Just The Four Of Us

Ch. 10: "But what do I know?"

(Hannah's POV)

The first half of school had passed and the weather changed from the reminiscent-of-summer August heat to the cool and crisp breeze of December. I formed close relationships with the majority of my teachers, and bonded with some new people. Mandy and I still tend to sit by each other at lunch instead of socializing with our new found friends although. She did meet someone from her home room who she speaks well of. Marley, I think her name is? I don't have any classes with her but I've seen her after school for choir rehearsal. With the Christmas concert and District Choral Assessment coming up soon, we've been practicing relentlessly in order to do well. Just more stress to add onto the pile that includes: student council, choir council, class assignments, and trying to keep myself composed. I'll be lucky if I make it through the year without blowing a fuse. That would be a miracle.

The bell had just rang for third period to conclude, so grabbing my things, I made way to my next class. People were stampeding through the hall at both directions. I made my way in and out of the lines to writing. The doors were all decorated in various holiday themes, some were brilliantly thought out and executed, others were just prices of green and red paper thrown on a door. Mrs. Puccio's door was one of the nicer ones compared to my other class's doors. After the rest of her class cleared out, I sat down in my seat in the front next to a girl named Tori, whom I absolutely could and still can't stand. I begin copying down the assignments for the week and completing the "bell ringer" as they call it, or just a little assignment to start the fifty-five minutes off with. More and more students filed in, and the teacher closed the door and began walking around the class to check on people's answers.

Ten minutes passed, so she asked the class what their thoughts were. I was cringing in my seat from how far fetched the responses were from the task at hand. It was just a question focused on compound sentences. I obviously knew what to say but I didn't want to continue my streak as the class  smart aleck.

"Hannah. What did you write?"

I sighed, knowing what the response would be for what I was about to say.

"A compound sentence is at least two independent clauses joined by a comma and coordinating conjunction, or in other cases, a semi colon. Example: the classroom is extremely cold, but I do not have a jacket," I state clearly trying to not make eye contact with Tori beside me.

"This girl, acting like she's all that. She's not smart at all, just tryin' to impress people so they like her." Tori says to the boy to the left of us. I let her words roll of me, and I shuffle my papers to the next section of my binder so I can keep working on our next summative (test grade) writing. I let the words flow out my pencil and I attempt to channel them into an organized chaos of paragraphs.

"My table is open for conferences for anyone who wants advice on their pieces," Mrs. Puccio says with a calm voice. I figured it would be beneficial to get another set of eyes on the paper that I've been looking at for the past two weeks. So I made my way over to her kidney bean shaped desk with my stack of loose leaf. A girl beats me to the table and sits down, eager to share her mess of pen markings. Noticing the smirk on the girl's face from accomplishment of beating me to the only seat, I turn around to walk back to my desk.

"Wait! Hannah! If you want to conference come sit down."

I turn to see the teacher with a pen in her hand. She was entirely ignoring the girl informs of her.

"But I was here first Mrs. Puccio!" She whines, the bow in her hair moving side to side as she turns her head from me to the teacher.

"Yes, you were. And yet here we are. Come sit down please." The teacher remarks, motioning me over to the seat. The other girl leaves and sits back at her desk, the smirk wiped off her face.

"I know I haven't talked with you at all so I felt it was a good time to show you what I've been working on," I say pulling out my papers.

Quickly, she begins to read over them. I can pick out the parts she comes across by reading the words she whispers to herself.

"Gosh why haven't you shown me this? You're so talented, I have no comments. Just keep it up and in return, I'll see what I can do about Tori." She winked at me as I gathered my writing back in order. Like clockwork, right after she heard her name, Tori whipped her head around to me and spoke for some ungodly reason.

"Why is the teacher talking about me? Did you go and tell on me like a baby? You little snitch." God, it really is impossible for her to one day without opening that huge mouth of hers.

"I did nothing of the sort. She mentioned you because at least she, unlike you, can point out that you act like a jerk towards me and the rest of the people here."

"Don't use that attitude with me little girl. I could break you in half so don't think I ain't about to." She fires back, desperately trying to defend herself.

"I'm not." I say simply.

"You're not what? Brave enough?"

"Not in the slightest. I'm actually not frightened of you at all. I meant 'I'm not' as in 'I'm not about to' like you should've said in your sentence. It must be a real struggle for you to scare people with all your talk when you can't use correct grammar. But what do I know? I'm not smart. Just trying to get people to like me."
I snap back, without hesitation.

Tori looked back at me. Mouth agape. Finally out of words to say. I hear laughing throughout the class then her face turned beet red. She grabbed me by my collar and yanked me forward, her grip tightening around my throat.

"Listen here. Don't you ever. Ever. Try to pull a stunt like that again girl. Because next time, I won't be as polite." Her hands closeted together while the students of the class stood back, stunned.

"TORI. HANDS OFF. MEET ME OUTSIDE. NOW." The teacher bellowed from across the class. Followed by a door slam.

I dropped from her grasp and onto my seat, gasping for air.

"Oh my god are you okay?"

"She's such a jerk."

"Do you need me to bring you to the nurse?"

"No no I'm fine, really. I'm okay. At least now I know why no one stands up to her." My eyes fix back on my paper, and I scribble down some words trying to get out my frustration.

RING

I grab my things and stuff them into my school bag. Hurrying down the hall, I stop at my locker to put up my belongings and make my way to lunch. I met up with Mandy, and together we walked to the cafeteria as I ranted about the nerve of people in this world like Tori herself.

And she listened.