Wishing for Someday Soon (6 page)

In between answering their questions, I scanned the room subtly and saw the girl I had met the previous day with her brother sitting together eating lunch. Both were watching the group I was eating with intensely, and I smiled at both of them when our eyes met. Bethany frowned slightly at my smile and her brother Matt merely grunted and looked down at the table as he resumed eating his sandwich.

“Don’t mind him,” Rebecca said quietly, not missing the exchange. “He's got a chip on his shoulder since the school keeps holding him back. He was supposed to graduate with my brother two years ago, but had to repeat tenth and eleventh grade.”

“That’s what his sister told me yesterday. Are the classes here that hard?” I asked nonchalantly, like it really didn’t matter.

“Not really, the teachers are really great. Usually, if you don’t get something, they're pretty good about spending extra time helping pull you through,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

My first big shock of the day came once lunch was over. I watched the other students around me grabbing their math and world history books once the desks were back in their rightful places.

“Where are we going?” I asked Rebecca, grabbing my purse and hoodie off the back of my chair.

“We rotate to other classes for math and history,” she explained. “We go to Mrs. Glenn’s class first for history, and her tenth graders go to Mr. Hanson for math, while his eleventh graders come in here for science with Mr. Graves,” she continued.

“That’s kind of kooky,” I said, not overly crazy about meeting a new teacher just when I had gotten comfortable where I was.

“It’s not bad. Both Mrs. Glenn and Mr. Hanson are nice. They decided to rotate us like this five years ago when bussing us to a high school in another town was vetoed. I guess they figured they'd switch us around to give us a rough idea of what regular high schools are like.”

“I guess,” I said reluctantly, understanding their logic.

“Don’t worry, they’re cool,” Max said, joining me on my other side.

“Sure, sure, that’s what they always say before they feed you to a bunch of sharks,” I quipped.

Max laughed at my words. “Nah, not sharks, maybe barracudas,” he said, grinning widely. “Kidding," he teased, nudging me. "Trust me, it’d be more like feeding you to lambs. Mrs. Glenn is super nice, especially since she and Mr. Hanson hooked up and tied the knot last year.”

“Seriously?” I asked, wondering if it was some big school scandal or something.

“Yeah, they started dating right after Mr. Hanson transferred here like two years ago and got married this past summer. It was a beautiful wedding with the loveliest lavender tulips everywhere,” Alicia said, sighing like only a girl would when discussing a wedding.

“So you went?” I asked, completely floored that the teachers and students seemed to intermingle.

“Heck yeah we went. They wouldn’t have even started dating if it wasn’t for us,” Clint said in the same somewhat cocky tone I was beginning to associate with him.

“That’s crazy, I couldn’t imagine a teacher from my old school ever inviting a student anywhere, let alone a wedding,” I said as we strolled into our history class as a group.

They laughed at my words as they found their desks, leaving me once again as the odd person out with no place to sit. Mrs. Glenn proved to be as sweet as promised and quickly found me a chair and encouraged me to sit wherever I felt comfortable. I settled back with Rebecca who seemed to have no problem sharing with me.

History class moved along rapidly and soon we were on our way to math. Everyone being so nice helped my nervous anxiety which seemed to be subsiding more and more as the day progressed. I was happy to see that catching up this time around wouldn’t be nearly as hard as the last few times had been. We’ve moved so often that every time I start at a new school, I’m always behind. The teachers are hit and miss. Most of the time they’re patient and do what they can to help me catch up, but there are always those that couldn’t seem to care less, like it’s my fault I don’t know what I’m supposed to know. I put in the work though, and usually even manage to get my grades up to B’s and C’s, which is about the time when Lucinda decides it’s time to move on again, and then it’s good-bye school for another couple of months.

My new confidence level however, nose-dived not two minutes into the math lesson when the teacher proceeded to write algebraic equations on the board for us to solve.

Moving around so much affected my so-called math skills more than anything, and if I had an arch nemesis, that was it. The past couple of years I’d barely scraped by, taking the most basic math the school would offer. I was fine the simple stuff, but once fractions and algebra were brought into the picture, I broke out in hives.

I sank down in my seat as everyone in the class quickly got to work on the problems written on the board. I pulled out my own notebook and doodled in the margin, giving the illusion that I was busily working through the problems. I tried to will the hands on the clock to move as rapidly as they had in the previous classes. Obviously, it wasn’t my day for wishes though, because the minute hand continued its painstakingly slow journey around the oversized dial. Finally giving up on my doodling, I studied the problems on the board, writing them out carefully in my notebook so the page would at least have something on it. I could feel Mr. Hanson’s eyes on me, but I kept my nose buried, trying to make sense of the problems that may as well have been written in Chinese. Moving them from the board to my paper didn’t help the situation. I stared at the letters A, B and X mingling with numbers, without having a clue how to solve them.

Rebecca, Max and another girl whose name I had forgotten, all finished the problems and I watched as they tore the pages from their notebooks and put them in the basket on the teacher’s desk. They went right to work on the homework assignment that was listed on the far corner of the dry erase board. Fifteen minutes later, only six of us were still working on the problems from the board. Not wanting to draw anymore unnecessary attention to myself, I tore my own page with its unanswered questions from my notebook. I slowly made my way to the front of the class with a knot the size of Canada in my stomach, placing my paper upside down in the basket. Mr. Hanson looked at me questioningly before giving me a small smile and I turned, hurrying back to my seat without looking back.

