Traffic

Chapter One

How is the Pythagorean Theorem ever going to help me in life? Who cares if I can speak French or diagram sentences? All I want to do is grow up, get a boyfriend, get married, and raise kids. I don't need any of this to do that.

Kelly pondered these things instead of listening to her mother explain her new math lesson. She drew a slow, shallow breath, exhaling it as she looked out the window, tapping her pencil on the table.

"Kelly, are you listening to me?" her mother interrupted her thoughts.

"Hm?" Kelly questioned, "Yes, I was listening."

"What did I just say, then?"

"For any triangle with sides A and B, something about a hypotenuse—I'm sorry, I can't focus on school. There's too much I'd much rather be doing. Homeschooling is distracting because all I can think about is my bike, sitting under the kitchen window, or my baseball on the back porch."

"I told you, when you finish math, you can take a break."

"Yeah, but mom, if I was in a real school, these things wouldn't distract me. Plus I could see my friends more. It's a total win-win situation."

"Kelly, we've talked about this. You're old enough to understand why I can't send you, unsupervised, into a public school."

"Yeah, but mom, if I'm in school, the teachers and hall monitors protect me—"

"Kelly, that's enough. You're not going to public school and that's final. Now are you going to listen to me explain this, or do you want to try it on your own?"

Sighing, Kelly fell back into her monotonous routine, tapping her pencil and barely listening.

And so the day progressed. When time came for silent reading, Kelly begged to be allowed to read outside and her mother granted her wish, as long as she promised to stay inside the fenced in yard. Kelly promised with a concealed eye-roll and jogged outside with her book.

"Amos Fortune, chapter five..." Kelly read aloud, "Sigh. Boring, boring, boring."

Within five minutes, Kelly's book was laying open near the fence and she was throwing her baseball around, waiting for her friends to get home from school.

Yet another downside of homeschooling is I have no one to throw baseballs with or complain to about our stupid reading list. Amos Fortune? Who even is that guy anyway? When I'm a mom, I'm going to send all my kids to any school they want. They can have friends, read better books, and not have distractions from anything while they're trying to learn. I'd like to know all these things, but I just can't focus at home. Maybe I should start going to the library to do my homework after mom teaches it to me...

"Hey, Kelly!" a voice interrupted her brilliant, new plan.

"Hey, Jessica!" Kelly called back, excitedly, jogging toward the fence that separated her yard from her friend's, "how was school today?"

"It was great, actually. There was a substitute today because Mrs. Jones went into labor last night! We were all trying to guess the gender and name that she chose for her baby. I love chill substitutes. We basically just hung out for most of the day."

"That sounds amazing," Kelly said, "I wish I could have been there. I think it's going to be twins, boy and girl, and they're going to be named something that rhymes," Kelly described.

Jessica laughed, "I thought the same thing! About the twins, I mean. Except, I think they're both going to be girls, one named Susan and the other named Lola."

"What did Tyler think they're going to be?" Kelly asked, her face flushing ever so slightly.

"Tyler? He thought it was going to be a boy named 'Tyler' after Mrs. Jones' 'favorite student'."

Kelly laughed, "He would!"

Jessica punched Kelly's arm gently, "You're a dork. Why don't you just tell him you like him already? He walks by your house every day to get home."

"I know, but I can't talk to him. It's too intimidating."

"Girl, you're so great, he'll love you. You should talk to him today. Look, there he is. Go!" Jessica gently pushed Kelly toward the front of the house where the heart-throb of the eighth grade was walking by, kicking a rock.

Kelly's face flushed a deeper shade of red as she slowly walked toward the road. Jessica pushed her again so she walked faster and she smiled, silently thanking her friend for being so pushy, otherwise she never would have been this close to talking to Tyler.

She was soon within earshot, and said, "Hey, Tyler," with the most non-awkward, friendliest smile she could muster.

"Hey, Kelly," he replied, glancing over.

"How was school?" Kelly asked.

"It was good. There was a sub today. Mrs. Jones was having her baby today. I expect there'll be a sub for a while, until she can leave the baby with a sitter or something. How about you?"

Kelly paused for a second, unable to comprehend that Tyler Walters had just asked her how her day was. TYLER WALTERS cared about HER day. She fell into step with him as he walked, and thought for a second about what her mom might think if she knew what she was doing, then pushed the thought aside and answered, "It was good. So boring, though. I wish I could have been at school today, it sounds like it was really fun."

"Yep," Tyler said quietly, then he looked over at her and asked, "Hey, are you doing anything this Friday night?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"My brother is having a party with some of his friends and he said I could invite some of mine too. Jessica is going, Tod, Polly and Jane are going..."

"That sounds fun," Kelly said with a casual smile, "What time?"

"Any time after dinner," Tyler replied, concealing a grin.

"I'll be there," Kelly said with a wide smile, "I should get back to my book, though."

"Yeah,I should hurry home and get a start on my homework too. I'll see you Friday, though,"he said, patting her shoulder blade before continuing to walk. Kelly swalloweda squeal of delight and turned around, jogging back home. After relating whathad happened to Jessica, who had waited by the fence, and sharing a squeal ortwo with her, she grabbed her book and went back inside.t