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School was boring. And stupid, and time consuming, and not fun, and… and school. And Blake did not like it at all. Art class sort of redeemed it, sometimes, when Blake was actually in art class, and having Irri around could make it more tolerable, and Blake used to sort of tolerate it more because it gave him lots of opportunities to draw people who weren’t paying attention to him, but it was still school. And, recently, he’d been much less inclined to draw people; there wasn’t that much variety, and most of them didn’t stay still, and drawing people in school was beginning to seem like kind of a dangerous thing to do, anyway; the last few years people had started actually offering to let him draw them (as if Blake wouldn’t draw them anyway), which was really awkward. Most of them were girls, and didn’t really act like they were casually offering like some of Blake’s art classmates would, which probably meant they wanted something that looked really really perfect and not like them at all, and Blake did not want to deal with a girl who thought he’d drawn her ugly. Girls were annoying enough even when they weren’t offended.

So most of Blake’s motive for tolerating school, especially during class, was gone. Drawing Godzilla and School Mountain had been fun, but wasn’t really something he could get away with during class. Which made it fortunate that class hadn’t started yet; Blake sat in the cafeteria, pastels, sketches, pencils and artist’s models scattered over the table, and eyed the ceiling. He wanted to work on the falling angel drawing, and he wanted to use the model to be able to do it better, but that didn’t work very well when the model wasn’t falling. The ceiling was those common, cheap sound absorbing tiles resting on metal bars, the same as in every classroom; teachers hung things from them all the time by lifting the tiles up and hanging string over the bars, and the cafeteria ceiling was populated by stuck pencils.

It was probably too high for Blake to reach the ceiling to lift tiles, and he hadn’t stuck pencils in a ceiling in a long time; he didn’t want to lose them. But if it had string attached, he could probably pull it back down, and he might be able to reach if he set a chair on the table and stood on that….

First, though, the model. Blake spent a few minutes digging string out of his backpack, then more posing the model and attaching string so that it hung from its legs in a suitable pose, grinning in triumph when it was ready. The string was a bit short, he’d have to draw the angel looking up at it instead of down or over, but that was alright; creativity was always appreciated, even if it wasn’t totally intentional, and Blake didn’t recall seeing any images of winged creatures falling down at the viewer recently.

School Mountain was roughly sketched in, and the outline of conquering Godzilla was in progress (slow progress, as it turned out aerial Godzilla outlines weren’t very easy to draw) when a voice interrupted. Blake had enough practice to only jump slightly, and to be sure that the pencil moved away from the paper instead of creating an irreversible mark on it. That didn’t stop him from being annoyed as he turned around, looked down, and….

What was a little kid doing in a high school cafeteria? Even if that did explain why he didn’t know to leave artists alone like he ought to. Any inclination to yell at the kid disappeared, but Blake was still frowning as he looked down at the kid. “I didn’t know there was a daycare here.”

Blake gave a last confused look to the girl as she stomped away, then turned to examine the crackling green fabric. Why the girl was that upset Blake had no idea; sure most people didn’t like to hear how insignificant they were, but most yelled or something instead of stomping away like little children. Or they were even deeper in denial than most and laughed at the truth instead of believing it. Whatever; as long as the girl wasn’t bothering him, Blake didn’t particularly care why. The fabric was much more interesting.

Unfortunately, the crackling fabric didn’t look quite as cool up close as it did from farther away. It wasn’t bad at all, of course, but it wasn’t as detailed or bright as Blake had thought at first, so he eyed it for a moment before moving on, looking for something else interesting. He didn’t really need more fabric, but having more wouldn’t be bad either, and since he was already there, there was no reason not to look.

The girl’s sudden movement was, really, much more interesting than the girl was herself. Blake could recognize a guilty reaction, and that seemed very much like one. Though what she had to feel guilty over, he wasn’t sure; he hadn’t gotten a good look at whatever she was hiding, but it looked like a piece of fabric. So she was in the wrong aisle for the fabric she was looking for; that one had looked like a dull gray, and nearby fabrics were bright colors and patterns. Why that should make her guilty, though, Blake had no idea. Maybe embarrassed?

The delayed answer seemed to support that theory, and Blake shrugged, shifting the various things in his hands so he could point. “Whatever. I think gray fabric’s over there, if you’re looking for it.” Over there, and most importantly, not in Blake’s way.

The following accusation earned a look of complete bewilderment. “Why would I be spying on you? You’re not anything special as far as I can see, you’re just in my way.”

