"There will be an extended homeroom session this morning for the distribution of report cards." Said the teacher as he began to pass out slips of paper.
"You know, they pass out report cards on the same day as the dance JUST so parents can ground their kid for getting bad grades!" Sanji said to Zoro as a piece of paper with his name and grades fluttered down in front of him. Without even looking at it, he turned it over.
"Maybe." Said Zoro as he took his paper from the teacher and looked at his grades.
"Well?" Sanji asked. "How'd you do?"
"I got four A's total." Zoro responded.
"What classes?" Sanji continued.
"Let's see…" Zoro started slowly. "Gym first quarter, gym second quarter, gym third quarter and gym forth quarter."
Sanji didn't say anything for a minute. "How'd you do academically?"
"The usual…but I went up in math." Zoro commented as Sanji took the paper out of his hand.
"Yeah, you got a C- this quarter which brings your math average to about a D+." Sanji said, shaking his head slightly. "With a comment that says, 'Test scores better'. Your highest grade on here is a B+."
"No, I got four A's." Zoro said.
"I meant BESIDES gym." Sanji answered, rolling his eyes.
"Well, how'd you do?" Zoro asked even though he probably didn't really care.
"Let's see," Sanji said, handing Zoro his report card back and then turning his over and looking it up and down a few times. "Well…I didn't go DOWN in anything… mostly B's, a few A's and one C+."
"Well that's good." Said Zoro with a shrug.
Meanwhile, Nami was looking over her report card in her homeroom. All of her seventh grade friends were complaining over their D's and C's as she quietly hid her paper decorated with many A's and the occasional B in her backpack since it was, at that point, un-cool to get good grades.
And, considering Nami was pretending the whole time that she just didn't want to show her report card because her grades were so terrible, we're going to move on since that's not so interesting.
Usopp and Luffy were comparing their report cards off in their sixth grade homeroom.
"All right!!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly. "I got all P's this quarter!! Not a single F!"
"And I got all A's!!" Usopp declared. "Except…in gym…"
"I got a P in gym!" Luffy said, not able to get over his entirely 'P' report card based on the Pass/Fail system since Luffy is special that way.
"This is a great day!" said Usopp happily. "Not only did I get a date but I got this awesome report card that I can show her with joy and pride!!"
Luffy paused. "I got ALLLL P's!!" he said again.
Then Luffy and Usopp decided that a party was in order. So they threw one, getting only a few odd stares from the other kids in the class who then averted their eyes, feeling embarrassed just watching them.
A little while later, after everyone had been able to fully take in their grades for the year, the bell rang and Usopp and Luffy put on their ten thousand pound backpacks and sprinted down the hallway over the speed limit so they could get to class on time.
"Thank you for the P!!!" Luffy said to his history teacher who shall not reply or speak or acknowledge or be acknowledged anymore. Now, since it was the end of the year, Luffy and Usopp took their seats just as a minute of passing time went by. The two sat in the empty room quietly and silently, getting out their pencils and lining up their erasers up nicely on their desk and taking out their homework from last night. Well, actually, Usopp was the only one doing this. Luffy was like… eating his snack that he still gets even though you're not really supposed to get one in middle school. Then he started singing some horrible song in an extremely tone deaf voice quite loudly so that the whole class could hear him, even that girl who was going to muster up the courage to ask him to the dance at the end of the class but decided against it after hearing Luffy serenade them.
When the second bell rang, class began.
Luffy was able to sit still for about five minutes, a big improvement from his previous fifteen seconds when he had first started school. But after that five minutes was up, he leaned over to Usopp.
"Hey Usopp!!" he whispered in a voice that was loud enough for everyone to hear but they were all used to it so they had grown to learn how to ignore him.
"What?" Usopp replied quietly.
"Can I see your tie again?" he answered.
"Do you want to just borrow it?" Usopp asked.
"No, I just want to spin it." He replied, in a full speaking voice now as he leaned over even further and spun it contently as Usopp just kind of sat there awkwardly trying to pay attention but kind of was restricted.
Meanwhile, in a hallway far away off in the eighth grade wing where sixth graders dare not even go to the bathroom, there was a pleasant little math class.
"So what would you call an angle when you put it inside a box?" the teacher asked as she drew an angle and enclosed it in a box.
The class was truly stumped.
"An acute angle?" said one random kid.
