Mareitime Academy Diaries

by Mica

The Cafeteria Bodyguard

“Hey, look it’s Hitch, the litter-picker.”

“Oh my gosh, he thinks he’s so suave with that slicked back hair. He’s like, so not-ripped, though.”

“His body’s hot enough for me, but that’s not even the issue. He’s like such a goody-two-shoes. I bet he spends his free time balancing a book on his giant head.”

“Oh my gosh, yes!”

A casual stare from Zipp in the lunchline quickly stops the teasing and giggling.

“You ready, sheriff? Let’s go.” She beckons me, and I follow close beside her in the cafeteria.

I wish I could say that being the only guy at an all girls’ school was like some dream. All the teasing in the cafeteria doesn’t get any easier to handle. But it has helped me more easily discover who my friends here are. Zipp is one of them. Pretty much every day, I walk with her and sit with her at lunch. She’s like my bodyguard.

There’s no one better suited than Zipp to be my bodyguard at lunch, and I don’t understand why. Sure, she’s got more muscle on her than most guys I know, but it’s not like she’s punching or kicking anyone in the lunchline. She doesn’t even have to say a word. Just her presence is somehow enough to mellow out the teasing crowd.

There’s this…air about her, I guess. As she carries her lunch tray, she has a copy of Science wedged in her armpit. Her protein shaker bottle plastered with colorful stickers attached to her jeans with a carabiner clip. Her shirt tied up to expose her belly button ring and a few inches of her shredded abs, bravely flouting the school dress code. She plays punk music on a speaker when she’s working in the chemistry lab after class for her independent study.

And yet as she escorts me to my usual table in the outdoor alcove, her voice is completely unlike what her body would suggest. It’s soft, honeyed…feminine.

We reach our usual table. “Here we are, sheriff.”

That’s Zipp’s nickname for me. She’s a regular at Sustainability Club, which I’m the president of. Last year, we made a charity calendar to help raise funds for oil spill cleanup. For each month, I took photos of me dressed up in various first-responder uniforms…strictly in support of the cause, of course. The sheriff photo was Zipp’s favorite—“June is my favorite month,” that’s what she said to me.

I don’t know why Zipp even does this favor for me. Although half the girls at Maretime Academy probably assume we’re an item (and the other half assume Zipp is a lesbian), Zipp actually has a boyfriend. He goes to Wondercolt Academy, an all-boys school about an eight hours’ drive away. I met him once during the joint school dance. He’s a whole foot shorter than her, incredibly shy, and instead of a regular suit, he wore a long black hoodie with wolf ears attached to the hood.

If that’s Zipp’s “type”, I wonder what she’s even doing hanging around me. I don’t even own a black hoodie.

Sunny’s sitting at the table when we arrive. “Hi, Hitch. Hi, Zipp.” She looks up. “What did you get?”

“Lentil mousakka with, erm…hummus and pita,” Zipp says. “The vegan option’s actually not super crappy this time.”

I notice the coconut cake hiding in one of the corners of Zipp’s lunch tray. “You know that’s full of simple carbs and saturated fat, right?”

“Why should you care, Mr. Double Fudge Oreo Cheesecake!?” She smirks at me.

“Because I know you care.” Zipp won’t even drink processed juice drinks, let alone soda.

“Oh quit it, you guys.” Sunny rolls her eyes as she takes a big bite out of her pasta shells, filled to the brim with ricotta cheese.

The cafeteria food at Mareitime Academy’s actually really good. Nothing like the stuff on styrofoam trays they used to have at P.S. 85 Bayside Elementary School. At Maretime Academy, we have real silverware and plates. It’s all buffet style, with at least five or six protein options, seven or eight side dishes, and plenty of desserts. My favorite is when they have the pasta bar with breadsticks and Oreo cheesecake for dessert.

I guess the food isn’t up to Cordon Bleu, though, ‘cause Pipp has her own lunch catered and hand-delivered to her by one of the Haven family’s personal staff. Zipp used to get a lunch box too, but since she became vegan she’s refused it and chooses to eat at the cafeteria instead.

