Starlight, Star Bright
By: dontwaitupxx
Chapter Seven: Age Twelve
-Friday-
Honors English was going to be the death of her. It really was. Since it was the end of the second semester at Degrassi Junior High, all of Clare's teachers decided to believe that their class was the students' absolute number one priority, and thus made it their privilege to assign tests, projects, books, anything that had yet to be done and needed to be done so in such a small amount of time. But none piled on the workload quite as heavily as her honors English class. In honors algebra I, she was given a packet to do over break. In honors history, she had a project over the American Civil War. In honors biology, they had a research paper to write. In French, she had practice written and speaking tests every day that she had to study for. But honors English managed to top the rest of them. With a paper to write over To Kill a Mockingbird, a unit test, and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar that she had to read and interpret, all due on that next Monday along with her other classes, Clare was literally drowning.
She could handle algebra – it was simply tedious and repetitive to her, however. History was simply memorizing facts and being able to apply them, and she could do that. Biology would just be copying sentences down from the internet onto her paper, and switching around the words to make them hers. French would be repetitious conjugating verbs and tenses. But honors English was an entirely other story.
Sure, she loved reading, and writing came as a sixth sense to her, but all of the literary terms she had to know for the unit test, not to mention that the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird were more than likely to show up once or twice on the test, along with the vocabulary and themes and motifs of Julius Caesar – and then she had to interpret Julius Caesar; and what if she interpreted it the wrong way? What if her thoughts on the climax of the tragedy were not what her teacher had in mind, and thus she was marked off for it? Honors English was like picking poppies; picking something with poison in it, but attractive to the eye.
She probably would have simply dropped dead right then and there when she was assigned all of the work if it weren't for her best friend Eli giving her a calming glance from across the room. He was the only grade seven who could match her when it came to workloads, and they often found themselves studying together. They also walked home from school together, since Clare was deathly afraid of riding a bicycle since her accident a little over a year ago.
Ever since hitting her head that last year, Clare found that her thoughts came to her a little bit slower than they usually did. After talking with the family doctor, he said that her brain and head were still recovering from the accident, and that in a few months' time, she'd be back up to her accelerated learning routines. However, she never was able to think as clearly as she was able to before. Sure, she was still the brightest grade seven at Degrassi Junior High, Eli coming up a very close second, but things just never seemed to return to full-on normalcy for Clare.
She also found that she was prone to periodic migraines that would shut her out for hours, and sometimes even a full day. Whenever Eli was around to witness one of these, he never seemed to leave her side, staying with her in her bedroom – with the blinds shut closed because the light irritated the migraine even more – and did nothing more but hold her and rub circles into her arm. This was becoming the new normalcy for the duo. It wasn't anything romantic, but it truly showed the spiritual bond between the two; whenever one was hurting, the other was as well.
Soon after being assigned the work for honors English and being given the rubrics for the assignments, the final bell of the day rang, signaling the end of the school day and signaling the beginning of the weekend, of which for Eli and Clare would not be full of fun and laughter of the summer soon to come, but rather would be full of studying and writing and reading and interpreting together. Not to mention their other classes.
Eli walked over to Clare after the bell rang, which became custom to them in that school year since they had nearly every class together.
"You okay? You're looking a bit pale." Eli said, smirking.
"Okay? Yeah, why shouldn't I be?" Clare said, sarcasm dripping off her tongue.
"Looks like we got a long weekend ahead of us." Eli said, sighing.
Clare began walking out of the room, Eli following swiftly behind her, "I'll be lucky if I don't get a migraine this weekend. Maybe then I'll get half of this stuff done."
"Don't fret," Eli said, smiling at his use of a new vocabulary word, "We'll work on it together. All of it. It's going to get done."
"We'll see about that," Clare said, turning up to the staircase, "You know, I don't understand how all of this doesn't overwhelm you."
"Sometimes it does," Eli admitted, "But I'm careful not to let it show so much."
"Always the man, aren't you?"
"I try."
By this time, Clare had reached her locker. The lockers of the grade sevens were categorized by their last names, so last names starting with E and F were on the left side of the hallway; G and H were on the right side. She and Eli had decently close lockers together. They didn't have to stifle through what they needed this time around – it was grab everything from the bottom of the locker and pray that it would fit into their backpacks, and, if that worked, pray that the bag didn't rip or break their backs on their way up the hill.
Eli was done grabbing all of his things before Clare was, and as he walked over to her locker, with his backpack over one shoulder, he had to suppress a smile at Clare's attempt to get the zipper to the backpack closed. He bent down next to her, swatted away her insistent hands, and zipped it up for her. Then, before she could protest, he picked up Clare's bag and swung it over his other shoulder, handling both of the thousand pound bags.
"Eli," Clare said, impatiently, "Give that back. I can carry my own weight."
"We haven't gotten this much work all year, and I'm going to be completely honest: you're really bad at hiding how hard it is to carry your bag up the hill on a normal workload," Eli said, smirking, "I got this. It's really not that heavy."
Clare gave him a quizzical look, "That has to be more than double what you usually carry, and I can't imagine you having super human strength."
"Well, this is a bit heavy," Eli said, shifting the weight around with his shoulders, "But it's nothing that I can't handle."
Clare sighed, "Always the man, aren't you?"
"Always."
When Clare and Eli made it to Clare's house, Clare saw a car outside her house that didn't belong. She looked at Eli and sighed.
"I think my mom has company over – how about we go study at your house? You go on ahead though – my mom will probably want to see me before I leave. I'll catch up with you in a bit, okay?" Clare asked.
"No problem," Eli said, "I'll bring your backpack over to my house, okay?"
"No Eli, that's really unness-" but Eli already had his back turned and was walking back down the street.
"I got this, Clare."
