"...blah and N go to the other blah, so now the variable is on the left, and then you blah this in your calculator as log of N over log of a. To do this another way, first the..."

I sighed as I scrawled out some letters on the open notebook page in front of me. In addition to a flower and a hand in the top corner, I already had half of a page of messy notes on logarithms, and Mbriwa wasn't nearly done yet.

Not to mention I couldn't understand some of what she says because she has an accent. "What country did she say she was from?" I wondered. "Somewhere in Africa... Did it start with an 'L'? I think it did. And it was something more obscure, I think. Was it-"

I was jolted from my thoughts by the sound of my name and a question.

"Log of 2.7 over log of 4," I said after a pause. Mental math for the win!

"No, it would be..." She paused to write her calculations on the board. "No, that is correct." She laughed, a bit awkwardly. "And what is the answer to four decimal places... Lily?"

As she moved the discussion around the room, I hurriedly copied the paragraph of notes I had missed while thinking. I glanced at the clock as Mrs. Mbriwa instructed us to start working on our homework a few minutes later. It was 9:22. Five minutes left of A block.

After doodling some more and generally procrastinating, I finally heard the bell ring. Weaving past the other students, I darted out the door as quickly as possible. I was trying to beat Alex to my locker.

"Aha!" I muttered aloud. Grabbing my copy of The Odyssey and my vocab book, I added them to my stack and began to stand.

"Hey!" I heard someone call. The exclamation was joined by a kick to my foot.

"Hey Alex," I said, poking her shin with my toe as I stood. "Shall we?" I asked her, dramatically twirling to face the hallway.

"We shall," she said, matching my twirl and marching down to the Lower House.

A mildly uneventful language arts class followed, consisting mostly of silently reading The Odyssey.

"That was weirdly boring," I said after we left. "All we did was- can you get the door?"

She pushed it open and held it, as she had less books to carry.

"Thanks. Anyway, all we did was read The Odyssey. Usually we'd talk for at least a little while."

"True, plus that chapter was basically just Odysseus crying as always. Also naked."

"Yeah, ugh. It never mentions him putting on pants either, it just says 'a cloak and a shirt' usually."

"Oh my god, I noticed that too! Like dude, put on- Hi Herr Martin- some pants." As she said this, we walked into our German class.

I cringed as the boys in the back began asking where batman was, as usual.

"Wo ist Batman? Wo ist Batman? Wo ist Batman?"

"Isn't he still shoved in the closet from yesterday?" I asked Alex.

"Yeah, I think so."

I turned in my chair to see the agenda for the day. "Test Thursday, Portfolio Friday... Ooh, no homework, that's good. Mbriwa gave us a packet," I said aloud.

"Oh, that sucks," Alex replied. "What should I draw?"

"I dunno."

"Mike Wazowski it is."

After a minute of general noise and chaos, Herr Martin walked into the classroom.

"Zicke zacke zicke zacke!"

"Hoi hoi hoi!" The class chorused halfheartedly.

I tuned out as Herr Martin began speaking rapid-fire german, paying attention again only when he pulled up a PowerPoint. We appeared to be learning about travel.

"Repeat after me," Herr Martin said. "Bus."

"Bus."

"U-bahn station."

"U-bahn station."

As he continued, the boys at the back table began talking to each other. After a while, they stopped paying attention all together and were converting loudly about video games.

"Bahnhof," Herr Martin continued.

"Bahnhof," a few people said.

"Okay, now to review, what does Bus mean?"

Owen rose his hand. "Bus."

"Good. What's a bahnhof?"

The residents of the back table had gathered in a small group around a computer, still talking loudly and laughing.

"Hey train wreck in the back, it's a train station!" Herr Martin yelled to get their attention.

Alex and I laughed and I scrawled the quote in the corner of my notebook.

When we finished with our notes, we started a worksheet for review. Before I knew it, we were being dismissed for lunch.

"Auf Wiedersehen," Herr Martin said to everyone at the door.

"Tschau!" Alex and I said as we headed to our lockers.

"Tschüss tschüss tschüss tschüss!" The boys from the back chanted.

Ugh. Boys.
Hey, at least there's lunch.