Scatter Plot

O.n.e

The snow was freshly fallen outside, perfect for snow angels. It had to be crisper snow for sledding, but the powder was great for the delicate figures. I always try doing opposite angels, where instead of backside down, I fall face forward into the the snow. This never seems to work with my sunglasses, but I have to wear them outside because my eyes are blue, and the snow makes the world a million times brighter. The sunglasses always give the angel an off look. The snow fogs up my sunglasses too, and makes it harder to see. I love the snow, but it also makes the world so bland. There's no color, and it's depressing after a while. I like vivid colors, that swirl in my mind and create the perfect atmosphere for my day dreams.

"Rachel." I hear someone say. I pull myself away from the window, not knowing how long I had been zoned out.

"Yes, Mrs. Daniels?" I asked. She glanced down at my hands, and I follow her gaze, realizing my hand was unconsciously clicking the pen over and over again. I liked the rhythm it made if I could click it fast enough. It vibrates my thumb in a tickly sort of way. This was my favorite pen, it was maroon and had an emergency veterinarians number on it. I don't remember which one, because I can't pronounce their name. The ink was not the best though, so instead of writing with this pen, it was the one I played with.

"Rachel." Mrs. Daniels said again. I glance up again, confused at what she wanted this time. My table partner placed her hand over mine, slowly taking the pen away from me.

"Oh, sorry." I mutter, setting my hands on the black desk. It was an interesting texture, one that you could draw on and it would smudge off easily. I liked to draw on it with my eraser because it gave off bigger lines. Emily, my table partner, and me would write notes to each other when we were bored. The problem is, I'm always bored. She actually gets interested in the lessons, and so I am left to doodle on the desk by myself. That is, until I get in trouble. Mrs. Daniels hates kids drawing on her desks, be it with pencil or erasers. She should be glad I don't use pen. I only write with pen at school, it just looks neater in my mind. That's why I only like good pens, when the ink flows just perfectly. I hate pens that you have to scribble forever with to get it running. If it doesn't immediately come out, then I throw the pen away. I get in trouble for that, mom hates me throwing away perfectly good pens, even when I tell her they're useless. She never believes me.

"Rachel." Mrs. Daniels calls out again. I snap out of my thoughts, giving her a questioning glance.

"Yes?" I ask curiously.

"Stop tapping." I furrow my brow in confusion, then realize I'd been tapping my fingernails against the desk ever since Emily took away my pen. I place my hands in my lap, grabbing my paperclips out of my sweatshirt pocket. I had interlocked four paperclips together, and twirled them in my fingers. I luckily hadn't lost these paperclips, as I tend to misplace things frequently.

I gaze up at the board, Mrs. Daniels asking us to pull out a worksheet. I put my paperclips on my knuckles like a ring, and grab out my binder. Emily fishes the worksheet out of her binder immediately, as it was neat and organized. I put my binder down on the desk with a thud, causing several other students to glance up. I opened the broken cover, it was taped together with duct tape that had rainbow triangles on it. I used to have dividers in my binder, because mom likes me to start out the year organized. It lasts about two days, then the amount of papers I'm getting overwhelms me. I always revert back to the easy system of placing the new papers on top. This makes it a bit difficult to find what ever worksheet the class is working on. I glance around, noticing half of the class was already on problem three. I flip through the papers, some of them were torn in odd places so it was difficult to read their titles, but I figured it wasn't for this class, hopefully. I found my algebra homework that I wanted to show Emily, not because I did it, because I never would, but because my cat had thought it was funny to eat part of it. I pulled it out of my binder and pass it to Emily, smiling slightly.

"Look what Kiwi did to my homework." I whispered. Emily smiled, then passed it back. I put it on top of my stack in my binder and began to play with my paperclips again.

"Rachel." Emily hissed. She was trying not to catch Mrs. Daniels attention. I turned to her and she pointed down at her paper, which she was half finished with. Recognition lit up in my mind and I quickly dug through my binder to find it. I pulled it out and grabbed my pen. Oh I loved this pen, the ink flowed just perfectly that I barely had to waste any energy using it. I read through the first problem, realizing I had no clue what we were doing.

"Emily? What are we doing again?" I asked. Emily rolled her eyes.

"Identifying if the cause of the stressor in the dilemma." She said. I gave her a blank look.

"Thanks." I said. I had no clue what she meant by that, because I didn't see any stressor in the dilemma. I honestly didn't see the problem as a dilemma, it was a person not being able to find their homework, what's stressful about that? I'm not a huge fan of homework, if you wanted me to learn something, you should have taught it to me in class. I get in trouble for leaving my homework places on accident and not coming back into the class to get a new copy. Why would I want a new copy? I wasn't going to do it anyway, and if was, I probably forgot. I do most of my homework the class period before, which seems to work out pretty well for me.

"Drop your pencils, we'll now share our answers and see what we all came up with." Mrs. Daniels said. I bit my lip, glancing down at my very blank paper. I set my pen down and as the rest of the class begins to share with their table partners, my group stared at me in silence. It's a wonder Mrs. Daniels placed my group up front. She knows she had to keep an eye on me, which doesn't make sense because I'm a good kid, I'm just kind of spacey sometimes. Mrs. Daniels stood and made her way over to my desk, giving me the look. I give her a small smile.

"Sorry. It took me a while to find it in my binder." I said, quickly making up an excuse. Mrs. Daniels raised an eyebrow.

"Well maybe if you were more organized you'd be able to find things better, which in turn would get you better grades." She said, tapping my very full binder. I hadn't thrown any thing away all semester, and the binder was rapidly growing into a bloated whale. I never knew when something could end up being important. Since I rarely listen in class, I never know when my teachers have said "never ever throw this paper away or you'll never graduate!" I'd rather not take that chance.

"It's just...an organized mess. I know where everything is." I said smiling. Mrs. Daniels let's out a pity laugh.

"Then where is your psychology section?" She asked.

"The thing is, I don't really have sections...it's based on what class period I had last from first to fourth and then based on what day that week. Psychology from last class is probably a quarter of the way down the stack." I explained. Mrs. Daniels shares an exasperated look with Emily, figures because she's a neat freak. She's always hounding me to keep myself organized, but I just don't have to motivation to sit down and clean it all out and come up with a system I'll remember.

If only she could view the world through my ADHD eyes.