"Now, Chibidramon, you have to stay in my room, okay?" Matt pulled on his jacket, after reluctantly accepting his mission to find Chibidramon's partner.
"Okay!" Chibidramon nodded her head.
Digging in his pockets, Matt pulled out a granola bar. "Here, you can have this. I'm going to make breakfast."
"Okay!"
Matt walked out the door, watching her gnaw on the food. After the door closed, Chibidramon's eyes swiveled to Matt's backpack.
***
Matt walked through the crowd of kids on his way to school. Tai caught up with him and they started talking.
"Hey, Matt, what's up?"
"Oh, uh…" Matt immediately thought of Chibidramon. "Nothing much."
Chibidramon lifted the flap of the backpack to look out. "Wa-how! Look at all the girls!"
"Chibidramon!" Matt lifted the bag to eye level. "I told you to stay at home!"
"What's this, Matt, another girlfriend?" Tai mused.
Matt grunted. "It's some Digimon I have to find a partner for. And you," he added to Chibidramon, "You stay low-profile today, okay? I don't want any teachers asking about you."
"Okay, Matt!" Chibidramon disappeared into the bag again.
Matt sighed. "She's going to be the end of me."
"Yeah, really," Tai snorted.
***
" 'Connie opened the door and let me in. Morrie was in a wheelchair by the kitchen table, wearing a loose cotton shirt and even looser black sweatpants. They were loose because his legs had atrophied beyond normal clothing size- you could get two hands around his thighs and have your fingers touch. Had he been able to stand, he'd have been no more than five feet tall, and he'd probably have fit into a sixth grader's jeans.
" ' "I got you something," I announced, holding up a brown paper bag. I had stopped on my way from the airport at a nearby supermarket and purchased some turkey, potato salad, macaroni salad, and bagels. I knew there was plenty of food at the house, but I wanted to contribute something. I was so powerless to help Morrie otherwise. And I remembered his fondness for eating.
" ' "Ah, so much food!" he sang. "Well. Now you have to eat it with me." ' "
"Thank you, Ishida, you may sit down now." He did so. "Okay, um… Kouyoshi, you read the next part."
The girl stood up with her book. " 'We sat at the kitchen table, surrounded-' "
"It's a girl!" Chibidramon shot out of Matt's backpack on bounced all over the room.
"Shit," Matt muttered under his breath. Tai laid his head down on the desk, grabbing his hair in embarrassment.
Grabbing into the air, Matt snatched Chibidramon and tried stuffing her back into his bag. "You call that low-profile?" he growled.
"Ishida, what was that?" The teacher came to Matt's desk.
"Um… nothing, ma'am, I think it was my neighbor's pet rabbit or something…"
"Oh, really?" The teacher smiled. "I love rabbits! Take it out of the bag, it'll suffocate! You may keep it out for the rest of the day."
"Um… okay…" Matt pulled the Digimon out. "Don't you dare do that again…" he hissed.
Meanwhile, Tai was snorting in laughter at his desk.
***
"The answer to that one is eighty-seven." Chibidramon pointed to the first problem on Matt's test.
"Shut up, the answer is 134."
Chibidramon looked up at Matt. "Well, that one's eighty-seven, then." She pointed to problem five.
Matt sighed. "No, that's 409."
Chibidramon looked at the numbers again. "Well, then, that one is eighty-seven."
"No," Matt managed to contain his anger. "It's 2,957."
"Oh." Chibidramon looked at the paper again. "Which one is eighty-seven?"
"NOTHING! NONE OF THESE ARE EIGHTY-SEVEN!!! WHAT IS IT WITH YOU AND EIGHTY-SEVEN?!"
"Ishida, are you yelling at the rabbit?"
"Urk, uh…" Matt, realizing he had jumped up in his seat, sat back down. "No, ma'am."
"Good. If you are mean to the bunny, I'll give you a zero for today."
Meanwhile, Tai was snorting in laughter at his desk.
***
"Chibidramon, you're never coming to school with me again. Never."
Chibidramon looked out from Matt's backpack. "Why? I think I'm pretty good at math."
"That's not the point!" Matt sighed. "You totally freaked Yobuko Kouyoshi, and Ai will never look at me again, thanks to what you did to her hair."
"What about those other two girls?"
"You mean Momoe and Chizuru Inoue? They don't really care that you started bouncing on their heads. They know about Digimon already."
Chibidramon looked around the schoolyard. "Look, Matt, there's Momoe again!" Then she saw the girl standing next to Momoe, and her eyes widened. "MATT!! IT'S HER!! IT'S MY PARTNER!"
"Not again…" Chibidramon had clasped onto Matt's hand and was bouncing towards the people. "Chibidramon, you're just falsing it again."
"No! No I'm not, Matt! It's really her! Wauggh!" Chibidramon fell over onto her face, but by the time she sat back up, her target was gone. "No! I can't see her!"
She was scooped up again by Matt. "Let's go home, Chibidramon."
***
Davis turned to TK, both of whom had been watching from a tree. "TK, did you know it was her?"
"Of course I did. Didn't you hear what Chibidramon said about genetic code?"
"Yeah but…" Davis looked back down to make sure he was seeing clearly. "But… Jun?"
***
I have nothing more to say. Except that I do not own "Tuesdays with Morrie." Mitch Albom wrote that book.