"No…" said the teacher. "You call it…an angle in a box!" There was silence and then the class shared a good chuckle. Then there were two kids who found it ridiculously funny and laughed for a few more minutes. Then one of those kids thought it was still funny and continued to laugh, and the other kid continued to laugh as well just because he thought it was hilarious that the first kid was still laughing at something so stupid.
Of course, there was one student who had never even laughed in the first place. In fact, he had slept right through the entire joke. Sanji leaned over and prodded Zoro with his pencil so he raised his head off the desk.
"What?" Zoro said.
"You just missed a joke." Said Sanji even though he wasn't one of the two kids who were STILL laughing. As a matter of fact, he really only had gone, 'Heh' and then considered it for a minute and dismissed it as an entertaining momentary distraction.
"Oh no." said Zoro as he lied his head back down on the desk.
"And you wonder why you got a D in math?!" Sanji said as if it offended him.
"C-." Zoro said.
"Shh!" said Nami as she turned around since she was sitting in front of Sanji, who was sitting next to Zoro. "In case you haven't noticed, the class has gotten over the angle in a box and we're now continuing!"
"It's not like it matters, we already got our report cards." Zoro said.
"He's right." Said Sanji. "All that's left to do is yearbooks for Monday."
"I thought we were getting them today." Said Zoro.
"We are." Said Nami with an exasperated sigh. "But we're not going to do formal signing until Monday."
"It seems kind of ludicrous to have to come back to school after the weekend just to sign yearbooks." Sanji said.
Then the teacher cleared her throat and Nami spun back around. "I was going to hand out yearbooks at the end of the class but I figure since you're all eager and talking about them anyway, I'll just hand them out now." Said the math teacher as everyone cheered and she went and retrieved a big box, putting it on the table.
First, she pulled out a bunch of shiny, hard-covered books that were all pretty and nice and bound. After getting all twenty of them out of the box, she pulled out a paperback one that had the cover folded back from being sloppily tossed inside and underneath all other books. She passed out the pretty hardcover ones to all the eighth grade students and then handed the paperback one to Nami.
"I hate how the 8th graders get better yearbooks." Complained Nami, dropping hers on her desk.
"Well, if you had been in your regular math class then yours wouldn't have gotten folded." Zoro said.
"No, Nami wanted to come into the same math class as me!" Sanji said as he pulled out his pen with purple ink. "Do you want me to sign your yearbook, Nami?"
At first, Nami was going to immediately decline but then she figured that it would be a nice thing to show off to her friends that she had gotten the eighth grade heart throb to write a very loving message to her in her book. She would hand her yearbook to her friend to sign it, her friend would open it and see Sanji's signature and exclaim, "You got Sanji to sign your yearbook?!" And then she would vaguely look over and say, "Oh right…he insisted…"
"Fine, but don't take up a whole page…" she said as she surrendered her yearbook to him.
Sanji had been practicing his signature all week long building up to this moment.
Dearest Nami,
My love for you burns like a thousand suns! I wish only the best for you and wish to offer words of comfort for next year when I will no long be attending this school. I'll see you at the dance tonight, and we'll party like it's 1999 all over again!
Sanji
Nami didn't even bother to read it, just slammed the cover shut and turned around. Sanji and Zoro then exchanged their hardcover yearbooks for signing. Zoro flipped to the page with his picture on it and simply wrote, "Good year, --Zoro." across his own face.
Sanji, pumped with his purple pen of doom, wrote a note right at the front of the book so that his signature would be the first that people see.
Zoro,
This year was interesting, and I'm glad we got to be friends and spent time together even though our out-of-school schedules were so different. Have a good summer, and I'll see you in high school!
Sanji
Of course, Sanji went through some slight shock when he flipped to the front and back pages of his own yearbook to find that Zoro had not written anything but then he checked Zoro's picture to find it there. "Don't you have anything else to say?" Sanji said, sounding perturbed.
"Uh…no." Zoro answered.
Their conversation didn't continue, though, because the various girls in the class bombarded Sanji, begging him to sign their yearbooks.
Passing time occurred as scheduled and students moved from their classes to the next ones. Luffy and Usopp shared a science class as well and entered where Luffy promptly thanked the teacher for the 'P' he had received and then took his seat.
The teacher handed out pieces of colored construction paper stapled together to the students. On the small, makeshift books, the children's school pictures were attached with double sided tape and the word 'Yearbook' was scrawled across the top with black Sharpie.