Blake did not, strictly speaking, have to go to a craft store. He enjoyed all kinds of art, but was primarily good at drawing, with occasional accents of paper, foil, pressed leaves, or similarly small and flat objects. When not drawing, he generally entertained himself by carving wood, painting the finished pieces with simple acrylics and a few glued on stones. Everything he used could be easily found at any art store; he did not need to go to a craft store with fabric, yarn, thread, rope, beads, buttons, styrofoam, sticks, models, rocket fuel--really, rocket fuel? In tiny cardboard tubes for model rockets, but still, why was a craft store--or any store--allowed to sell anything that could be called rocket fuel? That had to be illegal somehow or other.

Seeing as nobody seemed to care, though, Blake didn’t hesitate to add a few packages of rocket fuel to the basket that already contained a tie dye kit, three bags of assorted rocks that included something shiny and eye catching, two bags of scrap bits of specialty papers, a sketchbook, a pack of metallic colored pencils, and five glow in the dark sharpies. And oh look, were those pinecones over there?

Half an hour later Blake had added several pinecones, a bag of broken glass for stepping stones, and an X-acto knife, because the five he already had at home clearly weren’t enough. He spotted a particularly interesting color of fabric and veered toward it; the texture was unusual enough to be worth trying to reproduce. Despite the fact that Blake never actually used fabric in his artwork, the stack of fabric pieces in his room were actually more useful than many of the stones, specialty markers and other assorted bits he picked up on the chance of someday using them.

The fabric was not, as Ace liked to suggest, because Blake was secretly dreaming of being a fashion designer. Even if he was far more fashionable than Ace could comprehend. Instead, the fabric was for drawing; draped over a corner, chair, stack of boxes or other objects, or sometimes simply thrown in the air and left wherever it fell, it was a wonderful source of practice. The more variety of textures and, to a lesser degree, colors Blake had to practice with, the more practice he could do, and the faster he improved. He did, however, still restrict his fabric collection to pieces that were either interesting or pretty--some patterns were just obnoxious, and Blake had no interest in them.

The fabric that had caught Blake’s attention was acid green crackling through black, and interesting enough that he was almost there before his mind totally comprehended that there was another person there. He paused for an instant, then took the last few steps over to examine the fabric, edging around the girl that was in the way. Until, at least, he noticed the bit of fabric in her hand. “What’re you doing?”

Blake wasn’t that interested, really. But he was curious and, well, she was in the way. It would have been difficult to ignore her completely.

“They’re not idiots!” Blake, generally, thought that his parents were setting records for idiocy, in fact. They always paid attention to Ace, even though he was a jerk who was just going to hit his head for a living and then die from it, instead of paying attention to Blake or Irri, who would actually be worth something. And they never listened when he told them things, even things that were so obvious they shouldn’t have to be told to begin with. When someone else insulted them, though… they were still his parents. “They’re just afraid. And you’re not doing much to prove them wrong, anyway.”

“Not everyone attacks people for drawing ten second figures, either,” Blake muttered. He still turned his head away, looking down at the ground, then paled again and looked off to the side instead. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t like guns. They’re stupid.”

“Models stay still. And they know you’re drawing them, so they try and pose and look pretty and stuff and don’t look like natural people at all.” Wow, this guy was arrogant. It was like he thought he knew something about art. Which was obviously impossible; artists and jocks did not mix, and the guy was playing soccer. “Also, yeah, models do get paid a lot, and I don’t have the money for one.” Plus, Blake’s parents were absolutely certain that all artists’ models were necessarily nude, and that that meant they were porn at best. For some reason they insisted on thinking that Blake was actually old enough to be interested in any of that stuff, too, no matter how many times he said he wasn’t. And he definitely didn’t have the money for a studio. So the last thing he wanted to do was hire a model.

Also? Free, decently clothed, natural-looking people to draw, everywhere, all the time. Why spend money when there was no need to?

“Fine, then, someday I’m gonna be a professional artist, Mr. English Teacher, and need to be the best professional artist to eat.” Blake’s tone was just as harsh, or would have been, if some of the harshness wasn’t hidden by a poor attempt at superior disdain. “And, yeah, it is competitive. So is music and sports and acting, because everyone always wants to be one of them. You ever met a three year old who wants to grow up and be an accountant?” Blake tossed his head, throwing the hair that had been falling toward his eye back out of the way. “So, what, you’re just another one of those people who thinks that just cause you’re older, you know everything? I don’t like arrogant jerks, so go away.” That point needed to be emphasized, so that it would be obeyed. Conveniently, there was a pebble on the bench next to Blake; the tiny little three millimeter wide type of gravel that snuck into peoples’ shoes and spread everywhere. Obviously, this meant the universe supported Blake, so he threw the piece of gravel at the arrogant guy. No reason to disagree with the universe, after all.