Valhalla High (A Magnus Chase Fanfic)

Magni Makes a Good Point

November 13

The funny thing about school is one week you'll have very little homework and then the next, all of your teachers will decide to give you homework at once. This was one of those weeks. It started with AP English when Odin gave us back our essays. "The final draft is due this Friday," he said.

He had told us this from the start, but I'd sorta forgotten about it until now. I looked at my essay. It was marked with notes ranging from "great point" to "can you elaborate on this?" This was not going to be a simple revising and editing process. On top of that, we were starting Old Man and the Sea. Now I don't know who decided this was a great piece of literature. I mean, what was so exciting about a man going out to fish and remembering the good old days when he could outmatch anyone?

Then, in Ceramics, Sif announced we were starting our final project. "I'm giving you two months, so you can make two projects. You will be graded on your better one."

     "How will we be graded?" I asked. "Is there a rubric."

   Sif frowned. "Art does not have a rubric."

   Oh great, I thought. Sif gave us the day for brainstorming. We'd start working with clay again on Wednesday. "I'm stumped for ideas," I told my friends.

Mallory looked up from the paper she was sketching on. "Well, first of all: are you planning on making these just for a good grade or to keep?"

"I want to make something for my parents, but I'm not sure what," I answered.

She nodded. "Then you have a place to start off. I'm making this bowl for someone, so I am designing it to suit their interests."

She showed up the sketch. It was a bowl in the shape of a Viking longboat. She had started drawing runes on it and I didn't have to speak Norse to know who she was making it for. "Think of what your parents like and make something based off that," Mallory suggested.

I thought of my mother and how she like nature things because she'd grown up in a large, gloomy mansion. An idea started to take shape in my mind and I put it down on paper, letting my hands tell me what I didn't yet consciously know. When I was done, I looked up and saw what I'd sketched. "Is that a flying squirrel?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," I said, thinking quickly. "They're my mother's favorite rodent."

"Huh, I don't know many people who have favorite rodents," Halfborn said.

"Riptide's is a gerbil," Jack said defensively.

"Mine's a beaver," Mallory put in. "They have sharp teeth."

Halfborn nodded in approval. "Beavers, now my mother wishes I could be more like one. She wants me to stay and do college near home, but I want to go out of state. I want to see the world."

"That would be cool," I said. "The problem really is the cost of college. Even in-state tuition is ridiculously expensive."

"That's why I'm hoping to get a wrestling scholarship," Halfborn said.

Alex laughed. "How did we get from talking about our projects to our college plans?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I still have to come up with another idea."

"You could make a banana boat," Hearthstone joked.

"You know," I said, "that is actually not a bad idea."

Halfborn looked on in utter shock as I sketched a banana-shaped boat. Since it would made of clay, I decided it could be used to store bananas. It would be bright yellow, I decided. "I still cannot believe you're doing this," Halfborn said.

     I shrugged. Sure it might be weird, but it worked and sometimes, weird was better.

***

AP Biology included the reminder that we had an exam the day before Thanksgiving Break. "That's evil," someone grumbled.

"Would you rather have me assign you guys new material that you'll be tested on later?" Mimir asked.

    That quieted the last of the grumbling. Class was hard today. We were studying more advanced concepts than we had in August, but at least the concepts built off of each other. That would mean that studying for the AP exams would be a little easier.

    After frying our minds and loading us with homework, Mimir bid us goodbye before class ended. I spent my time in Learning Lab furiously solving math problems. I finished my Biology homework before my ASL class began, which was good since I already had an essay I had to revise this week.

    Vidar told us how we had an exam before Thanksgiving. "Not another one!" Magni practically shouted. "Do you teachers meet up and plan to give your poor students a million things due all at once?"

  His face was bright red and I thought he was going berserk. Luckily, he seemed to be realize he was bring a bit over-dramatic and sat down. Still, he had said what we were all thinking. Class was very subdued that day. After his outburst, Magni was uncharacteristically quiet and because his ASL was not the best, he didn't do much speaking.

    When I got out of school, I spent two entire hours looking over my essay. I started by fixing the little grammar and spelling mistakes before moving onto the revision. I was so burnt out when I finished that I wanted to just chill and watch Doctor Who episodes until my mother got off work. Unfortunately, I still had to practice for my presentation on Wednesday in AP Biology, do my daily ASL homework on Canvas, and read Old Man and the Sea.

    I ended up reading about the fishing adventure. By the time my mother picked me up, I was exhausted. "Why the long face?" my mother asked.

    "My face isn't long," I said, "just sad."

     "Okay," my mother said, "and why is that?"

      I sighed. "Just schoolwork."

      My mother nodded in understanding. "You'll get through it. Remember to pace yourself."

    I met her smile of encouragement and though I didn't share her optimism, I returned it. It wasn't my mother's fault that my teachers were paid to stress out students.