Tutoring My Bully // J.G.

Chapter 16

Edited

JuJu's POV

The first few hours went by pretty fast. I was now at lunch. When I walked in the lunch room, I looked around and my eyes landed on Gilinsky's table. I saw that Jack G and the other boys were huddled up but once they saw me they quickly sat down, trying to act like they were sitting like that the whole time. They were acting really weird.

I left it alone and walked to my table, towards Matt and Hannah.

"Hey." I said. They smiled and responded with a "hey".

"Whatcha guys talkin' about?" I asked sitting down, setting my lunchbox on the table.

"Our science project ugh." Matt said, rolling his eyes.

I laughed, "Who's your science partner?"

"This really shy kid named John Frederick. He's so shy that when I tried starting a conversation with him, he ran away." Matt said.

"Oh. Wow." I said, surprised and not knowing what to say.

"Yeah, so I'm probably gonna do the whole project myself and just give him partial credit."

"Why would you give him credit?" Hannah asked.

"Because he's so shy and if I tell the teacher to give me all the credit, he might be really sad and embarrassed that he got a bad grade. I don't want him to feel more insecure." Matt said taking my fork and eating my salad.

"Hey! Stop! This is my food." I said, moving my plate away from him. He laughed and sat next to me, so, he could continue eating more of my lunch. I rolled my eyes playfully and just let him be.

"I think that's really nice that you're doing that for him." I said, eating my cheezits.

He shrugged and kept eating my salad. "I guess." He said.

"Hey, at least you're not with a stupid person. I'm with Sam Wilkinson." Hannah said rolling her eyes.

"Last year he cheated on 2 tests and still got a C in the class. Idiot." She said crossing her arms.

I laughed, "Well, I have Jack Gilinsky. My used-to-be biggest bully." I said with a fake sad face.

"Aww. Does JuJu need a hug?" Matt said, in a baby voice with his arms out.

I put my hand on his chest to stop him. "No, I don't want a hug from you. You stole my food." I said, rolling my eyes and turning away from him.

He laughed and continued eating.

We kept talking, then, I got distracted and started looking around the cafeteria. I looked at all the posters with events on them. One was the variety show (school talent show) sign ups. I wonder who's going to sign up. I like to sing but I would never sing in front of the school. I used to be the most bullied girl. I could get laughed at for just stepping on stage.

I can't wait for the show though. I love seeing unknown talents. Singing, dancing, acting, etc.

I looked at more posters and then just started looking at people in the lunchroom. My eyes stopped at Jacks and he was staring right at me.

He gave me a small smile and nod. I looked away.

Wow, that was weird. He's never really smiled to me before. Not even a small one.

I felt kind of bad because I didn't smile back, I just turned away. Whatever, it's not like he cares.

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I was in last hour, sitting next to Hannah, waiting for class to start.

"Did you start on your project yet?" I asked her.

"Nope. I tried to ask Sam when he wanted to come over to my house to work on it and he argued the whole time just because he wanted me to go to his house."

"Why don't you just go to his house?" I asked.

"Because! He probably has cheerleaders in his bed and a strip club next to his house. I don't want to see a bunch of random naked girls while I'm doing a project."

I nodded. "Good point."

The bell rang and class has now started. Everybody got in their seats and we waited a couple of seconds for the teacher.

She finally walked in class and gave us a little announcement. "I have to leave early for my daughters doctors appointment. She's been sick for a while now so Mrs. Denny will come in and substitute. You will be working on your project with your partners the whole period. You may get started." Mrs. Wahlers said, then left about 10 minutes later.

I walked to the back of the classroom with Jack and we sat down behind lab station 6. I got out my pencil and paper and he did the same.

I got out the assignment and read the first thing we had to do. "Okay well first we need a title. Since we are doing crystal rock candy we could just name it crystal rock candy temperature effect? I guess, if that's okay with you." I said, nervously and shyly.

"Yeah sure. And it's physical science so we have to put that under the title with our names on it." Jack said, typing the title, category and our names on his school laptop.

"Okay, next slide is supposed to be our abstract. What we are trying to test, how we are going to do the experiment, the results and what the results mean." I said.

"Okay." Jack said, titling the next page "abstract".

I wrote down our sentences on my paper, in case the presentation deletes by accident. We were done with the abstract and we still had a lot of class time left.

"Ugh, I don't want to work anymore. I'm bored." Jack said hitting his head on the wall.

I laughed, then nodded "Yeah lets just do the rest after school. But what are we going to do the rest of class? If we get up the sub will ask us if we are done and then we'll have to show her that we're done, which, we aren't." I said.

"Uh.. We can just sit here and act like we're working."

"Well, that's gonna be a boring 45 minutes." I said sighing.

"Okay umm.. How bout we play 21 questions. So we can get to know each other better." He suggested.

21 questions doesn't sound like a good idea. He's a guy. He's gonna ask something sexual and make this awkward.

But, I'm bored and there's nothing better to do, so, what the heck.

"Okay, sure."

He smiled and we turned to each other. I crossed my legs and rested my head on the lab station. He did the same but with one leg laying out.

"I'll start. Uh..What's your favorite animal?" Jack asked.

"Dog. What's your favorite... Thing to do?"

"Sing and play basketball." He said.

"Wait, you sing?" I asked surprised.

"Yeah, but hey it's not your turn to ask a question," he smiled "...when's your birthday?"

"March 9th. Umm.." I stopped, trying to think of something to ask him.

Then, the perfect question popped into my head and I knew exactly what to ask.

"How many people have you bullied?" I asked, curiously.

He stared at me with wide eyes. I crossed my arms waiting for an answer. "Uh.. I-I don't know." He stuttered, looking away.

"Obviously, you do know. How many people Jack?" I asked angrily, gritting my teeth.

"1." He said quietly.

"What?"

"1." He said louder.

I honestly was so surprised. I thought there would be more. Looks like I wasn't just the most bullied girl in school...

I was the only bullied girl in school.