**guy in picture is Chris

SAM's POV

~Thursday morning, Spanish class~

Mrs. Raymond had a whole bunch of partner work for us to do today. Just the thing I need: more work. I already had a lot of make-up work to do for my other classes and late assignments from last week because of our big basketball game. And now she expects us to fill out this stapled packet about ourselves in Spanish? Who knew you'd have to write in Spanish in a Spanish class ?!

My partner, Jake, was filling out his packet while I was chilling in the seat beside him sipping on some water.

"What does pasatiempos mean again?" Jake asked me.

"I think like pass time or hobby," I reply, taking some sunflower seeds out of my pocket. Snack time!

"Okay," he says while writing.

I lean back in my chair and manage to get a glimpse of Diggy and that thang across the aisle from us. They look surprisingly cozy; Diggy is playing with her hair while she's stretched out across the table, writing. I crunch on my sunflower seeds and spit the shells into my tissue.

"Alright. Now I gotta interview you..." Jake says.

"Okay." I return my attention to my partner.

"What's your favorite thing to do?"

"Basketball. Next question." I eat more of my sunflower seeds.

"If you could change the world, what would you do?"

"Make every day Summer and Free Pie Day. Next question."

Jake laughs and writes down my response. I glance at Diggy; he catches my eye and I roll my eyes and look away.

"What country do you want to travel to?"

"Uh... Africa."

"That's not a country, it's a continent."

"Eh, it's close enough," I say, sitting up right in my chair, "Hey. You think I can spit these shells over at Julie?"

Jake stops writing and looks over his shoulder at her. "Why do you wanna do that?"

"Because she's a witch," I shrug and smile.

"Is it because of that stuff she said about you? Sam, it ain't worth it. Plus, she's not too bad--"

"Says every basketball player on the team. Yeah, I'm sure her short skirt ain't too bad when y'all watch the cheerleaders during practice," I scoff.

Julie looks over at us, smiles at Jake, then winks at me. This girl got one more time to wink at me!

"She's cute, no lie. I can't believe she hangs with Diggy though. All the other fine brothas on the team -- cough cough ME -- and she chooses that big head over there," Jake says while laughing. I chuckle.

"Jake, you are not fine. You ain't even cute," I say.

"Psh, whatever. You're just a hater..."

"Right, Jake. Anyways, watch this..."

I spit a seed over at Julie and it lands on her head. BOOYAH!!!

"Ewwww!" Julie shrieks. Everyone turns their attention to her.

"Ms. Martinez, what's the problem?" Mrs. Raymond asks her.

"SOMEONE SPIT A SUNFLOWER SEED AT ME AND IT LANDED IN MY HAIR!" 

Half the class laughs.

"Oh no, it's the end of the world!" One student jokes.

Mrs. Raymond walks over to her desk. "Calm down. Who did this?" Julie glared at me and I smiled back. I'm not ashamed of what I did at all. Diggy looks at me with an annoyed look.

"Samantha."

Mrs. Raymond walks over to our table and snatches my bag of sunflower seeds.

"Um, I need those," I say.

"Not if you're going to spit food at people," she replies.

"I'm hungry though and that's my only snack for the day."

"I guess you should've thought about that before you started playing with your food. Didn't you eat breakfast?"

"It doesn't matter! I have practice tonight and I'm gonna need my snacks!" I reach toward my bag of goodies but the teacher isn't giving in. She walks to the trash and throws them away...

"Really? You're gonna throw away my stuff? It's not even a big deal. It's ONE seed and she brushed it off her head anyway. She won't die from it."

"Samantha, you've been messing with this poor girl every chance you get. Just stop the foolishness and get back to work," our teacher replies.

"You're only defending her because she's your pet. Just because she's new and popular and rich, you treat her like a queen. And what about us?" I gesture to the rest of the class. "We're over here suffering because you pay her all the attention in the world while we don't know the difference between 'taco' and 'burrito'." 

The class laughs -- all except for Mrs. Raymond, Julie, Diggy, and Jake.

"I appreciate your outspokenness, Ms. Goode, but in this situation it doesn't matter. And maybe if you paid attention during class instead of daydreaming and sleeping, you might know the difference between 'taco' and 'burrito', chiquita," She rolls her eyes at me and sits in her desk.

"Whatever," I mumble.

"Nice speech, Sammie! That was very effective," Julie whispered to me.

"Jake. Did you hear a little trick try to speak to me? Hmm, crazy," I say. Jake and Dig look at each other and realize they better stay out of it because it's between me and Julie.

"At least I didn't sleep with a basketball player so he could get you some kudos at the Homecoming dance," she says to me.

"Oh, don't speak too soon. I'm sure you're doing or will be doing the same thing..." I glare at her and then at Diggy, who looks angry. Oh. Dang. Well.

~Math class~

Bored to death! I just finished our stupid math test and it was horrible! It felt like I was reading Chinese. I hope I didn't fail, because that wouldn't be good for basketball. Plus, if my mom found out I failed my math test she'd go all crazy black woman on me and probably lock me up in a prison cell until I'm eighty-five. In other words, the MOMS doesn't play when it comes to schoolwork.

Everybody that already finished the test is working on the home work that's due tomorrow. I swear we never get a break in here. We were learning about matrices... why does this have to be so confusing?

"Sam, can you come back to my desk, please?" the teacher asked.

What does he want now? I sighed, got up from my desk and walked toward the back where the teacher was. I crossed my arms. "Yeah?"

"I wanted to talk to you about your test," he said, holding my paper in his hand.

