Grace for Today

one - schoolyard politics

In the same way that little kids make strange noises and somehow misplace all the bones in their bodies when they get bored, Claire Perkins was getting dangerously close to making a scene in her math class.

It wasn't that Algebra II was all that boring- although it certainly wasn't her favorite. It wasn't that she had any exciting plans for after school. She honestly had nowhere to be after school. No, the thing she was desperate to get to was lunch.

In her opinion, lunch was the best part of the school day. It was the perfect chance to catch up with friends over food that was suspicious at best. Today was the best school lunch day- Waffle Wednesday, which was just the school's code for two poorly cooked toaster waffles with some vaguely egglike substance).

Everything seemed to agitate her as the seconds ticked, each slower than the last. She cracked her back. Cracked her knuckles. Cracked her neck. Put her hair up. Took it down again. Put it back up. Cracked her back again. Bit her pencil. Pretty much anything she could think to do.

Finally, the bell rang. She barely heard her teacher call out the homework for the evening as she hastily grabbed her books and scurried off to the cafeteria.

After nearly bolting through the halls, she was greeted with the mood-dampening knowledge that she now had to wait, this time even more impatiently, for the lunch line to move.

At long last, she sat down with her friends- Kate, Bethany, and Summer- with a broad smile.

Before she even got a chance to open her mouth, Kate jumped in. "Good, Claire, you're finally here. So, the girls and I were thinking. We gained so much momentum with the tampon drive, and we're afraid to lose it, so for our next project..."

Claire hated to tune Kate out. But it wasn't unusual for Kate to be slightly obsessive with timelines and pushing new projects out. And she could sometimes get a bit controlling when it came to what the project was and all the details of it.

The four girls had formed a community outreach group, heavily relying on the students at school to provide them with the extra hands they needed to make their desired impact. A few weeks ago, they'd concluded one of their most successful projects yet- a feminine hygiene product drive. They'd gotten over eight hundred boxes- all unopened, of course- to donate to a local homeless shelter. The impact had been tremendous, and a small number of people were eager to participate in the next project, whatever it happened to be.

"And I was thinking we could start spreading the word in a few weeks and tackle it on the Wednesday before finals. What do you say?" Claire heard Kate's familiar voice call out.

"Sounds like a great project," she replied with a slightly false enthusiasm.

"So you're in?" Kate asked with a slight tone of demand in her voice.

"I... can't." she cringed inwardly as she watched the three girls' faces fall.

"Why not?" Summer asked.

"Doctor appointment," she lied.

Bethany rolled her eyes. "Claire, you're always at some appointment or another. The doctor, tutoring, community service, and so on. Can't you cancel just this once?"

"It's a follow-up on my knee. The doctor says it should be healed by now, but he just wants to ensure it's all good." Claire had hurt her knee after falling out of a tree she'd been attempting to climb- something that displeased her mom greatly. Claire was known for her clumsiness and lack of coordination, so climbing trees was something she'd known was a bad idea. A dare was a dare, however, and the view had been pretty incredible until she'd lost her balance and attempted to reconnect to a branch using her knee. Upon twisting it and finding herself with her leg bent in a way it wasn't supposed to go, she decided to put her brief tree-climbing career behind her.