For some reason, the Haven family’s personal chefs won’t make Zipp a vegan lunchbox. At least according to Zipp. “It’s all Mom’s stupid doing. Trying to brush off me being vegan as just a phase. I say one thing, Mom says another thing…they don’t know who to listen to…it gets pretty ridiculous sometimes.” They. Their army of culinary-school-trained personal chefs, that is.

I catch of glimpse of what’s inside Pipp’s lunch box, as I walk back to get another fork after I dropped mine on the floor. I swear, whenever Pipp does eat in the cafeteria (half of the time I don’t see her in the cafeteria at all, for some reason), the table she sits at becomes like some celebrity meet and greet where you stand in life to take selfies with the real-life celebrity, in order of your popularity ranking at school.

Based on what I could overhear, Pipp’s lunchbox had veal piccata, foie gras, angel hair pasta, and a side of buttered white asparagus. All packaged in an innocent-looking lacquerware box. Zipp would never eat that. I would never eat that. The thought of a cute baby creature being killed and served on my dinner plate disgusts me, even if I’m not really vegetarian. I saw a bunch of said cute baby creatures at the local animal sanctuary, where I used to volunteer with my mom.

As we eat our lunch at our table of three, Zipp pulls out a stack of paper from her bag. “Hey Hitch, here are those flyers you wanted printed out…” she turns to Sunny. “Hey, Sunny, why don’t you join us? The Sustainability Club is organizing a camping trip in the Bridlewood Forest. Anyone can join us.”

“Is Hitch going too?”

“Well duh, of course he is. He’s the club president.”

Sunny’s face lights up. “Then count me in. Are we gonna be in tents, like real camping?”

“Yeah! Right now we have five people, including you and Ms. Gaia.” That’s our faculty sponsor. “So I think we’ll buy a four-person tent for us girls, and a one-person tent for Hitch. If more girls join we’ll get another tent.”

“I’ve never actually seen a one-person tent before,” Sunny says. “The smallest I’ve ever seen are two-person tents.”

I’m pretty excited about this trip, actually. This year, we were able to get special permission to go out to an old mine in the Bridlewood Forest that’s being converted into a nature park. We’re going there to help maintain the trails and pick up litter.

Sure, the girls love to tease me for it, but I love picking up litter. Or telling other people to pick up litter. Hear me out. Litter is annoying, for one. And actually, there’s something really soothing out of picking up litter. It’s like taking away all the unwanted things in your life, the things that are dirtying your space, and putting them out of sight. So that there’s room for further growth. It’s not really picking up litter. It’s clearing the way for better things in the future.

Zipp opens up a page in the scientific journal she’s reading. “Sunny. Hitch. Listen to this. There was this study I was reading this morning. Did you know that producing one ton of rare earth metals produces over 50000 gallons of acidic wastewater, and over 1.4 tons of radioactive waste? And companies like my mom’s are just perpetuating this endless stream of waste and pollution. And just because we want more fancy phones or electronics.”

Rare earth metals like yttrium, neodymium, and cerium are needed to build electronic components that go into phones, computers, smart devices, you name it. However, it’s very expensive and polluting to extract them from the earth. Ideally, the future will be to recycle them, so mining them is no longer necessary.

“Why don’t you share these studies with your mom and your sister?” Sunny asks Zipp.

Zipp rolls her eyes. “My sister…she doesn’t have the scientific knowledge nor the interest. And Mom…I have no respect for that lady and that 20-years-younger boy toy of hers. The business she inherited is just money to her. A source of income to keep her fancy lifestyle. She doesn’t stop to think about all the lives she puts at risk to make all that money.”

For a while, I had no idea that Zipp’s mother was Haven. She doesn’t look like the person that’s going to one day inherit a multi-billion-dollar rare-earth mining fortune. I remember when she first showed up at Sustainability Club. She just told us her first name, her grade, and immediately joined in to make posters for our campus solar power petition. And Ms. Gaia didn’t make a big deal that Zipp was there. She just let her work in the shadows. Just be a part of the crowd. And Zipp smiled that whole afternoon, like she was enjoying it.

It's like she's trying to cling on to her last years of freedom, before she ends up being tied down by the weight of a billion-dollar inheritance.

“I’m going to leave home as soon I’m financially independent,” Zipp says to us at lunch. “Leave Zephyr Heights and get a regular job at a lab somewhere. I’m really gonna do it, you know. I don’t need mom’s money.”