"WE GET YEARBOOKS?!" Luffy screamed, looking at his. "THIS IS SO COOL! WOW!! AMAZING!!!"
Usopp, meanwhile, was only staring at the book in disbelief. "This is not a yearbook." He said.
"What do you mean?" said Luffy, holding up his yearbook. "It says 'Yearbook' right on the front as clear as day!!"
"That's only to throw you off!" said Usopp as if it really mattered as much as he was making it out to. "They just want to distract us with this book so that we won't rebel and demand a real one!"
"GASP!!!" yelled Luffy.
"You know what we have to do, right Luffy?" Usopp said.
"YEAH!!" said Luffy. "They can't get away with this!!"
"We have to go down to the office and complain!!" Usopp declared.
"NO!!" Luffy said. "WE MUST STEAL THE EIGHTH GRADER YEARBOOKS!!"
"All right, that too." Said Usopp with a shrug. "As long as I get a REAL yearbook. But you'll be doing all the stealing."
"YEAH!!!" yelled Luffy as he jumped up and punched the air.
Just then, Kaya and a few of her friends came running up giggling. "Um… Usopp?" she said nervously as her friends pushed her forward. "Will you sign my yearbook please?"
"I will only when your lovely hands hold an eighth grade yearbook!" Usopp announced. "I, the Great Usopp, am going to take some hardcover eighth grade yearbooks from the office and end these sixth grade injustices here and now!! Would you like one as well?"
"Wow, Usopp!" said Kaya excitedly. "That's amazing! You're so brave and your tie is so spinny."
"Would you like to spin it?" Usopp asked, leaning over.
"WOULD I?!" Kaya said as she spun the tie and laughed happily.
"CAN I SPIN IT TOO?!" Luffy yelled.
"NO!" Usopp said, turning around. "There's not a moment to lose! We must go and retrieve the yearbooks now!"
Of course, they waited for passing time so it wouldn't look like they were skipping class. Which they WEREN'T but no sixth graders would even dream of being caught in the halls without a hall pass.
Slowly but surely, the day passed all the way to lunchtime. Nami continued her quest for a date to the dance but remained unsuccessful. Luffy and Usopp eventually chickened out of their mission to get the yearbooks because a sixth grader would NEVER steal from the school. Sanji continued to try to get Nami to date him, but in the process only got more and more dates to the dance but it's not like that bothered him or meant anything to him. As for Zoro, today was just like any other and now it was time for lunch and he was EXTRA hungry today.
"I can't just NOT go to the dance!" Nami whined as she got up in line with Zoro and cut the kid that was behind him. But it's not like she cared because the kid was ONLY a sixth grader. "No one has asked me yet and I'm getting desperate! I mean, at this point, I think even if a sixth grader asked me, I'd go with him, as long as he was taller than me! Even if YOU asked me, Zoro, I would go! I mean, after all, we are friends and another friend should know when his friend is in need! But that's just speaking hypothetically!"
"I'm not even going to the dance." Zoro said.
"Oh I know THAT." Said Nami. "But think about it! It's going to be your last dance as a middle schooler and then you're going to go to high school and be at the bottom of the totem pole again! No one's going to want to go with you!"
"I won't even go anyway." Said Zoro. "So that's a good thing."
"But I STILL think you should go!" Nami continued. "It'll be fun! And maybe you can give me a ride there and do the gentlemanly thing and walk me in! Of course, since you're there already, you might as well stay and hang out with me since you might as well and everything!"
"Can't you get there some other way?" Zoro asked.
"Listen you, you're taking me to that dance whether you like it or not!!" Nami said forcefully as she grabbed Zoro's collar.
Zoro pushed her away. "Just go with Sanji!" he said. "He WANTS to go with you!"
Just then, Sanji came over and cut in front of the kid that was now behind Nami. But that sixth grader didn't dare say anything about it because Sanji was an EIGHTH grader and by this time, sixth graders should know their place and not step out of line.
"NAMI!" he exclaimed. "PLEASE go to the dance with me! Have you changed your mind since math?"
"No!" Nami said angrily. "I will NEVER go to the dance with you no matter how many times you ask me! And if you ask me again then I don't know what I'll do in my uncontrollable rage!" Then she latched arms with Zoro. "Besides, Zoro has already asked me."
Sanji looked at Zoro with wide eyes. "Is this true?" he said in THAT TONE.
"No!" Zoro said, wrenching himself free of Nami's grasp.
