The Girl Who Hates Me

Test and Afterwards

"Class, pay attention," barked Ms. Chen. "Sit down, Calvin. Don't give me that look. Get your feet off the desk, Jiro. No, not on the chair. On the floor, yes. No, no, no, Chun, all then food needs to be put away NOW. NO, not in the desk! The janitor was complaining about the sticky stuff inside yesterday----NO, DON'T THROW YOUR FOOD AT JIRO!!! JIRO, PUT THAT TEXTBOOK DOWN, DON'T THROW IT AT CHUN---NO, NO, boys, don't fight---cut it out or I'll call security!!!"

The class laughed. Jiro sat down and Chun shoved his food into his backpack.

Ella and Selina exchanged understanding looks with each other.

"Okay, class, it's time for an annual partner test!" Ms. Chen announced. "Mwahahaha!"

"Awwww man," groaned the class.

"We're too cool for tests, Ms. Chen," argued Calvin.

"And I'm too stubborn to listen to you," countered Ms. Chen, pulling out a huge stack of papers that was maybe five feet tall altogether.

"Get ready with your pencils," said Ms. Chen, and started passing out the fat packets. "And no Jiro, you may not put down 'The Great Wang Dong Cheng' as the answer to every question."

Jiro gave her a sour look.

Arron rubbed his hands together and smiled sweetly at Hebe. "Ready for this, partner?" he asked.

"Hmmph," was all she said.

"I'll take that as a yes," Arron agreed. "We're going to get the highest scores in the class!"

Ai-yo, this boy, thought Hebe. He's so sure of himself.

"You may start. If you need help, ask your partners, but no one else. I'm watching you," she added, eying Calvin suspiciously.

Arron stared at his own test. Then he flipped through his packet wildly. 400 questions!! This would take up the whole morning lessons!

"That's too much to do," Jiro complained.

"Well, it's really basic stuff that you should have covered in middle school," said Ms. Chen icily as she sat down and proceeded to grade some homework.

The class went into a sort of quiet buzz, asking each other for help.

"Psst, Arron, how do you find the circumference again?" Jiro whispered loudly.

"Ahem," said Ms. Chen, and Jiro turned to Selina instead.

Arron did okay with his math questions, but he had to turn to Hebe for everything else.

"What's this?" he asked her, several times. She rolled her eyes each time and grudgingly helped him out, then said finally,"Why don't you do it yourself?"

"You're my partner, you're supposed to help me," whined Arron.

"You just want to cheat," Hebe said.

"Now, now," Arron said. "Why do you have to think bad of me?"

"Because you're in the popular crowd!" Hebe said, annoyed.

"What's so bad about them?" Arron was perplexed. He realized that Hebe seemed to have a problem with popular people, not just Arron himself.

"They're not nice to other people," whispered Hebe, glancing around. "Do your test now and don't bug me!"

Arron was persistent. "Have they done anything to you?"

Hebe went rigid, and Arron could tell that he had hit the answer.

"I don't want to tell you. Maybe they did, maybe not," she finally answered.

"I hope the partners are talking about tests and not off topic things," called out Ms. Chen from the front of the room.

"See? Now go back to work," Hebe told him.

"Fine, fine," Arron shrugged his shoulders and went back to his test. Still, he wanted to know more about Hebe. He found that he was liking her more and more, no matter how she treated him.

--------------------------

"That was a stupid test," Calvin grumbled as the class finally staggered out from the classroom for lunch. More than half the students were walking out, or crawling on their knees to be precise, from the torturous classroom.

"Ohhhhhh, I look so not cool," Jiro had whipped out his little mirror in the middle of the crowded hallway and proceeded to fix his messy hair. Calvin, Chun, and Arron all laughed at him.

"Who are you, a girl? Only girls act like that," chuckled Chun.

"Oh shove it," Jiro said, bopping him on the head. "Let's go eat. Chun, buy us food."

"I bought you food yesterday," Chun complained.

"Great, you can do it for two days in a row then!" Jiro clapped him on the back as they walked downstairs.

Arron lagged behind them, and looked around. He noticed some giggly girls stalking them, and started to panic. His friends probably didn't mind having stalking girls, but Arron was scared of them, so he hurried to catch up to his friends.

"Oh--aren't you Hebe's dorm mate, Arron?" said a voice from some feet away.

"Huh?" Arron spun around and found himself looking at Gui Gui, Hebe's friend, the younger girl who stared at him with big eyes.

"Well, yeah, that's me," Arron said, distracted. His friends laughed and called,"We'll be at the cafeteria!"

"Cool, you're so cute," Gui Gui said, looking at Arron with the same dreamy expression as the creepy stalker girls. Whoa, Arron thought. Not good.

"Well, uh, see ya," Arron started to walk away, but Gui Gui tagged along beside him.

"Will you go out with me?" Gui Gui asked.

"What?!" Arron exclaimed, totally surprised.

"Well, you know, I wanna be your girlfriend," Gui Gui blushed and looked at her feet. "So what do you think?"

"I---uh---" Arron was speechless. He had no liking for this girl whatsoever, so this was totally out of the blue. He would have preferred that if this girl were Hebe, then he'd say yes, definitely. So now he wondered how to refuse her politely.

"That's a great idea, you two should date!" someone said from behind them.