Class ended a few minutes later. I gratefully closed my book and surged to my feet, anxious to flee. My new friends surrounded me as we made our way toward the classroom door.

“Katelyn, can you stay behind for a moment?” Mr. Hanson asked, standing by the door.

“Sure,” I answered carelessly for my friends’ benefit. Inside I was mortified, knowing I hadn’t fooled him. What if he wanted to tell me I didn’t belong in the twelfth grade and thought I should be moved down? Then I’d be stuck here with Bethany and her brother Matt, all in a contest to see who could stay in high school the longest.

“I couldn’t help noticing you seemed to be struggling with the problems on the board,” Mr. Hanson said, sitting casually on the edge of his desk.

“Yeah, sorry, math’s not exactly my forte."

“Were the problems just too hard, or do you not get them at all?” he probed.

I hesitated to answer, but he sat silently, waiting for a response.

“I didn’t have a clue,” I finally answered as students I didn’t recognize began to stagger into the room.

“I see,” he said.

I kept my eyes glued to him, not daring to see if anyone was following our conversation. He was going to send me to the office and demand I get demoted. I imagined the embarrassment of facing Max and my new friends when I returned to class to gather my things.

“Well, it’s actually no surprise,” he said, startling me as he hopped off the desk.

“It’s not?” I asked confused.

“Not at all. The office passed out copies of the information your mother provided this morning and I see that in the past two years you’ve attended six schools. How is that possible?”

 
“Um, we just move around a lot,” I answered, puzzled where he was going with this.

“How many schools did you attend before that?” he asked, clearly interested.

“I’ve lost count. I guess maybe twenty or so since fifth grade,” I said, trying to recall all the schools I’d attended.

“Is your father in the military?” he asked, sounding confused.

“No sir. My mom just likes to move,” I said, trying to make the situation appear normal.

“That’s insanity. How does she expect you to keep up if she keeps moving you around?”

“I always manage,” I said, trying to cover for Lucinda.

He looked at me skeptically, obviously not believing me.

“I’m sure you do,” he said quietly, studying me intently. I flushed slightly at his focused stare. Fooling the teachers here was already becoming a trial. “Well, it’s clear we have our work cut out for us. Do you know how long you’ll be here?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “We never know,” I said, delving out more information than I normally would have.

“Okay, well, first we need to get a gauge of your math skills. I see you took basic math last year. Have you ever taken any kind of algebra class?” he asked as the noise level in the classroom rose.

“No sir.”

“I see. Hmmmm—well, I’m going to send home this assessment so we can get a better idea of exactly where you are,” he said, rummaging through his desk drawers. “Here we go. This one should give us a rough idea.”

 
“I’ll do it as soon as I get home,” I said, relieved he wasn’t ready to set me back yet.

“Well, relax and take a little breather, then you can work on it.”

“Okay,” I said, clutching my books to my chest as I fled from the room before he could change his mind about me.

“Hey, what took so long?” Max asked, startling me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked a little defensively as I tried to slide the assessment in between the pages of my text without him noticing.

“I told Mr. Graves maybe I should check on you, in case you got lost,” he said, shooting me a mischievous smile.

“Seriously, and he fell for that line?” I asked, unable to resist laughing. “I’m pretty sure you told me earlier that the school’s layout was a piece of cake.”

“He doesn’t know that,” he said, trying to appear innocent.

“Well, I know I’m new, but even I realize our class is only two doors down,” I said, still laughing.

“So, what did Hanson want?” He asked, changing the subject.

“He wants me to fill out an assessment,” I said sighing, not knowing how much he had heard outside the door. All the honesty at this new school was making me slightly nervous. I had gone three and a half months at my last school without anyone getting a flicker of what my life was like. Now, in less than twenty-four hours, the cutest guy I had ever talked to, knew a whole lot more about me than I liked.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosey. Anyway, it’s no big deal. Anyone starting school midway through the year might need some help,” Max said, misreading my sigh.

“What makes you think I need help?” I asked cautiously, trying to see exactly what he had overheard.

He looked sincere, returning my gaze earnestly. “Well, if you need any help I could come over and tutor you if you want.”

“Um, maybe,” I said, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that hell would freeze over before I ever invited him over.

“I see you found her,” Mr. Graves said as we entered the room, making it clear Max’s ploy hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Max laughed and winked at me, making my body tingle. It was one thing to resist his dimpled smile, but the wink was my weakness and he was just downright dangerous.

Flustered by his attention, I accidently bumped into a girl’s desk that sat directly in front of Rebecca. “Oops, sorry,” I mumbled, picking up her pencil I had knocked to the floor.

I glanced at Rebecca as I sat down and was startled to see that her friendly smile from earlier was absent and had been replaced with a pinched smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

With a sinking heart, I instantly understood that I had committed some kind of faux pas. Following her gaze, I saw she was watching Max’s back wishfully. Unease slowly crept through me as I realized I had been flirting with the guy that my new friend was crushing on. What the heck was I thinking anyway? My plan for this move was to make friends and fit in for the short time I’d figured we’d be here. It was insanity to even consider the idea of starting up a relationship that didn’t have a chance of going anywhere.