Predicamental Upperclassmen || Luis Mendoza

Chapter 21

The week was also pretty uneventful without Luis being around. As always, I struggled on math homework albeit not like how I did before. I was beginning to get most things. I'd rather not ask my mom for help because her frustration level is as sensitive as mine and whenever I took too long, she would become angry with me which killed my trust in her with school help. Another reason was maybe that it went along with that hilarious stereotype of black moms fussing at kids with homework. People made videos and jokes about it online all the time.

Into the middle of that week, I was leaving 5th period and walking down the sidewalk to the parking lot. I heard some fast footsteps behind me and someone calling my name.

I turn around to see Ms. Ferra running up to me. She had a copy of one of the songs we were singing in her hand.

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"I forgot to tell you that on this part right here, you go up to this note, not that note. I read it wrong. I swear my eyes are going."

"Oh, okay. It's no problem. So, do you want me to go to that high note next time when we rehearse this in class?"

"Yes. It looks like I was having you sing the wrong key right there the whole time. Whoops", she said letting out a small laugh, "you'll be ready for the ceremony this Friday, right?"

"Yes, ma'am", I say with an attempted happy expression, "I am."

"Great. I can't wait to see how this'll go. Your voice is amazing. You should really pursue a singing career after school."

"I-I'm thinking about it. I might go for something else to focus on, though."

"Okay, that's fine. It was just a little suggestion. We all move on with other choices in life eventually", she said, "but you understand what to do now?"

I gave her a brief nod.

"Awesome. Alright, have a good day, Kallie."

"You too, Ms. Ferra", I say as I watch her turn around and walk off back to her classroom. I then turned back in my own direction to head to my car.

As I started walking, a thought struck me. What if she wanted me to look up an instrumental version of our song on the web and practice it at home. I rarely had any homework from music at all, so I thought that could be a good task to do when I was finished with the rest. I already loved to sing alone in my room, and that could be something I could work on for the time being. I nodded to myself confirming my decision. I start to turn around to head back to her classroom, but as I did, there was trouble.

That's when I bumped into Mindy Pinkerton, the head cheerleader for the hockey team cheerleading squad. She was also a snobby, prissy bitch that I had no intention of going near. She dated one of the senior jocks that was on the school's soccer team. As I ran into her, her books fell out of her arms, falling to the ground.

She looked at me with a snooty look of shock, "hey, why don't you look where you're going, you clumsy idiot", she said snappily.

"Okay, two things: One, I did not see you in time to avoid you, and that can happen to anyone, and two, you have no excuse to call me an idiot. I'm not clumsy at all."

She just whipped her stringy blonde hair, "Uh, does it look like I care if you're not? You're gonna get my books all dirty with cement dust, now. My dad paid a lot of money for those books."

"I could care less about your rich daddy issues. Like I said, I didn't see you. So-"

"Well, you're gonna be wishing you did after I tell him how you scratched them up", she interrupted rudely, "THEN you'll be sorry."