It's My Life • Shawn Hunter

6| Boys II Mensa

At school, Shawn, Cory and Zoey were in Mr. Feeny's class, listening to him as he talked about the books report they did last Friday. Zoey paid no attention as she watched Cory mess around with a big red nose on. She couldn't help but laugh at her friend.

"I have graded your book reports last Friday." Mr. Feeny informed the class. "And after I pass them out, we'll discuss them." He sighed when he noticed Cory messing around. "Ah, Mr. Matthews." Shawn and Zoey sat straight in their chairs while Cory turned to Mr. Feeny. Cory gave him an innocent smile. "Shall I express my usual disappointment or just ask you to guide my sleigh tonight?"

"Uh, wrong holiday, Mr. Feeny." Cory said, taking the red noise off. "See, Halloween's coming up and I was just test driving my clown nose."

"Then I insist you stay in the driver's seat. Put the nose back on..." Mr. Feeny instructed, and Cory hesitantly put the nose back on. "for the rest of the morning.." He added. A few kids laughed at Cory, while Mr. Feeny continued to hand out reports. "Mr. Minkus, excellent work as usual. I particularly enjoyed your haiku on Captain Ahab's obsession with the great white whale."

"The calm blue ocean. Sun lights up the monster's eye. He sees me - Whale food." Minkus said, quoting from his haiku.

"It only works on so many levels." Mr. Feeny stated.

"Brown-noser." Shawn hissed towards Minkus.

"Troglodyte." Minkus retorted.

"Miss Francis, nice work." Mr. Feeny stated, placing her paper on her desk. Zoey grabbed the paper and quickly looked at it. She got a B+. "Mr. Lewis, very good work. Mr. Matthews, not one of your better efforts. Mr. Hunter."

"Hey, this isn't fair." Cory snapped. "Rick and I both got C's. How come you tell him he did good work... and you tell me it wasn't one of my better efforts?"

"Would Bozo please come to the center ring?" Mr. Feeny asked. Zoey chuckled slightly as Cory made his way over to Mr. Feeny. "Mr. Lewis has worked very hard to get his C... and I respect him for that. You, on the other hand, waste your efforts on being the class clown."

"How come you always pick on me, Mr. Feeny?" Cory questioned. "How come you never pick on Minkus?"

"Have you taken a blow to the head, Mr. Matthews?" Mr. Feeny asked, staring at the younger boy in disbelief. "Stuart Minkus gets nothing but A's. If there were a letter after A, he would get that."

"I guess that's why he gets away with so much." Cory muttered, as he made his way back to his seat.

"And just what does he get away with?" Mr. Feeny questioned.

"Well, how come when I make paper airplanes I get detention and he doesn't?" Cory wondered, holding a paper plane in his hand. Zoey glanced over to Minkus and saw him making a realistic plane. Cory sighed in defeat. "I withdraw the question."

••••

After school both Shawn and Zoey had detention. Zoey got detention because she threw paint at a kid called Mark, who had said that she was ugly, and of course, she had cracked it. And now her and Shawn were leaning against the lockers, waiting for Cory to get out of his detention.

"I still can't believe you threw paint at Mark." Shawn said with a proud smile.

Zoey huffed. "Well, that's what you get when someone calls me ugly."

Shawn shook his head slightly. "You're not ugly, Zoey."

"Thanks, Shawn." Zoey said, her cheeks are suddenly kissed pink like a spring rose, the blooming color so cute against her skin.