Perfectly Wrong

30. Points

“ Got another one for you.” Noah says, taking his seat behind Camila on Monday morning. She feels like if she hears any more of his jokes she might explode.

 “ Not today, my head hurts.” Camila replies, but he keeps going. “ Noah, I’m serious. Shut up!”

 Noah looks at her with surprise before turning to the student next to him and repeating his joke. Shawn is not there yet, so the students just wait for a while. Apparently that never happened before.

 “ Five minutes rule.” Jake says, standing up and walking out of the door, but then he walks right back with Shawn behind him.

 Shawn shuts the door and walks to his desk, setting down some papers. He hands the first student of each row a small stack of papers to pass back, including Camila. She looks down and starts flipping through the sheets, recognizing Maisie’s song. They must be all songs written by students, but she doesn’t recognize any of the others.

 “ Some of you in here performed your songs at the competition and I really appreciate it. It takes a lot of courage.” Shawn says, holding his own copies of the students' songs. “ These are your songs. Some of these lyrics were written by students in my other classes, some by students in here. I want you to read them, and then I want you to score them. Write a number between zero and ten. Be honest. If you don’t like it, give it a low score. Write the score in the bottom right of each page. Go ahead.”

 Camila watches as Shawn takes his seat behind his desk, thinking this assignment doesn’t seem fair. Before she can stop herself, she raises her hand. Shawn looks at her and nods his head.

 “ What’s the point of this assignment?” Camila asks.

 “ Camila, ask that question again after everyone is finished.” Shawn says, eyeing the rest of the classroom.

 Camila looks down again and starts reading the first poem when Shawn stands up and walks past her. She turns around, seeing him placing something over Maisie’s desk, who picks it up and frowns. Then he walks back to the front and drops something over Camila’s desk. She picks it up and realizes it’s a detention slip. Camila looks at Maisie and then at Shawn before turning her slip into a ball and throwing it across the room into the trash can.

 As the students finish their scoring, Shawn starts writing down and calculating the points. When everyone is done, he sits at the front of his desk holding a paper with the scores in it.

 “ Is everyone ready to hear which lyrics sucked? Which ones got the most points?” Shawn asks, smiling.

 The classroom is in silence for a while.

 “ Some of us who wrote those lyrics may not want to know how many points we got.” Maisie says. “ I know I don’t.”

 “ If you don’t care how many points it’s worth it, then why did you write it?” Shawn asks, taking a few steps towards Maisie’s desk.

 “ Aside from wanting to be exempt from your final exam?” She asks. “ I guess because I had something to say.”

 “ Camila, ask your question again.” Shawn says, looking at her.

 “ What’s the point of this assignment?” Camila asks cautiously.

 Shawn holds the paper with the scores in front of him and rips it down in the middle, then reaches behind him and takes all the poems that were scored before throwing them in the trash. He walks to the chalkboard and starts writing something down, then steps aside so everyone can read it.

 THE POINTS ARE NOT THE POINT, THE POINT IS POETRY.

 The students are quiet as they take in the words.

 “ It shouldn’t matter what everyone thinks about your words. When you’re on stage you share a piece of your soul. You can’t assign points to that.” Shawn says.

 The bell rings, but no one moves, everyone still staring at the writing on the board. Camila realizes that there was a moment during this class that she forgot he was Shawn. She listened to him like he was her teacher.

 Jake is the first one to leave, soon followed by everyone else. Shawn is facing his desk when Maisie walks to him with her detention slip in hand. Camila had already forgotten about the detention at this point.

 “ Mr. Mendes?.” Maisie asks respectfully, but in a dramatic way. “ It is my understanding that detention proceeds commencement of the final class period at approximately three-thrirty. It is my desire, as I’m sure it is Camila’s desire as well, to be punctual, so that we may serve our fairly deserved sentences with due diligence. Would you be so kind as to share with us the location in which this sentence shall be carried out?”

 “ Here. Just you two. Three-thirty.” Shawn says without looking at her before he leaves the classroom.

 “ What did you do to him?” Maisie asks, laughing at Camila.

 “ Oh, it wasn’t just me. It was the both of us.” Camila says as they walk to the door.

 “ Oh, my god. He knows I know?” Maisie asks with wide eyes. “ What is he going to say about it?”

 “ I guess we’ll find out at three-thirty.” Camila shrugs.

••••

 “ Detention? Duckie gave you detention?” Connor laughs.

 “ Man, he really needs to get laid.” Noah says.

 Maise laughs and spews milk out of her mouth the second Noah says that, making Camila glare at her.

 “ I can’t believe he gave you detention.” Connor says. “ But you’re not sure what is for, right? For skipping? I mean, he already mentioned that at the slam last week and he didn’t seem too mad about it.”

 Camila is pretty sure she knows what this detention is for. He wants to know if he can trust Maisie.

 “ He said it’s for not turning in the assignment we were supposed to do the day we skipped.” Camila lies.

 “ But you did that one. I remember.” Connor says, looking at his girlfriend.

 “ I guess I lost it.” Maisie says, looking at Camila.