Fly

Seven

2 Years Later

I was about to tear my all of my precious hair out. Teachers did not  get paid enough to go through this pure of torture. "Let's try again, okay?" I mentally counted to ten. Not working. Twenty? Nah. "What is the answer to 18 plus 38? You can use the paper ya know."

"I don't need to use the paper! I can do it in my head, I know I can!" I was not the only one getting a little frustrated. Here I am with more understatements.

"Then do it!" I snapped. I definitely couldn't say I enjoyed children.

She glared at me. "I would have figured it out a long time ago if you weren't so talkative!"

"I'm  the one who's talkative?" I huffed. After a moment, I asked. "Well? What is it?"

"56!" She replied triumphantly, staring at me proudly. "Told you I could do it, Daniel, I told you!" That's my girl, I thought. So sassy for a seven year old. I did hate all of those annoying, mischievous brats; all but this one.

"Okay. good. Now, what about the rest of the worksheet?" I smiled at her encouragingly.

She glared back at me, then looked down at the many problems she had left. She sighed loudly, and then looked at me out of the corner of her eye. I pretended not to notice. She wasn't getting out of this.

"I'll give you a surprise if you finish all of them," I whispered. " And you get less than fifteen problems wrong."

"Is it a good surprise?" She asked, staring at me with wide suspicious eyes, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a great  surprise." I smiled back.

She looked at the pile of books piled next to her. "It better  be." I grinned, if I didn't be careful, I don't think I could survive the next day. Lucky for me, my surprise was terrific.

"So? What are you waiting for? Go get it!"

I raised an eyebrow."Sassy." I replied back. "And so impatient." I pretended to reconsider. " I don't know if you deserve a present after all..."

"But it's my birthday!"

I stiffened in shock. "How do you know that?" I asked. The roles had reversed; now I was the one wary and suspicious while she was the one being questioned. "Evanthe, who told you this?"

"I don't know...." She stared at me with just as much shock as I felt. "It just... it just slipped out!" She cried. "Did I do anything wrong?"

This snapped me out of my shock. "No...Of course not. I just need you to tell me who told you about that, okay?" I had thought there was only me and Evanthe in here, but if there was someone else...I needed to find out who. But that could wait. "Eve, it's just that...that...that was my surprise! I was going to throw you a birthday party! It was suppose to be a surprise!" I winced inwardly. There was no way Eve was going to buy that, she was way too smart for that.

"You're lying." She raised an eyebrow at me. Sometimes I forgot that this girl in front of me was only seven years old. "Do you know how I know?" She smiled impishly up at me. I think my heart just melted at her cuteness. "Because you didn't get me any presents!" Splat. Daniel, died from cuteness overdose.

"How do you know?" I asked, not willing to back down with the hope that I could still salvage my lie.

"Because you didn't leave to buy some! I'm not stupid Danny, duh!"

"Well fine! I'll go now!"

"Fine, then go!"

I smiled and waved. I already knew what I was going to get her.

It was only until much later that I thought things over. It was then that I considered that she might have an interior motive to want me gone. By then, it was too late.