. Meaning, he was only awake when the rest of the world was asleep! This to an unapprised individual would seem as a small problem, but to Neal this was reality. It seemed that his biological clock would not follow the whole wake on sunrise and sleep on sunset phenomenon; it preferred to wake up on sunset and sleep on sunrise!
Now, this entire recalibration of the mundane human system of existence threw the proverbial “wrench” into Rachel’s plans of meeting Neal every day. So, poor Rachael stuck in the most dreaded quandary of not seeing her boyfriend would come up with rather ingenious ways to have Neal come to school. By virtue of acute observation which only Allen was capable of, Allen learned that Rachael followed a 3 pronged approach to get Neal to school. The first act for preparing to drag ‘Neal’s behind’ to school would begin by politely asking him to come to school which would be followed with thinly veiled and sometimes not so thinly veiled threats. The second act and the most important part of the entire operation would be to get one of the boys from the class to wake up Neal as Neal mother, naturally, did not take to it nicely when Rachael would call up every morning herself to wake him. Now the boys that would be called upon to ring up Neal’s house everyday tended to change every day, these boys under normal circumstances would be invisible to Rachael in the class. Only because she had to ask them of a task, was she compelled to make small talk with them! Imagine her misery! Well the final and the last ditch attempt in Rachael’s plan of attack would comprise to make up a fantastic reason to use the school phone to call up Neal’s house one last time to see if she could coax him into attending school that day.