Shine

How Friends Are Made

Tuesday was not a fun day, according to my body, but my brain was more capable of keeping up with life, so overall I still counted it a good day.

"Feeling better today, Seth?" Angela asked when she saw me in the hall.

I worked up a smile and added a dash of coffee just to get myself going. "Yeah, I am! Still not necessarily good, but certainly better. You having a good morning so far?"

"Yeah, my second brother never got sick, so that's always a plus."

I sucked in a yawn, but not very well. "Definitely. Is the first brother doing better?"

"Yeah, my mom went back to work yesterday. She's got a sitter with him today just in case, but he'll probably be in school tomorrow."

"Jess, you get your paper back yet?" I asked when I saw her in English.

"Yeah, yesterday!" She shook it out of her bag and laid it on the desk between us to analyze. "I'm not sure what he means by this—what more was there to develop?"

I turned back a page, then looked at the page he'd written on again, skimming. "I think what he's getting at is that you could have analyzed this bit further. Yes the repeated failures emphasize the overall tone of the Great Depression and the book itself, but what do they mean about the struggles of everyday people? How do they characterize the tone of the entire nation? Every country with relations to the U.S. suffered when the U.S. hit the Depression, so our failure belonged not only to us, but caused a bunch of failures among our allies too. How did George and Lennie's failures affect more people than just themselves?"

Jessica groaned. "Can I like, pay you to help me with my essays?"

I grinned. "Nah but you can bake me cookies and I'll read them over for you. But not on the night before it's due."

Jessica wrote Call Seth for pre-reading on the top of her paper and put it away.

My stomach still felt greasy, but I was hungrier than I was nauseous, so pulled out all my sliced sweet peppers, sliced apple, whole grapefruit, banana, and butter crackers.

"That's quite an assortment you've got there," Tyler remarked. He'd already apologized profusely for being cheap with his tires. Since I had survived with minimal damage, I had forgiven him. I'd given him quite a look of disapproval though.

"It's what I felt like this morning."

"Hey Seth!" Connor jogged over with his tray. "I hear you're good in English. By any chance are you good in Trig too?"

"If I were a prisoner Trig would be the abusive warden in my block."

He chortled and took a seat next to Angela. "I'll take that as a 'no' then."

"A vigorous and hearty 'no'."

"There are other kinds?"

"There have to be," Mike interjected. "Not everything is cut and dry."

"Thank goodness too," Eric said with a laugh. "Otherwise think of how boring it'd be."

"Amen."

I made it into my biology seat by myself today, which admittedly gave me a spark of rusty pride. I am lion, see me cough. Mr. Banner nodded at me, I retrieved one of my water bottles, and the lecture began.