Back to You

A Grand Gesture

 "Who's ready for a pop quiz?!" The math teacher, Mr. Mack asked the entire room.

Given the fact that it was Monday morning again, I don't think no one was ready for one. My guess only became apparent when the whole class groaned, cursed, and muttered some things under their breaths.

Smiling cheerfully anyway, he picked up the papers and dished them out to each of us. "I know, I know. We all hate school and life."

"No, we just hate you!" A student expressed. The class bursted laughing hysterically.

Glaring out to us all, he gave off a stern and cold smirk. "Alright, who said that?!"

Turning over to face Ryder, Andrea, Olivia, and Adam—it wasn't them. They were doing something else for sure with their faint whispers to each other.

Well, everyone except for Ryder.

He was just doing his best to stay awake but instead, he just kept dozing off every five minutes ignoring everyone. I didn't know how he must've felt after our little encounter a couple of days ago. After speaking to my Dad about making some kind of grand gesture, I still had no clue where to begin.

Whatever I decided, it better be monumentally impressive.

"Now, there's no need to get your underpants in a twist—but this is a pass or fail test just to see what you guys know. But that just means for my students here, each of you should pass with flying colors or there will be consequences personally from me." He explained, going around the room.

What was the point of telling us it was a pass or fail then if he was just gonna pour out detention slips left and right?

"That's gonna be a challenge. My sister told me she took this test last year and it's brutally hard." I heard Andrea whisper to Olivia from the next to me.

"What?! What are we suppose to do now? I can't afford another black mark on my record before graduation." Olivia stated concerned.

"No kidding! Neither can the rest of us." Andrea replied.

"Chill ladies! I hooked up with your sister over the weekend at Ry's party just for this very reason. Trust me, I've got this." Adam voiced from the front row cockily.

Mr. Mack then came over to us. Their whispers came to an abrupt halt the second he had set down the paper in front, before heading back to his desk. "You've got 10 minutes to complete! I expect great things. You may begin."

With that, everyone dived in to get to work. I glanced to Ryder who obviously didn't get enough sleep over the weekend due to his party. But I couldn't just grab him and wake him up either. That would look bad on both of us right now.

Grunting to myself needing to think harder, it was best to put everything on hold to finish this stupid test. It would be easy to coast through anyway. I was known to be the academic nerd around here so it was nothing new. Twenty years of more experience from growing up was helping out a lot too, no doubt.

But as I continued to keep blazing by each question, I noticed something from the corner of my eye taking place.

Adam was holding something in his hand. It was a folded note.

Passing it back to Andrea, she did the same to Olivia, and I already knew what it was as they kept suspiciously peering around the room.

With each of them opening it up while Mr. Mack's head was down concentrating on his book on how to make his students lives more dreadful with a smile on his face, he kept occasionally looking up but not catching them in the act yet.