Chapter 5: Stories into Essays

copyright at Abbie Orsar

AEDs, AEDs and more AEDs. Class isn't exactly going well and I blame it on the AEDs. The effects is wearing off, thank goodness. I can be happy that I did not attend my first period class. My Physics teacher, Mr. Samuels bores me to sleep half the time. However, still feeling fuzzy and sleepy takes a reign over my poor body. Luckily, it is not as strong as it is previously was when I was back in the car. The open window that is located at my far left allows a fresh draft of air in that helps keep me awake.

  My life is revolving too much around drugs.  The worst part being that we are not talking about marijuana or illegal drugs. My second period class is not on my mind. It is the further thing from my mind but I have to tune in. I have to hand in all my assignments as seeing as I am graduating this year. I have to pay attention. This English class is one of those things I just can't pass up on. With the ending school year and my acceptance to Harvard, the last thing I want is to slip and give Harvard doubts. Deciding to pay attention with tuning in so I choose to.

When I do start to listen, I immediately regret it, "Everybody is going to get a quote. You and your partner are going to have to create a story off of it. I want the story in the form of a 5 page essay that will be presented on the due date. You have two weeks to present."

Mr. Centro assigns some assignment. Noticing that it is now that I have truly listened to anything he has being saying for the last hour worries me. Not listening means, I have ignored the outline of the assignment which all leads to have to read the outline on paper. The paper written direction of the work that Mr. Centro gives out are never detailed. I suppose it is a way of him testing us to see if we truly listen to what he has to say in his class. Asking him for help isn't an option either because that is part two of the 'Were you listening?' test.

"There are fifteen minutes left in this period. When I am done reading out the names of the partner teams that I have created, I will give you a quote. The remainder of the period after that is the beginning of the organization of your essay ideas. I want crisp essays. I want to see how you can transform a story into an essay. I also want drafts of your story before it is proofread to become an essay. As well I want a task acknowledgement sheet. That sheet will tell me who exactly did what for the project."

My English teacher fails his own 'Were you listening' test by giving us some insight on the project. The funny thing is I don't think he realizes that his talking comes along with information on a silver platter. Not necessarily gold because that still isn't the whole assignment and I have to hope that my partner to be listened well.

"Jonah Sacra and Mike Johnson." Mr. Centro's loud voice fills the hollow room and echoes back at him almost instantly as he begins naming the partners. During partner selection, I feel like I am in the book, Divergent and my partner determines who I am going to choose to be. Ignoring how ridiculous that sounds, I wait for my name. He goes through the list so fast that I barely manage to catch my name slip off his tongue. The moment that I hear my name, I feel an imaginary curveball hit my scalp head on and my recovery is not instantaneous.

"Marabel Jones and Gavin Townsend. Ciara Davinport and Allura Knight. Evan King and Lamar Oscar. Penelope Undstincht and Athena Carter.  Howard Yissen and Roberta Fawning." 

"You now have ten minutes to start something with your partners. Come confront about your quotes now that you know who you are working with. Good luck."

Penelope Undstincht and Athena Carter rings in my head over and over. My recovery from the curveball comes slow but in good enough time. Penelope walks over to me and smiles an average smile. The problem with this situation is an endless one that I have to work around if I want a ninety four average in English. When she takes the closest seat to me, her flat dirty blonde hair bounces as she does.

This girl with brown eyes that stare into mine is one of Bella's old friend. With Penelope, you can take the 'one-brain' label that I place on Bella's so called ex friends. She is in all my IB classes with me and keeps up an average close enough to mine which separates her from the 'one-brains.' Two years back into midyear Grade 10, a problem took place and the catastrophe began. My twin sister, the idiot she is got interested in the boy that Penelope had been dating. Bella stole him so easily that I hate to say that it was like taking candy from an overgrown skinny kid. Penelope refused to come to school for a whole month and missed most of her IB lessons.

Luckily for Penelope, grade 10 Pre - International Baccalaureate isn't exactly hard and somebody gave her all her missing assignments. When she did return to school, Bella was still dating the guy. I think his name was Shawn. He was pretty hot back then but I didn't think he was worth fighting over. When I had found out that Bella had done that, I of course confronted her.  I remember it being a cold day when I asked my sister, "Why did you start dating Shawn when he was dating Penelope?"

