épinard [French] >> spinach
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5.
Advanced English is my favourite class.
It mostly contained with individuals who share a penchant for reading literature, and I find the concepts as stimulating as possible in school. The class is also lead by an amazing teacher called Miss Birdie, who is also the correspondent to the Warburton Gazette. I still don't understand why she would let Jana pull off the whole gossipy paparazzi-like articles on the paper, but I guess it's to each their own. It's not like I wanted to work on the paper anyway.
"I want you to learn to give constructive criticism to your project partners' works today," she started off the class, her hands on the brown wood of her desk. "You are tasked to make an essay about the inner workings of romantic comedies, and I find it to be a bonding experience with your classmates."
A collective groan was heard.
"It's not that bad of an assignment," she tried to reassure us from her desk, "I think it would be a great way to understand each other's strengths and weaknesses—"
I placed my palms on my face, as the knocks were heard from the door.
"Sorry, Miss Birdie, my car broke down again," a familiar voice reasoned. I looked up from the tiny cracks from my palms to the strawberry blonde-haired girl with dark clothes. Typical Sophia.
"Get to your seat Miss Reynolds, and this is your fourth tardy this month," our teacher sighed. She dragged her bag to the seat next to mine, huffing.
My gaze turned to look at her, and her face contorted into one of annoyance. I went back to looking at my desk, as if it were more interesting.
"And why are you late?" Miss Birdie rattled. Wait, there's another tardy person?
"And I'm late," another familiar voice reasoned, "because I asked to be transferred to this class and the office was late to process it."
My head whirled to the door to the voice, watching a boy with dark hair and icy blue eyes giving my favourite teacher an award-winning smile. Seriously? Since when does Advanced English turned into the one class that has all my supposed enemies?
"Oh, this would bring this class into an odd number for the assignment I was proposing," Miss Birdie hummed in thought, "not to mention that you haven't actually done the assignment, Mr. Spencer."
"I think I could manage," he replied easily. I snorted from my seat at his comment.
"Is something funny Miss Winchester?" Miss Birdie turned to look at me. I turned to look at her. She was being serious.
"Nothing, Sophia was just making a face," I lied, looking at her. "It looked like the one cartoon we watched when we were kids."
"Well since Miss Reynolds and you are so chummy, I think it's perfect for you two to pair up, and with Mr. Spencer too," she declared. "You can fill them in with the assignment, and make sure your assignment will be merged with Mr. Spencer's thoughts for credit."
Now I get punished for this? I made a face as Nicholas went through the row to sit in the seat in front of me with his smug looking face, and as Miss Birdie assigned people as pairs, I could feel Sophia's gaze burning through me.
"You shouldn't have dragged me into your pity party, Hales," Sophia says bitterly, on the next table. "Are you still called by Hales?"
"My sisters call me Hales," I say defensively, "and I am sorry. I'm not creative at carving lies for other liars."
"I think I could manage this class," Nicholas says defensively. "I am smart enough!"
"Yeah, right," Sophia rolled her eyes, "that's what everybody says, then they drop the class two weeks later."
"And thanks to that, I have to re-do my romantic comedy movie versus romantic comedy books essay," I sighed, "so thank you, Mr. Spencer for ruining my weekend."
Nicholas had the audacity to say, "Excuse me? It's my credit too!"
"Yeah, but it doesn't count," I egged, "the label says my name."
He sighed. "It's too early for this. I haven't got much alcohol in my system."
I eyed him warily.
"Kidding," he jeered at me, slumping on his chair.
Sophia, on the other hand, had opened up her laptop to her word document, as did I for Nicholas to read over. "Will you jeopardize my grade this weekend?"
"Never," I gasped. "I play nice."
"Your friends don't," she pointed out.
"They're not my friends anymore," I tried smiling, painful as it was. "Some kind of sickly rule that an excommunicated can't sit with trying cheerleaders."
Sophia's jaw dropped. "She's such a pick me girl!"
"With power, it comes with destruction," I quoted, skimming over her laptop.
"So...are you guys friends?" Nicholas asked.
Both Sophia and I stared at each other, then back at Nicholas. "It's complicated."
"You guys look chummy," he continued.
"We share the same disdain towards the same person, personality-wise," I explained, "but to be fair, she wasn't all bad when we met her for the first time."
"I mean, we discovered things about ourselves that were too early to tell," Sophia interjected, "but we always maintained good terms?"
"I hope so," I eyed her.
Sophia was quiet as I read hers. "I think your critique needs a little more evidence to mould your argument, but this is a solid paper."
She huffed out a breath of relief.
We both turned to Nicholas, who is scrutinizing my paper.
"You know, yours would be better if there's a visual aid to help visualize what you are talking about in your essay."
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"I mean, I understand where you are going at about the similarity of romantic comedy films that are loosely inspired by these Shakespearean books. Why not a visual aid to further the argument?"
It wasn't a bad idea.
"I would need to see your artwork before you make any drastic changes," I challenged.
"Trust me, I'll email my vision to you before the day ends," he says decisively.
----
He did. He really emailed his vision to my email by the end of the day. And it was exactly what I was visualizing in my head.
AUTHOR'S NOTE (IN 2018)
HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018!
First of all, I can't believe I didn't update this in December and I've been really busy and in a really bad place in my life. However with all due respect in everything that has been happening, I have more of a will to commit to finish this.
Two, thank you for all the comments and reads and support in putting the Scraps on your reading list.
Three, I hope that this will be a new start, a better way to start the new year.
-as always, ken.-
AUTHOR'S NOTE (IN 2021)
has it really been three years since this story was a baby in my head?
YOU ARE READING
The Scraps
Teen Fiction"So tell me, how does one get suspended from cheerleading?" Haley Winchester got stripped off her title as the Captain of the Cheerleaders, before she even became one. On top of that, she has to deal with the wreck of her family, the loss of her see...
