Because I Had You | A Shawn Hunter Love Story

Boys II Mensa

Mr. Feeny walked around the classroom with a stack of papers, "I have graded your book reports from last Friday and after I pass them out, we'll discuss them. Ah, Mr. Matthews. Shall I express my usual disappointment or just ask you to guide my sleigh tonight?" He reached Cory who was wearing a large red clown nose and was making silly faces at Shawn and I.

Cory took the nose off hesitantly, "Uh, wrong holiday, Mr. Feeny. See, Halloween's coming up and I was just test driving my clown nose.:

"Then I insist you stay in the driver's seat. Put the nose back on for the rest of the morning." He put the nose back on and Mr. Feeny continued handing out the tests. "Mr. Minkus, excellent work as usual. I particularly enjoyed your haiku on Captain Ahab's obsession with the great white whale."

Minkus looked off into the distance, "The calm blue ocean. Sun lights up the monster's eye. He sees me- whale food."

"It works on so many levels."

Shawn muttered, "Brown-noser."

"Troglodyte," Minkus retorted.

"Mr. Lewis, very good work. Ms. Lianca," Mr. Feeny stopped at my desk, "Amazing improvement." He handed me my test, and I was surprised to see an A-. "Mr. Matthews, not one of your better efforts. Mr. Hunter-"

"Hey, this isn't fair," Cory interrupted. "Rick and I both got Cs. How come you tell him he did good work and you tell me it wasn't one of my better efforts?"

"Would Bozo please come to the center ring?" Mr. Feeny said as he walked back to his desk.

Shawn turned to me, "What did Feeny mean when he said improvement?"

"I usually get Bs or B+s, but I managed to get an A-!"

"Seriously?" Shawn looked down at his test. "Wish I was just smart like that."

"Shawn, I'm not that smart, I just studied. Did you study?"

"God no, have you met me?"

--

"You waited for me?" Shawn said as he exited the classroom.

"Am I not your best friend?" I said, lightly punching his shoulder.

"Right," he giggled. "Let's go wait for Cory." We walked over to the classroom as Cory stepped out.

"You waited for me?" Cory said in the same tone.

Shawn said, "Am I not your best friend?"

"Stealing my lines, really Hunter?" I said.

"You had detention, too, didn't you?" Cory asked Shawn.

"Oh, yeah. Mrs. Engles nailed me."

"How'd you get detention in art?" I questioned.

"Well, that's what makes me one of the greats." Shawn threw something into the trash and then pulled a piece of paper from it. "Hey. Check this out, answers to a test."

"Shawn. We can't be looking at test answers. That's major cheating, detention for life." Cory said walking away.

"No, these aren't for a real test. They're for that stupid IQ exam we're taking tomorrow." Shawn tossed it back in the trash and we both started to walk off, except Cory went back.

"Wait a minute. Let me take a look at this." He pulled it out of the trash. "Wow. The person who knows these answers gets a perfect score."

"On a test that doesn't even count for a grade. Why bother?" Shawn said.

"Why cheat anyways?" I added.

"Are you kidding? This is my one ticket to get Feeny off my back. If Feeny thinks I'm a genius he'll treat me just as good as he treats Minkus."