La Lune de Fleurs

Chapter 3 - After Class Studies

During the school day after the unrelentlessly lonely night that came before, I couldn't help but attempt to catch up on several of my work assignments and complete my studies, as I needed a definite distraction from the events that had unfolded, causing more questions to arise about Simon Bisset's family life as a whole. I had a suspicion that he had chosen not to interact with others for a particular reason, but I hadn't at all anticipated that his mother had treated him so poorly. Sure, my mother was manipulative and sometimes rude, but she's never directly abused me verbally. I mean, why didn't anyone tell me this sooner?

Interrupting my internal tension, my new teacher in poetry, Madame Layton, gave us an assignment that will count for approximately 20% of the unit on the second day of school. The workload that we were given in homework was already quite challenging, but an assignment that would encompass one fifth of our grade on the second day is truly absurd.

As she read the details of the project, she claimed that we would be able to choose our own groups and partnerships with our classmates and acquaintances.

"Great," I thought. In past school years, I chose to work alone, mainly because I find that disagreeing with other group members about specific aspects of a project to be a waste of time, and additively, focusing on the task at hand can become harder, as well. I had planned to walk up and out of my desk to converse with Madame Layton about working alone, but the cascade of students puring throughout every aisle of the classroom desks were scrambling to find their partners around the room. Because of this fuss and disorderly nature, Madame Layton began to signal the students of the classroom.

"Students, students!" she clamored. "I now see that my choice to allow you to choose your own groups was ill-advised. Henceforth, I will be choosing the working groups in this classroom."

The students let out a hideous noise, a shriek so blood-curdling that I had nearly fallen out of my seat. As promised, Madame Layton had told us to stay in our seats while she left the classroom for a moment to retrieve the materials that we would need for this project. It was at this point that I realized that I had almost never interacted with any of the other students in the class. Of course, I wasn't going to do that now, as I didn't want to disobey Madame Layton's word by getting out of my seat while she was gone. So instead, I observed each of the students while they weren't looking. A little creepy? Perhaps, but I needed some method of gathering info on most of the students. Looking around, I could see that most of the students attending were well-mannered, staying in their seats until further notice from our teacher. However, there were some evident outliers present in the class.

For one, there was the one friend that I had made on the first day, to my surprise, this being Caroline Merritt. Caroline is, as I've learned, a less than obedient student, and attends her surprisingly exceptional grades in the school, ranking 7th out of 3000 children attending the facility. Despite her reputation, however, she finds the work that she is assigned to be futile, considering that to her, each can be completed with ease. Hence, she has formed a friendship with me in school life, in which she completes my worksheets and homework in a matter of seconds, in exchange for my homemade lunches from Grandpa. Though it may seem to be a generally cold exchange, we've formed a tight-knit friendship, and in the end, despite procrastinating profusely on each of her own projects, her teachers know of how she chooses to instead assist other students in completing their work, and hence, give her a passing grade. However, I hadn't noticed until now that she wears a matching green-brown sweater vest with Grandpa. Thinking about it, perhaps they enjoy studying with one another, as they share similar interests. Even further, she must've recommended that documentary that he was watching when I had first come here.

Most other students had just chosen to goof off, as they had already completed the first phase of the project early, and had no reason to worry about being scolded for incomplete work. But there was someone that I had taken note of. They weren't doing anything particularly rude, irritating, distracting or negative in any manner, but something about their overall demeanor seemed a bit strange in comparison to the standard model of the average student in this school. He was one of the students who had completed work early, but apparently, he was known to be a slacker in school.

"I see. So you've noticed him too," Caroline whispered from her nearby desk. "Throughout every year in my life that I've attended this school, Traves has always been known to be a slacker on all assignments that he's given, including group projects. His name is Traves, if you're wondering. Traves-Hughes Grubenierre." Almost instantly, I was mortified by the thought that I might have to work with this student for my fist major assignment, depending on the choice that Madame Layton makes in the end. At this point, despite initially wanting to evade cooperation with any of the other students within my classes, I now wanted nothing but to work with anyone other than this student that I had learned about. Caroline went on.

"Madame Layton sees some potential within him, and I could see why. In the assignments that he's actually poured effort into or has found interesting, he's always gotten the highest grade out of everyone in his class. If he had made some effort to complete each of his given assignments, he would be the top ranking students out of everyone attending this school," she continued.

I found this to be the strangest thing about Traves. Despite the fact that he could reach great heights if he put in the work, he is still labelled as the underachieving student in his classes. Despite being given multiple opportunities to improve upon himself, and having the intelligence to do so with ease, he still actively avoids doing his work, at least according to Caroline. However, thinking about it further, there's a contradiction. If he barely ever puts effort into assignments that he doesn't care for, why did he choose to do this one? He's completed the first step in the project prematurely, and considering that he's only completed assignments worth while to him, would that mean that what he's choosing to do for his assignment is something he's interested in? For our project, we had to study and explore any biology related concept, meaning that there's a broad range of topics that could be chosen for this assignment. Because of the variety, perhaps he's found something that he finds particularly interesting. If so, what could such a strange student be interested in?

As my thoughts had trailed off, Madame Layton had already returned with our detailed instructions and rubric for this particular project. Most students were either working on or completing the first phase of the project, in which we would submit our topic/concept of choice as well as what we would cover in the project when the assignment was completed. Once these were submitted to our professor, the individual papers would be paired up randomly, and this would decide the groups. Out of those two papers, one would once again be chosen randomly out of the two, leaving that topic to be chosen for the project. Since only a fraction of the classroom had completed this phase, those who had would be paired up earlier for a headstart on the project. Hence, I promptly submitted my paper, and was walking back to my desk, when suddenly, I was called from the loudspeaker to speak with Grandpa François. I quickly rushed down two flights of stairs and turned the corner to reach the office, where he greeted me with a smile. Since I had told him that I had completed the first phase of my project early, he had decided to retrieve me from the school earlier as a reward for my obedience and diligence in my academic career on the first few days. He then said that he would be taking both me out for dinner as a collective treat for my merritts. I happily obliged, but informed him that I needed to retrieve my items from back upstairs and inside of the classroom. Yes, some did find it strange that I was leaving so early, but I didn't particularly mind their stares. Heading to my locker to retrieve the last of my items, I heard a voice appear so suddenly and abruptly that I had jumped in surprise. Turning around, I immediately noticed that it was Traves.

"We're partners," he said in a quiet voice. 

Promptly, a chill ran up my spine.