Whatever Happened... to Robot Jones? Continued

Chapter 8: Objective Lost

As Robot was heading up to the library with Socks, Shannon was heading downstairs. Her mind was so full, and her eyes were so... blurry. Before she could register that what was causing it was tears, she pushed open the door to the staircase and wound up colliding with another girl, who had her back turned. A groan, more out of annoyance than pain, escaped her throat.

Two full-body collisions in one day, she thought. Smooth, Shannon. She was just hoping being a klutz was something she'd grow out of as well, if her mother had any clue what she was talking about when she hinted that Shannon would grow out of her awkward phase.

"I'm so sorry," Shannon said quickly, not recognizing the girl she'd run into. She was very small, as well as thin, and unlike Robot, likely to be hurt by getting hit in the face by a door.

"Oh! No, I'm sorry!" the other girl said, holding up her hands like she'd run into a cop. "I wasn't looking where I was going! I should have paid attention that there was a staircase here!"

Shannon quickly noticed the familiar looking white paper in her small hands that must have been a class schedule. The same one she saw the sixth graders run around with frantically at the start of every semester, running into each other like chickens in a pen. This girl wasn't frantic, but from her embarrassed expression, she was obviously lost. "You're new. I mean, you must be new. That's... that's great!" she saved quickly. She didn't want the new girl to see the flicker of worry that had surfaced behind her eyes. "We don't get a lot of new students here."

The smartly-dressed girl looked up, surprised. "Oh, yes, I am. I was hoping I could talk to someone about where my next class is?"

The girl showed Shannon the schedule, and Shannon pointed back behind the girl. "I think you passed it already. Here, why don't I show you around."

The mousy girl beamed up at her. "That's very nice of you. I've been showing up late to all my classes today-Oh! And my name's June."

"No problem," Shannon said, guiding the girl back the way she'd just come. "And it's Shannon."

She'd never really been one to be this outgoing, but she was just grateful for the distraction. Grateful for the chance to feel useful. She quickly jotted some notes on the girl's schedule about the way the three-story building was ordered, such as where to find the English and Math wings, and which was the quickest route to get from there.

"Hey, you have the same English class as me," Shannon said with a smile. "So you're an eighth grader?"

June grinned, but looked down at her shoes, with all the shyness Shannon had come to expect of a sixth grader. "Well, sort of. You see, I skipped some grades back at my last school. I was supposed to be in the sixth grade this year, but I was tested, and I guess they thought I could handle some eighth grade classes."

Shannon nearly dropped everything she was carrying. "You tested two grades up?" Part of her was amazed to be standing in front of this person. She could easily see this girl flip her silky, black ponytail behind her back and brag about this information, but June seemed like she was admitting something that was embarrassing. Shannon briefly reflected on a time, back in elementary school, when her teacher wanted to move her from the third grade to the fifth grade. She could have been out of Polyneux two years ago, at that rate. But that was back when Shannon was a very different kid, someone with ambition and a go-getting personality that she wasn't ashamed of. She didn't want to move up out of her grade and risk losing her friends, which she ended up losing, anyway. And the offer made her self conscious, for the first time, about looking 'weird.'

It was probably for the better, anyway. Once Shannon met the torture that was pre-algebra, it was all she could do to keep from falling back a grade. She hadn't qualified to skip a grade in a long time, and she didn't think she wanted it anymore than she did back then. But oddly enough, she found herself envious that June had accepted an opportunity that Shannon hadn't been bold enough to do. However, June's shyness only endeared the girl to her more. Shannon quickly buried her resentment and said: "Your parents gotta be psyched."