How Far We've Come

Chapter 6

The next day, classes were normal, but one class stood out in my mind. History. We began learning about Westward Expansion and the "sea to shining sea" American Dream. But, what surprised me was when Mr. Marvin called up two students in the class- Ethan and Lina.

"Okay!" He clapped his hands. "Today, we will be starting westward expansion. I need two students, one boy and one girl."

By high school, there were two types of people. The people who always wanted to volunteer and the people who didn't. I was the latter, so I raised my hand up high into the air. But, teachers always pick on people who aren't raising their hands. In this situation, that happened to be Lina and Ethan.

Ethan was actually turned backwards, talking to a friend of his. When Mr. Marvin called on him, he turned around like a deer in the headlights. Lina had the same look, as her face rose from her lap where she was on her phone. I gave her a sympathetic look, but wasn't surprised. She was always on Instagram in class.

"So... One of you will be Shamus, the brother, and one will be Kathleen, the sister, " Mr. Marvin explained. It seemed to be obvious who was who. Ethan was Shamus and Lina was Kathleen. But, Mr. Marvin had different ideas.

He pointed to Lina. "You're Shamus." Then, he pointed to Ethan. "You're Kathleen." Suddenly the whole class was cracking up, thinking of Ethan wearing a blond wig with princess-like ringlets. Even I snickered a little bit.

Mr. Marvin pointed to himself. "I will be Porick, your brother." With that, he launched into a story about a family who lived in a small town up north and was trying to make it big out west. He illustrated the difficulties of finding a job and the dangers faced if a person found one. Soon, the family had progressed. Porick was a miner, Shamus was a farmer, and Kathleen knitted at home. Ethan sat on a desk with his head propped in his hands and an annoyed expression across his face. I had to laugh.

But, the dangers came, conflict after conflict. Right when we thought it couldn't get any worse, Mr. Marvin told us about "Porick"s incident in the mines. "Porick was mining one day when his friend was digging behind him. But, the shovel swung back, and..." He slammed his stick onto the ground. "Hit Porick's head. Porick died."

The whole class flinched and stared, not knowing if he was joking. Despite our expressions he continued the story. And soon, even Shamus was dead. Lina walked back to her seat, and for once didn't pull out her phone, but I wasn't surprised. This story was keeping us on our toes.

But, with both her brothers dead, Kathleen lived alone. The story ended and Mr. Marvin began explaining how it related to the workers back then when Ethan raised his hand.

"What happened to Kathleen?" he asked, out of curiosity. Mr. Marvin thought about it for a moment.

"She became a prostitute," he replied. Soon, the room was filled with laughter. A few people had even fallen on the floor, clutching their stomachs and giggling.

I turned to Clary. "A- a- prostitute!" She dissolved into another round of laughter, which didn't last very long after Mr. Marvin held out another worksheet for us to fill out. I sighed and got to work.

In Biology, we began learning about DNA. We reviewed the basics- adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Then, we began talking about DNA replication and structure. When we reached the part about the enzyme helicase, which unzipped DNA, Mr. Rickman told us another joke.

"Okay who wants to hear a nerdy pick-up line?" he asked. There were a few laughs and a murmur of agreement, so he continued: "I wish I were helicase so I could unzip your genes."