In the Classroom

Chapter Four: Testing Him

"Pencils down, students," said Mr. Nishimoto, checking his watch. I sat there with a couple random doodles on the back of my test. I didn't care about how stupid I looked—I just wanted to see Mr. Nishimoto's face when he saw what I did to my test.

"Hand in your papers now, and I'll grade those who have finished theirs," said Mr. Nishimoto.  He got to my desk and I handed my paper to him, giving him another cocky smile. He checked my paper over in a side glance—it seems that he was as curious as how I did as I was—and his eyes widened in surprise. He passed on, however, not saying a word. I swore under my breath.

Looks like he isn't ready to admit defeat, I thought to myself. Still, I smiled. This round belongs to me though, whether you like it or not, Mr. Nishimoto!

The bell rang, interrupting my thoughts. The class scrambled for their supplies and I stood up slowly. David came over to me, slinging his arm over my shoulder.

"Way to go, Josh!" he whispered to me. "That fight between you and the teacher was very classy!" he commended. Mr. Nishimoto dropped the papers onto the desk, adjusting the glasses on his nose. He gave me a glare.

"Mister Brown, see me after school," said Mr. Nishimoto as the next period filed into his room. I stopped in my tracks and turned to grin at him.

"Sure thing, Mr. Nishimoto," I said to him, saluting him condescendingly as I walked out of the door.

      *           *           *

"Hey, Josh," came a voice behind me. I turned around and saw Jessica Stern. Jessica was probably the third prettiest girl at school. Tall like a model, she towered almost all of the guys in the school, except for myself and David. She was thin too, and her short black hair almost made her look like a princess, especially when it was braided into a ponytail, as it was now. She wasn't the only girl who didn't shriek with joy every time they looked at me, but she was the only girl who didn't want to kill me, or get in my pants (that I knew of). She and I were friends. Even more than David, I trusted her because she was such an agreeable kind of person. She wasn't hateful or deceitful. She was the purest soul I'd ever met, and she and I were friends because we balanced each other out. Here I was—the devil in human skin, and she was an angel sent from heaven's finest.

"Hey Jess," I told her, smiling slightly. She beamed at me.

"Do you want to hang out after school?" she asked me. I opened my mouth to say yes, but then I sighed in exasperation.

"Can't—I've got after school detention with Mr. Nishimoto," I told her. She raised an eyebrow at me.

"What did you do wrong?" she asked me. I shrugged.

"I probably got a horrible score on my test," I said with little interest. She looked at me with curiosity.

"How long will you be with him?" she asked me. I shrugged again.

"A few minutes to an hour at best," I explained to her. She smiled at me charmingly. "I'll wait," she promised me. I felt my eyes widen.

"Are you sure—I don't want you to get home late," I said to her. She shook her head, smiling.

"I'll be fine. My parents are away on a business trip to Washington DC anyways. I'll be home alone for a few days. No one's waiting for me back home tonight," she informed me.

Oh yeah...Jessica's parents are Supreme Court judges, I thought to myself. I gave her a small smile.

"If you're willing to wait for me in the courtyard, I'll try and get through Mr. Nishimoto's lecture quietly so I can make it in time to hang out with you," I told her. She smiled, waving at me as she took a few steps away.

"Great! See you then, stud!" she teased me, running off.

     *           *           *

I knocked on the door of Mr. Nishimoto's classroom, pushing it open without waiting for an answer. Mr. Nishimoto sat at his desk, his reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He gave me a smile as I came in.

"Ah...come in, Joshua," he said to me, standing up. I saw him carefully return a bookmark into the crack of the spine of the book. Pride and Prejudice read the title.

"I didn't think you'd be one for Jane Austen," I said to him. Mr. Nishimoto gave me a smile.

"That goes double for me, Josh," he said to me. I scratched the back of my head.

"What did you call me in here for, Sam?" I asked him. He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Don't call me that. You know I'm at work, Josh," he told me sternly. I rolled my eyes at him.

"You'll always be Sam to me though, sir," I told him. He crossed his arms to look at me.

"Even though Adam and I were friends, that does not give you permission to call me, informally, by my first name at school," he chastised. I opened my mouth to return a harsh comment but closed it quickly when I remembered that Jessica was waiting for me out in the courtyard.

"What do you want, sir?" I asked him. Mr. Nishimoto dug into his assignments basket and withdrew my test. He held it up to me, smirking. At the top was a 100%. My mouth dropped open, not only in shock, but in anger.

"It takes skill to answer every question wrong, Josh," he said to me cheerfully. I glared at him.

"You're wrong, I don't deserve that grade. Why did you give me a perfect score?" I asked him angrily. He smiled at me. "You shouldn't have turned in the scratch paper you did your work on. You label everything way too neatly—I could tell you were trying to fail your test to make me mad,” he said to me. I glared at him.

"Is that all, sir? Did you call me in here to tell me that I accidentally passed my test?" I asked him. He dropped the paper back in the basket.

"Not quite," he said to me, crossing the distance between us. He sat down on the table across from me.

"Tell me...what do you want to be when you grow up?" he asked me. I looked at him with surprise.

"Huh?" I asked him dumbly. He smiled at me.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" he repeated calmly. I shrugged at him. Where was he going with this?

"Hell, I don't know," I told him truthfully. It was true. I had never even thought of it, even though I was a senior in high school. His smile deepened. "What are you interested in?" he asked me. I flushed.

"Drawing and photographs," I muttered. "Ah...yes, I remember that you did like to draw a lot as a child, and it was hard to find you without your little camera," Mr. Nishimoto chuckled to himself. "I think you named your camera Jim?" he asked me. I glared at him. "Shut up!" I snapped. He grinned even wider.

"There's a specific program nearby directly engineered towards your type of work," he said to me, continuing past my obnoxious outburst of rage. I looked up at him in surprise. He smiled at me.

"I tutor at a place called Shuugaku," he told me. I raised an eyebrow at him this time.

"It's cheap, below $20 each week. We teach everything from math, to language arts, to riding horseback, and to shooting a gun," he promised me. "We've got a lot of different classes—specifically for students who don't know what to do when they get out of college," said Mr. Nishimoto. He pulled out a flyer for the institute from his jacket pocket. He handed it to me.

"Give me a call if you want to try it out," he told me. I looked at it with apprehension. I didn’t want to go to a stupid tutoring place when I already couldn’t stand school!

"O—kay?" I said uneasily, slowly accepting the paper. I turned to go, trying hard not to chuck the flyer into the trash as I went. It’s not like I was going to use it.

"Oh...and one more thing, Josh?" asked Mr. Nishimoto suddenly. I turned to look at him and he gave me a small smile.

"Be safe," he told me. I nodded at him slowly. What was his deal? Did he hate me, or was he just trying to get on my good side?

"Uh huh," I said dumbly, pushing past the door.