"Miss Isles, I don't see your name on the list of presentations"

That's because I didn't put it there.

Mr Richard's voice is thick and heavy with his Boston accent, I can't help but cringe away from it.

He's looking at me from his half moon glasses, behind the comfort of his desk.

My desk is hardly conformable, it's like a plinth for me to be perched on and ogled by the class of 25 surrounding me.

If Mr Richard didn't have his long range internal radar, his acute skill with detail, if he wasn't him, I reckon I could have gotten away with it.

But I've not, so there is not point trying to fix what has already happened with mental banter.

Funny, always in hindsight people can make their creates corrections.

I gulp the lump down in my throat and meet his gaze.

'Maura-the-bora' has been caught red handed.

Lucie Jefferson and Allie Smith smirk and revert to bouts of over exaggerated laughter, their tack-tic of making me uncomfortable is working again.

They cover their glossed lips with their manicured hands, their dozens of bracelets jingle and they peer over.

I want to be sucked into the earth.

Only with the natural occurrence of a sink-hole could it be achived, unluckily this high school isn't built over a mine, so for know, I'm trapped above the soil, not matter how appealing it seems to be under it, roaming in the lithosphere.

That would be convenient.

"Miss Isles?"

"I..." I know I can't lie, if I do, I think I'd faint, I hate attention, I hate my Health and Social class. I gulp again. "I didn't put my name down because I couldn't think of anything to present"

Mr Richard is taken off guard, probably because his top student is out of thoughts in her ever expanding brain.

"I'll put your name down, Maura, I'm sure you can think about something from the syllabus"

Of course I can, I know it, I just loath it.

We're dismissed by the bell seconds later.

I want to be a victim of combustion, I crave toxic gases and a lighter just to make it happen.

"Miss Isles, a word" Mr Richard smiles and pushes his half moon glasses up the bridge of his nose.

He has a large nose, a very, very, very large nose.

Probably down to a genetic default or his mother was some form of mutant hawk. I try not to giggle at my own pondering.

Mutant hawk lady, it could be a superhero. Lady hawk, wait, isn't she a musician?

My inner rambling is cut off when my hip collides with Mr Richard's desk. I feel like I've been shot but I hold in my yelp of pain and save it for when I need it most... digesting the school food.

"Watch out there Maura"

Some of the class hang back to hear the conversation.

"Come on Maura, you can think of a subject"

All I can think of is my house, my bed to be more precise.

Home, home,homeless, I've got it.

"The homeless" I shrug and Mr Richard pouts then nods in agreement as if to say, not bad.

I wait for his verbal response and peer down at my shoe laces. I have an IQ of 162 and I still can't tie my shoes laces to the extent of them staying tied.

Perfect example of how my brain functions.

"I want to hear it next Friday, you'll be the last"

"Okay" I hitch the strap of my satchel up on my shoulder and exit swiftly.

I have to come up with a in depth, Maura-the-bora-ish presentation for next Friday. I have time, a lot of time.

Between my biology, chemistry and physics classes, then maths, literature and music classes, I hardly have any time at all. I'll make time, I will, I'll make time.

I often take trips to subway after school.

Not as glamorous at a hide away in the Ritz or as romantic as looking out on a high hill at Boston, but it has human drama, it possesses human emotion, it gives me a perspective on life and interaction.

I for one, adore it.

I love emotion, love to study it and dissect it until I can replicate it perfectly. What should come so naturally to a human, I pine to posses it.

My Mother often jokes I'm a cyborg, my Father defends me and says I'm a scientist.

I'm neither, I'm a human being who is learning to be human.

I perch of a bench and watch, I sit an examine faces, features, gestures and vocal attributes.

There are lovers, always lovers. A particular pair are about to part, the woman has watery eyes, a reddened nose, the man has sorrow upon his face. They peck each other on the lips then hug.

I squirm.

I feel almost like I'm missing out. To be 16 years of age and not kissed one person or missing that 'significant other', I feel considerably put out.

I've studied kissing, I've studied sex, I've read romance novels and sonnets.

Books are my silent teacher, yet they fail to really explain the emotion behind a connection.

So here I sit and try to soak up the lovers emotion like a sponge.

I'm almost weighed down with the amount of emotion the pair share.

I'm so wrapped up in their soppy display I fail to notice the first few taps on my shoulder. Then by the fifth I find it irritating so turn and stare straight into a pair of dark brown eyes, framed with dark lashes.

