A Year Full Of Surprises

A Year Full Of Surprises - Chapter Seventeen.

Chapter Seventeen…

My first lesson was one that I had with Mel, making me a loner already. I was surprised, however to see a new, anxious looking, face occupying Mel’s seat. She smiled nervously as I sat down, eyeing her curiously. 

We hardly ever had new students here, so I could guarantee she would be the science project for the next couple of weeks. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone - except maybe Leonie. 

“Hey.” I said, smiling politely at her. “I’m Jessica.” 

She smiled back, seeming to become slightly more confident. “I’m Grace.” She replied, offering her name as well. “Do you prefer being called Jess?” She asked tentatively. 

I shook my head viciously. “Oh hell no.” I replied. “Only one person is allowed to call me Jess, and that’s only because I can’t get him to stop it.” Truth be told, I had gotten used to Mr. Armstrong calling me Jess, and I wouldn’t want him to stop now, it would be weird. 

Grace opened her mouth to respond, but before we could continue our conversation, the teacher came in and handed out our copies of Macbeth. God, I actually hated this play. I was clever and even I only understood half the language. When we would ever need to be able to know about Macbeth I had no idea. 

After listening to her recite part of the play we could read perfectly well and ten times faster, she set us some work to do. I held back in my ability, obviously, but Grace didn’t. She began working straight away. 

I peered nosily over her shoulder, without trying to look really obvious. She had written tons already and it looked like it was pretty good. She might even be almost as smart as me. “Whoa.” I whispered aloud to her. “You’re really smart.” 

She shrugged. “I’m not that clever.” She replied, looking rather sheepish. 

I chuckled, but didn’t say anything else to her, partly because she was still acting rather shy, and partly because our teacher was giving me a particularly hate-filled glare. I scowled back at her, before carrying on with my pretty crap paragraph.

It turned out I had most lessons with Grace and we sat next to each other in all of them. She was actually really nice and funny when she had come out of her shell a bit. I was right when I had thought she was clever. She excelled everyone except me in all the subjects. She obviously didn’t know how smart I was and I let her believe I was an idiot happily. 

When it got to fourth lesson and maths, I was laughing and joking with Grace. We sat in mine and Mel’s normal seats at the front and carried on chatting until Mr. Armstrong sent us a warning look. I had a pretty good feeling he wouldn’t punish me, but I didn’t want to test him. 

Instead of punishing me, he asked me to answer the equation on the board, hoping that I either hadn’t been paying attention or I was going to answer it wrong on purpose. I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of seeing to me do either, however. 

I answered easily, causing him to visibly hold back a smile as I looked at him smugly. “Well done Jess.”