I had felt so stupid when Bella explained herself. Apparently, Shawn dated Penelope to make Bella jealous. Of course she didn't  become envious so Shawn made a move on her. In her words, "He swept me off my feet and I honestly thought that him and Penelope were just friends." I believed her knowing that she has never really lied to me without confessing the next day. Penelope cried too much if you asked me, there are billions of boys in the world.  Despite my fact of there being a lot of  male bodies in the universe, poor Penelope never recovered. The whole school started referring to her as poor Penelope which is a two word alliteration by the way.  All I could do was laugh upon finding out that Bella broke up with Shawn the week after Penelope came back to school.

Last year September as we entered Grade 12,  Bella reached out to Penelope and it didn't work out. Penelope who was still hung up on Shawn who in no way liked her in return. Bella of course came to me in hopes that I could help her but I didn't. I still remember when everyone left their class to see Bella and Penelope fighting.  Penelope slapped Bella when she apologized and Bella on instinct slapped her in return. Of course I ran to Bella's rescue and pushed Penelope off of her with all my might. Protecting my twin was all that was on my mind when I punched Penelope in the gut. It was all for Bella. Poor Penelope fell when my closed fist connected with her frail abdomen. None of us got suspended because the three of us were first time offenders.

For two months straight, I was the hype with the punch that I aimed at Penelope. It all died down though because it is easy to lose sight of me whether there is a crowd or not.  Besides Bella found a way to make everything about her. She did that for me. Everyone finds it hard to dislike Bella. Even after the incident, Bella told her friends to talk to Penelope. I suppose it was awkward when Bella and Penelope had to hang out at the same lunch table surrounded by common friends.

"Not the partner you wanted?" She asks a she snaps back to the present. Conferring that she makes this guess based on my current facial expression, I change it quickly. Not wanting to smile to hide how spot on she is, I play the confused bit. I play it so well that I feel I should replace Bella at the audition and not the date.

"Of course not. I'm happy that I am working with a girl instead of some obnoxiously hot and gorgeous boy." Trying to rain in some light humor on the situation seems to work. Penelope breaks into a laugh that follows snorts in between.

"You are surprisingly funny. It is kind of weird because you are always quiet. I guess the quiet ones are the freaky ones." I can tell by freaky she is referring to the punch I gave her at the beginning of grade 12.  She clearly has not forgotten.

Settling down and calming her hideous sounding laughter Penelope stands up. Did I do something wrong? Is she going to ask for a partner switch? She seems to be good at noticing my facial expressions because she stops to tell me, "Relax, I am just going to get our quote. I will be back."

True to her word and conquest, she returns less than two minutes later to give me a tiny slip of paper with our names on it. I flip it over to see our quote and I feel some sort of inspiration. The quote reads, "I go to seek a great Perhaps." There is however no name as to who wrote the quote.

"The paper doesn't mention who wrote the quote." I make it known to her.

"I know. Centro said that we have to our research and figure it out. Man, he loves to give us extra unnecessary work." She replies with a sensible answer. She sits down which follows with a crossing of her legs and folding of her long arms.

"Don't worry about it. That's what Google is for." I say not trying to be funny but she laughs.

Clamping a hand over her mouth to control her laughter she says to me, "You have got to stop making me laugh. Centro is watching us and he's doing that thing he does with his nose."

Why is she so comfortable with having me as a partner? Having to work with her isn't exactly as hard on me as I am thinking it should be. Well it all means that the project is going to be easy to do if she is this cooperative.

"Let me just look up the quote and find its author. Cover for me in case Centro walks this way." Penelope asks me to look out for her and all I do is nod as she pulls out an IPhone. My eyes turn to Mr. Centro to watch his movement. He is busy reading a Jane Austen book. Pride and Prejudice is what the cover says. He is always reading that book. I mean always reading that book when he is not teaching.

"You can focus on me again. I got the author of the quote." When she says that, I really do look at her as she puts her phone back into her pocket.  I notice how hard the lines around her eyes are. Her face becomes a controversial land mine in comparison of her hard eye lines to a soft easy smile that forms on her thin and chapped pink lips. 

  She keeps stringing her fingers across a necklace that hangs loosely around her neck. The necklace's chain meets a bump at Penelope's collarbone.  I focus my eyes on her chain and notice that a bird is the centre of the necklace when Penelope relocates her fingers. The bird seems to resemble a swan and it is so beautiful. I wonder why her finger's attention lie on the necklace.

