"Wait, we can go on the roller coaster trip? I thought that was only for the juniors and senior?"

"Well fifteen slots opened up thanks to Research Gate."

"Wuh?"

"Oh, half of the juniors cheated on their research paper assignment, so my sources confirmed they're opening the door for sophomores that can replace them on the trip."

"Lemme guess," expecting to get one over him. "Did that source come from you eavesdropping on the teachers and principal in the lounge?"

His cheeks grew.

"No, I'm in student council. I hear their drama like once a week!"

Darn it.

"'Sides, I only overhearing the teachers once or twice about it."

"I knew it!" She tried to capture the look of embarrassment on his face after he turned around, while SIlas bobbed and weaved away to not give her the satisfaction, starting to frustrate her.

"So what happens now?"

"They're hypothesizing on what requirements to determine who goes. Regardless, we're going together, aren't we?"

"Well it can't be too much work."

--

"We're rewarding extra credit and one of the additional slots to the junior trip if you managed to complete a six to eight page research paper by the end of the week."

All of their classmates looked at each other.

"That's about fifteen hundred to two thousand words," Silas theorized.

"We'd have to write that much in one week? Silas, I can't do that!"

"Relax, we can do it. Remember our Christmas Project?"

"Yeah but that was a team effort. I can't do that alone!"

"I'll help you out!"

"It's not worth it!"

He stared at her with a gaze so strong, his pupils felt like a meteor about to rain down on her.

"We're going," with a dark eerie tone unnerving her before whimpering like a puppy. "Please?"

She shook her head, prompting him to beg.

Even while eating lunch in Senora's class.

"There's a reason why you're asking me, isn't there?"

"Yeah, there is."

They heard Radeem's voice on the phone, considering it an accidental call.

"Then again, your first date had a bit of a weird twist."

"Huh? The zoo date wasn't that bad, was it?"

"What? I'm talking about your McDonalds' date!"

"That wasn't a date!"

Camila and Radeem proceeded to ask, "it wasn't," at the same time.

"Yeah, I just wanted to hang out with you that time."

The silence and look on their face said it all until Radeem started laughing.

"You took your future girlfriend on a date...on accident?"

Camila's silent nod as he processed this made him face fault on the desk.

"I just wanted to be nice."

"At least the dominoes match was fun. What does that have to do with that?"

"Tell her about your middle school crush."

"Sigh. Long story short, she snubbed me when we went on the Six Flags trip. Someone spread a rumor I was going to ask her out to prom when I just wanted to sit together."

"Then that girl who's boyfriend probably cheated on her asked him out to prom instead, and his crush got super furious when he started bonding instead."

"So she only wanted you to ask her out when another girl took you up on the offer? Who plays around with someone's feelings like that?"

"Your ex," he said with no hesitation.

She also slumped her head next to him. "Touche."

"Besides, you've worked so hard this year. You've earned something like this. That photo we'll take will be your proof of that," picking her head up. "So let's show our grade your talent."

"Are you saying this because you believe in me or because you want to live out a dream."

He grinned and pecked her on the cheek. "Celebrating dreams coming true is fun with more people."

She relented. "Fine."

"Can I go now? Your teacher's probably listening to you being annoying this whole time."

"Shush. I'll kick your butt next time I come over, love ya."

"Love you too," hanging up, as their spanish teacher put a note on their desk.

"Your primo was right. Took you long enough."

"You knew. You told her?"

"You may have fooled your classmates but not us. Who asked the other out first?"

Both of them pointed to each other.

"You asked me out first!"

"Technically you asked me to go out with you to Eastern Parkway!"

"That doesn't count, I was trying to help Numel!"

"We hung out afterschool for more than an hour. If McDonalds counts, then that one does too!"

They continued to bicker over this much to their teacher's amusement.

—

"Game plan. We've only got five days left to do this."

"So the plan is one paragraph a day?"

"Yup. We got our topics. Research is tonight."

"The first two paragraphs are tomorrow."

"Then the last body paragraph Wednesday."

"Conclusion on Thursday."

"And prep on Friday. Aren't you worried about everyone else? What if there's not enough slots?"

"Heard some sophomores are gonna use ChatGPT and there's new episodes of Real Housewives. As long as one of us doesn't get distracted-me obviously, we'll be fine."

Monday Night

"Okay, the sources underneath Wikipedia could work. You got a typo."

"Oh shoot, thanks. Environment problems in Mexico?"

"Fits right. A massacre in Japan?"

"Acted. I respect the culture but they aren't perfect."

Tuesday Night

"How do you have so much written already?"

"I think ab"

"Oh shoot, thanks. Environment problems in Mexico?"

"Fits right. A massacre in Japan?"

"Acted. I respect the culture but they aren't perfect."

Tuesday Night

"How do you have so much written already?"

"Topic, Intro, Evidence, Discussion."

Wednesday Night

"I'm almost on the third body paragraph."

"Geez, no one deserved to go through that."

"You picked a topic about genocide."

"Touche."

Thursday Night

"How does my conclusion sound?"

"Like you used a thesaurus to research big words," making him suck his teeth. "Uh what's a word for something that causes pollution."

"A pollutant?"

"I knew that."

Friday Morning

"Done!"