Chapter 2
Cora and Jem burst through the door the following Monday.
Cora collapses into Jem's arms. "It's only the second week and I already want to drop out."
Jem drops her.
"Hey! What was that for?" Cora yells at Jem as she stands up.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were falling towards me."
"How do you not realize that someone is falling towards you?!"
Ms. Lawrence only started paying attention to the last comment and asked, "What are you two fighting about?"
Cora replies immediately with, "Jem tried to kill me." She points an accusatory finger at him.
"No, I dropped her and to be fair, she never told me that she would be falling towards me," Jem added.
Cora rolls her eyes. "Whatever, Jem." she huffed. "As I was saying before I was so rudely dropped, it's only the second week of school and I already want to drop out." Cora falls towards Jem a second time, and gracefully lands in his arms, before standing back up.
Ms. Lawrence claps semi-sarcastically and shouts "Bravo, bravo. Much better than the last time," as she throws a plastic flower from the vase on her desk.
"What on earth are you guys doing?" Scout asks, walking in with Charles. "Jem, if this is another one of your stupid jokes, I'm gonna scream."
"First of all, my jokes are not stupid, and second, I don't have to tell you any of what's going on," Jem yells back.
Cora turns her direction to Scout. "I fell dramatically into Jem's arms and he caught me this time."
"Congrats." Scout deadpans.
Atticus jogs into the room, asking, "Why do I hear yelling from you, Jem?"
Ms. Lawrence quickly replies on Jem's behalf. "Oh, there was no yelling, Atticus."
Atticus narrows his eyes at Jem. "Did you bribe this nice teacher to say that, Jem?"
"Wha-? Do you actually think so lowly of me that you think I would bribe a teacher to say that I wasn't yelling?"
"Yes," Atticus responds, not unlike Scout had moments ago.
Ms. Lawrence stands up and goes to sit on a desk near Atticus. "No, he didn't bribe me. He and Cora were just rehearsing for musical auditions. There was definitely some drama, but no yelling."
"Why do you look annoyed, then?" Atticus asks Ms. Lawrence.
"Oh, my sock just fell off again. It happens when I wear these boots." She fixes her sock and shoe before turning her attention back to the handsome gentleman sitting next to her. She ignores his slightly confused expression.
"Mr. Finch?" Charles said. "You should see Jem and Cora's rehearsal for auditions. It's pretty good."
Cora squeals, "CHUCK! YOU'RE SO CUTE!" She pinches Charles' cheeks. Scout pulls Charles away from Cora as Jem pulls Cora next to himself.
"Oo! Cora, I just got an idea on how to rehearse!" Jem exclaims.
"What is it?" Cora asks.
Jem and Cora whisper to each other for a moment before Jem climbs onto a desk shouting, "Oh Romeo, Romeo, why must you be Romeo Montague? Could you have not been of any other name than Montague?"
Cora continues the scene, "My beautiful Juliet, call me whatever you like, such that you will love me for me and not hate me for my name. If you so wish, you could never call me Romeo again."
Jem yells dramatically, "We may not have known each other for long, but I would die for you, I would do anything for you my Romeo."
"JULIET," Ms. Lawrence yells, playing the part of Lady Capulet.
"I'm coming mother." Jem lowers his voice to talk to Romeo again, "You need to hide somewhere she can't see you."
"JULIET, If you don't come out, I'm coming in." Ms. Lawrence walks over to Jem, shouting at Cora, "Montague? How the heck did you get over the orchard walls? Are you a spider monkey?"
"YEET!" Cora shouts as she runs to the opposite side of the classroom and dabs, knocking the Slytherin poster off of the wall.
Atticus stands from his seat, fixes the poster, and swaggers over towards Ms. Lawrence. "What is all of this commotion, My Lady?"
"It appeared to be a spider monkey, but I'm not exactly sure," Ms. Lawrence responded, laughing lightly.
Atticus' face shows a confused expression when he asks "Are you sure that's the next line? I'm pretty sure William Shakespeare didn't know what spider monkeys were back in the 1600's."
"Well, Shakespeare actually wrote Romeo and Juliet in the late 1500's, not the 1600's...and that really doesn't help my case much."
"Actually," Atticus starts, "spider monkeys were first classified in the 1700's. Don't ask why I know that."
"Well, now I have to ask why you know that." Ms. Lawrence jokes.
"Well, I used to be a lawyer, and a few years ago, I had a case where a man was charged with burglary. He tried to convince the court that it was really a spider monkey, so I had to do loads of research on spider monkeys to prove that there was no way a spider monkey could have done the crime. It was probably one of the funniest cases I ever worked on." Ms. Lawrence was giving a poor attempt to stifle her laughter by the time Atticus had finished the story.
"I would love to hear more about your cases. They sound both intriguing and amusing." Ms. Lawrence smiles, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
"Maybe I can tell you about more interesting cases over dinner sometime. Are you free this Friday?"
Ms. Lawrence takes a step closer to him and says, "Are you asking me on a date, Atticus?"
"Yeah, I think I am," Atticus says grinning.
"Well, in that case, I'm definitely free on Friday."
Atticus snorts and says "Clever pun, Megan. Clever pun."
Ms. Lawrence giggles at Atticus and then walks back to her desk, grabbing a stack of sticky notes and a pen. She writes on the top note and says, "Here is my phone number. Just in case you might want to call me."
"Thank you," Atticus says, ignoring the same joke she made just a minute ago, taking the sticky note from Ms. Lawrence's outstretched hand. He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and types her number in, making sure that all 10 digits are correct before turning his attention back to Ms. Lawrence. "I should probably go. I think my class is starting to wonder where their teacher is." And, as if on cue, the bell rang to start the school day while Ms. Lawrence watches Atticus as he jogs across the hallway to his own classroom.