"Good, because otherwise I would have had to start some horrible rumors about you." Sanji threatened.
Then they got to the front of the line, Zoro searched his pockets for his lunch money. "Oh man, I just remembered that I forgot my lunch money…" Zoro said.
"Too bad, Zoro, looks like you're just going to have to put it all back." Nami said with a shrug. "The lunch ladies aren't allowing borrowing anymore because it's the end of the year! However…I believe I could loan you some lunch money!"
"Really?" Zoro said. "That's great! Thanks." Nami gave him some lunch money and he paid the lunch lady and went back to his seat. Nami and Sanji followed as well after THEY had paid and then went back to the table as well. At the table was Luffy and Usopp who had their lunchboxes all opened up and their napkins in their laps.
Only six were allowed to a table so Nami sat at the end, Sanji across from her, Zoro next to him with his feet up on the chair across from his seat. Usopp and Luffy sat at the other end across from each other. So all the chairs were taken.
"So anyway, Zoro, about my payment." Nami said to Zoro.
"Huh?" he said.
"I loaned you lunch money and you have to pay me back." Nami explained.
"Yeah, I will." Zoro said. "I don't have the money right now or else I would have paid for it by myself though."
"No, you don't have to pay me back in MONEY!" laughed Nami as if he was a fool for assuming that.
"Oh…" he said, thinking. "Well…what DO you want then?"
"I thought you'd never ask!" Nami said. "Sure, I'd LOVE to go to the dance with you, Zoro!!"
"WHAT?!" yelled Sanji AND Zoro as they both sprung up out of their seats and slammed their hands down on the table.
"You can't make me go to the dance with you just because you paid for my lunch!" Zoro said as he sat back down.
"What he said!" said Sanji.
Nami covered her face and erupted with fake tears. "Oh Zoro!" she cried. "If only you understood how important this dance was to me! Even after I was nice enough to loan you money, this is how you repay me!"
"Just go with Sanji—" Zoro started.
Nami began to wail, but no one knew it was fake!!
"FINE!" Zoro yelled over her wails because he's a sucker for girl's tears. "But don't read anymore into this! I'm only doing it because you're FORCING me too!"
"Oh good!" said Nami as she immediately stopped crying and picked her tray up off the table. "I'm just going to have to go tell everyone now! Bye!"
Then she ran off.
"How COULD you, Zoro?!" yelled Sanji. "You KNOW how I feel about Nami! And you just go and steal her while I'm sitting right here! I didn't think you could sink so low!! For SHAME!!"
"You saw!" said Zoro. "She FORCED me to!"
"Well she could have forced me." Sanji said, crossing his arms.
"You're right, she could have." Zoro said, rolling his eyes.
"Now I'm going to the dance all alone!!" whined Sanji. Just as he said that, a few eighth grade girls came running up to him.
"Um…Sanji?" said one of them. "If you're going to the dance alone, could you go with me? I didn't ask because I figured that you were already taken…"
"Of course!" said Sanji. "Nothing would make me happier!"
"Great!" said the girl. "I'll see you there then!" She and her friends ran off giggling happily.
"Isn't that your…I don't know…tenth date?" Zoro said.
"That's entirely besides the point!" said Sanji.
"No, that IS the point." Zoro pointed out.
"See you later guys, we don't want to be late!" said Usopp as he and Luffy grabbed their wheely backpacks and ran out of the lunch room as fast as they could.
"The bell's not going to ring for another seven minutes." Said Sanji, looking at his tiny little watch that had a thin little brown band. "And we don't have to be in class for another twelve minutes."
"And you might as well just round that off to fifteen." Said Zoro.
"No, because then you'd be late." Sanji said.
"Only by three minutes." Zoro said with a shrug.
"I will never leave lunch before the first bell but I would never show up late to a class either." Sanji declared. "Especially not for home economics."
"In that case, we might as well round fifteen up to twenty." Zoro said.
"I LOVE home economics!" said Sanji.
"I know." Said Zoro.
Even though both of them left the lunchroom at the same time, Sanji entered the home economics room with time to spare and Zoro showed up a few minutes late because he needed a drink, get his book, put the book away, visit the library, talk to a teacher, exchange dialogue with his peers, go to the bathroom and fetch his knitting needles from his locker. When he was within a few feet of the door, he decided to go on strike and put the knitting needles back in his locker and THEN go to class.
And that's exactly what…he did.