"What about it?"

"I've realized that math isn't your favorite subject, but it is very important. Now, you've managed to keep a B in this class all year and that's good. You've gotten decent grades on your tests for your capacity, but there's just a few areas where you aren't very successful in."

"What areas?" I ask.

"First, let me just show you your test. You got a C," he says, handing the paper to me. I looked at it and breathed a sigh of relief. Phew, at least I didn't fail.

"Cool," I responded back.

"It's not one of your best, but you passed. Now, homework... that's an area that needs improvement. You always turn in your homework late, and when you do finally turn it in, you always have several mistakes. Most of them are simple ones that we go over in class everyday. Along with that, you never seem interested or awake in my class, and that's probably part of the problem. Maybe basketball is keeping you away from studying and getting the proper sleep you need," he says, looking at me like he's trying to read my thoughts.

"Mr. Wilson, basketball is fine. I know how to manage my time, thanks," I respond.

"Well, this paper," he points to my test, "Doesn't show it. Is everything all right at home?"

"YES! Everything is okay," I answer, getting annoyed. I hate when teachers try to act like they actually care about your home life.

Mr. Wilson sighs, and rubs his head. "You know I help tutor kids everyday after school in my room. I could help you with homework or whatever you don't understand--"

"I'M FINE..." I shout, a little louder then I expected, causing a few heads in class to turn. "Can I go back to my seat now?"

"Yeah. Go ahead," he says in defeat.

I walk back to my seat and stuff my graded test into my notebook. Mr. Wilson decides to lecture us about our homework assignment, so I just put my head down. But before I could get any Zzz's in, he tells me to sit up. Ughhh.

"So, does anyone know how to do the first problem? Anyone?" Mr. Wilson asks. The smart nerds raise their hands as usual.

"Great. Now how about the second problem? Ally?" He calls on this girl near the front. He know she don't know the answer. Ally shrugs her shoulders. He calls on a guy in the back that's on the football team. He doesn't know the answer either. He better not call on me...

"Sam. Do you know the answer to #2?" 

Just my luck.

"Um, obviously not if I didn't raise my hand."

"I don't need your smart mouth, Ms. Goode, I was simply asking a question all of you should know the answer to," he replies.

"Well, we all aren't Mr. Wilson, the greatest math teacher ever known, now are we?" The class chuckles and he gives me the evil eye.

"You think this is funny? I'm trying to motivate you all to want to learn. But I guess that'll never happen, will it Ms. Goode?" He walks closer to my desk.

"Can you just call me Sam? Ms. Goode is my mother."

"I can call you whatever I want to call you in my classroom. Maybe you should stop always wanting to pick little arguments with people, and start doing what you're told. This is high school, you should know this by now."

"Whatever. I don't wanna be here," I scoff.

"You don't? Well, there's always a place in detention. Take your stuff and go there now," Mr. Wilson tells me, rolling his eyes as he walks back to the chalkboard.

 I grab all my stuff and quickly go out of the classroom. I don't need this. No one cares about stupid math anyway...

***

I arrive in the front office and see a few students sitting in the waiting chairs. I find a chair far away from the other people and slump down in it. I wonder if all these people are in detention too. Eh, oh well. I don't really care. I dig through my backpack and surprisingly find a pack of M&Ms from yesterday. Yes! Might as well eat away my problems. I was sitting in the office for about five good minutes when I saw Chris walk into the room.

"Hey, Mrs. Teresa!" He acknowledges the lady at the front desk.

"Hey there, Chris. How are you?" Mrs. Teresa greets him.

"I'm good, you know, just taking everything a day at a time," Chris says.

"That's good. So, what do you need, love?"

"I got a meeting with the athletic advisor about some possible basketball scholarships."

"Oh, nice! Well, I'll tell him you're here. Take a seat."

Chris says 'thanks' and flashes his killer smile. He knows he is every female teachers favorite student in the whole school. Usually, all the athletes can get away with anything they want -- except for me. All the teachers hate me. Anyway, Chris takes a look at everyone already sitting in chairs, then looks my way. Please don't sit by me, please don't sit by me, plea--

"Why, hello Sam," Chris says while planting his butt in the chair right next to me. Great.

I roll my eyes and sigh.

"Mmm. Aren't you the talk of the school these days," he says, looking directly at me. I give him the evil glare.

"Chris, don't make me slap you. You know the stupid rumors aren't true," I say.

"Yeah... but the school doesn't know that."

"You just enjoy hearing your name being  mentioned any time you get, don't you? So pathetic."

"You can thank me later. Now people know who you are..." he says to me. I roll my neck and look at him.

"Excuse you, but people already knew who I was before you came along. I am the captain of the girls basketball team and the best player in the whole school. I'm going to the NBAs and I'll set more records than Lisa Leslie!"

"Oh really? If you haven't noticed, I'm the captain of the boys basketball team, the best player in the state, not to mention the most popular and best-looking dude up in here, AND not too mention I got offered at UCLA," Chris brags, whispering the last little bit near my ear. All of a sudden a hot flash went over me...

"Whatever. You know you have to be smart to get into UCLA? It's not just about sports," I say.

"Oh, I pass all my classes, sweetie. I know this. But, apparently you need to take yo own advice... detention again?" He looks at me as if he's hating or kind of sympathetic for me. I don't know which one.

"Chris. The athletic director will see you now," Mrs. Teresa says to Chris. He continues looking at me, gets up, and walks to another room. "Everybody else. Go to room B to the right and serve your detention. No talking."

UGHHHHHHHHH !