“You don’t want your inheritance?” Sunny asks.

“Pipp can swim in it naked, for all I care. I’m not going to profit off of environmental genocide. I hate my parents and what they stand for. Sometimes I just wish they didn’t exist.”

There’s an awkward silence. I turn to Sunny.

She’s stopped eating her pasta shells. She dusts her eyes with the tail of her braid.

Pasta shells are her favorite food. Her dad used to make them really well.

Thankfully, I don’t have to tell Zipp to apologize. “I…I’m sorry, Sunny. I forgot about your mom and dad. I…I didn’t mean it that way. What I really meant was…”

“I get what you mean, Zipp.”

Zipp’s voice suddenly mellows down. “I know I’m a bit snarky sometimes, and well, I…I sometimes say insensitive stuff like that by accident. It’s stupid. I…I’m sorry.”

Sunny nods, barely.

There’s an awkward silence. Sunny mumbles something and leaves the table. She comes back with another fork. Now she has two forks on her tray. A large dinner fork, and a slightly smaller salad fork. And she just stares at the two forks, lying supine on the tray.

Mom.

Dad.

“The camping trip will be fun, Sunny,” I say, trying to cheer her up. I show her the flyer. “See, it’s on the weekend of the 5th. You’ll be free that weekend, right?”

“Yeah,” Sunny says. She tilts her head up, parting her gaze from the forks.

Zipp chimes in. “Hmm, I doubt there are any one-person tents left in stock online,” she lies, but she’s surprisingly convincing. Guess her playing the Captain von Trapp in theater paid off. “I guess I’ll have to buy a two-person tent for Hitch.” Zipp raises a brow at me, and smirks.

“I already have a two-person tent stored in my dorm room,” Sunny says. “Dad and I used it when we used to go on camping trips together. Hitch can use that.”

Zipp scoffs. “I think Hitch would prefer to have my brand-new tent.”

Sunny scoffs back. “I think Hitch would prefer my lived-in tent.”

There’s a brief two seconds of silence where I swear that Sunny and Zipp are locked in a death stare. And I’m caught in the middle.

“It’s not a big deal, girls,” I say. “Let’s just focus on getting more people to join us.”

“Who said it was a big deal?” Zipp smirks.

“Yeah, it isn’t,” Sunny agrees, with a smile.

Or maybe it’s all just my male fantasies playing tricks on my brain.

Zipp wouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend, right?

Anyway, Ms. Gaia will be there, so why am I even thinking that something naughty will happen in my two-person tent?

Comments

[Prince Leviathan]

Wolf ear hoodie?

Zipp's got quite the catch.

[Mica]

11257430
Zipp has a thing for furries boys who like wolf-ear hoodies

[Prince Leviathan]

11258446
What a lucky fu-

Uh...i mean...I see.

[StarzGecko]

I don’t know why Zipp even does this favor for me. Although half the girls at Maretime Academy probably assume we’re an item (and the other half assume Zipp is a lesbian), Zipp actually has a boyfriend. He goes to Wondercolt Academy, an all-boys school about an eight hours’ drive away. I met him once during the joint school dance. He’s a whole foot shorter than her, incredibly shy, and instead of a regular suit, he wore a long black hoodie with wolf ears attached to the hood.

….is it Sprout? Nothing wrong with Zipp having a boyfriend just wondering if that’s him or that one earth pony I think had a donut mark or was a little chubby?

Zipp wouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend, right?

Bad Zipp, bad girl.

Man, Zipp needs to chill down… like there is ways to make things better for the environment and really she is a coward for not at least talking to her mom about it. Sure, being one of the billion dollar businesses it can be challenging to change things since one mistake can bring to ruin very fast in a day.

Really Zipp should just be prepared to take over the business and plan out how to recycle or use fracking technology that’s still new but isn’t used much since it would basically help people and cost less… The only obstacle would be political powers that will get in the way since they never want people have anything and be happy.

Tbh Zipp does feel a bit out of character even though this is alternative story. Hopefully Hitch will lead her to a path that she can be brave to talk it Haven and it’s fine if she wants to just not be part of the company at all.