Chapter 3

Ms. Lawrence wakes up on Friday morning to her phone buzzing with a notification. She reaches for her glasses which reside on the nightstand beside her. Ms. Lawrence looks at her phone to see that the text was from Atticus. The text reads, "Megan, I am so sorry, I will not be able to make our date tonight, Scout is sick and I do not want to leave her alone. I hope to reschedule soon. ️"

Ms. Lawrence sighs before typing her reply, "No worries. I hope Scout feels better soon." She presses send with a bit of hesitation. She turns off her phone and sets it down, taking off her glasses and putting them back in their place on her nightstand. She lies back down hoping to get a few extra minutes of sleep but her mind is still thinking about the text.

Not one moment later, her morning alarm starts blaring "The Circle of Life" from "The Lion King." She covers her head with her pillow and falls back asleep.

A short while later, she rushes through the classroom door with her hair in a messy bun, looking askew, holding a bottle of water labeled "The tears of my students."

Cora points at the bottle and asks, "What does that taste like?"

She pauses in the middle of snacking on a peanut butter bagel and thinks before saying, "The only thing more potent than black magic-"

Jem cups his hands around his mouth and screams "TEENAGE HORMONES!"

Atticus appears in the doorway looking very confused. "Is that a reference to that Disney movie about that mermaid who got legs?"

Cora bursts into song and prances around the room singing all of the parts of the song.

"UNDER THE SEA! UNDER THE SEA! WHEN THE SARDI- WHEN THE SARDINES BEGIN, IT'S MUSIC TO ME!"

Jem watches as Cora mock-swims around the classroom. His gaze is then drawn to Charles jumping on his desk.

Charles holds his pencil up to his mouth, points at Cora, and sings, "What do they got?"

Cora's face lights up, and she scrambles onto her own desk, on her way screaming, "A LOT OF SAND!"

Cora and Charles then harmonize as they sing, "WE GOT A HOT CRUSTACEAN BAND!"

Once Cora and Charles finish the song and are doing jazz hands, Atticus rushes in.

"What's going on here?" he asks. "It sounded like a cat was dying!"

Charles drops his jazz hands solemnly, climbing off of his desk, "Sorry-"

"He and Cora were singing. Well, he was singing, Cora was doing her best impression of nails on a chalkboard," Jem interrupts.

"Hey!" Cora yells, stumbling off her own desk. She crosses her arms and huffs, "I'm not that bad."

Jem scoffs before uttering, "Well it obviously wasn't Charles that sounded like the dying cat Atticus heard. He sounded great. It must have been you, Cora." Jem glances in Cora's direction and she finally realizes what he was trying to do.

"I'll admit, Charles is probably the one person in the room that could actually outshine me on a stage," Cora admits. "And he could definitely outshine me. He's already good and he hasn't even taken music lessons."

Atticus nods his head skeptically, "Sure… we'll go with that." Atticus turns and strolls over to Ms. Lawrence, "Anyway, I actually came to talk to you. I'm sorry that we can't go on our date-"

"No, no!" Ms. Lawrence interrupted, "It's fine! I totally understand. Kids can be a handful sometimes. I would know… as per my job description." Jem and Cora frown at her. "Plus, we can always go out another time."

"Speaking of, would you like to have lunch with me today? I know it isn't an ideal first date, but at least it's something."

"YES!! I mean, sure, sure, whatever, that's cool."

He perks up a little, standing up straight. Atticus looked down quickly and starts to smooth out his already perfectly ironed suit and brushes away at invisible dust. "Well, in that case!" he winks, "I'll see you this afternoon!"

"WELL, TECHNICALLY," Cora pipes up, ignoring his pun, "B lunch is in the morning, not the afternoon."

Atticus walks out, ignoring Cora's comment.

Cora turns to Jem, "Hey, where's your sister? Isn't she the one that's actually in this class?"

"Oh, she's home sick and our aunt is watching her. I don't mean to get her in trouble or anything, but I think she's faking it." He rolls his eyes.

"I think you most definitely do mean to get her in trouble."

Ms. Lawrence overhears their conversation. "Jem, is she really faking it?"

"Yeah, she didn't look sick to me. I think she was trying to get out of taking her math quiz today."

Cora interjects, "Well, why didn't you tell your dad that she was faking it?"

"I don't wanna get a black eye, thanks."

Cora gives him a puzzled look. "You're like… double her size."

Ms. Lawrence interjects, "All people have the same amount of anger. In short people, it's just more condensed. I would definitely not want to to be on the receiving end of a punch from someone shorter than I am."

Cora glares at her, trying and failing to look menacing, "Well then, you should make sure not to get on my bad side"

Jem nearly falls out of his chair in laughter as the bell rings, signalling the start of class.