Ecie & Esme III: Forever and a Day

Five

Ecie quickly opened the draw and pulled out the stack of papers. She shifted through them hurriedly and found her original paper. Looking behind her quickly, she took out a red pen from her bag and changed the C into a B, before reshuffling the papers and putting them back into the draw. She closed the draw then picked up her bag and left the room.

'Okay now guys,' Landon said passing out the papers. 'These essays were really great. I just feel like you're not all getting the point of these essays.' He walked through the rows of students returning their graded papers. 'When you all bounce off to law school, you'll be expected to write in a specific way and you'll be expected to do things in a certain way too. Some of you will be doing placements at law firms this summer and you'll be expected to know how to do things the "right way". Obviously each firm has their own way of doing things, but on the whole, it's all quite similar. What I found whilst grading these was that few of you were using other references. Few of you were actually reading outside the classroom and adding your own little flavor. What I found was that very few of you even knew what you were talking about.'

Landon walked out in front of the students and sat on the edge of his desk as everyone looked at their grade.

'I don't want to be the hated the professor, but these standards are low,' he said. 'You're first couple of assignments were of really good quality and I really felt that you all knew what was happening. I understand that college is a time for you to experiment and get wasted every night, but it's also a time to truly dedicate yourself to the task.'

'Does this mean you want us to redo these?'

'It took me like four hours to write.'

'I just want you guys to be serious for a second,' Landon said. 'At the end of term I'll be giving an exam and from these results I'll be determining which one of you will be allocated a position at the prestigious Kidman law firm in Santa Barbara.' The class muttered excitedly. 'There are only a limited number of spaces. If you really want this bad enough; you'll all knuckle down and give me some proper work.'

Landon got off his desk and started writing something on the blackboard.

'That was insane,' Lauren said as she sat down outside Urth Caffe with Ecie and Esme. 'He did not hold back.'

'What happened?' Esme asked.

'Landon was not happy with the papers,' Ecie replied. 'He wants us all to redo them.'

'Well that sucks,' Esme laughed. 'How long did it take you to write?'

'Two days,' Lauren replied. 'It's so stressful having to cross examine everything twenty times.'

'You don't have to redo yours though,' Ecie said. 'You're like fourth in the class.'

'Still,' Lauren replied. 'I really want to get a place at Kidman. It's been like a dream of mine since forever.'

'So you've heard of the Kidman law firm, yet you've never heard of Hervé Léger?' Ecie said looking at Lauren. 'I have no idea how this world works.'

Esme and Lauren laughed.

'So how was this weekend?' Lauren asked. 'Sorry I had to go home.'

'Don't worry about it,' Esme replied. 'It was a weird weekend.'

'What happened?'

'Well we had breakfast with mom and Eric,' Ecie replied. 'We pull up outside this massive estate; it's like eight million square feet, two guest houses, a barn with horses and stuff, massive bedrooms and an amazing kitchen. A swimming pool, and just miles of open space...'