"So who is the creator of the quote?" I ask, a little to eager.

"Oh yeah, it was this French guy named Francois Rabelais. He was a writer, a humanist and some other good stuff that will really help us create a really good story. So how do we exactly turn a story into an essay?"  Her question is a valid one and I take some time to think on how exactly to respond.

Placing my elbow on my desk top I say, "If you ask me a story is a creative form of an essay. I guess he wants us to make something interesting and turn it into a five page piece without excitement. So much for English being enlightening and fun."

"Agree I must. You are right. I don't think an essay is any different from a story except that it is boring. We could do a story revolving around the French and a love story. I love to love a good love story." I like her ideas but my mind isn't really here. I just keep doubting that we will get along.

"When should we get together to work on it?" She asks me and I know that we can't exactly meet at my house because Bella lives there.

Instead of suggesting my house as a destination I ask her, "Can we work at your house?"

"Of course we can." She says with too much cheer in her voice. "But why can't we work at your house? My little brother will bother us if we work at my house. Let's not even get started on how annoying my mom is." She asks me why working at my home is a bad idea as if she doesn't know the answer to it.

"You know why. Bella is usually home most days after school and she does not like noise." Bella is a noise maker and we both know that. My lie is as transparent as a polished piece of glass. Refusing to lapse into the past again, I stop at that not wanting to open old wounds. I know she understand what I am hinting at but she keeps pushing on the topic. I'm not an active CSI agent so I don't know why Penelope is so focused on my house. Snooping is my only choice so I have to play in extremely smart without her noticing it.

"I really want to work at your house. My home is too small and my brother will be annoying. I heard from my friends that your house is really big and everything. Please." Her pleads with me to work at my house confuse me. I understand that our house is big because we have wealthy parents with steady jobs. I can't help that. Why would our house size be the buzz at school? Something seems incredibly wrong.

Choosing not to fight over preparation location anymore I tell her, "Fine. We can work at my house. My older brother will probably be home and so will Bella but we could relocate to my room. We could even tell Bella and my brother to go to their rooms and we use the living room."

"Great. I can't wait to meet your brother and see your house," Why does she want to meet Cayden? It's not as is he is popular and no one from our school has met him. He went to a different high school so it's not like she is meeting up with an old friend or a hero. A smile that seems to conceal something plays across her face but I ignore it.

I want to break the weird feeling around us and compliment her on her necklace, "I like the swan pendant on your chain." Smiling as I say it seems to ease my nerves.

The smile that is on her face washes away like the sand on a beach. It's like it was almost never there."Someone special gave it to me two years ago." That's all she says about it and goes all robot on me about the necklace.

"Come with me to lunch. You usually hang out by yourself or you sit with the Chess club."

She wants me to sit with her group of friends. Bella will be at that table with all the other high class kids that think they are all that. I'm not exactly interested in sitting there at all.

"I know that we aren't exactly your favorite group of people but take a chance. I will be there to protect you from the wolves and also your sister will protect you." Attempting at convincing me with that doesn't really work. What does get me to comply is getting to sit with Bella for a change.

Trying not to change my decision on the spot I quickly spit out, "Yeah."

Coincidently the bell rings two minutes after we start further discussion on how to begin and create a story off of our quote. She gets up, proceeds to her desk to pack her stuff. After picking up mine, I wait for her.  The whole class rushes to exit the class and Mr. Centro still gives his full attention to Pride and Prejudice. She strides to me avoiding desks in her path. She smiles at me a friendly crooked smile and we walk alongside each other to the cafeteria step after step.

Maybe just maybe I won't get the hamburger combo this time.

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Author's Note: Two updates  in the span of two days. I deserve a round of applause. I honestly write these chapters on the limit. With this chapter, I went a few hundred words over board but it was very much needed.

I am so sorry to the reader if you think that this story is progressing slowly. All the things in the first ten chapters, I believe should lead up to the plot. I honestly don't know what I am going to write next apart from the lunch scene and I believe that is the magic of it all. So  yeah, maybe 4 or 5 more chapters before a little action. I mean, ACTION.

P.S. Don't you just love Penelope's last name. If you forgot here it is again, Undstincht.

Till next time my ol' chap, Abbie Orsar.

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