I gulp.

"You enjoying the free peep show?" a husky voice washes over me, I'm soon attracted to the sound, almost like a moth to a light.

I can't get enough of it, it's smoky, gritty, down to earth. I suddenly miss it, then realize the question I answer quickly just to hear it again.

"Peep show? I'm just examining them"

They snort a laugh, the laugh is also deep.

I find myself smiling.

"Examining right, do you come here a lot, you know to examine people?" At first I'm still stuck by the voice, but then I have the sickening feeling they are mocking me, but soon as I take a glance into those eyes, I know they are serious.

"Yes, a lot"

"I thought I'd seen you around here actually" they sit next to me, only then do I dare to look at them properly.

Long raven hair, jutting cheek bones, a button nose. I'm surprised with such striking looks, they shouldn't be stuffed in the tight black jeans, Converse and baggy hoody.

Then I'm shocked why a pretty girl bothers to talk to me.

"What year are you in?" she asks and runs a hand through her hair, the very hair I'm transfixed with.

"I'm a 16, I'm a senior"
"How does that work?" she raises her eyebrows.

"I have a high I.Q" I shrug, it's not a big deal for me. I'm just in school to pass the time now, I know it all, I just enhance it to look like I'm busy.

"Lucky for some"

"Why?" I turn to her. "Don't you consider yourself smart?"

"I'm... intelligent"

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"I consider them to be pretty different"

I stay silent in hope she will elaborate.

"Intelligent, in my opinion is knowing the facts but adding other stuff to beef them out, smart is being a human text book" she then takes time to look me up and down. "From looking at you, I'd say your smart"

She has me pinned.

If I follow her explanation about intelligence, she is gifted with it, gifted with picking up on people and reading them.. much like a book.

I ponder. So smarts and intelligence are the same? Aren't they?

The subject is soon dropped and bleeds into another.

"What's your name?" she asks and rolls her shoulders.

"Maura, Maura Isles"

"Jane" she nods, I go to extend my hand but upon knowing she has done no such thing, I pretend to scratch the back of my ear.

My upbringing is discarded with this girl, with Jane.

"Who are you thinking of spying on next" Jane holds two fingers in the shape of a gun and points it at the passing public.

My eye catches a tall man, his collar is turned up and under his armpit rests a newspaper.

"Him" I nod towards him.

Jane makes a noise like a fired bullet, then sits on her hands, it's like she's telling herself to stop moving so much.

We watch him, we examine, well I do. I have no idea what's going on in Jane's head, her face betrays nothing.

I can soon fathom Jane is a girl, soon to be woman, that doesn't show her emotion, she hides behind her husky voice and dark eyes. She reminds me of a private Detective in a 1940's drama my Mother and I watched months back.

This man gave nothing away, he was hard boiled and stern.

Jane was very much that, but has more of a daring air about her.

We sit, we watch, we're together in this.

Jane soon is a reassuring presence, I don't feel so isolated as I did before she came and sat by me.

A monotone voice fuzzes over the tannoy and sure enough a train pulls up with a screech of breaks.

The man with the upturned collar steps inside the third carriage and is soon gone.

Jane turns to me and smiles.

"I want to know, what were you looking for in him?"

"He looked so bored, he wasn't in any rush" I don't mention the back story his expression and physical being showed, I don't think Jane would care to know. I made up a whole new life for him and he'll never now.

Nobody ever really knows what I can do.

Jane tilts her head.

"You know more though, don't be shy, share it" Jane has done it again, it was probably the pause in my voice, the abruptness of my end, that's how she knows I know more.

"From his slumped shoulders and twitching fingers, he was tired, he probably wanted to get home"

"What does the newspaper suggest?" Jane probably had her own back story to him to, I want to hear it, but instead I share mine.

"He's interested in the world around him, the printed world that can be full of lies, it's just other peoples perspectives, he looks through theirs not his own" suddenly, I don't know why, but I'm angry at him.

Why read the paper?

Why get someone else's view when you can get up and see it for yourself?

Jane grins at me, her teeth are straight, all perfect. I want to ask her if she's ever had braces, I know I used to, but I hardly want to go into detail with it.

"I like you" Jane looks me up and down. Then she sticks her hand out, she extends it to wrap with mine in a firm shake.

All my life I've felt on the outside, not matter where I have been, who I have talked to, I've never felt connected.

I feel like you can draw a circle around us, exclude everyone else, because now, I'm on the inside.