I can't believe I am assigned to her.
Out of all people! I'd be better off working with a dead fish than her.
Actually, I'd rather work with a dead fish.
I don't like to socialize. I only talk when I absolutely need to, so being assigned with her is going to be a nightmare.
She's not only the most popular and pretty girl in school, but she's also the most snotty.
And stuck up. And rude.
My life is officially over.
I have an urge to go up to the teacher and complain.
But I would never do that.
I hate drawing attention to myself.
And I don't want Tiffany to hate me more than she already does.
Don't get me wrong, but she hates everyone, other than her bestie Victoria.
I sigh, grab my notebook from my backpack and sneak a peek at Tiffany.
She seems bored and was filing her nails. Ugh.
This is my partner?
She would mean nothing but trouble. Which is the thing I want least.
I was lost in my troubled thoughts when Ms. Meri was lecturing Tiffany about paying attention in class.
Finally, she gives up, pats her skirt and clears her throat.
I snapped back into attention, wanting to make sure I write down.
But instead of continuing the class, Ms. Meri glares at Tiffany and says, "We will resume our history later. For the rest of the period, we will learn proper manners."
When she said manners, it seemed like she was staring at Tiffany extra hard.
Actually, she probably was.
I'm just glad that we won't be working on our projects today.
When class finally ended, I headed to my locker, thinking about how I would cope with working with my partner, when my thoughts were interrupted.
By crashing into someone.
It was Tiffany.
Why? Why, why, why, why, why?
As if she didn't hate me enough.
I quickly stood up, grabbed my stuff, mumbled an apology and rushed out of there.
Well, tried to.
Tiffany grabbed my wrist as I started to walk away.
Boy is she strong.
It's like her fingers turned into mini handcuffs and trapped me.
"Going somewhere?" She sneered.
"No-no." I stammered, attempting to step back, which was stupid of me because she had an iron grip on me so I couldn't go anywhere.
Tiffany quickly examines me with a disgusted look on her face.
"So, this is my partner," she taunts, being very clear that she disapproves.
I have no idea what to say, so I say nothing.
"A shy one. Shouldn't be hard to work with, " she continues. "Since my parents want a A on this dumb project, we have to work on it."
"Uh, yeah," I managed to stammer.
"Okay, come to my house today. I'll call your parents," She quickly scheduled everything.
"Um, sure," I say, unsure of what to do.
She asks for my mom's number and dials it into her phone.
After getting my mom's approval (Our parents are friends), Tiffany drags me to the school's front door.
Wow, that was not the reaction I thought I was going to get.
I thought I was going to see smoke coming out her ears and my own ears would fall off from her shouting at me.
Maybe I shouldn't be this doubtful, maybe, our partnership would work out fine.
On the way to her house, Tiffany basically ignored me and chattered to her mom about how good she was in school.
I rolled my eyes at that. She did not.
When we finally arrived at her house she dragged me upstairs to her room growling, "Don't you dare touch any of my stuff."
I nodded and swallowed, being more careful about where I place my feet.
Her room was HUGE.
It had a diamond chandelier, a canopy bed, a fancy tv and LED lights.
Her closet was the size of my room.
I sit down on the floor, not touching anything except the carpet and grabbed my laptop from my backpack.
I unlocked it and started finding things we could do our project on.
Tiffany looked at me, sighed and sat down next to me and looked over my shoulder.
I didn't really see anything that caught my eye, but just when I was going to give up, Tiffany pointed at a website that was titled "The Gulf War" saying, "A war about golf? Let's do this one."
"No," I say, shaking my head, "It's not about golf, it's spelled with a U, see?"
"Oh," Was Tiffany's reply, "Let's do it anyway."
"Okay, " I shrugged.
We both researched about it. And yes. I said WE and BOTH.
Tiffany also took out her fancy laptop and started searching for facts.
After I gathered as much info as I could, I wanted to check in with Tiffany so I said, "Tiffany? I think I got enough information... Maybe we should go over our facts?"
Tiffany glanced at me, then nodded and handed her notebook to me.
Was it just me or was Tiffany being nice to me?
I took the notebook and handed her mine.
Wow, she actually had some good information.
After I got my notebook back and gave hers back to her, I left.
Over the next few days, we worked on our project, she was being really nice to me.
I guess she needed someone who wouldn't one day be her friend and another day spread rumors about her. (Which btw, Victoria does)
After a week, we finally finished our presentation.
It was amazing.
On the day when the project was due, we were rehearsing our lines for presenting when Tiffany burst into tears.
I was worried and asked, "Tiffany? What's wrong?"
She sniffled and said, "It's just, my dad used to be in the military. He got paralyzed from this war."
Oh, wow, Is this why she picked this one?
"I- I didn't know, are you...are we still going to..." I didn't know what to say, so instead I hugged her and let her sob on my shoulder.
After a while, she wiped her tears and said, "Let's go, we are going to do this presentation."
I smiled, "That's right."