"Alright…" Clare said under her breath, before walking up the drive way and through her front door.
As she closed the front door and turned around, Clare locked eyes with two people she thought she would never have to confront again.
Surprise, Clare thought.
Inside her front living room, she saw sitting on the couch the man who had helped her after her accident a year ago, along with his son, who was sitting next to him, looking awkward as if he didn't belong.
It was the first time Clare had seen the man since the accident, but Clare remembered the boy's face and saw him periodically throughout Degrassi Junior High. He was a grade eight and his name was Jake. He was on the school soccer team and every girl except for Clare seemed to always be swooning over him. Clare didn't understand why. It wasn't that he was bad looking; in fact, he had some pretty good features about him. But she didn't see him as "beautiful" or "god-like" as some of the girls suggested.
Jake's father was the first to say something, "Oh hey there, Clare! Long time no see! How's the head?"
Clare immediately didn't like him. Thus she didn't respond. Clare's mother took the most opportune time to enter the room.
"Oh, Clare, I'm so glad you're home! You remember Mr. Martin, right? From that day last year?" Her mother said, not wanting to explicitly say what happened that day.
"Yes." Clare said, one word answers seeming like the best way to weasel her way out of there and back over to Eli's house.
"Well, since then, Glen and I – I mean, Mr. Martin – well… we've been seeing each other recently, and thought that now was the best time to introduce him and his son to you."
"I don't understand, mom... I've already met them before. I know who they are."
"Well, sweetie..." her mother paused, looking for the right words, before saying, "After he helped you out that one day last year, I, well, took him out to dinner. And that dinner soon turned into a few dinners, and well, since then, we've been dating."
Coldly, Clare looked from Mr. Martin and then to his son Jake. She said in a tight voice, "It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Martin," she nodded towards Jake, "Jake." She then turned back to her mother, "Mom, Eli and I have to study, we got the most homework that we've ever gotten for honors English and we need to get started as soon as we can."
"Where are you two studying?"
"Eli's."
"Okay sweetie, study hard."
"Wait-"
It was Jake's voice that caught their attention, "Do you have Mrs. Thompson for honors English?"
His voice was a lot lower than she thought it would be. It wasn't too low for a grade eight or anything like that, she just expected it to be… higher. Perhaps? Regardless, she found herself stumbling for the right word before the simplest word left her mouth: "Yes."
He sighed, playing with his hands, "A little word of advice for the final unit test: the essay portion is over the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird and Julius Caesar. You have to compare and contrast them and tell how they are alike with specific detail. She never changes the final."
Jake did not look like the type who could tackle honors English, but she found herself saying "thank you", regardless of her bewilderment.
He gave her a small smile, before she left, "See you around, I guess?"
"Yeah," she said, "See you around."
The son was easily preferable over the father.
"So a random grade eight just gave you the unit test essay prompt? Something doesn't sound right here."
"One, he's not a random grade eight anymore; my mom's dating his dad now. Two, he seemed genuine. Like he actually wanted to make sure I did well on it. His class probably struggled with it and he wanted to make sure no one else struggled with it as well."
"Still, what if we study the things he told you about, but then the prompt is different?"
"Then we'll know a lot about how even though there's four hundred plus years between them, that To Kill a Mockingbird and Julius Caesar are somehow connected."
"If we fail this test, I'm going to beat him up."
"You do that."
It had been random bickering for the six hours that the two had been studying together after school. Cece had made the two sandwiches around dinner time, and told Clare that she had already arranged for Clare to spend the night at their house so they could have more time to finish their homework. The two of them were irritated almost down to nothing, and it was the small things that were setting them off; pencil eraser shavings, the front door banging indicating that Bullfrog was home, and Caesar being a complete and utter idiot and not realizing that Brutus was, indeed, going to kill him for power.
"Clare, let's take a break. We've been at this for a while, and I'm fried."
"Yeah… yeah, that's a good idea." Clare said, putting down her pencil and paper and massaging her temples.
"You okay?" Eli asked, but knowing exactly what it was.
"I tried to ignore it before, but it only grew in size since dinner. I… I literally can't think right now."
Eli sighed, putting his hand on her back supportively as she stood up. As quickly as she stood up, though, she was wobbling on her legs, holding onto the wall for support. Eli had never seen Clare's migraines this bad and was immediately at her side, holding most of her weight and leading her towards the stairs.
"I think we're done studying for a while." Eli said, helping her up the stairs. Clare only whimpered in response, and Eli's heart sank; he couldn't stand to see her like this.
He helped her into his room and laid her onto the pull out bed that Cece had set up for her. She immediately curled into a ball, her head in between her hands and slightly rocking back and forth. He knew better than to ask her if she wanted a few ibuprofen; they never helped those kinds of headaches. He sighed and pulled the blanket up over her, watching as her body completely submerged itself in unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.
He walked over to the window, and saw that even though it was nine o'clock, the sun was only just setting. Eli was scared; scared for Clare, scared for them, and scared for that unit test. He did what he did every night since Clare had introduced it to him four years ago when they were eight. He didn't know if it worked or not; some things he wished for would come true, and some wouldn't – but he'd do it that night especially for Clare's sake, since she wouldn't be able to that night.
He lifted his chin up to the stars, his hands holding the window frame as he said:
"Starlight, Star Bright,
The first star I see tonight:
I wish she may, I wish she might,
Have the wish she wishes tonight."
He prayed that he and Clare would be able to pass all of their finals with flying colors. He also prayed that Clare's headaches would soon become a thing of the past. No one should have had to go through what Clare was, especially at such the young age that Clare was at. He loved Clare, as his best friend; the one he could turn to for anything, and he cherished her. He let he be damned if someone take that away from him.
-End of Chapter Seven-
Edited 1/14/12
